Introduction to WebSci’21 Workshop ‘Democratic Futures and the Web’

Cardo, Valentina, Roth, Silke and Ryan, Matthew (2021) Introduction to WebSci’21 Workshop ‘Democratic Futures and the Web’. In WebSci '21: WebSci '21 13th ACM Web Science Conference 2021 Virtual Event United Kingdom June 21 - 25, 2021. pp. 130-131 . (doi:10.1145/3462741.3466724).

Abstract

The workshop is organized by the directors of the Centre for Democratic Futures: a group of interdisciplinary researchers, academics, and practitioners at various stages of their careers. Interdisciplinary perspectives provide advantages in anticipating potential for disruptive change, allowing us to truly appreciate the affordances of the web for political actions that would promote democratic futures and those that would hinder them. Our work ultimately aims to seek intelligent design of sociotechnical systems to benefit a politics that steers societies away from harm and violence.

A future without the web is unthinkable, but whether the web threatens or strengthens democratic futures remains highly contested. This workshop is aimed at understanding and imagining how the web can be shaped to enhance rather than reduce rights and values of equality, liberty, solidarity, and freedom. We will discuss the following questions:

How has political participation shifted from traditional organizations to include new web-based activities? What are the affordances of digital media for the mobilization of new constituencies on the one hand and the dissemination of fake news on the other? Does the web contribute to polarization? How are collective identities shaped through the web? How does the web shape future decision-making at local, national, and transnational levels? These questions are addressed in six papers.

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Contributors

Author: Valentina Cardo

Author: Silke Roth

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