EVENT | The Platform Society 06.03.19

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How are online platforms involved in reshaping social, cultural, political and economic relations? How might they be governed and enlisted in the service of public values and the public good? Join us for a public talk with Thomas Poell (University of Amsterdam) about The Platform Society.

The Platform Society

Individuals all over the world can use Airbnb to rent an apartment in a foreign city, check Coursera to find a course on statistics, join PatientsLikeMe to exchange information about one’s disease, hail a cab using Uber, or read the news through Facebook’s Instant Articles. The promise of connective platforms is that they offer personalized services and contribute to innovation and economic growth, while bypassing cumbersome institutional or industrial overhead.

Reflecting on The Platform Society (Van Dijck, Poell and De Waal, 2018), Thomas Poell offers a comprehensive analysis of a connective world where platforms have penetrated the heart of societies – disrupting markets and labor relations, circumventing institutions, transforming social and civic practices and affecting democratic processes. The lecture questions what role online platforms play in the organization of Western societies. How do platform mechanisms work and to what effect are they deployed? How do these mechanisms lead to the reorganization of specific economic sectors, such as news, urban transport, and education? And, how can platforms be governed in correspondence with key public values and benefit the public good?

The lecture analyzes the struggles between competing ideological systems and contesting societal actors – market, government and civil society – raising the issue of who is or should be responsible for anchoring public values and the common good in a platform society. Each struggle highlights local dimensions, for instance fights over regulation between platforms and city governments, but also addresses the level of the platform ecosystem where power clashes between global markets and (supra-)national governments take place.

Bio: Thomas Poell is Senior Lecturer in New Media & Digital Culture, Program Director of the Research Master Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and vice-director of the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies. His research is focused on digital platforms and the transformation of public communication around the globe. He has published widely on social media and popular protest in Canada, Egypt, Tunisia, India, and China, as well as on the role of these media in the development of new forms of journalism. He co-edited The Sage Handbook of Social Media (Sage, 2018) and co-authored The Platform Society (OUP, 2018).

This event is part of an ongoing seminar series on “critical inquiry with and about the digital” hosted by the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. If you tweet about the event you can use the #kingsdhhashtag or mention @kingsdh. If you’d like to get notifications of future events you can sign up to this mailing list.

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Date and time

Wed 6th March 2019
16:00-17:30 GMT

Location

The Old Anatomy Lecture Theatre, K6.29
Strand Campus, King’s College London
Strand
London
WC2R 2LS

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EVENT | Data Collaboratives: The Emergence of Public-Private Partnerships around Data for Social Good 26.02.19

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What kinds of collaborations and partnerships are emerging around data? Join us for a public talk with Stefaan Verhulst (NYU GovLab), hosted by the Department for Digital Humanities, King’s College London.

Data Collaboratives: The Emergence of Public-Private Partnerships around Data for Social Good – Stefaan Verhulst (NYU GovLab)

Over the past few years, The GovLab has sought to understand pathways to make policymaking and problem solving more evidence-based and data-driven. Its work is driven by a recognition of the potential of use of privately processed data through Data Collaboratives — a new form of public-private partnership in which government, private industry, and civil society work together to release previously siloed data, making it available to address the challenges of our era. GovLab’s research explores the potential of Data Collaboratives when implemented with appropriate policy and ethical frameworks. This remains a nascent field, and several barriers limit the systemic use of Data Collaboratives. This presentation will take stock of lessons learned with an eye toward developing solutions to make Data Collaboratives more effective, scalable, sustainable, and, above all, responsible.

Bio: Stefaan G. Verhulst is Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer of the Governance Laboratory @NYU (GovLab) where he is responsible for building a research foundation on how to transform governance using advances in science and technology. Verhulst’s latest scholarship centers on how technology can improve people’s lives and the creation of more effective and collaborative forms of governance. Specifically, he is interested in the perils and promise of collaborative technologies and how to harness the unprecedented volume of information to advance the public good. Before joining NYU full time, Verhulst spent more than a decade as Chief of Research for the Markle Foundation, where he continues to serve as Senior Advisor. In addition, he is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Culture and Communications at NYU, Senior Research Fellow for the Center for Media and Communications Studies at Central European University in Budapest; an Affiliated Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Global Communications Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication; and Affiliated Senior Fellow at PCMLP – Oxford University which he co-founded in 1996. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Orbicom, the network of UNESCO Chairs.

