DigiSem is a bi-annual workshop for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, organised by bidt, CAIS, HBI and WI. The second edition of DigiSem focuses on a pressing subject that has also been selected as topic of the Science Year 2024: Freedom. DigiSem takes into focus what digital freedom means and what impact this may have on our lives with respect to more or less autonomy, wellbeing and possibilities to participate in public life.

DigiSem is a perfect place to meet other young researchers related to your topics and provides a place to discuss results, ideas and problems relating to the special theme in a smaller group. The workshop will include a keynote by an expert on the field of ethics in digitalisation. Further, there will be focus sessions on specific aspects of the workshop’s overarching theme, including the discussion of the statements postulated below. A Podcast-Team will accompany the event.

This event is part of the Science Year 2024. Learn more

As an attendee, you can register here for the event.

Program

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

Important Dates 

CfP opens: 13 May 2024

Deadline for abstract submission: 10 July 2024

Notification of acceptance: 15 August 2024

Deadline for final abstract: 08 October 2024

Registration opens: 20 August 2024 

Deadline for registration: 08 October 2024

Workshop Date: 14‒15 October 2024

Organising Team

Maria Staudte, bidt     
Nina Hahne, CAIS
Katharina Mosene, HBI
Stephanie Bouré, WI

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.