Narratives of Digital Twins: How Framings Script Governance

Abstract: Infrastructure digital twins are transformative tools for managing complex systems. This study examines how infrastructure digital twins are narratively constructed and how these narratives shape governance. Drawing on narrative theory, we analyze 75 academic publications and their framing of digital twins to identify recurring conceptual patterns. The findings indicate that digital twins are beyond mere technical artefacts, rather are embedded in narratives that implicitly script technological function, institutional roles, and governance alignments. There is a need to treat digital twin adoption as a technical innovation and also as an institutional design challenge shaping how infrastructure decisions will be made.