[artinfo] DIGITAL ACTIVISM #NOW conference

[allan siegel]

DIGITAL ACTIVISM #NOW conference
Information Politics, Digital Culture and Global Protest Movements

King?s College London ? April 4th 2014
Confirmed speakers: Clare Birchall, Gabriella Coleman, Paolo 
Gerbaudo, Joss Hands, Tim Jordan and Guobin Yang

Blog:  http://wp.me/p1BSEo-29

The so-called web 2.0 of social network sites was invented as a 
business strategy to react to the dot-com bust and, as revealed by 
the NSA scandal, it has been heavily used by the state as a tool of 
surveillance. Yet, this space has also seen the rise of new powerful 
forms of digital activism, as seen in the adoption of Facebook and 
Twitter as means of mass mobilisation in the context of the Arab 
revolutions, the Spanish indignados and of Occupy Wall Street.
These contradictions raise a number of burning questions for 
contemporary digital activists. What are the real opportunities and 
threats for digital activism at the time of social network sites and 
big data? How can protest movements make use of the power of mass 
diffusion and collective coordination afforded by social media 
without falling prey of state monitoring or cultural banalisation? 
And is it better to invest energy in creating alternative and 
non-commercial communication platforms or in "occupying" the digital 
mainstream?
         The "Digital Activism #Now" conference will explore emerging 
digital protest practices at a time of increasing diffusion of social 
media and progressive massification and commercialisation of the web. 
By gathering leading international researchers and activists we will 
examine how digital activists are making use of the affordances of 
the social web. Moreover, we will debate the main issues of 
contention among contemporary digital activists, faced with 
increasing possibilities of mass outreach but also with new dangers.
Among the issues covered by the conference will feature the role of 
social network sites in contemporary protests, hacktivism at the time 
of Anonymous and Lulzsec, the activist use of digital culture, 
internet memes, and online pranks, as means of digital propaganda and 
the politics of transparency and secrecy in digital whistleblowing.

The conference is supported by the Culture, Media and Creative 
Industries and Digital Humanities Departments, by the China Lau 
Institute and the North America Institute, all at King?s College 
London.