The ECREA sections Communication & Democracy, and Media Industries & Cultural Production organized a joint interim conference on November 10 and 11, 2017. The event, titled Digital Democracy: Critical Perspectives in the Age of Big Data, took place at Södertörn University, Stockholm, and gathered over a hundred scholars with 70 outstanding presentations over two days.
The impact of digital media, big data, and algorithmic culture on social constructs such as democracy, civic engagement, and political participation was the main connecting thread for the conference. The debates and conversations shared by most presenters raised a metaphorical eyebrow on the current grip that datafication, media industries, and digital democracy have in our current social environment.
The event kicked off with a YECREA pre-conference, organized by Julia Velkova, and facilitated by Annette Markham and Jenny Sundén. This session, oriented to early career scholars, focused on digital methodologies for studying algorithms and helped shed light on the complex socio-technical relations in which algorithms are crafted. Markham and Sundén did a fantastic job in exemplifying the complexity in defining and operationalizing algorithms. It is unclear whether attendees had a better understanding of algorithms after the workshop, but there is a clear possibility that was Markham and Sundén’s plan all along. The diverse understanding of algorithms that attendees brought to the pre-conference helped visualize how we influence and are influenced by algorithmic processes and practices. Confuse to enlighten. What a brilliant prelude to the main conference.
The first keynote, delivered by Professor Helen Kennedy, masterfully set the tone of the conference by introducing the emotional dimensions of engaging with data and its relevance for democracy and in media work. Using data visualization as a guiding light, Kennedy exposed the importance of addressing processes of datafication with a critical look, especially taking account of everyday experiences and the role of emotional dimensions, what she calls “feeling numbers”, have for democracy.
The keynote speaker Professor Helen Kennedy, photo credit: Göran Bolin
Mikkel Flyverbom delivered the second keynote. His take on the datafied world seemed taken from a slightly worrying sci-fi movie but was based on current forms of anticipatory forms of governance. While the topic was central to the core of the conference, the novelty of Flyverbom’s cases caught some of the attendees off-guard. Of course, we all know data is being used in policing, cyber-security, and anti-radicalization, theoretically. Seeing how in-depth these processes are embedded in a so-called highly-functioning democracy was not only eye-opening but also conveyed an alarm that showed how much media and communication scholars have yet to delve into, empirically.
In the closing keynote address, Professor Joseph Turow matched two apparently separate worlds, which are clearly and profitably merged, with an alarming lack of well-deserved outrage by the public: goods stores and everyday surveillance. The way in which commerce has appropriated digital tracking and surveilling practices to optimize online advertising is widespread and pervasive. Consumers and governing agencies seem to have normalized commercial surveillance as part of the ordinary everyday digital life, which may be eroding people’s confidence in the public sphere. Turow’s address was a perfect wrap for two days of cheerful gloom-and-doom media and communication academic conference. The world is in shambles, and we need to go investigate it.
After two days, three keynotes, and five parallel sessions, one cannot help but to feel decidedly overwhelmed. Not only because of the amount of remarkable presentations showcasing the forefront of digital media and communication research. Not only because it seems everyone who can misuse data for commercial or power gain will do that. Not even because mid-November in Stockholm gets dark alarmingly early. But because there are so many venues in which data and processes of datafication are becoming instrumental, that the sinking feeling is that a small army of critical social scientists has too much to chew. Thankfully, we have events like this to come together, discuss, and look forward with a glimpse of optimism.
The Digital Democracy interim conference was a great meeting place for scholars who share a fascination with data and algorithmic culture, but also fear their ubiquity and uneven social integration may play an important role in increasing digital inequalities and concentration of power in contemporary democratic nations. Anne Kaun (also featured in this newsletter) and Julia Velkova greatly organized an event that brings to the fore the importance of studying datafication beyond the mesmerizing focus on technology and focusing on the issues and complications that the use of data in everyday social life may bring.
Raul Ferrer-Conill, Karlstad University, Sweden, vice-chair of YECREA
