Centre Announces Digital Democracy & Citizenship Conference Series
Democracy & Digital Citizenship Conference Series
Key questions of democracy and citizenship are becoming increasingly inseparable from discussions on the development of digital technologies. Gaining traction in academic disciplines across the humanities, social and technical sciences, the question of how political processes are influenced by technological innovation—and what makes such influences productive or disruptive—has simultaneously become a leading emphasis for public interest groups, civil society organizations, and public authorities.
Against this backdrop The Centre for Digital Citizenship (CDC) at Roskilde University, Digital Democracy Centre (DDC) at the University of Southern Denmark, and Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science (SODAS) at the University of Copenhagen are pleased to collectively announce the formation of a biennial international conference on Democracy & Digital Citizenship. The three Centres view the pressing societal challenges beset by digital media technologies, big data, and artificial intelligence as key research priorities, and we offer this initiative as a new interdisciplinary space for developing and addressing these priorities. We hope that scholars from different academic traditions and disciplines —who all too rarely meet, despite sharing many research interests— will convene in Denmark every other year, in order to exchange knowledge and insights into the complex and evolving relationships between technological developments, institutional and everyday political practices, and democratic systems of governance.
Conference Dates and Hosts:
September 29 & 30, 2022 (CDC, Roskilde University)
September, 2024 (DDC, University of Southern Denmark)
September, 2026 (SODAS, University of Copenhagen)
Steering Committee: Claes de Vreese, University of Southern Denmark/University of Amsterdam, Sine Nørholm Just, Roskilde University, Chris Peters, Roskilde University, Frederik Hjorth, University of Copenhagen.
Participating Centres
Centre for Digital Citizenship (Roskilde University)
Digital Democracy Centre (University of Southern Denmark)
Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science (University of Copenhagen)
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Call for Papers, 1st Conference
Confirmed speakers: Linnet Taylor, Tilburg University
Format: 2-day conference, including a conference dinner (covered by the conference fee) at the end of the first day. The conference includes a pre-conference ‘work in progress’ event for PhD candidates. This event will take place on the morning of the first day(please see details below).
Description: It’s easy to make a rhetorical case for the importance of considering technological developments alongside political shifts in digital democracies. Technologies shape how citizens engage with and know many key democratic actors (governments, parties, media, the public sector, judiciary, etc.) and, conversely, how these actors know and engage with citizens. Moreover, digital technologies shape much of the societal information flow we deem a necessary precondition for contemporary democracy. For example, technologies help collect, aggregate, and compare the statistical and demographic figures that shape governance; control the flow of news and information about public affairs that inform and (dis)connect people; create an ever-larger digital footprint that serves as the basis for innumerable policies, programs, and procedures… The list is seemingly inexhaustible.
As digital technologies continue marching forth, this conference invites papers that collectively help us identify and address a disarmingly simple question in its many different aspects and forms: What are the key research agendas for digital democracy and citizenship over the next 5 years?
By bringing different disciplinary insights into conversation over this two-day event, we envision a central function of the first iteration of this conference series to be relational, (re-)connecting everyone with methodological, conceptual, and/or practical interests in digital democracy and citizenship. Specifically, we welcome studies and research projects that focus on issues and themes such as:
- Digital transformations of democratic institutions
- Digital networks of public debate
- Public trust in technology
- Citizens’ mediated identities and agencies
- Control/empowerment of datafied publics
- Digital methodologies for the study of democracy
- Conceptualizations of digital democracy
The first iteration of this conference series will be hosted by the Centre for Digital Citizenship at Roskilde University, which is located approximately 25 minutes by train from Copenhagen Central Station. The organizers are planning to publish a selection of the papers presented in a special issue following the event.
- Abstracts (maximum 500 words) are invited for consideration as contributions to the main conference program.
- Deadline for submission of abstracts for main conference and PhD workshop: May 1, 2022. Notification of accepted papers will be given on June 1, 2022. Please send your abstract to: digitalcitizenship@ruc.dk
- PhD candidates wishing to take part in the PhD ‘work in progress’ activity are asked to submit a 500-word abstract for this event that specifies the submission is for the ‘Works in Progress’ event, and not the main conference program. Please be sure to identify it as such in the title for review purposes by using the format: ‘PhD works in progress: [Title of Paper]’. Participation in this event during the conference requires that full papers (up to 8000 words) or works in progress (minimum 3000 words) be delivered as the basis for feedback from a senior scholar, including members of the steering committee and invited speakers. These can be submitted up to two weeks before the conference. Feedback will be given in a morning seminar that takes place before the main conference program.
- Conference fee: 1000 DKK for faculty, 500 DKK for early career researchers. The fee covers lunches on the two days, plus a conference dinner on the first night. Please note, a limited number of fee waivers will be made available for faculty and early career researchers from Tier B and C countries (following the UN model for country classification based on the World Bank's indicators of Gross National Income) as well as scholars in precarious positions.
- For more information, please contact the co-directors of the Centre for Digital Citizenship, Sine Nørholm Just & Chris Peters at: digitalcitizenship@ruc.dk
- The conference information will be regularly updated on the conference website. Please see here.