Reinventing Democracy
Campaigns and Discourses in the Age of Data, Computational Propaganda, and AI
June 16-20, 2024
Villa la Collina - Cadenabbia - Italy
About
Digital communication and digital media are massively challenging our understanding, thinking and knowledge about elections, referenda, protest mobilization and other forms of political campaigning and engagement. Not only have political parties mediatized in high-choice media environments, but transformed into transmedia parties with communication at the core of their activities. Public spheres have become dissonant, disrupted by the inability to communicate across differences, increasing cacophony and polarization, and facilitate the manipulations of voter’s opinion formation at a massive and transnational scale.
The aim of this international conference is to discuss the current state of research, reflect on the EP elections 2019, the 2020 US presidential campaigns and several national elections in the recent past (2017-2021). Where do we stand, where does political communication research need to go, how can we overcome the challenges of data access restrictions, what can we learn from qualitative approaches? How can we trace and monitor digital manipulations across countries and over time? What are the public responses to these new phenomena?
This conference aims to bring together researchers interested in those problems: political communication proposed by the candidates and parties in the recent electoral contests and beyond, the reception and possible reaction from the citizens, and, thirdly, the consequences such communication and responses may have on the future of the democratic public spheres.
key Facts
Venue
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Villa La Collina
Via Rome 11
22011 Cadenabbia (Co.)
Italy
Organizers
- Ulrike Klinger (European New School of Digital Studies / European University Viadrina, Germany)
- Karolina Koc-Michalska (Audencia Business School, France)
- Daniel Schmücking (Konrad Adenauer Foundation)
Funding
The conference is generously funded by Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
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