The Science of the Predicted Human talk series: Phillip Lorenz-Spreen
We are delighted to host Philipp Lorenz-Spreen (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) for a talk in our series on The Science of the Predicted Human. Dr. Lorenz-Spreen research has made important theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of how online discourse self organizes, and how democratic decision making can be empowered through online platform design.
Please join us for this event on November 9, 10:30am in the SODAS Conference Room - 1.1.12, Øster-Farimagsgade 5. (notice that this is a different location than the previous lectures in the talk series)
TITLE:
Digital media and democracy: what is changing globally and how to measure it
ABSTRACT:
Information and communication technology has undergone dramatic developments over the past two decades. Increased peer-to-peer connectivity has led to more self-organised public discourse, but it has also given researchers new tools to quantify precisely this systemic shift. Detailed and longitudinal data from social media allow us to measure and model their network structures and dynamics. However, to get a holistic and global picture, a recent systematic literature review has provided us with a number of dimensions of political behaviour that appear to be influenced by the use of digital media. Our findings show that, while the directions within each dimension are mostly clear, they are distributed differently globally and the mechanisms by which these dimensions are linked are still unknown. Understanding these better is crucial for civil society in democracies worldwide, and I will conclude with a methodological outlook on how we can empirically investigate these missing links in the future.
ABOUT PHILLIP LORENZ-SPREEN:
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen’s research focuses on the complexity of self-organized online discourse and how to empower democratic and autonomous decision-making through platform design and boosting. His aim is to better understand the interplay between human behaviour and the connectivity and functioning of online platforms, in particular how this affects the public discourse and thus our democracy. But also, to question the status quo and explore how this technology offers untapped opportunities for an improved information ecosystem and participatory democracy lived online. Recently, he has become interested in how the research community can foster the paradigm shift in data access for the common good. He received his PhD from the TU Berlin on empirical methods and theoretical models to describe the dynamics of collective attention. At the LMU in Munich he studied physics with a focus on systems biophysics. In 2021, he received the Prize for Young Scientists from the Leopoldina.
THE PREDICTED HUMAN:
Being human in 2023 implies being the target of a vast number of predictive infrastructures. In healthcare, algorithms predict not only potential pharmacological cures to disease but also their possible future incidence of those diseases. In governance, citizens are exposed to algorithms that predict - not only their day-to-day behaviors to craft better policy - but also to algorithms that attempt to predict, shape and manipulate their political attitudes and behaviors. In education, children’s emotional and intellectual development is increasingly the product of at-home and at-school interventions shaped around personalized algorithms. And humans worldwide are increasingly subject to advertising and marketing algorithms whose goal is to target them with specific products and ideas they will find palatable. Algorithms are everywhere – as are their intended as well as unintended consequences. The series is arranged with generous support by the Villum Foundation and the Pioneer Center for Artificial Intelligence.