Democracy@Risk launch event
06 Aug 2021
The launch event will take place on Monday, 20 September from 12noon to 1pm
This is a cross-theme Digital Futures event between Citizens & Government and Digital Trust & Security themes.
In the wake of the digital surge caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, citizens are spending a record proportion of their day on their digital devices, whilst the level of public dissatisfaction with democracy is at its highest since the mid-1990s. It seems that in this twenty-first century, the demos have never been more online, and democracy has never felt more at risk.
The Democracy@Risk report summarises the key findings of a multidisciplinary literature review conducted by the Democracy@Risk Project in 2020.
Drawing on existing research and scholarship, it sheds further light on digital political micro-targeting and online misinformation as two potential sources of harm for democracy in the digital age, and assesses the challenges relating to digital information literacy as one of the most frequently proposed solutions to the problems generated by these phenomena.
This event will bring together expertise from across our University's Digital Futures network to discuss the key challenges assessed in this report, and look at how citizens might be better empowered to deal with them.
Event structure:
- 12noon: Overview of report - Ariadna Tsenina
- 12.15: Panel discussion on the report recommendation areas
- Digital Political Micro targeting – Kate Dommett
- Online Misinformation – Martin Innes
- Digital Information Literacy – TBC
- 1pm: Q&A with panel members and audience
Speakers:
- Professor Martin Innes, Director of Cardiff University Crime and Security Research Institute; Director of Universities' Police Science Institute
- Dr Kate Dommett, Senior Lecturer in the Public Understanding of Politics, University of Sheffield
- Dr Ariadna Tsenina, Research Associate, The University of Manchester
Digital Futures:
- Digital Futures is a highly interdisciplinary network which operates across the whole range of the University’s digital research.
- This is a cross-theme Digital Futures event between Citizens & Government and Digital Trust & Security themes.
- To find out more about activity in Digital Futures, sign up to the Digital Futures newsletter.
Register: