Modes of Communication, Deliberation and Democratic values

Modes of Communication, Deliberation and Democratic values

November 10-11, 2011

ADA 333 (IT-Byen, Katrinebjerg), Aarhus University

Organizers

• Charles Ess (IMV, AU),
• Media and Communication Studies, Örebro University (SE)
• Programme for Applied Ethics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim)

Keynotes

• Deborah Wheeler, Associate Professor, U.S. Naval Academy
• Lilie Chouliaraki, Chair in Media and Communications, London School of Economics (to be confirmed).

The Arab Spring – recent democratizing revolts at least partly facilitated by the use of Web 2.0 communication technologies – presents us with remarkable examples apparently fulfilling proponents’ claims that new communication technologies will foster democratization around the globe. At the same time, however, recent historical surveys of Internet and Web use suggest that such democratization effects remain largely marginal exceptions to prevailing patterns of use.

The aim of this workshop is to explore and critically discuss alternative ways of understanding the complex interactions between the emergence and preservation of democratic values and contemporary forms of communication – where both modern (print and mass media) and new (digital and Internet-connected) communication technologies are credited with democratizing effects and potentials. Ostensible differences between the affordances and impacts of online vs. offline communication technologies constitutes one crucial springboard for such discussions – but this distinction should also be critically questioned in light of recent theoretical developments and empirical findings and events. Understanding these phenomena necessarily implicates the methodologies and findings of multiple disciplines and so the workshop welcomes contributions that apply diverse inter- and cross-disciplinary approaches to our general question.