Abstract
Technological hypes have always characterized societies because new technologies afford to do things previously thought to be beyond the grasp of humanity. One of the main mechanisms of hype creation is the prefiguration of social disruption: making visible in the present the image of a desired or ideal condition of social change in the future using public talk, symbolization, and commoditization. The consequence is the ‘future industries’ creation of predic- tions and prophecies by actors involved with the emergent hype. As the hype rises, these actors use the means of the present to perform the desired ends of the future, such that ‘real utopias’ or ‘as-if realities’ emerge as tangible, embodied, and inhabited. This study unpacks how hypes about emergent digital technolo- gies, particularly blockchain technology, are shaped by actors’ efforts to navigate multiple logics to pursue the promise of social disruption. It studies how entre- preneurs’ and media’s different prefigurative strategies contributed to the emer- gence of hype around the field of blockchain for social good. Specifically, it doc- uments the importance of technological logic to integrate and reconcile multiple logics (market and community) and different prefiguration strategies (long-term and short-term) enacted by different actors (i.e., ventures and the media) in the emergent market. We contribute to the literature on hypes in entrepreneurship, the role of multimodality in entrepreneurship, and multiple logic work in emer- gent digital fields by highlighting the role of prefiguration and the understudied role of technology as a societal logic with constitutive and performative effects.
Recommended Citation
Ungureanu, Paula and Cochis, Carlotta, "Blockchain for good and the making of hype. How digital ventures and the media engage in technological prefigra- tion to co-construct hypes around emergent digital mar- kets" (2023). ITAIS 2023 Proceedings. 13.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/itais2023/13