Current analyses clarify that forms of digital capitalism (Staab 2019) and surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2018) have produced a new concentration of capital, knowledge and power that has never existed before in history. The quantification of facts is a fundamental and common feature of digital and capitalist structural principles (Niesyto 2017a). In view of a comprehensive quantification and measurement of life and society (Mau 2017), questions of meaning and significance beyond quantifying process structures must be posed. Technology-driven future models of social coexistence, which ultimately subordinate the complexity of being human to the precision of algorithmic calculations and unambiguities, must be evaluated very critically. In this situation it is simply a question of whether a plurality of ways of understanding reality and social pathways will continue to exist – or whether narrowing to binary modes of world understanding and associated social models will be forced. Education and media education cannot abstract themselves from the technological, economic, social and political framework conditions. People's personal development and coexistence in communities and societies are inextricably linked with questions of enabling and limiting social living conditions, structures of economic and social inequality, power and domination relationships, and processes that promote and endanger democracy. The lecture will first show what affinities there are between digital and capitalist structural principles and what significance this has for people’s socialisation. The second part highlights key points on the strategy of the IT industry in Germany to gain influence in the education sector. The final part outlines important goals and tasks of critical media education (Niesyto 2017b) in the sense of an "alternative pathway" (Mansell 2018). For this, it is necessary to also strengthen networks at the European level and to find cooperation partners in different areas of society.

Mansell, Robin (2018): Transformative Communication Technologies: The Accountability Challenge. Kleine Medienreihe, Heft 2/2018, ed. by Theo Hug, Petra Missomelius, Günther Pallaver. Universität Innsbruck: innsbruck university press, pp. 45-61. Mau, Steffen (2017): Das metrische Wir. Über die Quantifizierung des Sozialen. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Niesyto, Horst (2017a): Medienpädagogik und digitaler Kapitalismus. Für die Stärkung einer gesellschafts- und medienkritischen Perspektive. In: MedienPädagogik, Heft 27 (2017), 1-29, http://www.medienpaed.com/article/view/435. Niesyto, Horst (2017b): Topics and Key Areas in Current Media Pedagogical Discussions. In: Religious Education in a Mediatized World, edited by Ilona Nord and Hanna Zipernovsky. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, pp. 171-188. Preprint: https://horst-niesyto.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2017_Niesyto_Preprint_Topics_and_Key_Areas_in_Current_Media_Pedagogical_Discussions.pdf Staab, Philipp (2019): Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Zuboff, Shoshana (2019): The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Hachett Book Group.