preprint OISI26 5 morfo2 - From Representation to Institutionalisation: A Theory of Meaning in Digital Platforms

Résumé fourni par la source

Information systems research has traditionally conceptualised digital platforms as infrastructures for representing and processing information. Yet in organisational and institutional settings characterised by plural authority and contested legitimacy, coordination depends not only on informational correctness but on how communicative acts become institutionally binding. This paper develops a theory of meaning in digital platforms that shifts analytical focus from representation to institutionalisation. We argue that meaning becomes socially operative through accountable structuring acts that invoke recognised conversational instruments, thereby constituting roles, obligations, and responsibility-bearing relations. Grounded in a triadic ontology and informed by theories of communicative validity and recursive systems, the theory specifies core constructs, a recursive mechanism linking operational and governance domains, and boundary conditions under which institutionalisation becomes critical. We derive falsifiable propositions concerning accountability, trust formation, and legitimacy resilience, and illustrate the theory through an instantiation in a Trustworthy and Governable Platform configuration. The paper contributes a formal account of how digital platforms institute meaning and how that institutionalisation can itself be governed.

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