The Third Realm Attribute of Digital Power

Digital power is a form of authority that exerts profound control through data governance and algorithmic decision-making,leveraging digital technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence.The conceptual justification of digital power within the traditional public-private dichotomy fails to provide sufficient explanatory power across three dimensions:power attribution,power regulation,and power genealogy.Instead,it reduces digital power to a simplistic notion of “digitalized power”.The rise of the third realm in the digital age offers a third perspective for studying digital power that transcends both the public and private spheres.Through historical evolution and realistic logic,digital power is expected to achieve autonomy in its own concept.Digital power profoundly reconstructs the foundational production,operational logic,and expressive attributes of power within the third realm,revealing a conceptual migration in the power spectrum from “authoritative power-public power-digital power”.Based on the recognition of the third realm attribute of digital power,we should re-understand the power form in the digital era and explore the research path and governance logic of digital rule of law.