Dates:
Democracy has always depended on places where different perspectives can meet, disagreement can be negotiated and shared futures can be imagined. Today, many of these encounters take place online, in digital spaces shaped by the logics of attention, amplification and emotional engagement. Here, disagreement can easily turn into polarization and fragmentation, while disinformation is increasingly used to deepen social divides, undermine trust and advance geopolitical interests.
This conference takes Negotiating Humanity as its starting point to explore how democratic discourse can be strengthened in increasingly complex digital information ecosystems.
The programme looks at the forces transforming the digital public sphere—from platform architectures and algorithmic amplification to information manipulation and the psychological dynamics behind polarization. Through current examples, it examines how conflicts are intensified, how disinformation and AI-generated content are changing the information landscape and what these developments reveal about the changing conditions of democratic life.
But the conference does not stop at diagnosis. The second part turns towards the possibilities ahead. If digital spaces have become an important part of our public life, how might we shape them to better support democratic participation and constructive disagreement? What new forms of digital inclusion, deliberation and civic participation could emerge? And how might AI contribute to these processes—not only as a technology that needs to be governed, but as a tool for building new democratic infrastructures?
Together, we will look at the digital spaces o...
Categories: Conference
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