We first use Medium Theory to develop the tension between print and digital media, i.e as contrasts between literacy-print and the secondary orality of contemporary online communication. Literacy-print facilitates high modern notions of individual selfhood requisite for democratic polities and norms, including equality and gender equality. By contrast, secondary orality correlates with more relational conceptions of selfhood, and thereby more hierarchical social structures. Recent empirical findings in Internet Studies, contemporary philosophical theory, Western virtue ethics and Confucian traditions elaborate these correlations, as do historical and contemporary practices and theories of “privacy.” Specifically, traditional conceptions of the relational self render individual “privacy” into something solely negative: by contrast, high modern conceptions of autonomous individuals render individual privacy into a foundational positive good and right. Hence, the shift towards relational selves puts the conception of selfhood – at work in current EU efforts to bolster individual privacy – at risk.

Nonetheless, contemporary notions of “hybrid selves” (conjoining relational and individual selfhood) suggest ways of preserving individual autonomy. These notions are in play in Helen Nissenbaum's theory of privacy as contextual integrity [1] and in contemporary Norwegian cultural assumptions, norms, and privacy practices.

The implications of these transformations, recent theoretical developments, and contemporary cultural examples for emerging personal data ecosystems and user-centric frameworks for personal data management then become clear. These transformations can increase human agency and individual's control over personal data. But to do so further requires us to reinforce literacy and print as fostering the individual autonomy underlying modern democracy and equality norms.