[Commlist] Call for Extended Abstracts - AOIR 2026 Panel Proposal on Digital Criminology

Piotr Siuda from Kazimierz Wielki University, Poland, would like to 
invite expressions of interest and extended abstracts for a proposed 
panel on Digital Criminology for the upcoming AoIR conference.

Digital criminology has emerged as a productive interdisciplinary 
framework for examining how digital infrastructures, platforms, data 
practices, and algorithmic systems reshape crime, harm, justice, and 
regimes of control. Importantly, this field moves beyond narrow 
understandings of "cybercrime" as purely online offending, instead 
conceptualizing criminalization, victimization, governance, and illicit 
economies as deeply hybrid socio-technical processes, entangled across 
online/offline environments.

In the context of internet research, digital criminology offers a 
particularly valuable lens for addressing core AoIR concerns: platform 
power, visibility and surveillance, mediated governance, digital 
cultures of harm, and the methodological challenges of studying 
sensitive or encrypted online spaces.

This panel aims to bring together scholars working at the intersection 
of internet studies, criminology, media and communication research, 
digital sociology, and related fields to explore how digitalization 
reconfigures criminological phenomena and how internet researchers can 
contribute to these debates.

Possible themes include (but are not limited to):

Platform-mediated illicit economies (e.g., darknet markets, encrypted 
channels, social media drug trade)
Digital harms, harassment, extremist networks, and online victimization
Datafication, surveillance, and algorithmic governance in policing and 
justice
Visibility regimes, infrastructures of control, and platform moderation 
practices
AI, automation, and bias in criminological decision-making systems
Methodological reflections: digital ethnography, computational 
approaches, research ethics in high-risk online fields
Cultural meanings of crime and harm in online communities and digital 
publics

Submission process & timeline

To assemble the panel proposal, I kindly invite colleagues to submit an 
extended abstract (1000–1200 words), prepared in accordance with AoIR 
guidelines.

Deadline for extended abstracts: 24 February 2026
Notification of acceptance for the panel: 26 February 2026
Final panel submission to AoIR (by organizer): 1 March 2026

Please send your extended abstract or expression of interest to: 
(piotr.siuda /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(piotr.siuda /at/ gmail.com)>
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