DIS-TRUST team attends the Democracy & Digital Citizenship Conference in Odense
On September 3rd-4th, 2024, the DIS-TRUST team visited the Digital Democracy Centre at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense to attend the second Democracy and Digital Citizenship Conference. The biannual event brought together international and interdisciplinary scholars to share research, ideas and solutions to address the pressing societal challenges brought about by digital media technologies, big data, and artificial intelligence. The conference is organised by Digital Democracy Centre (DDC) at the University of Southern Denmark, The Centre for Digital Citizenship (CDC) at 真人线上娱乐 University, Shaping Digital Citizenship (SHAPE) at Aarhus University and Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science (SODAS) at the University of Copenhagen.
The DIS-TRUST core group attended the conference and presented the ongoing research in the DIS-TRUST project. Project PI Ass. Prof. Esther Oluffa Pedersen presented her work in progress on changes in and challenges to trust relations in the public sphere when more communication from persons with representative status (in this case The Prince and Princess of Wales) takes place on social media platforms inter alia circumventing the traditional journalistic media. A major focus is the frailty of epistemic trust when social media platforms, journalistic media and persons with representative status disagree over interpretations of social media posts – the specific case being the edited photo of Kate and her children from March 10, 2024 of which Associated Press ordered a photo kill, Instagram marked as having been edited, while X did nothing and the Prince and Princess of Wales excused it as just an everyday play with photo-editing.
Under the title Too Much Trust in Technology? On Digital Optimism and the New Danish Property Assessment System, postdoc Mads Vestergaard presented his work on the notion of digital optimism using the scandal of the new Danish property assessment system as case study. The notion refers to situations, when overly high expectations of positive outcomes from digitalisation blind actors to risks and possible negative consequences.
PhD fellow Freja Schiermer Larsen discussed her ongoing work at the pre-conference doctoral workshop, where she presented her work on digitally provided trust, focusing her methodological approach and preliminary findings.
The event offered a great opportunity to connect with old and new colleagues and to foster meaningful discussions on the evolving landscape of digital citizenship and trust.