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IB DP: Digital Society: Inquiry Questions

IB DP Digital Soceity Inquiry Questions are developed by teachers and students; are open-ended, thought-provoking and worth considering from different perspectives and support discoveries that move beyond recall, description and summary.

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2.1 Change Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • What is a technological revolution?

  • Is technological change and innovation distinct from historical change?

  • What caused change in the past?

  • What is driving change in the present?

  • What obligations do we have toward future generations? How might digital systems and
    technologies help us meet these obligations?

  • Is progress an inevitable outcome of advances in digital systems and technologies?

  • How might past events, patterns or trends help us to forecast future developments?

  • Can we understand the future without understanding historical change?

  • Which is more important for understanding change: disruptions and discontinuities or enduring patterns and trends

  • How can events, trends or patterns in the present help us prepare for the future?

  • What role do individuals and/or institutions play in historical and future change?

  • What role do new technologies play in historical and future change?

  • ​​A 2.1A Change is the evolution, transformation, adaptation or movement from one form, state or value to another.

  • A 2.1B Change involves understanding and evaluating people, ideas, objects and forces that shape the world: past, present and future.

  • A 2.1C The nature and importance of change is debated.

  • A 2.1D Change may indicate continuity or discontinuity with prior established ways of understanding or doing things.

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2.2 Expression Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • In what ways do digital systems influence how we express ourselves?​

  • What different kinds of stories are possible through digital media?

  • ​Are there forms of digital expression that should be limited? Who decides and how?

  • Does the form of expression determine its meaning? Is the medium the message?

  • What is most important for interpreting the meaning of an expression or representation? An author, audience or user

  • What does it mean to say that an expression is performative?

  • Are expression and power inseparable?

  • Are there universal forms of expression or is all expression contextual?

  • What does it mean to say that digital media are convergent?

  • A 2.2A Expression is the act, process or instance of representing ideas, emotions and/or experiences using different modes and media.

  • A 2.2B Expression serves many functions, including storytelling, world-building, artistic innovation and political activism.

  • A 2.2C Expression brings people and communities together while also introducing significant dilemmas.

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2.3 Identity Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • How do different fields and professions understand digital identity?

  • Does a robot have an identity?​

  • How do online identities change over time?

  • How do digital systems and technologies influence or construct identity?

  • To what extent do different aspects of our identity intersect on digital platforms?

  • Are identities socially constructed?

  • Do non-humans have identities?

  • How does someone’s identity influence how they understand the world?

  • What is the relationship between stereotypes and identity?

  • Do we have the same identity online and offline?

  • What does it mean to grow up? Have digital systems changed what it means to grow up?

  • Is privacy a core element of identity?

  • A 2.3A Identity helps define a person, group, social entity and/or community.
  • ​A 2.2B Identity is not static but changes over time and according to context and the perspectives of others.

  • A 2.3C Identities are intersectional and may include aspects related to age, nationality, religion, culture, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity as well as social and economic class.

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2.4 Power Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • How is power embedded or exercised through a specific digital system, technology or platform?​

  • Do digital systems and technologies enable or constrain the exercise of power?

  • Is it inevitable that power in digital society is unequally distributed?

  • How might digital systems and technologies influence the distribution of power?

  • How do we identify power in the world? Is power everywhere?

  • What is the relationship between power and knowledge? How do digital systems affect this relationship?

  • What kinds of power do digital systems exert?

  • How do digital systems enable the exercise of governmental, institutional and/or organizational power?

  • What is the relationship between freedom, security and power? How do digital systems affect this relationship?

  • To what extent does fairness and justice involve power? Do digital systems enable or constrain fairness and/or justice?

  • A 2.4A Power is a feature of all social relations that involves a person’s or group’s capacity to influence or control the actions of others.

  • A 2.4B Power is structural and embedded within institutions, organizations and governments.

  • A 2.4C Power is not equally distributed.

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2.5 Space Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • How do digital systems and technologies affect how we experience specific spaces and locations?

  • Do physical or political borders still have meaning in a digital society?

  • In what kinds of spaces do digital divides exist?

  • How does online space differ from physical space? How are they similar?

