17 July 2018: Experts in digital participation will discuss and debate the pitfalls and limitations of society’s growing reliance on digital devices at an international symposium at the University of Canberra TOMORROW.
With government, educational and commercial services increasingly moving online, some academics have been left to ponder what impact this is having on citizens who don’t have internet access.
The Director of the University’s News and Media Research Centre, Dr Sora Park, said people who are digitally excluded do not have the opportunity to participate in society online.
“Digital participation is no longer a supplemental set of activities,” Dr Park said. “It is a key component of modern citizenship.
“In information societies, inequalities are significantly structured by exclusions: exclusion from access to technology, exclusion from data, exclusion from knowledge production and circulation, and subsequently exclusion from the networks of decision-making.
“The adoption and use of digital devices reinforces the existing socioeconomic factors where social exclusion transfers to digital exclusion.
“Those who are digitally excluded are experiencing deeper disadvantages.”
The Digital Participation and the Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion symposium will look at the political aspects of inclusion and exclusion in information societies within three contexts:
- Political parties and electoral contestation;
- News and information inequalities reinforced by levels of online engagement; and
- Exclusionary practices that emerge as a product of asymmetry in the collection and analysis of personal data.
Hosted by the University’s News & Media Research Centre and Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis, the symposium will bring together international scholars, practitioners and activists to engage with the contemporary issues in digital participation.
The event program and more information can be viewed here.
- The University’s Dr Park, Dr Michael Jensen (co-hosts) and keynote speakers are available for interviews
WHAT: Digital Participation and the Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion symposium
WHEN: Wednesday 18 July 2018 – 9.30am – 4.30pm
WHERE: Ann Harding Centre (Building 24), University of Canberra(campus map)
Contact the University of Canberra media team:
Antony Perry: 0434 795 919 | Antony.Perry@canberra.edu.au
Tara Corcoran: 0418 806 293 | Tara.Corcoran@canberra.edu.au