[Commlist] CfP - What does a good digital society look like?

Submissions are open for the ESRC Digital Good Network's final two-day 
conference ‘What does a good digital society look like?’ on 10 & 11 June 
2027, at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. Submit your abstract or 
proposal by 29 October 2026.

WEBSITE: https://digitalgood.net/conference-2027/ 
<https://digitalgood.net/conference-2027/>

Digital technologies should be good for people, societies and the 
planet, but there is ample evidence that they are often not. Social 
scientists, humanities scholars and others have provided rich empirical 
evidence of the harms and inequities that can result from digital tech 
deployments. For example, dating apps are used to harass and control as 
well as to enable romantic connections. Social media platforms deny 
users access to communities of wellbeing support in the process of 
moderating content to limit self-harm. Generative AI can provide 
creative assistance and make skills accessible, but it also 
hallucinates, infringes copyright and results in job losses. And there 
are environmental costs from data centres’ energy consumption and the 
global appetite for new devices.

The negative consequences of tech deployments make clear the digital 
society we do not want. The next step is to ask what a good digital 
society looks like, a question which is attracting growing interest 
around the globe. What does a good society look like? is a two-day 
conference which addresses this question. It takes place in Sheffield, 
UK, on 10-11 June 2027. The conference represents the culmination of the 
five-year long Digital Good Network, which is collectively concerned 
with the notion of the ‘digital good’: both what it means, and how we 
achieve it.

*_Keynote speaker_*
We are delighted to announce that *Professor Ruha Benjamin*, 
transdisciplinary scholar, writer, educator, and cultural worker, and 
Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, will give 
the keynote address at the conference. Her work is a major source of 
inspiration for our own, especially her (2019) invitation to "Remember 
to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you 
dismantle the ones you cannot live within". She is also Founding 
Director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab, and author of four books, 
Imagination: A Manifesto (2024),Viral Justice (2022), Race After 
Technology (2019), and People’s Science (2013), and editor of 
Captivating Technology (2019).

*_Plenary speakers will include_*
*Jean Burgess,* Distinguished Professor of Digital Media, Queensland 
University of Technology and Associate Director of the Australian 
Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and 
Society
*Rachel Coldicutt OBE*, Founder and Executive Director of Careful Industries
*Susan Halford*, Professor of Sociology, University of Bristol and 
Director of the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures

*_Details _*
When: Thursday 10 and Friday 11 June 2027
Where: Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Participation fee: £150 full fee / £100 for PhD students or those 
without institutional support. The fee covers conference attendance, 
refreshments and lunches during the event and an evening reception on 
the first day. Travel, accommodation and evening meals are not covered.

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