[Commlist] Call for papers : Questioning Ethics In Digital Contexts From The Perspective Of Information And Communication Sciences

* Call for papers *

* QUESTIONING ETHICS IN DIGITAL CONTEXTS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF 
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SCIENCES (SIC)  *  [1]

**

full paper submission 3/11/2021 in English and French for the RFSIC « 
Revue Française des Sciences de l’information et de la communication » 
N°25 (publication date May 2022); 
https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/11530  Open Access Journal - no 
payment from the authors will be required.

Coordination : GENIC (Groupe sur l'Éthique et le Numérique en 
Information-Communication) including the following GENIC group members : 
Jean-Claude Domenget and Carsten Wilhelm, group coordinators, as well as 
Camille Alloing, Béa Arruabarrena, Christine Barats, Orélie Desfriches 
Doria, Gérald Kembellec, Mariannig Le Béchec, Franck Renucci, Marta 
Severo and Samuel Szoniecky

**

Created two years ago, the Group on Ethics and the Digital in 
Information-Communication research (GENIC) is now an accredited working 
group of the French national scientific association for information and 
communication science (Société Française des Sciences de l’Information 
et de la Communication - SFSIC) [2]. The group promotes work on 
questions of ethics affecting all information-communication processes, 
in a context marked by the growing presence of digital technologies, 
through the analysis of phenomena, practices, social interactions. 
Indeed, all fields of research are touched by ethical questions (we 
refer the reader to the volume Dynamics of Information-Communication 
Research edited by the Conference of French Research Centers in 
Information-communication Sciences [3], take for instance the research 
fields related to the media, to legal, communicational, or 
organizational issues, or the role and the place of technologies in 
methods of research and scientific publication, in particular through 
the design of algorithms and data processing.

Beyond analyzing research practice, work in information-communication 
ethics should also take into account the logic of actors and their 
productions embedded in discursive, socio-economic, cultural, political 
and regulatory realities of digital and communication practices [4]. 
Faced with a generalization of social controversies, whether related to 
the health crisis, the environmental crisis, public health issues, etc. 
it appears essential today that information-communication researchers 
participate in public debates around ethics and prepare those on the 
questions to come.

This call therefore intends to broadly question ethics from the vantage 
point of information communication sciences (SIC), in the current 
digital context. Indeed, even though ethical questions and issues do not 
find their origin in digital technology, this special issue invites 
submissions problematizing the role of “the digital”. Three fundamental 
characteristics can guide expected proposals :

* Ethics through the prism of information and communication sciences.
The ethical questions triggered by the use of digital technologies 
pervade the whole of society. In recent years, many organizations 
(including the French National Digital Ethics Committee) have started to 
question digital ethics based on the respect for the human person. As 
such, ethics is not simply a necessity but it also stems from a desire 
to regulate digital practices and to develop a critical stance and a 
dialogue aimed at questioning fundamental principles in a different way. 
These aspects in particular call for an analysis in the field of SIC. 
Indeed, what is a digital ethic? What ethical questions do digital 
technology raise from the point of view of information and human 
communication (considering anthropological, sociological, etc. approaches)?

* Ethics as situated practice.
Ethics is fundamentally neither of legal nature, nor simply expertise. 
It is a form of reasoning on concrete problematic situations, which is 
expressed in action — beyond legal or regulatory frameworks — when 
contradictory logic of values are at work. According to the situated 
ethics approach [5], ethics is, first of all, a questioning exercised 
with reference to a system of values ​​such as social justice, 
responsibility, etc. This approach, based on pragmatism [6], promotes 
ethics that do not separate values ​​from facts insofar as it is the 
value itself, constructed by experience, that is constitutive of social 
norms and facts. Encouraging field research and experiments, this call 
aims to stimulate ethical questioning of research practice, professional 
practice, digital uses and the various forms that ethics take in 
society. Indeed, if ethics precedes the law, where does it come from? 
How is it construed, and how does it come to be a standard, or even 
reified in regulations, as in the case of GDPR?

