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  2. Surveillance and Security in the Age of Algorithmic Communication

Surveillance and Security in the Age of Algorithmic Communication

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Surveillance and Security in the Age of Algorithmic Communication
an IAMCR 2016 pre-conference

Download the complete programme - PDF 1.2 Mb

Please register here. 

Location: The preconference will be held at the Ken Edwards Building, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Date and time: 26 July 2016, 09:00 to 18:00

Attendance is free. For information contact Athina (athina.k [at] le.ac.uk) or Arne (HintzA [at] cardiff.ac.uk).

Rationale: 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

Public Keynote: Roberto Simanowski  (City University, Hong Kong)

Preconference Keynote: David Berry (University of Sussex)

Plenary Speaker: Eva Blum-Dumontet (Privacy International)

Organizers: Athina Karatzogianni (athina.k (at) le.ac.uk) and Arne Hintz  (HintzA (at) cardiff.ac.uk)

PRECONFERENCE PROGRAMME (Abstracts can be found here)

Download the complete programme - PDF 1.2 Mb

09:00 - 09:30 Meetup and coffee (Ken Edwards LT2, main campus)

09:30 - 10:30 David Berry Keynote

10:30 - 12:00 Panel 1 (LT2): Policing Protest and ‘Extremism’ in Cyberspace

  • Ben Harbisher: Public Order, Cyber Security and Surveillance
  • Lina Dencik and Arne Hintz: Datafied 'Threats': Uses of Social Media for Policing Domestic Extremism and Disorder in the UK.
  • Julie Uldam: Criminalisaton of Radical Political Participation: Challenges to Climate Justice Activism in Social Media
  • Adwoa Donyina and Reicko Heckel: A Graph Transformation Model for Peer-to-Peer Content Policing

10:30 - 12:00 Panel 2 (Seminar Room-SR): From Transparency to Subversion: Resisting Surveillance and Control

  • Artur de Matos Alves and Patrícia Dias da Silva: Transparency and Veillance Potential in Online Service Providers’ Transparency Reports
  • Benedetta Brevini: Between Big (meta) Data and Journalism: Tracing the Emergence of a New Culture of Disclosure
  • Kenneth C.C. Yang and Yowei Kang: Applying Text Mining Software to Analyze Media Contents about Edward Snowden in Taiwan and China
  • Ran Ju: The politics of Algorithms: Sentiment Analysis in Civic Deliberation in the US and Chinese Social Media

12:00 - 13:00 Lunch

13:00 - 14:30 Panel 3 (SR): Ethics in Algorithmic Communication

  • Martin Gak: The Very Hairs of Your Head: Hypernomianism and the Digital Reconstruction of Theological Models
  • James Connelly: Speech Acts, Context and Tempered Agency in a Digital World
  • Brian Tompsett: Ethical Issues in Security Gamification
  • Gianluca Andresani and Natalie Stamile: It’s a Bad World Out There: Taking Liberty (Out) With Emergency

13:00 - 14:30 Panel 4 (LT2): Ideology and Algorithmic Governance

  • Tim Jordan: Mastering the Internet: Why does Pervasive Surveillance Happen?
  • David Chandler: Securing the Anthropocene: Community Hackers against the Digital - A Case Study of Jakarta
  • Tobias Matzer and Matthias Leese: New Knowledges, New Problems: Algorithmacy as Threat Reasoning
  • Athina Karatzogianni: Coopting the “Commons” is Commonplace!

14:30 - 15:30 Eva Blum-Dumontet session with coffee break

15:30 - 17:00 Panel 5 (LT2): Transparency and Accountability in Data Practices

  • Jeong Hyun Lee: There Is No Erasure: Politics in Digital Forgetting
  • Philip Garnett: Chasing Rainbows: A Search for Transparency in the Use and Design of Security and Financial algorithms
  • Sreepriya Balakrishnan: Materiality of Algorithms and the Role of Intermediaries: Problematizing Free Speech in the Web
  • Carlos Barreneche: Garbage In, Gospel Out: Malicious Data Practices and Accountability in Surveillance Systems
  • Benedikt Lehmann: High-frequency Trading and the Technological Constitution of Anomie

15:30 - 17:00 Panel 6 (SR): Drones, Toys and Cyborgs: New Challenges in a ‘Smart’ World

  • Simon Willmetts Orwell 2020: Fictional Metaphors of Surveillance Societies for a Data-Driven Age
  • Elisa Serafinelli: Drone Technology and Visual Ownership: Privacy and Security issues
  • Beverly Geesin: Raising the Surveillant Subject: Children with Toys that are Intelligent and Interactive
  • Dafni Mangalousi and Leandros Savvides: Cyborg Systems: Discoursing the Fourth Industrial revolution at DAVOS and the EU
  • Mike Brayshaw, Neil Gordon, Athina Karatzogianni: An Empirical Investigation into Perceptions of Privacy, Surveillance, and Security: Are Undergraduates Actually bothered?

17:00 - 18:00 Roberto Simanowski Public Keynote (LT2)