  • How does media circulate and move through digital society?

  • To what extent does physical space influence virtual space (and vice versa)?

  • How do people and communities organize space?

  • How do digital systems construct different spaces?

  • To what extent are hybrid spaces unique to digital society?

  • How do borders, regions and/or zones change over time?

  • How does space influence personal and group identity?

  • Discuss how do humans organize, construct, and represent space based on physical, geographic, cultural, and/or social features.

  • Examine how different spaces serve distinct functions for people and communities.

  • Discuss how access, movement and flows are significant considerations involving space.

  • Compare and contrast ways to represent physical space in a digital realm.

  • ​A 2.5A Humans organize, construct and represent space based on physical, geographic, cultural and/or social features (for example, into locations, regions, borders, zones).

  • ​A 2.5B Different spaces often serve distinct functions for people and communities.

  • A 2.5C Access, movement and flows are significant considerations involving space.

  • A 2.5D Space can be understood using multiple scales and dimensions, including local, regional, national and global as well as virtual.

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2.6 Systems Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • Are digital systems distinct from social systems?

  • What are the human elements involved in the design or use of a specific digital system?

  • How might a new technology result in unintended consequences in digital society?

  • What do models and maps reveal about a digital system or technology?

  • How is society organized? Is society a system or a group of systems?

  • How do digital systems contribute to the organization of society?

  • How do digital systems help people, objects and/or ideas circulate?

  • Are social connections defined by competition or cooperation? Do digital systems impact these connections?

  • Do digital technologies contribute to or challenge inequalities in a system?

  • What causes conflict in a system? How can conflicts be resolved?

  • ​A 2.6A Systems provide one way to think about structure and order in human, natural and built environments.

  • ​A 2.6B Systems involve sets of interacting, interdependent and/or interconnected elements.

  • A 2.6C Changes within a system of interdependent connections may generate intended and unintended consequences.

  • A 2.6D Models, maps and visualizations can help us understand connections within and between systems.

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2.7 Values & Ethics Inquiry Questions (and Answers)

  • Can we program or code values and ethics into AI?

  • Can there be a universal system of digital ethics?

  • ​Do robots have ethics? Should they?​

  • Do hackers share values or an ethical code?

  • What happens when different ethical frameworks are applied to the same issue in digital society?

  • Do the designers of digital technologies have an ethical obligation to their users?

  • What is the distinction between values and ethics?

  • Are values and/or ethics universal or contextual?

  • What does it mean to ethically design digital systems? Who decides and how?

  • Does digital society require new ethical principles or values?

  • What is the difference between normative and applied ethics? Which is more important for evaluating the impact of digital systems?

  • How do organizations convey ethical principles and/or values?

  • Do the designers of digital systems have ethical obligations to their users?

  • Is it possible for a digital system to be values neutral?

  • What happens when different ethical frameworks are applied to the same real-world problem?

  • ​A 2.7A Values and ethics are ways to determine possible distinctions between right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust, legal and illegal, proper and improper.

  • ​A 2.7B Values and ethics guide human action in the world, including individual and group conduct, and decision-making.

  • A 2.7C Values and ethics may be personal, shared, collective and/or professional.

  • A 2.7D Values and ethics are expressed through frameworks, codes, rules, policies and laws.

  • A 2.7E Values and ethics influence and shape ideas, objects, practices, systems and spaces.

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Digital Society and Theory of Knowledge​ Inquiry Questions

  • How might technology exacerbate or mitigate unequal access and divides in our access to knowledge?​​

  • Do social networks reinforce our existing perspective as a knower rather than boost our engagement with diverse perspectives? 

  • Should we hold people responsible for the applications of technologies they develop/create? 

  • Do social networks reinforce our existing perspective as a knower rather than boost our engagement with diverse perspectives?

  • How does technology extend or transform different modes of human cognition and communication?

  • Should we hold people responsible for the applications of technologies they develop/create?

  • To what extent have social networks led to an increase in data being collected without people’s consent or when they are unaware that it is being collected?

  • How might technology exacerbate or mitigate unequal access, and divides in our access, to knowledge

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