* Ethics from an international perspective.
Despite being a universal principle, ethics and its implementation are 
dependent on situated, localized contexts, which are also culturally and 
socially diverse when observed from an international vantage point [7]. 
We thus invite proposals to compare the ethical politics of scientific 
communities internationally, primarily in the field of communication, 
media and digital studies. We also wish to solicit contributions from 
other continents and in particular those from countries and regions 
lesser or little known in the context of these questions. What issues 
are highlighted by the documents and the practices established? How do 
they contribute to the effort of researchers to situate or even 
legitimize themselves in relation to social demands, themselves largely 
dependent on a given socio-historical context, or even on democratic and 
socio-economic models of the research? By what mechanisms does the 
research community organize its deliberations and decision-making? To 
what extent are collective ethical approaches interwoven in variable 
political configurations and power issues, in particular by providing an 
additional tool for the administration of research professions, which in 
turn might trigger resistance?

Complementing these three fundamental aspects, this call is structured 
around four complimentary areas, which are not exclusive:

* Questioning ethics in information and communication sciences : new 
objects, new issues?

This topic area concerns issues around research questions linked to 
digital technology. The digitization of society has led to a fundamental 
change in our relations to information and communication, thus affecting 
social transformations at all levels. The new objects produced by 
digital technology (big data, data, algorithms, platforms, etc.), 
irrigating many if not all information-communication practices, have 
generated innovations and uses making it possible to create, to put in 
relation and to share new knowledge. Yet, they also reveal new phenomena 
such as algorithmic biases, the automation of processes with artificial 
intelligence, or the production of fake news. Indeed, in a digital 
context, many ethical questions update and transform reflections on 
issues such as the regulation of access, production and circulation of 
knowledge, but also the construction of the modalities of debate and 
deliberation which put in tension the desire to disseminate knowledge 
and media standards in the context of platformization (see, for example 
the controversy surrounding the suspension of ex-President Trump's 
accounts on Facebook and Twitter). Under these conditions, how can we 
access the "black boxes" of digital interfaces to bring to light the 
socio-technical, cultural, economic and political logic at work in the 
regulation of information-communicational practices, in the production 
of algorithms and content and their circulation ? What role can the law 
play in these contexts ? What legitimacy do mainstream media have in 
order to take on the role of a content regulator? What rules do media 
editors apply to control information in fact checking? How can they 
support the controversies necessary for the emergence of consensus? What 
editorial procedures and what paradigms of quantification govern media 
publications ? Similarly, as the Cambridge Analytica case showed, how do 
content designers instrumentalize content to generate traffic? This 
question can also be applied to the field of scientific publications, to 
the formats and visibility associated with it, as shown by the 
controversies on science communication during the Corona pandemic.

More broadly in contemporary societies, digital devices have created 
unprecedented possibilities for capturing and tracking data, triggering 
legal issues of personal data protection, but also anthropological 
consequences, in particular the effects on individual and collective 
attention, behavior and decision-making, putting the protection of the 
human person at stake. What impact does automation have on 
decision-making? What roles do applications such as Stop Covid, 
presented as a solution to the pandemic, but also apprehended as 
exemplary for a certain solutionism [8], play for the social 
acceptability of public policies?

Ethical issues often arise in the face of dilemmas, borderline cases, 
which question its limits, principles and scope. How does this 
questioning fit into the digital practices of researchers, professionals 
and citizens? What forms does it take: deontology, codes of ethics, 
including in the development of legal translations of its objects? Faced 
with algorithmic logic and new digital devices and applications, what 
are the contributions of our field (SIC) to renew ethical reflections in 
the construction of research issues and the production of knowledge 
about information-communication practices?

* Ethics and transformation of professional practices in 
information-communication related professions

The object of this second topic area is to focalize on professional 
practices in different sectors of activity related to information and 
communication in order to analyze their transformations and to evaluate 
the impact of ethical reflexivity on those transformations. There are in 
fact a number of principles, rules, ethical questions that practitioners 
ask themselves during the exercise of their profession, which when 
controversial, might be included in codes, charters, etc., drawn up as 
guidelines, as supervision and recognition tools for professional 
practices. The transformations of professions are often accompanied by a 
generalization of tools, of digital communication devices, in turn taken 
into account in regulations, such as the GDPR. These transformations, as 
mediations of professional practices by algorithms or even AI, directly 
question professional ethics. To analyze this tension, we wish to 
solicit case studies relating to professional ethics, to reflect on the 
conditions for exercising professions, as well as to analyze their 
regulatory framework.

