Networked Silences: Algorithms & meaning-making in times of climate change
Last changed: 30 September 2022
An event bringing together researchers, the public sector and civil society from across Sweden to discuss what's lost when environmental crises are increasingly negotiated through algorithmically mediated spaces.
PEOPLE
Nina Wormbs is Professor in history of technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Wormbs has studied environmental history and climate studies extensively with particular interest in technologies.
Since 2019 she is researching justification of climate change non-action on a grant from Riksbankens jubileumsfond.
Find out more about Nina Wormbs here.
Jonas Andersson Schwarz is Senior Lecturer at Södertörn University. His cross-disciplinary research concerns the interrlation of everyday life with the contemporary, strongly consolidated media ecology.
His earlier research includes exploring the conditions for user-driven communication in social media together with external stakeholders, also financed in part by Riksbankens jubileumsfond.
Find out more about Jonas Andersson Schwarz here.
Malte Rödl is a researcher at the Mistra Environmental Communication programme. His research is concerned with the interactions of people, 'technology', and the environment and combines insights from science and technology studies, sociology, geography, and systems sciences.
At the Mistra programme, he researches the opening of spaces for transformative encounters in social media and the arts.
Find out more about Malte Rödl here.
Daniel Möller Ölgaard is a senior lecturer in political science at Lund university. He is investigating three examples of the use of new digital media technologies in mediated humanitarianism: social media, Virtual Reality and smartphone apps.
Möller Ölgaard has also researched the emergence of natively digital international politics and digital interfaces with distant suffering.
Find out more about Daniel Möller Ölgaard here.
Jutta Haider is Professor in Information Studies. Her research and teaching concern information practices and digital cultures' conditions for production, use and distribution of knowledge and information.
Haider has researched algorithms and evaluation of sources, financed by the Swedish Research Council.
Find out more about Jutta Haider here.
Stina Söderqvist Stina Söderqvist is a communications strategist at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency with extensive experience of environmental issues in government administration. She participates from the Environmental Protection Agency in the UN climate negotiations.
Symposium moderator Eva Krutmeijer is a senior science communicator and founder of EKKO AB.
In addition to taking on assignments for research institutions and other knowledge-driven organizations, she is the initiator of several interdisciplinary projects that aim to deepen the debate around knowledge, communication and sustainable development.
PROGRAM: LUNCH TO LUNCH 6-7 October 2022
6 October
12.00: Lunch
13.00: Welcome Address, Rebecka Wigh-Abrahamsson
13.15: Introduction, Jutta Haider
13.25: Nina Wormbs
Silenced and invisible? Environment and climate in the public sphere.
Have climate and environmental issues been discussed and communicated over time, and if so, how? Are the challenges we see today new or are there recurring patterns? In her introduction to the symposium, Nina Wormbs discusses the role of environmental and climate issues over time and how to understand the processes of meaning-making in the rift between new and old media.
13.50: Jonas Andersson Schwarz
The duality of algorithmic media: Both part of the problem and part of the solution?
We have long known the extent to which the media are integrated into the industrial capitalist machinery. Through the media, consumerism is sustained and desires are created. At the same time, the media can formulate paths towards a more environmentally friendly future. Advertising as a financing model makes the media structurally dependent on consumer society. With algorithmic media, this becomes even more evident, which is reflected in the enormous regulatory measures now being introduced in the EU (e.g. Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act). At the same time, algorithmic media are adaptable. They are partly shaped by users, and users find various ways to circumvent algorithms.
14.15: Malte Rödl
Can a parrot change your mind? Reflections on the climate crisis in search engines
Search engines have become powerful tools in everyday life that connect us with the world: they give answers to our questions, based on indexing the internet. Along with example queries from everyday life, advertising, and online forums, Malte Rödl will discuss the modes of production and reproduction of search engine queries and results pages to show how search engines — just like parrots — create an echo chamber filled with invisibilities and unknowns.
14.40: Coffee break.
15.00: TBA.
15.35: Daniel Möller Öllgard
Showing the climate emergency online: Algorithmic imaginaries and digital (in)visibilities
Humanitarian and environmental organisations are increasingly turning to algorithmically governed media platforms such as Facebook to generate public awareness and mobilise collective action vis-a-vis climate emergencies. In his talk, Daniel Møller Ølgaard will thus discuss the ideas, beliefs and visions invested into these platforms and reflect on the ethical and political consequences of the growing prevalence of algorithmic media in environmental communication.
16.00: Break for snacks
16.30-17.30: Networking
18:00-20.00: Panel discussion (in Swedish): Vad vet vi om algoritmiska plattformar och miljökommunikation? With Nina Wormbs, Jonas Andersson Schwarz, Jutta Haider and Stina Söderqvist (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency).
7 October
09.00-12.00: Workshop for researchers: What do we need to research about environmental communication on algorithmic platforms?
Venues
On 6 October the symposium venue is Uppsala Art Museum, at Uppsala Castle. Click here for a link to Google Maps.
On 7 October the venue is SLU Ultuna Campus.
Fees
All parts of the event are free of charge to participants. For a selection of participants we can also provide transport to and accommodation in Uppsala. Please contact Erik Hallstensson at this e-mail address for inquiries.
Lunches will be vegetarian. If you have any questions about the food, e-mail Erik Hallstensson here.
Organizing Committee
Jutta Haider, Professor in Information Studies, Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås.
Malte Rödl, Researcher in Environmental Communication, SLU.
Sofie Joosse, Researcher in Environmental Communication, SLU.
René van der Wal, Professor of Environmental Citizen Science, SLU.
Sönke Lorenzen, Greenpeace.
Rebecka Wigh-Abramsson, Curator, Uppsala Art Museum.