Stefania Milan (stefaniamilan.net) is Professor of Critical Data Studies at University of Amsterdam, and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. Her work explores the interplay between digital technology and data, political participation and governance, with focus on infrastructure and agency. Stefania leads the project “Citizenship and standard-setting in digital networks” (in-sight.it), funded by the Dutch Research Council. She is Co-Principal Investigator in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network “Early language development in the digital age” (e-ladda.eu). In 2015-2021 she directed the projects DATACTIVE (data-activism.net) and Algorithms Exposed/ALEX (algorithms.exposed), both funded by the European Research Council. Stefania holds a PhD in Political and Social Science from the European University Institute. Prior to joining the University of Amsterdam, she worked at Universität Luzern, the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, Tilburg University, and the Central European University. Stefania is the author of Social Movements and Their Technologies: Wiring Social Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013/2016), co-author of Media/Society (Sage, 2011), and co-editor of COVID-19 from the Margins. Pandemic Invisibilities, Policies and Resistance in the Datafied Society (Institute of Network Cultures, 2021). She is currently preparing a monograph on data activism for Sage.
ABSTRACT: In the last decade of the brief history of computation, technological innovation has dramatically accelerated. Big data, the advance of intelligent systems in society, and the availability of consumer-level large language models (e.g., ChatGPT) has altered the context in which contemporary social movements emerge and operate. Not only are these technologies an integral part of the environment in which activists find themselves to operate—they are increasingly objects of contention in their own right. This talk reflects on the challenges for social movements, and scholars of social movements alike, in this age of rapid technological transformation. It revisits some core concepts in our discipline in light of ongoing changes and encourages us to collectively envision how a future-proof research program might look like.
Professor Eugenia Siapera is the Head of the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin, and the Director of the Centre for Digital Policy. She is conducting research in the area of digital media and technologies and questions of social justice. She has published numerous journal articles and books. Her most recent book is Radical Journalism: Resurgence, Reform, Reaction (2023, Routledge, co-edited with Seamus Farrell and George Souvlis) and she is currently working on the third edition of Understanding New Media (Sage). Her current research project Platforming Harm is funded by the Irish Research Council and is concerned with Alt Tech platforms.
ABSTRACT: This contribution is exploring Alt Tech as a form of digital activism, and seeks to outline the symbiotic relationship between the platforms and the Alt/Far Right movement. In particular, Alt Tech emerged as an alternative infrastructure for the Far Right, at a time when its existence on mainstream platforms was threatened (Donovan et al., 2019). As the movement’s key figures were deplatformed (Rogers, 2020), Alt Tech presented a means by which the movement could become resilient, as key accounts were able to operate across platforms in parallel. But the Alt Tech migration shaped the movement in specific ways, as Alt Tech platforms sought to become sustainable. Focusing on Bitchute, the contribution will analyse the dynamics of the Alt Tech and Far Right symbiosis and co-dependence with a view to derive key insights into the mutual shaping of technology and movements. It will conclude with a few remarks on the lessons we can learn from this relationship, both in terms of the inability of regulation to address the Alt Tech/Far Right, and in terms of the challenges it poses to progressive emancipatory movements.
Emiliano Treré is a Reader in Data Agency and Media Ecologies at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture. Previously, he was an Associate Professor at the Autonomous University of Querétaro, Mexico. He’s a widely cited author in digital activism, critical data/algorithm studies and digital disconnection with a focus on the Global South and Latin America. He co-founded the ‘Big Data from the South’ Initiative and co-directs the Data Justice Lab. His book Hybrid Media Activism (Routledge, 2019) won the Outstanding Book Award of the ICA Interest Group ‘Activism, Communication and Social Justice’. His latest co-authored book is Data Justice (Sage, 2022) which launched the “Data Justice” Book Series. His new book Algorithms of Resistance, written with Tiziano Bonini, is forthcoming with MIT Press. It explores collective forms of power, agency and resistance in the platform society.
ABSTRACT: Algorithmic activism has emerged in the context of our datafied societies, as social movements and civil society learn to navigate the algorithmically saturated landscapes that define contemporary politics. In this intervention, relying on findings from the AlgoRes project (Treré and Bonini, 2022), I conceptualize algorithms as the latest addition to the repertoire of contention of protest movements. Through various examples, I show how activists leverage algorithmic power to increase their visibility and narrative agency, engaging in dynamics of amplification, evasion and hijacking. I conclude highlighting how the notion of algorithmic activism exceeds that of hashtag activism and how it constitutes an agnostic concept that is part of an incessant political struggle between algorithmic strategies and tactics.
