[Commlist] Call for abstracts: Epistemic Challenges and Democratic Accountability in European Media

*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, andpanel discussionszoom 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) <mailto:(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, USA); 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 
<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 <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/ 
<https://blogs.helsinki.fi/mapsproject/>, and the */The Euromedia 
Research Group/*, https://euromediagroup.org/ <https://euromediagroup.org/>.


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