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Date and time

Thur 26th February 2019
16:00-17:30 GMT

Location

King’s Building, K-1.14
Strand Campus, King’s College London
London
WC2R 2LS

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EVENT | Broken Data and Unexpected Research Questions 13.02.19

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What can be learned when data work does not go as planned? Join us for a public talk with Minna Ruckenstein (University of Helsinki).

Broken Data and Unexpected Research Questions – Minna Ruckenstein (University of Helsinki)

The concept-metaphor of ‘broken data’ suggests that digital data can be broken, fail to perform, or be in need of repair. Concept-metaphors work as partial and perspectival framing devices; they become defined in practice. In this presentation, broken data metaphor frames findings of the Citizen Mindscapes, an interdisciplinary project that explores a Finnish-language discussion forum dataset (‘Suomi24’, or Finland24 in English), consisting of tens of millions posts over a time span of 15 years. The data work alerted us to breakages of data, raising more general questions about the origins of data and data generating mechanisms. Acknowledging the incomplete nature of digital data in itself is of course nothing new, but with growing uses of secondary data, ways in which data is broken and incomplete might not be known beforehand, underlining the need to explore brokenness and the consequent work of repair. The gaps, errors and anomalies speak of human and technological forces: infrastructure failures, trolling, and automated spam bots. They call for the exploration of how the discussion forum, and the data that it generates, is kept clean by filtering and sorting it manually and automatically. The goal of the presentation is to demonstrate that a focus on data breakages is an opportunity to stumble into unexpected research questions and to account for how data breakages and related uncertainties challenge linear and too confident stories about data work.

Bio: Minna Ruckenstein works as an associate professor at the Consumer Society Research Centre and the Helsinki Center for Digital Humanities, University of Helsinki. The disciplinary underpinnings of her work range from anthropology, science and technology studies to digital humanities and consumer economics. She has published widely in top-quality international journals. Prior to academic work, Ruckenstein worked as a journalist and an independent consultant, and the professional experience has shaped the way she works, in a participatory mode, in interdisciplinary groups and with stakeholders involved.

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Date and time

Wed 13th February 2019
16:00-17:30 GMT

Location

The Old Anatomy Lecture Theatre, K6.29
Strand Campus, King’s College London
Strand
London
WC2R 2LS

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EVENT | #DeleteFacebook and Facebook’s Bonds 07.02.19

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#DeleteFacebook and Facebook’s Bonds – Tero Karppi (University of Toronto)

After the Cambridge Analytica revelations, #DeleteFacebook hashtag became a trend. #DeleteFacebook was the crystallization of the demands to leave the social media site because it was compromising privacy, exploiting user data, and the connections it established could be used to manipulate the current political climate. In this talk, which is based on my recent book Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds, I show that the demands to disconnect Facebook have existed almost as long as the social media site. Furthermore, I argue that this threat of disconnection is constitutive to how Facebook understands user engagement and builds its affective bonds. Facebook’s futures depend on disconnection and are designed against its different modes and modalities.

Bio: Tero Karppi is assistant professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology at the University of Toronto (Mississauga). He is the author of Disconnect. Facebook’s Affective Bonds (University of Minnesota Press, 2018). Karppi’s work critically examines social media and cultures of connectivity. His research has been published in journals such as Social Media + Society, Theory, Culture & Society, and Culture Machine.

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Date and time

Thur 7th February 2019
16:00-17:30 GMT

Location

Bush House Lecture Theatre 3, BH(NE)0.01
King’s College London
30 Aldwych
London
WC2B 4BG

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New report published by the Language Acts and Worldmaking project 31.01.19

The Language Acts and Worldmaking project today published a report on ‘Attitudes towards digital culture and technology in the Modern Languages’.

The report is based on a survey carried out by the Language Acts and Worldmaking project, one of four projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of its Open World Research Initiative, a four-year research programme which involves 15 UK Universities and a range of partners. The project aims to transform modern language learning to shape how we live and make our worlds. This report is part of research carried out by the ‘Digital Mediations’ strand, led by Paul Spence and Renata Brandao in the Department of Digital Humanities, which explores interactions and tensions between digital culture and Modern Languages research.

