Call for Proposals
Surveillance and Security in the Age of Algorithmic Communication
An IAMCR 2016 pre-conference
University of Leicester
26 July 2016
Contacts: Athina Karatzogianni athina.k (at) le.ac.uk / Arne Hintz HintzA (at) cardiff.ac.uk
Deadline for abstracts: (500 words): February 15, 2016
Submit proposals: http://iamcr.org/leicester2016/preconf/algorithmic-surveillance
The Snowden leaks have put mass surveillance on the public and academic agendas. Data collection, interception and analysis by both state and commercial actors are increasingly discussed and investigated, and instances of mass data leaks underline the challenges of big data gathering and storage. So what does the reality of surveillance and the precarity of data security mean as our world is increasingly structured by algorithmic decision-making, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and robotic cultures? What are the challenges and solutions, and what new concepts and practices need to be considered? What next?
Academic debates on posthumanism, futuristic philosophical endeavours, and scholarly fields such as science and technology studies have approached these questions, but they have not been very prominent at IAMCR. This preconference will therefore address these current debates on the future of media and communications.
We welcome researchers who are eager to discuss the consequences of algorithmic communication and artificial intelligence to the field of media and communication. We particularly invite studies on the long-term challenges to privacy and surveillance in digital networks as they are emerging in the area of ethics and politics of algorithmic communication, and on the employment of AI in areas such as policing, healthcare, social services, education, the digital economy and the cultural industries.
For this pre-conference workshop we are interested in the following themes:
- The politics and ethics of algorithmic communication and security
- Challenges of the employment of AI in policing, social services, etc.
- Privacy and security in the context of the internet of things
- Roles and implications of corporate, governmental and civil society production of algorithmic communication
- Accountability and agency in the ‘black box society’
- The role of human/civic rights in the context of AI and algorithmic security
- Necessary policies, regulatory frameworks, and relevant standards
- Robot protests: sociopolitical cyberconflicts and resistance to algorithmic security
The pre-conference is associated with the projects The Common Good: Ethics and Rights in Cyber Security and Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society.