Revisiting Discourse and Institutions : Exploring the Role of Digital Technology in Institutionalization

Digital technologies have fundamentally transformed how texts are produced, disseminated, and stored in contemporary society. At the same time, institutional theorists have long argued that institutions emerge through a recursive process where micro-level textual production accretes into the macro-level discourses that constitute institutions, which in turn act to shape subsequent text creation. Yet, the central role that digital technologies have come to play in this multi-level process remains almost completely unexamined in the institutional theory literature. This paper identifies three distinct categories of digital technologies – informating, dispersive, and generative – each possessing unique affordances that impact institutional construction. Informating technologies translate activities, events, and objects into texts; dispersive technologies algorithmically influence how texts circulate and embed within discourse; while generative technologies produce texts that may go on to play a direct role in the discursive foundations of institutions. By examining how these technologies affect the micro-processes of text creation and the macro-processes of discourse emergence, we provide crucial insights into both the micro-foundations and macro-foundations of the social construction of institutions in the digital age.