DIGITAL NETIZENS AT THE CROSSROADS OF SHARING AND PRIVATISING

Organizers

SIG Emergent Systems, Information and Society (supported by the Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin and the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science) and the Institut für Design Science München

 

Call for papers

In 1997, a review was published of the development of the Net (“a new social institution, an electronic commons”) pushed by the Netizens, as Michael Hauben baptised them. These were people online who “understand the value of collective work and the communal aspects of public communications”, but who at that time were already challenged by “the increasing commercialization and privatization of the Net” (R. and M. Hauben: Netizens, On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet). The dynamics of capitalism itself has mixed up what seemed to be two kinds of poles with respect to the production of goods and services. Indeed, as Hardt and Negri observed, “producers increasingly require a high degree of freedom as well as open access to the common, especially in its social forms, such as communications networks, information banks, and cultural circuits” (Hardt and Negri: Commonwealth).

Two decades later, it’s time to ask: Where do we stand today? Which hopes have  come true? What setbacks do we need to report? And where are we heading? Are these dynamics of digital capitalism contributing to a new social order grounded on the commons?

We ask for one-page abstracts that are concerned with, but not restricted to, the following topics:

  • Dynamics of cultural, social, economic and political interaction in digital networks
  • Digital commons and co-operation vs. digital privatisation and commodification
  • New forms of participation and empowerment in the information society
  • Sharing, networking and self-exploitation
  • Prosumers, new DIY cultures  and consumerism
  • Hacking and capitalism
  • Work between freedom and necessity
  • Bubbles and rational vs. irrational discourse on social media
  • Cross-cultural comparison: methodological challenges and research paradigms
  • The influences of values on information societies (regarding intercultural and transcultural dimensions)
  • The representation of the Western information society in the Asian academic discourse

Invited speakers

Jens Alwood, Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg
Fredrika Lagergren Wahlin, Department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg
Luca Rossi, IT University of Copenhagen
Christina Neumayer, IT University of Copenhagen
Francesca Vidal, Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Universität Koblenz – Landau, Germany

 

Programme committee

Mark Carrigan, Digital Fellow, The Sociological Review, UK
Christopher Coenen, Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Germany
José María Díaz Nafría, University of León, Spain; Universidad Estatal Península de Santa Elena, Ecuador; Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany; Institut für Design Science München
Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski, Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Technik Berlin, Germany
Thomas Herdin, University of Salzburg, Austria
Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Vienna University of Technology; Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Vienna, Austria; Institut für Design Science München (Chair)
Rainer E. Zimmermann, Institut für Design Science München; Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany