PhD course - Citizenship in the Digital Republic

Organizers:

Postdoctoral Fellow, Christina Neumayer, IT University of Copenhagen
Prof. Maria Bakardjieva, University of Calgary

Lectures:

Prof. Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Copenhagen University
Prof. Peter Dahlgren, Lund University
Prof. Maria Bakardjieva, University of Calgary
Associate Prof. Bjarki Valtysson, Copenhagen University
Associate Prof. Lisbeth Klastrup, IT University of Copenhagen
Assistant Prof. Jun Liu, Copenhagen University
Postdoctoral Fellow, Christina Neumayer, IT University of Copenhagen

Date(s) of the course:

March 12, 2014

Time:

March 12, 2014: 09:30-17:45
March 13, 2014: 09:30-17:15
March 14, 2014: 09:30-17:30

Place:

The course takes place at the IT University of Copenhagen, Rued Langgaardsvej 7, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark (www.itu.dk)

Course description:

This course is the second edition of the ‘Citizenship in the Digital Republic’ course with a focus on ‘Mundane counter-publics in the digital age’. Citizenship, broadly defined, includes any form of democratic participation in social systems – political, technological and expert. The digital republic, for its part, is understood as a political community where the governance of the people is performed by creative utilization of communication networks. How is such governance realized and how can it advance participatory democracy? What opportunities for involvement do citizens have in a densely mediated polis? Can technological development itself be democratically steered? The goal of the course is to critically explore the new forms of democratic participation that the pervasive presence of digital media in contemporary societies affords and requires. The course aims at attracting and giving a forum to students whose interests focus on participatory forms of design, political and civic engagement, counter-publics and social movements, technological politics, regulation and education. The themes comprising the course take up the concept of citizenship and counter-publics in four distinct contexts:

• first theme: counter publics in the digital age
• second theme: civic activism, participation, and digital media
• third theme: mundane citizenship, digital media, and everyday life
• fourth theme: co-creation and participation in policy development and technology design

Counter publics in the digital age

The focus of the first theme is on counter publics in a society characterized by the thorough penetration of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs). Counter publics refer to the individuals or groups marginalized or excluded from the mainstream public sphere who contest, negotiate, and struggle against the hegemonic discourse, form spaces of political opposition, or establish alternative forms of community and identity. With the growing presence of digital technologies in all areas of social life, the internet, mobile phones, and social media are transforming the way people express themselves, interact with each other, engage or form communities, and perceive the world. How are digital communication technologies generating and facilitating opportunities that allow for the establishment of alternative political and cultural identities and communities that define themselves in opposition to established norms? What are the characteristics of the counter-publics in the digital age and how do they differ from those of the past?

Civic acticism, participation, and digital media

The second theme will look at the uptake and appropriation of digital media technologies for the purposes of civic action and political participation. It will review the advances made by social movements and civic activists in rallying support and making an impact on political life and the political establishment through the creative use of digital media. The new civic cultures emerging from these processes and their relation to digital technologies and uses will be examined. This theme includes notions of media practices, media-based agency, web journalism and civic cosmopolitanism, which are according to Dahlgren essential elements of civic cultures in the digital age.

Mundane citizenship, digital media, and everyday life

The third theme will be centred on the notion of ‘mundane citizenship’ and ‘mundane counter-publics’. So far a relatively large amount of research is devoted exclusively to use of new media in particular moments of alternative or antagonistic mobilization, failing to associate these specific uses with a larger living context—the mundane, everyday experiences of new media users. In particular, current approaches largely neglect the power dynamics in the mundane use of new media technologies. Consequently, the heavy emphasis on the role of new media in specific eruptions of contentious politics overlooks the cumulative changes in civic agency associated with the mundane use of new media. Accounts narrowly focused on specific events fail to capture, reflect, and assess the political potential embedded in the new practices of civic engagement furnished by new media (e.g., "subactivism") that are submerged in everyday life.

Co-creation and participation in policy development and technology design

The fourth theme takes the notion of citizenship to the terrain of cultural and educational institutions, and cultural practices. It discusses the liberating and repressive forces at play in the way users co-produce culture online both within and outside formal cultural spheres. Co-creation and participation became buzzwords in policy development, technology design and use of digital media, in particular the so-called ‘social web’. Despite the creative potential and the possibility for engagement, a critical perspective on these developments also needs to take unintended consequences such as privacy issues, surveillance and limitations for the development of counter-publics and cultural practices into account.

By looking beyond “eye-grabbing” events (e.g., revolutionary moments), this course probes into the political implication of mundane use of new media in people’s everyday life. Addressing mundane use of new media in people’s everyday experience will help us to understand the cumulative effects of new media and their gradual evolution, but also shed light on the deeper impact of digital communication technologies on social and political changes both today and in the years to come.

March 12

• 9:30 Welcome and introduction to the course.
• Student introductions with interests and paper topics.
• Organizational items (45 min).
• 10:15 Break
• 10:30 Theme 1 Lecture – Prof. Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Ass.Prof. Jun Liu
• 12:00 Break - Lunch
• 13:00 Theme 1 Seminar (structured discussion of the assigned readings led by Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Liu Jun)
• 14:00 Break
• 14:15 Theme 1 Student Paper Proposal Discussion
• 15:30 Break
• 15:40 Theme 1 Student Paper Proposal Discussion
• 16:30 Break
• 16:45 Closing talk – Christina Neumayer
• 17:30 Wrap-up day 1
• 17:45 Close
• Dinner – optional.

March 13:

• 9:30 Theme 2 Lecture – Prof. Peter Dahlgren (90 min)
• 11:00 Break
• 11:15 Theme 2 Seminar (structured discussion of the assigned readings led by Prof. Dahlgren)
• 12:15 Break - Lunch
• 13:15 Theme 2 Student Paper Presentations and Discussion
• 14:30 Break
• 14:40 Theme 2 Student Paper Presentations and Discussion
• 15:55 Break
• 16:10 Theme 2 Closing talk –Lisbeth Klastrup
• 17:00 Wrap-up of day 2
• 17:15 Close
• Dinner – optional.

March 14:

• 09:30 Theme 3 Lecture and Seminar – Prof. Maria Bakardjieva
• 11:00 Break
• 11:15 Theme 4 Lecture and Seminar – Prof. Bjarki Valtysson
• 12:45 Break - Lunch
• 13:45 Theme 3 and 4 Student Paper Presentations and Discussion
• 15:00 Break
• 15:10 Theme 3 and 4 Student Paper Presentations and Discussion
• 16:25 Break
• 16:30 Wrap-up day 4
• 16:45 Closing discussion: key concepts; central debates; directions for further investigation; practical implications
• 17:30 Close
• Good-bye dinner – optional

• Bakardjieva, Maria (2009). Subactivism: Lifeworld and politics in the age of the Internet. The Information Society, 25(2), pp 91-104.
• Bakardjieva, Maria (2012): Mundane Citizenship: New Media and Civil Society inBulgaria, Europe-Asia Studies, 64:8, 1356-1374.
• Dahlgren, Peter (2013). The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Hansen, M. "Foreword" in Negt, Oskar, & Kluge, Alexander (1993). Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an analysis of the bourgeois and proletarian public sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ix-xli.
• Knödler-Bunte, Eberhard (1975). The Proletarian Public Sphere and Political Organization: An analysis of Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge's the public sphere and experience. New German Critique(4), 51-75.
• Silverstone, Roger (2007). Chapter 2: Mediapolis or The Space of Appearance. In Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Mediapolis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Valtysson, Bjarki (2013). Democracy in Disguise: The Use of Social Media in Reviewing the Icelandic Constitution. Media, Culture & Society, available as i-first at: http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/14/0163443713507814.abstract
• Van Dijck, Jose (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press [Chapters 1 and 2].

Students are expected to choose a paper topic within one of the four course themes and prepare an extended (1,500 words) proposal prior to the course. Paper proposals should be sent to Maria Bakardjieva (bakardji[at]ucalgary.ca) and Christina Neumayer (chne[at]itu.dk) no later than 24 February 2014. Students will be interviewed about these proposals by another student during the course and will receive feedback from two other students and the professor. Each student is expected to prepare for the role as an interviewer and twice as a reviewer of another student’s paper. Students should be familiar with the assigned readings for all themes and should take part in all seminar discussions.

Students should complete and submit their papers to the instructor in each theme no later than 14 April 2014.

5 ECTS (for course participation, abstract, readings, paper proposal, paper-presentation, response, interview and discussion preparation, final paper).

Participants:

PhD students in the areas of communication, interaction design, digital media, social studies of technology, political communication, Internet studies.

The number of participants is limited to 20 students.

Course fees:

As per ITU policy, the course is free of charge. However, students are responsible for covering their own meals, transportation, and accommodation.

Note: Partaking in lunches, dinners and other organized events is optional. Participants are expected to cover the cost themselves.

Accommodation and Transportation:

Practical information regarding accommodation and transportation can be found here:http://www.itu.dk/en/Om-IT-Universitetet/For-konference-gaester

How to sign up:

Sign up by sending an e-mail to Christina Neumayer (chne[at]itu.dk).

All students must submit with their application to the course a short abstract of their work as it relates to the course (not more than 500 words). Applications should be submitted by January 27, 2014. Enrolment is limited to 20 participants.