| Veranstaltungen | Promovierende | DigiSem 2024 | Digital Freedom – Autonomy, Wellbeing and Participation
14. Oktober 2024 - 15. Oktober 2024
Bochum

DigiSem 2024 | Digital Freedom – Autonomy, Wellbeing and Participation

The Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), Leibniz Institute for Media Research – Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) and the Weizenbaum Institute (WI) invite doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to present their work at the joint Digitalisation Research Seminar – DigiSem.


DigiSem is a bi-annual workshop for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, organised by bidt, CAIS, HBI and WI. The workshop will include a keynote by a renowned expert, multiple sessions on specific aspects of the workshop’s overarching theme. The seminar provides a platform for discussing project ideas, research results, feasibility studies, and/or pilots for product/app development.

The second edition of DigiSem focuses on a pressing subject that has also been selected as topic of the Science Year 2024: Freedom. It takes into focus what digital freedom means and what impact this may have on our lives with respect to more or less autonomy, well-being and possibilities to participate in public life.

The keynote at DigiSem 2024 will reflect on the topic of ‘Freedom and digitalisation’. It will be delivered by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann who is Junior Professor for Ethics of Digital Methods and Technologies at the Institute for Philosophy I, Ruhr University Bochum. He is a Principal Investigator in the graduate academy SecHuman on cyber security and – among others – has worked on the ethical
implications of passenger controls and data-based profiling.

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

Artur Solomonik (CAIS): “Generative Artopia: Claiming, Transforming andCreating AI Technology to Empower Artist Agency in the Social Media They Shape”

Fay Carathanassis & Steliyana Doseva (bidt): “Hate Speech: Need for More Online Regulation toSave Democracy?”

John Denanyoh (Univ. of the West Indies): “Digitalization and the Decolonization Mandate ofPublic Service Broadcasting in Post-Colonial Ghana: A Case Study of Ghana BroadcastingCorporation”

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 AgainstFemale Candidates in the 2022 Brazilian Elections: A Threat to Women’s PoliticalRepresentation?”

Jan Batzner (WI): “Political Bias or Flattery? GermanPartiesQA: Benchmarking Commercial LargeLanguage Models for Political Bias and Sycophancy”

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.”

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”

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”

14:30 – 14:45: Wrap Up & Farewell