Key findings:

The survey shows that digital culture and technology have had a significant effect on modern languages learning and research, but this is poorly understood, even within the field itself.
In the area of language learning there is evidence of significant digital engagement, which can facilitate active, collaborative learning with support for multicultural and multilingual practices.
There is little evidence of strategic thinking about how digital approaches might connect across different levels of modern languages education and research.
There is considerable consensus for greater training in critical digital literacies, but expectations relating to digital engagement are not met by institutional support.
The report recommends more focused attention to digital in future modern language policy documents. It also suggests that ‘digital’ should not just be viewed in terms of ‘technology’, but rather be viewed as part of wider cultural, social and communicative practices.

Responding to the launch of the new report Paul Spence, Senior Lecturer in the King’s Department of Digital Humanities, said: “This report provides an insight into emerging learning and research practices in modern languages, which are increasingly learner-driven and which revolve around creativity, diversity, authenticity and peer-to-peer dynamics. Far from being replaced by digital languages, modern languages once again show their importance in influencing how we shape our understanding of the world, in supporting multilingual habits and in gaining a more rounded view of digitally mediated culture. There is still enormous potential for critical engagement with digital methods in modern languages, which we will explore further in future studies.”

Notes

The ‘Attitudes towards digital culture and technology in the Modern Languages’ report is available to download on the project website, as well as King’s research outputs.
Language Acts and Worldmaking is part of the Open World Research Initiative a major four-year research programme into modern languages involving 15 UK Universities and a range of partners. The initiative is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council supporting world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: archaeology, area studies, the creative and performing arts, design, digital humanities, heritage, history, languages, philosophy and much more. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides economic, social and cultural benefits to the UK, but contributes to the culture and welfare of societies around the globe.
To learn more about the OWRI Initiative please visit Arts and Humanities Research Council or follow us on twitter. Alternatively email Ciaran.Higgins@qub.ac.uk.

Kate Devlin Judges the 2019 Freedom of Expression Awards

Dr Kate Devlin will be one of the four judges on the 2019 Freedom of Expression Awards. Kate Devlin is a writer and an academic in the department of Digital Humanities in King’s College London where she works on artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Her book, Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots, explores intimacy and ethics in the digital age.

2019 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARDS

Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.

Awards are offered in four categories: Arts, Campaigning, Digital Activism and Journalism. Anyone who has had a demonstrable impact in tackling censorship is eligible. Winners are honoured at a gala celebration in London. Winners join Index’s Awards Fellowship programme and receive dedicated training and support.

NOMINEES

Selected from over 400 public nominations and a shortlist of 16, the 2019 Freedom of Expression Awards shortlist exemplifies courage in the face of censorship. Learn more about the fellowship.

Arts

for artists and arts producers whose work challenges repression and injustice and celebrates artistic free expression

ArtLords | Afghanistan

ArtLords is a grassroots movement of artists and volunteers in Afghanistan who encourage ordinary citizens, especially women and children, to paint the issues that concern them on so-called blast walls: walls the country’s rich and the powerful have built around themselves to protect them from violence while the poor fend for themselves. Their work has turned a symbol of fear, tension and separation into a platform where social issues can be expressed visually and discussed in the street. ArtLords has completed over 400 murals in 16 provinces of Afghanistan. In March 2018, for International Women’s Day, ArtLords painted a tribute to Professor Hamida Barmaki, a human rights defender killed in a terrorist attack six years ago.

Zehra Doğan | Turkey

Zehra Doğan is an imprisoned Kurdish painter and journalist who — denied access to materials for her work — paints with dyes made from crushed fruit and herbs, even blood, and uses newspapers and milk cartons as canvases. When she realised her reports from Turkey’s Kurdish region were being ignored by mainstream media, Doğan began painting the destruction in town of Nusaybin and sharing it on social media. For this she was arrested and imprisoned. Imprisonment hasn’t stopped her from producing journalism and art. She collects and writes stories about female political prisoners, reports on human rights abuses in prison, and paints despite the prison administration’s refusal to supply her with art materials.

ElMadina for Performing and Digital Arts| Egypt

ElMadina is a group of artists and arts managers who combine art and protest by encouraging Egyptians to get involved in performances in public spaces, defying the country’s restrictive laws. ElMadina’s work encourages participation — through story-telling, dance and theatre — to transform public spaces and marginalised areas in Alexandria and beyond into thriving environments where people can freely express themselves. Their work encourages free expression in a country in which public space is shrinking under the weight of government distrust of the artistic sector. ElMadina also carry out advocacy and research work and provide a physical space for training programmes, residencies and performances.

