Digitalisation Research Seminar – DigiSem 2024
Digital Freedom – Autonomy, Wellbeing and Participation
On 14-15 October 2024 the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), the Leibniz Institute for Media Research – Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) and the Weizenbaum Institute (WI) hosted the joint Digitalisation Research Seminar – DigiSem. Doctoral and postdoctoral researchers were invited to present their work and discuss the focus topic “digital freedom”.
The keynote on “Digital autonomy? Feedback tools for self-improvement between freedom and disciplination” was delivered by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann, Junior Professor for Ethics of Digital Methods and Technologies at the Institute for Philosophy I, Ruhr University Bochum.
Listen now to a podcast episode about DigiSem 2024 in the BredowCast, produced by the Hans Bredow Institute:
Digitalisation Research Seminar: Exploring Digital Freedom – Leibniz HBI
Programme
Monday, 14.10.
13:00 – 14:00: Arrival and Get to know each other
14:00 – 14:15: Welcome by the Organisers
14:15 – 15:45: Session 1a: Challenges to Digital Freedom
- Fay Carathanassis & Steliyana Doseva (bidt): “Hate Speech: Need for More Online Regulation to Save Democracy?”
- John Denanyoh (Univ. of the West Indies): “Digitalization and the Decolonization Mandate of Public Service Broadcasting in Post-Colonial Ghana: A Case Study of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation”
- Artur Solomonik (CAIS): “Generative Artopia: Claiming, Transforming and Creating AI Technology to Empower Artist Agency in the Social Media They Shape”
(Q&A // Group discussion: Digitalisation promotes democratisation.)
15:45 – 16:00: Break
16:00 – 17:00: Session 1b: Challenges to Digital Freedom
- Luise Koch, Raji Ghawi, Jürgen Pfeffer & Janina Isabel Steinert (TUM): “Online Misogyny Against Female Candidates in the 2022 Brazilian Elections: A Threat to Women’s Political Representation?”
- Jan Batzner (WI): “Political Bias or Flattery? GermanPartiesQA: Benchmarking Commercial Large Language Models for Political Bias and Sycophancy”
(Q&A // Group discussion: Digitalisation promotes democratisation.)
17:00 – 17:15: Break
17:15 – 18:30: Greeting by CAIS director Prof. Dr. Christiane Eilders
Keynote: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann (Ruhr-Univ. Bochum): “Digital autonomy? Feedback tools for self-improvement between freedom and disciplination.”
19:30: Dinner in Bochum City (for active participants)
Tuesday, 15.10.
09:00 – 09:30: Arrival and Coffee
09:30 – 09:50: Dr. Esther Görnemann (WI) about her work on “Digital sovereignty”
09:50 – 10:30: Session 2a: Autonomy and Digital Freedom (incl. Q&A)
- Amanda Michelle Faria A. Mapa & Mariah Brochado (Univ. Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil): “Desmaterialization of access to social security by the Brazilian state: the gap between rhetoric and practice neglects coverage of social risks”
- Anna Kiemer (bidt): “Balancing participation? ‘Analog’ Employees in the Digital Transformation of a Mechanical Engineering Company”
10:30 – 10:45: Break
10:45 – 12:00: Session 2b: Autonomy and Digital Freedom
- Birte de Gruisbourne (Univ. of Paderborn): “Autonomizing socio-technical relations against autonomy for digital wellbeing”
- Marco Lünich (HHU): “Exploring Students’ Perceived Technostress and Its Social Determinants Related to Generative AI in Academic Environments”
(Q&A // Group discussion: Participation should not require digital access. // The more autonomy the better.)
12:00 – 13:00: Lunch
13:00 – 14:30: Session 3: Opportunities for Digital Freedom
- Besjon Cifliku (CAIS): “Programming-by-Example: Large-Language-Model (LLM) Based Auditing Toolkit for Social Media Platforms”
- Johanna Hiebl (Europa Univ. Viadrina): “Unpacking war with a few clicks: Scaling up engagement of OSINT in participatory evidence-production”
- Jasmin Baake (CAIS): “Equity in AI: Co-creating ML-Based News Recommendations for and with Young People of the Working-Class”
- Rainer Rehak (WI): “Participation through Civic Tech? Lessons-learned from failed bottom-up projects”
(Q&A // Group discussion: Digitalisation promotes democratisation.)
14:30 – 14:45: Wrap Up & Farewell
About the convening institutions:
bidt: The Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), an Institute within the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, contributes to a better understanding of digital transformation’s developments and challenges. Thereby, we provide the foundations which will shape society’s digital future responsibly, for the common good.
CAIS: The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in North Rhine-Westphalia promotes the active shaping of the social, political, economic, and cultural changes that digitalization brings about. The Center sees itself as a place for innovative interdisciplinary research and as a source of inspiration for a critical public that wants to find agreement on models for a self-determined life in the digital society.
HBI: The research perspective of the Leibniz-Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) focuses on media transformation and related structural changes of public communication. With its cross-medial, interdisciplinary and independent research, it combines basic research and transfer research, and thus, generates knowledge on issues relevant for politics, commerce and civil society.
WI: The Weizenbaum Institute for Networked Society (WI) is the German Internet Institute, a place of excellent research on the transformation and design processes of digital change. In the spirit of Joseph Weizenbaum, we research the necessary framework conditions, means and processes for individual and social self-determination in a networked society. We understand self-determination as a design principle that is central to the preservation of human dignity and democracy.