Modernization is the process of changing the conditions of a society, an organisation or another group of people in ways that change the privileges of that group according to modern technology or modern knowledge.

According to the sociologist Peter Wagner, modernization can be seen as processes, and as offencives. While the former is commonly used by politicians and media, it suggests that it is the things (like e.g. new data technology or dated laws) which make modernization necessary or preferable. This view makes critique of modernization kind of hard, since it implies that it is the things which should, and do, control the frames and limits for human interaction, and not vice versa. The latter, Modernization offencives, is acknowledging that both the things and the changes e.g. data technology make available, is shaped and controlled by human agents. Modernization as offencives is then a product of human planning and acting, an active process, which can be both changed and criticized.