DECIDIS talks: Critical perspectives on civic agency and social media
Public lecture on 'Critical perspectives on civic agency and social media'. Thomas Poell (University of Amsterdam) will talk about 'The Platformization of Activism’ and Julie Uldam (Roskilde University) about 'Studying activism, civic agency and social media: Challenges and opportunities'.
These public lectures bring together scholars who apply a critical perspective to social media, which has become integral to contemporary activism and civic agency. Far from being neutral platforms on which people can freely and openly interact in order to create civic agency, social media have their own inherent materiality, shaping how we engage, protest, resist, and struggle.
This materiality may entail the wires and silicon of technology, the codes and algorithms of digital platforms, and the commerciality of social media. Although scholarship engages with either algorithms or with the political aspects of social media, the topic of citizen or activist media - understood from within the perspective of media materialities - has not yet been fully developed. The agency created using media technologies (such as camerawitnessing used to contest potentially hostile and oppositional authorities and to create alternative perspectives to mainstream media reporting) is challenged and restricted by corporate social media and their inherent architecture. Moreover, control and surveillance go hand in hand with a corporate social media logic that privileges mainstream reporting over alternative narratives (see van Dijck and Poell, 2013). We seek to address the mediation and mediatization of protest at the intersection of civic agency and algorithmic control to address questions such as:
- What are the challenges and potentials of social media for civic agency and activism within a contested space of media corporations and logics?
- How do commercial social media platforms shape contemporary forms of protest?
- And what are the implications for grassroots action?
The lectures are free and all are welcome! More information here.
The public lectures are organised by the DECIDIS (Democracy and Citizenship in Digital Society) initiative at the IT University of Copenhagen. Contact: chne@itu.dk
Speakers
Thomas Poell: The Platformization of Activism
Thomas is Assistant Professor of New Media & Digital Culture and Program Director of the Research Master Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His research is focused on social media and the transformation of public communication around the globe. He has published on social media and popular protest in Canada, Egypt, Tunisia, India, and China, as well as on the role of these media in the development of new forms of journalism.
Julie Uldam: Studying activism, civic agency and social media: challenges and opportunities
Julie Uldam is Associate Professor at Roskilde University. She conducted her postdoctoral research at LSE, CBS and VUB. Her current research explores the interrelations between political participation and the media, particularly social media. Julie's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including New Media & Society, Policy & Internet, International Journal of Electronic Governance and International Journal of Communication.