[Air-L] CfP: Epistemic Challenges and Democratic Accountability in European Media

[Minna Aslama]

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Epistemic Challenges and Democratic Accountability in European Media

24-25 October 2024, University of Helsinki.

The transformative changes in communication infrastructures intersecting
with multiple social, political, and ecological crises put societies to the
test. Today, a handful of multinational platform corporations dominate
global markets in social media, cloud infrastructure, digital search,
digital advertising, mobile operations, and digital messaging. Opaque
algorithms exacerbate the problem of epistemic injustice and increase
social distrust. How democracies and welfare states respond to the
challenges depends on their epistemic capacity: citizens’ ability to access
reliable information and their right to participate in knowledge production
and be recognized in public discussion. It also refers to the epistemic
authority and accountability of key democratic institutions and their
ability to provide legitimate, shared knowledge that serves decision-making
and supports policy choices. This demands new insights on how datafied
media systems and infrastructures intersect with existing societal and
epistemic risks and vulnerabilities; and on the options and obstacles for
effective policy.

Epistemic Challenges and Democratic Accountability in European Media brings
together an interdisciplinary community of scholars and experts to take
stock of the current challenges. Two intensive days of invited lectures,
paper sessions, and panel discussions zoom in on the new conditions of
knowledge production, the responsibility of digital platforms, and the
intersection of inequalities and technologies in a datafied and polarized
communication landscape. How can employing the notion of the epistemic help
us understand and mitigate harms and support epistemic justice and agency?

We welcome abstract submissions related to the following three themes.

* Knowledge production, equality, and digital technologies [E.g., Epistemic
rights and agency; Professional journalism and other epistemic authorities
in datafied, algorithmic infrastructures; Changing networked knowledge from
search engines to language models]

* Digital platforms and accountability in the era of polycrisis [E.g.,
Digital platforms and inequalities; Digital technologies and environmental
sustainability; Platform regulation and policies]

* Democracy and artificial intelligence technologies [E.g., Public response
to AI; Algorithms, political communication, and epistemic harms; European
and global governance of AI; Epistemic infrastructures and methodological
innovations]


Important days and information

The deadline for submissions of abstracts (max 400 words) is April 12, 2024.

Contact and abstract submission: Veera Koskinen, veera.koskinen at helsinki.fi

Notification of acceptance:  May 13, 2024

The entire programme will be released on June 7, 2024.

Registration Fees: 40 € per attendee: includes lunch and coffee.

Confirmed speakers include: Mike Ananny (University of Southern
California); Hilde van den Bulck (Drexel University); Adrienne Russell
(University of Washington); Eugenia Siapera (University College Dublin).

Visit the conference webpage for more information:
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/epistemic-challenges-and-democratic-accountability-european-media

The conference is organized together with the research consortium The
Democratic Epistemic Capacities in the Age of Algorithms (DECA) (
https://www.decatutkimus.fi/home), research project Media platforms, and
social accountability: Dynamics, practices and discourses (MAPS) at the
University of Helsinki (https://blogs.helsinki.fi/mapsproject/), and The
Euromedia Research Group (https://euromediagroup.org/).

-- 
Dr. Minna Aslama Horowitz
@aslama
https://minnahorowitz.net/