Conference / Meeting

Digital Media, Climate Change, and Democracy

Guest Lecture Series
28 September 2021
Start time 
2:15 pm
Palazzo Paolo Prodi - Via Tommaso Gar 14, Trento
Room 006
Target audience: 
Everyone
Attendance: 
Free
Contact details: 
events.sis@unitn.it

Abstract

In their early development phase, social media technologies have commonly been labelled as agents of democratisation. More recent literature (e.g. on algorithms, personalisation, and fake news) has questioned these assumptions, suggesting that democratic engagement may be difficult to attain online. This controversy has been of particular relevance for climate change debate since citizens across the globe have been affected unequally by the environmental changes. As such, issues of digital democracy carry significant weight for the realisation of climate justice. This guest lecture will outline the complex ways in which social technologies, climate change debate, and democratic engagement intersect. It will do so by presenting findings on visual narratives on climate change and discussing factors that shape online political engagement.

Speaker

Suay Melisa Oezkula is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow on the project Digi-EMP at SIS Trento. She is a digital sociologist with a focus on digital activism, technological determinism, empowerment through social technologies. As part of DIGI-EMP, she is now exploring whether and how users taking part in crowdsourcing initiatives on climate change experience political empowerment. Previously, she was a Junior Lecturer and post-doctoral Research Fellow on "Making Climate Social" at the Dept. of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield.