New conference series will centre around democracy and digital citizenship
At the end of September, the Center for Digital Citizenship (CDC) at Roskilde University hosted a new international conference series "Democracy & Digital Citizenship". Researchers across disciplines and professions gathered around a common interest in data, algorithms, and democracy. Professor Peter Lauritsen and Associate Professor Peter Danholt from SHAPE attended the conference - read about their experience here.
Digitization and democracy on the agenda
On 29 - 30 September, the conference "Democracy and Digital Citizenship" took place at Roskilde University, hosted by the Center for Digital Citizenship (CDC). The program included PhD workshops, talks from national and international researchers, and keynote lectures by Professor Linnet Taylor from Tilburg University and Professor Gina Neff from Cambridge University.
Among the peaks of the conference, Peter Danholt highlights the two keynotes, but also the many good papers at the conference's various sessions. "For example, there were researchers who contributed with digital perspectives from Africa. The meeting between these issues and the things we discuss in, for example, Scandinavia provides an exciting and 'wild' contrast," he says.
"There was a feeling that digitization and datafication is an immense force that we must try to rein in rather than just 'let loose' - and I think that is an important agenda. I believe that research - also in this context - must contribute to nuanced and thorough understandings, which can be challenging and difficult to get hold of, but which are nevertheless necessary," says Peter Danholt.
Peter Lauritsen elaborates that data and algorithms affect many aspects of our lives and society - including democratic processes: "data and algorithms shape who we are. As people and as citizens. They introduce new forms of inequality, new ways of debating and new ways of understanding each other. Perhaps you can even say that today you cannot understand democracy if you do not understand the digital. And therefore, it is of course also important that we curiously examine how citizenship is maintained and is being developed in a time that is radically different from before,” he says.
"We are dealing with a rapid development that affects us all and in which we participate in countless ways. We need to develop both our individual and collective understanding and knowledge of the digital role in our lives. We are also all 'digitally exposed' today in different ways. It is no longer enough to talk about unambiguous A and B teams," says Peter Danholt.
Collaboration across universities
The next conference in the series will be held in 2024 with the Digital Democracy Center (DCC) at the University of Southern Denmark as host. The conference series is a collaboration between the Center for Digital Citizenship (CDC) at Roskilde University, the Digital Democracy Center (DCC) at the University of Southern Denmark, the Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS) at the University of Copenhagen and SHAPE - Shaping Digital Citizenship at Aarhus University.