Call for Abstracts: Data Power 2019 (12.-13.09.2019, Bremen)

This is a call for abstracts for the upcoming conference “DATA POWER” (12.-13.09.2019, Bremen), organized by ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen (Germamy) in cooperation with the Universities of Carleton (Canada) and Sheffield (UK).

“DATA POWER: global in/securities” focuses on critical questions about data’s power, reflecting on the social and cultural consequences of data becoming increasingly pervasive in our lives. With its critical approach towards datafication in relation to power in a wide variety of areas, the conference will focus on dialogues between Global North and Global South perspectives. Current issues of the ever more ubiquitous power of digital data manifest themselves in societies and cultures all over the world that are increasingly mediatized which means a growing interdependence of individuals, collectivities and organisations with digital communication media.

With increasingly globalized digital infrastructures and a global digital political economy, we face new concentrations of power, leading to new inequalities and insecurities with respect to data ownership, data geographies and different forms of data-related practices. It is not only a concentration of power by a few corporations, but also a concentration of the availability of data on individual regions of the world. This includes (exerting) power about data (infra)structures and processes of data creation, data collection, data access, data processing, data interpretation, data storing, and data visualisations.

The Deadline for submissions is January 31, 2019.

More information here: https://www.uni-bremen.de/data-power-global-insecurities

CfP here: https://www.uni-bremen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/sites/datapower/cfp_datapower_2019_bremen.pdf