Ms Saffaa | Saudi Arabia / Australia

Ms Saffaa is a self-exiled Saudi street artist living in Australia who uses murals to highlight women’s rights and human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. Collaborating with artists from around the world, she challenges Saudi authorities’ linear and limited narrative of women’s position in Saudi society and offers a counter-narrative through her art. Part of a new generation of Saudi activists who take to social media to spread ideas, Ms Saffaa’s work has acquired international reach. In November 2018, she collaborated with renowned American artist and writer Molly Crabapple on a mural celebrating murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that read, “We Saudis deserve better.”

Campaigning

for activists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in fighting censorship and promoting freedom of expression

Cartoonists Rights Network International | United States / International

Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) is a small organisation with a big impact: monitoring threats and abuses against editorial cartoonists worldwide. Marshalling an impressive worldwide network, CRNI helps to focus international attention on cases in which cartoonists are persecuted and put pressure on the persecutors. CRNI tracks censorship, fines, penalties and physical intimidation – including of family members, assault, imprisonment, and even assassinations. Once a threat is detected, CRNI often partners with other human rights organisations to maximise the pressure and impact of a campaign to protect the cartoonist and confront those who seek to censor political cartoonists.

Institute for Media and Society | Nigeria

The Institute for Media and Society (IMS) is a Nigerian NGO that aims to improve the country’s media landscape by challenging government regulation and fostering the creation of community radio stations in rural areas at a time when local journalism globally is under threat. Three-quarters of television and radio stations in Nigeria are owned by politicians, and as a result they are divided along political lines, while rural communities are increasingly marginalised. IMS’s approach combines research and advocacy to challenge legal restrictions on the media as well as practical action to encourage Nigerians to use their voices, particularly via local radio. IMS also tracks violations of the rights of journalists in Nigeria.

Media Rights Agenda | Nigeria

Media Rights Agenda (MRA) is a non-profit organisation that has spent the last two decades working to improve media freedom and freedom of expression in Nigeria by challenging the government in courts. While the constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression, other laws – including the sections of the Criminal Code, the Cybercrimes Act and the Official Secrets Act – limit and even criminalise expression. Through its active legal team, MRA has initiated strategic litigation targeting dozens of institutions, politicians and officials to improve the country’s legal framework around media freedom. Its persistent campaigning and lawsuits on freedom of information have helped improve access to government-held data.

P24 | Turkey

P24 (Platform for Independent Journalism) is a civil society organisation that aims to neutralise censorship in Turkey — a country in which speaking freely courts fines, arrest and lengthy jail sentences. P24’s pro bono legal team defends journalists and academics who are on trial for exercising their right to free expression. It also undertakes coordinated social media and public advocacy work that includes live-tweeting from courtrooms and campaigning through an array of websites, newsletters and exhibition spaces. Its latest effort aims to provide spaces for collaboration and free expression in the form of a literature house and a project connecting lawyers and artists.

Digital activism

for innovative uses of technology to circumvent censorship and enable free and independent exchange of information

Fundación Karisma | Colombia

Fundación Karisma is a civil society organisation that takes on online trolls by using witty online ‘stamps’ that flag up internet abuse. It’s an initiative that uses humour to draw attention to a serious problem: the growing online harassment of women in Colombia and its chilling effect. The organisation offers a rare space to discuss many issues at the intersection of human rights and technology in the country and then tackles them through a mix of research, advocacy and digital tools. Karisma’s “Sharing is not a crime” campaign supports open access to knowledge against the backdrop of Colombia’s restrictive copyright legislation.

Mohammed Al-Maskati | Middle East

Mohammed al-Maskati is a digital security consultant who provides training to activists in the Middle East and in North Africa. Working as Frontline Defenders’ Digital Protection Consultant for the MENA Region, Mohammed teaches activists – ranging from vulnerable minorities to renowned campaigners taking on whole governments – to communicate despite government attempt to shut them down. He educates them on the use of virtual private networks and how to avoid falling into phishing or malware traps, create safe passwords and keep accounts anonymous. As governments become more and more sophisticated in their attempts to track and crush dissent, the work of people like Al-Maskati is increasingly vital.