Is an ethical regulation of professional practices indeed possible? 
Faced with the hegemony and potential abuses of GAFAM or other web 
giants, their capacity for the storage and processing of data, new 
functions or even new professions have appeared within companies 
requiring an ethical dimension. In this context, what is the real role, 
what are the strategies and tactics of the data controller, the data 
protection officer, the data analyst, the community manager, the traffic 
manager, etc. ? What are the ethical perimeters of all these emerging 
professions? Is there really a place for ethics in this data market 
economy? The attempts to moralize and regulate social mediation 
platforms, are they, or can they become efficient? In more traditional 
information professions - communication, human resources, marketing, 
etc. charters and codes of ethics have been drawn up to regulate 
professional practices. What assessment can we make of the production of 
these charters and ethical codes? Is it possible to think ethics 
specific to the information-communication related professions?

Focusing more specifically on data, which ethical approaches can be 
identified in the processes of data mediation and regulation by 
algorithms? How to guard against biases and “social filtering” of 
algorithms? How can we prevent online behavior tracking from leading to 
the profiling of individuals, without even including the intentionality 
of their digital practices? Likewise, it is now (theoretically) possible 
to predict or even provoke Internet users' appetite for ideals and 
products by observing their behavior online; big influencers and digital 
marketing companies are not shying away from it. Can algorithms handle 
subtle traits of human communication such as irony or sarcasm when 
creating or relaying content on social media? More broadly still, what 
are the interactions from an ethical point of view between the 
professional world and regulations (in particular the GDPR)? Since the 
raised awareness about data leaks and the commercial power at play, we 
are witnessing a - literal - lifting of Europe's shield (privacy shield) 
against the American “pure players” and the giants of consumer 
computing. How are the new concerns about information rights and the 
value of privacy reflected?

* Research ethics by experience: epistemology, methodology, data, 
corpus, observables

Research ethics has a rich legal framework. However research on and with 
digital technology renews epistemological and methodological questions, 
in particular with regard to ethical issues, whether in the choice of 
theoretical approaches, methods of collecting, processing and viewing 
data, as well as their conservation, anonymization and openness 
(long-term storage, open access, open data, etc.).

This topic area proposes to examine the experience and the questions and 
choices of researchers before, during and after the implementation of 
the research protocol. Far from an idealization, it questions the 
practical solutions, the constraints, the difficulties, the limits 
inherent in the confrontation with the field. Thus, in the preparation 
of research, the choice of theories, methods, postures and definition of 
the protocol requires taking into account ethical issues, whether the 
research is funded or not. For example, when collecting data, ethical 
issues can lead to making choices that can reorient research if the 
question of consent is correctly put forward [9].

Epistemology and methods can be construed as opportunities and risks on 
the ethical level, beyond the existing regulatory texts. Are there 
theoretical paradigms and methods that are more easily mobilized in an 
approach that prioritizes ethics? What choices are made beforehand in 
the definition and selection of research data? What methods are used in 
the constitution of corpora, in the case of data collection on the web 
or online observation, for example? What are the protocols and 
modalities for informing and collecting consent from participants? How 
are interventional and participatory research methods (participatory 
sciences, deliberative online debate systems, etc.) taken into account 
in SIC? What are the modalities of processing, analysis and restitution 
of results? How do the processes of peer validation of research 
implement ethical rules aimed at producing convincing results? What 
competent authorities have been set up for ethical regulation (ethics 
committee, charter of ethics, guide for research)? From a legal point of 
view, what are the methodological contributions of the RGPD and the Data 
Protection Officer (DPO), particularly with the implementation of a data 
management plan (DMP)? What are the solutions for data storage and 
retention? These questions are all the more important as the approval of 
an ethics committee is becoming a condition for obtaining research 
funding in an increasing number of countries. The risk : substituting 
the protection of the public participating in research for that of the 
researchers and research institutions.

What are the frictions that question the ethics of research in a 
reflective analysis of scientific publication? Don't the new digital 
dissemination tools run the risk of conditioning scientific production 
in order to meet the injunctions of visibility borrowed from marketing? 
How can we reconcile the professional strategies of researchers with the 
performance injunctions of the market economy? How are the metrics of 
research evaluations constructed? Do they introduce ethical biases? 
Indeed, to validate the results of their research, researchers are 
inclined to adopt a perspective of distance in order to have their 
results validated by the community of peers. How can we take into 
account the reception by the public (object of the research) of this 
distancing (of validating results by peers) inherent to the research 
process? Does publication also require the involvement of the public 
concerned by the research?

