The exponential development of information technologies (IT) which has been described as the digital revolution has led to different IT outcomes at individual, organizational and societal levels. The chapter theorizes these different IT outcomes as digitally led emancipation and digitally led exploitation. The chapter postulates that the attainment of the outcomes depends on different power mechanisms and their associated fault lines. Power mechanisms and IT are theorized to create a framework explicating these dynamics. Power mechanisms are outlined as episodic power and digitally led emancipation (collective action, participation), episodic power and digitally led exploitation (manipulation, information asymmetries), systemic power and digitally led emancipation (empowerment, inclusion) and systemic power and digitally led exploitation (surveillance/monitoring, automation/algorithmification). The chapter concludes with a research agenda to understand these power mechanisms, which may enable digitally led emancipation and digitally led exploitation.

The chapter theorizes power, knowledge and digitalization in the digital era. It theorizes the roles of knowledge and power in the current era and how these are impacted, reinforced, redistributed, challenged and transformed through increased digitalization. The chapter develops a Knowledge-Power-Digitalization framework where the influence of episodic and systemic power on knowledge and the role of Information Systems and digitalization are outlined. The framework outlines the following quadrants: power as possession, power as asymmetries, power as empowerment and power as practice. The role of digitalization is outlined within these quadrants. The Knowledge-Power-Digitalization framework developed outlines avenues for future research in the digital era pertinent to digitalization, knowledge and power dynamics, which are important current and complex phenomena in need of qualitative research understanding and theorization.