SFLC.in | India

SLFC.in (Software Freedom Law Centre) tracks internet shutdowns in India, a crucial service in a country with the most online blackouts of any country in the world. The tracker was the first initiative of its kind in India and has quickly become the top source for journalists reporting on the issue. As well as charting the sharp increase in the number and frequency of shutdowns in the country, the organisation has a productive legal arm and brings together lawyers, policy analysts and technologists to fight for digital rights in the world’s second most populous country. It also provides training and pro-bono services to journalists, activists and comedians whose rights have been curtailed.

Journalism

for courageous, high-impact and determined journalism that exposes censorship and threats to free expression

Bihus.info | Ukraine

Bihus.info is a group of independent investigative journalists in Ukraine who – despite threats and assaults – are fearlessly exposing the corruption of many Ukrainian officials. In the last two years alone, Bihus.info’s coverage has contributed to the opening of more than 100 legal cases against corrupt officials. Chasing money trails, murky real estate ownership and Russian passports, Bihus.info produces hard-hitting, in-depth TV reports for popular television programme, Nashi Hroshi (Our Money), which illuminates discrepancies between officials’ real wealth and their official income. One of the key objectives of the project is not just to inform, but to involve people in the fight against corruption by demonstrating how it affects their own well-being.

Center for Investigative Reporting of Serbia (CINS) | Serbia

Investigating corruption is one of the most dangerous jobs in journalism: three investigative reporters have been murdered in the European Union in the past year alone. In Serbia, journalists face death threats and smear campaigns portray investigative journalists as foreign-backed propagandists. Against this backdrop, CINS stands out as one of the last independent outlets left amid an increasingly partisan media. Using freedom of information requests, the CINS has created databases based on thousands of pages of documents to underpin its hard-hitting investigations. These include stories on loans provided to pro-government tabloids and TV channels. CINS also provides hands-on investigative journalism training for journalists and editors.

Mehman Huseynov | Azerbaijan

Mehman Huseynov is a journalist and human rights defender who documents corruption and human rights violations in Azerbaijan, consistently ranked among the world’s worst countries for press freedom. Sentenced to two years in prison in March 2017 after describing abuses he had suffered at a police station, Huseynov has put his life in danger to document sensitive issues. His work circulated widely on the internet, informing citizens about the real estate and business empires of the country’s government officials, and scrutinising the decisions of president Ilham Aliyev. Huseynov is still in prison and remains defiant, saying: “I am not here only for myself; I am here so that your children are not in my place tomorrow. If you uphold the judgement against me, you have no guarantees that you and your children will not be in my place tomorrow.”

Mimi Mefo | Cameroon

Mimi Mefo is one of less than a handful journalists working without fear or favour in Cameroon’s climate of repression and self-censorship. An award-winning broadcast journalist and the first-ever woman editor-in-chief of private media house Equinoxe TV and Radio, Mefo was arrested in November 2018 after she published reports that the military was behind the death of an American missionary in the country. Mefo reports on the escalating violence in the country’s western regions, a conflict that has become known as the “Anglophone Crisis” and is a leading voice in exposing the harassment of other Cameroonian journalists, calling publicly for the release of those jailed.

JUDGING

Each year Index recruits an independent panel of judges – leading voices with diverse expertise across campaigning, journalism, the arts and human rights. Judges look for courage, creativity and resilience. We shortlist on the basis of those who are deemed to be making the greatest impact in tackling censorship in their chosen area, with a particular focus on topics that are little covered or tackled by others. Where a judge comes from a nominee’s country, or where there is any other potential conflict of interest, the judge will abstain from voting in that category.

The 2019 judging panel:

Khalid Abdalla

Actor and Filmmaker

Nimco Ali

Writer and Social Activist

Kate Devlin

Writer and Academic

Maria Ressa

CEO and Executive Editor

SPONSORS

The Freedom of Expression Awards and Fellowship have massive impact. You can help by sponsoring or supporting a fellowship.

Index is grateful to those who are supporting the 2019 Awards:

For more information, go to: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/01/awards-2019/

EVENT | What is love? 14.02.19

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Looking for a great way to spend your Valentine’s evening? Why not join us at the Ri? We’ll discuss personal love stories from around the world, explore what companies learn about you through online dating and discover what the future holds for sexual companion robots. Open to those on first dates, flying solo, catching up with old friends or couples who are simply looking to get out of the house. There will be a cash bar available after the event and a book signing session with the panellists; non-fiction writer Laura Mucha and Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence Kate Devlin.

About the speakers

Laura Mucha has a varied professional background. She has worked as a face painter, studied flying trapeze, philosophy and psychology, and swam in Antarctica before becoming a lawyer at an international law firm.

Her current book Love Factually explores love by combining academic research with interviews she has conducted with hundreds of strangers across 40 countries on every continent.

Kate Devlin is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. Having begun her career as an archaeologist before moving into computer science, Kate’s research is in the fields of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), investigating how people interact with and react to technology in order to understand how emerging and future technologies will affect us and the society in which we live.

Kate has become a driving force in the field of intimacy and technology, running the UK’s first sex tech hackathon in 2016. In short, she has become the face of sex robots – quite literally in the case of one mis-captioned tabloid photograph. She has written articles on the subject for New Scientist, Prospect and Sunday Times amongst others, featured on BBC Radios 1–5, and made a number of TV appearances, along with TEDx talks and numerous other tech and philosophy events, festivals and comedy nights. She was probably the first person to say ‘sex robots’ in the House of Lords – in an official capacity, at least.

Timing

The doors will open at approximately 6.30pm, with a prompt start at 7.00pm.
Latecomers will be admitted to the gallery.

Book signing

Copies of Laura’s book, ‘Love Factually: The Science of Who, How and Why We Love’ and Kate’s book, ‘Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots’, will be available for purchase and signing after the talk.

Accessibility

The theatre is on the first floor and there is step-free access from the street via lift.
The closest underground station is Green Park, which is step-free.
There is space at floor level in the theatre for wheelchair users.
Seating is usually unreserved for our events. If you and your group require seating reservations, please do let us know by email and we’ll be more than happy to help. Email: events@ri.ac.uk.
Carers can receive a free ticket to an event by emailing events@ri.ac.uk.
Our theatre is equipped with an Audio Induction Loop.

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Date and time

Thur 14 February 2019
19:00-20:30 GMT

Location

The Theatre
The Royal Institution of Great Britain
21 Albemarle Street
London
W1S 4BS
+44 (0)20 7409 2992

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EVENT | Surveillance Capitalism, Governance and Social Justice: Moving beyond Data Centrism 30.01.19

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What is at stake with data politics beyond privacy, security and efficiency? How do data systems reflect broader systems of injustice – and what might this mean for advancing social justice in an age of datafication? Join us for a public talk with Lina Dencik (Cardiff University) on her research about data justice and her work with the Data Justice Lab.

Surveillance capitalism, governance and social justice: moving beyond data centrism – Lina Dencik (Cardiff University)

The use of data and algorithmic processes for decision-making is now a growing part of social life. Digitally monitoring, tracking, profiling and predicting human behaviour and social activities is what underpins the new information order described as surveillance capitalism(s). Increasingly, it is also what helps determine decisions that are central to our ability to participate in society, such as welfare, education, crime, work, and if we can cross borders. How should we understand what is at stake with such developments? Often, we are dealt a simple binary that suggests that the issue is one of increased (state-)security and efficiency on the one hand and concerns with privacy and protection of personal data on the other. Recently, we have also seen a growing focus on questions of bias, discrimination and ‘fairness’ enter this debate. In this presentation, I will take stock of these concerns, and will draw on a number of different case studies across policing, welfare and border control that looks at the implementation of algorithmic processes in practice. I will make the case that we need to understand data systems as part of a broader transformation of governance that places much greater emphasis on why these technologies are developed and implemented in the first place and stresses how data practices relate to other social practices, rather than focusing on the data system itself. In so doing, I will outline a more comprehensive engagement with data politics, as the performative power of or in data (Ruppert et al. 2017), that considers how algorithmic processes relate to wider interests, power relations, and particular agendas. I will end by considering what this means for addressing challenges and advancing social justice in an age of datafication.

Bio: Dr Lina Dencik is Reader at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC). Her research concerns the interplay between media developments and social and political change, with a particular focus on resistance. In recent years, she has moved into the areas of digital surveillance and the politics of data and she is Co-Founder of the Data Justice Lab. Lina has written several articles and books, most recently, Digital Citizenship in a Datafied Society (with Arne Hintz and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Polity Press 2018). Her current project, funded by an ERC Starting Grant, is ‘Data Justice: Understanding datafication in relation to social justice’ (DATAJUSTICE).

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Date and time

Wed 30th January 2019
16:00-17:30 GMT

Location

The Old Anatomy Lecture Theatre, K6.29
Strand Campus, King’s College London
Strand
London
WC2R 2LS

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EVENT | Quantum Queerness 29.01.19

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As part of the Early Career Research Talks series, Conor McKeown will discuss his ongoing research project “Quantum Queerness”, currently modestly supported by the AHRI in King’s. The main objective of QQ is to foster an intimate relationship with our other multiple quantum selves. Using a cultural analytics approach I aim to make a series of praxis-lead durational pieces and subsequent visualisations that combine computer programming, videogame design and videogame play as a reaction to the work of science philosophers Karen Barad and David Deutsch. Above all, however, the works are filtered through a queer method suggested by Halberstam: that of failure. Halberstam writes, “under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world”. My experiments and their goal are doomed to failure. They are haunted by the fact that an intimate relationship with our ‘other multiple quantum selves’ is not possible. What’s more, it is their separation from us, their ‘cutting’ away from us through apparent and transitory material becoming (and necessary unbecoming) that allows our apparent sense of self to coalesce.

The talk will unpack the three experiments that make up the project. The first experiment is a live stream through Twitch – a platform popular for videogaming – of my attempts to create a ‘Bell State’ using the programming language Q#. This live stream – and recordings of it – aim to infuse a dive into the world of quantum computing with emotion and consequence. The second experiment is an attempt to build a small ‘game’ or interactive program that models an idea of self and selves as I have understood it within Deustch’s description of a multiverse. It is, however, ultimately doomed to fail as it is made within finite constraints. The final experiment, currently underway in King’s, is a visualisation of multiple different playthroughs of the game Gone Home (Fullbright, 2013). An installation of the game is set up in a locked room and players are invited to play the game for as long as they wish, engaging with the story of Sam Greenbriar and her difficult childhood. As they play, their gameplay footage is recorded and catalogued. At the end of the project, this footage will be combined into one long video that shows the many divergent paths – and implicit failures therein – of the various players, along with the eventual cessation of instability and uncertainty into one, apparent, concrete self. Above all, these works aim to show how we should embrace failure in our attempts to grapple with the difficult or impossible to visualise or describe in search of rewards outside of the realms of traditional success.

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Date and time

Tue 29 January 2019
14:00-16:00 GMT

Location

1.12 Franklin-Wilkins Building
Waterloo Campus
Stamford St
London
SE1 9NH

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EVENT | Rethinking the Meaning of ‘Books’ and ‘Authorship’ in the Digital Age 24.01.19

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“Rethinking the Meaning of ‘Books’ and ‘Authorship’ in the Digital Age: The KITAB Project and Its Work on Text ‘Reuse’” – Sarah Savant

This lecture focuses on the size of the Arabic tradition (ca. 700-1500), and the likely role that written practices and cultural expectations played in its development. It is arguably the largest written tradition up to its day, rivalled only by medieval Chinese. I focus, first, on recent work assembling a corpus of 1.5 billion words and the composition of this corpus, including the large number of sizable works. I consider these works in light of evidence for a much larger body of no-longer extant material. Second, I introduce the concept of text “reuse,” our method for detecting and measuring it, and my theory. The theory is this: that the substantial reuse of earlier works resulted both in the emergence of very large works, especially from the 10th century onwards, and secondly, that this reuse resulted in the loss of earlier texts, now absorbed in various ways (including abridgement) into larger ones. Finally, I examine the cultural expectations underpinning reuse, and also how they should make us reconsider, at different times and places, notions of the “book” and “authorship.”

Bio: Sarah Bowen Savant is a cultural historian, focusing on early Islamic history and history writing up to 1100, with a special focus on Iraq and Iran. She is the author of The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), which won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, given by the International Society for Iranian Studies on behalf of the Persian Heritage Foundation. Her other publications include The Excellence of the Arabs: A Translation of Ibn Qutaybah’s Faḍl al-ʿArab wa l-tanbīh ʿalā ʿulūmihā (with Peter Webb; The Library of Arabic Literature; Abu Dhabi: New York University Press, 2016), as well as articles and edited volumes dealing with ethnic identity, cultural memory, genealogy, and history writing. Her current book project focuses on the history of books in the Middle East. With a team, she is developing digital methods to study the origins and development of the Arabic and Persian textual traditions. Please see kitab-project.org.

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Date and time

Thur 24 January 2019
17:00-18:00 GMT

Location

K-1.14, King’s Building
Strand Campus, King’s College London
London
WC2R 2LS

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