* Ethics and literacy: curricula and teaching practices

Information-communication systems require new skills of analysis and 
decryption, constituting the basis of digital literacy. Indeed, several 
recent controversies have revealed how “deep fake” technologies produce 
very convincing information asking for a renewal of information 
evaluation skills. Likewise, with regard to the manipulation of 
individuals, social media and their media resonances have far-reaching 
sociological, political, personal and epistemological consequences. 
Could the individual dimension of the relationship between ethics and 
reflective practice benefit from opening up to cognitive approaches and 
to taking into account social dimensions, particularly in the regulatory 
process. This reflection also relates to the individualized and situated 
teaching practices of higher education and university staff aiming to 
transmit a critical posture through mastering the tools for manipulating 
information and opinions. What ethical posture could be taken into 
account in communicational and professional practices and among young 
researchers?

Indeed, we also invite reflections on the transformation of ethical 
questioning in organized and structured teaching contexts (training of 
PhD candidates, methodological workshops, etc.). To this end, 
contributions on concrete teaching cases will be welcome. How is this 
training structured when it is aimed at research ethics? What structures 
exist and what are their effects? How to implement learning ethics 
through sensitive and concrete examples ? How do the increasingly 
numerous critical approaches (critical digital studies, critical 
literacy, critical privacy studies, empowerment, etc.) question 
education and teaching practice? What critical approaches of dominant 
educational practices exist ? Which approaches of emancipation and 
empowerment? What are their purposes? How to go beyond the vision of 
ethics as a moral judgment? What capacity to individually question the 
compatibility between practices and values? How to combine hierarchical, 
organizational and disciplinary injunctions with the individual freedom 
of the teacher? How to take into account the commons? What methods of 
adherence / rejection / revision of ethical principles? By whom, and how 
can these ethical principles specific to collectives emerge? What are 
the effects of an absence of ethics?

These are many of the questions that this issue of the RFSIC wishes to 
see debated.


* SUBMISSIONS *

All submissions may be written in either English or French

Timeline

    November 3, 2021: Full papers submitted

    January 30, 2022: Assessment and return to authors for final decision

    March 30, 2022: Authors send camera ready papers for publication

    May 2022: publication of the Special issue

Submission of a complete text (Times, size 12 and single-spaced, 35 000 
characters, spaces and bibliography included) in English or French on 
November 3, 2021 to (jcdomenget /at/ gmail.com) and (carsten.wilhelm /at/ uha.fr); 
complete with a title, an abstract, and 3 to 5 keywords, all in French 
and English or even in a third language if suitable.

The file will be sent in two copies to (jcdomenget /at/ gmail.com) and 
(carsten.wilhelm /at/ uha.fr):

1 file in .docx format including the name, affiliation and email as well 
as a short bio of the author(s),

1 file in .pdf format completely anonymized

This complete article will undergo a double-blind peer review process 
mobilizing the members of the scientific committee.

For more information, including formatting standards, we invite you to 
consult the website of the Revue Française des Sciences de l'Information 
et de la communication https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/


this call is also on the journal website : 
https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/11530



* Notes *

1 We use the French acronym SIC for “information and communication 
sciences”.

2 https://www.sfsic.org/la-sfsic/groupes-detudes-et-de-recherche/

3 « Dynamiques des recherches en sciences de l'information et de la 
communication », 
http://cpdirsic.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/dyresic-web-08-2019.pdf

4 Balicco Laurence, Broudoux Evelyne, Chartron Ghislaine, Clavier 
Viviane et Paillart Isabelle (dir.), L’éthique en contexte 
info-communicationnel numérique. Déontologie, régulation, algorithme, 
espace public. Actes du colloque « Document numérique et société », 
Echirolles-Grenoble, 2018, Louvain-la-Neuve, De Boeck Supérieur, 2018, 158p.

5 Zacklad Manuel et Rouvroy Antoinette, « Enjeux éthiques situés de l’IA 
», XXIIème congrès de la SFSIC, 2021.

6 Dewey John, « What does pragmatism mean by practical ? », The Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1908, 5(4), 85–99; 
Dewey John, Ethics. The later works of John Dewey, 1925–1953. 7. 
Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, 1985 [1932]

7 Ess Charles, Digital Media Ethics, Polity, 2013.

8 Evgeny Morozov, To save everything, click here, Public Affairs, 2014; 
French edition : Pour tout résoudre, cliquez ici, Editions fyp, 2014.

9 Latzko-Toth Guillaume et Pastinelli Madeleine, « Par-delà la 
dichotomie public-privé : la mise en visibilité des pratiques numériques 
et ses enjeux éthiques », tic&société, vol.7, n°2, 2013.

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