Event

The “Digital Democracy” Lecture deals with opportunities and challenges of democracy and participation in a digitalized world. Social networks and other platforms have become a central place for human interaction.

These technologies open up many possibilities to connect people, promote societal discourse, and organize social movements. On the other hand, they are also used to undermine democracy by extremist forces.

One example is the spread of disinformation through social media, which can undermine trust in democratic institutions and exacerbate divisions in society. Big tech actors pursue their own economically driven interests, some of which run counter to societal ones.

So to what extent can Internet platforms help strengthen social discourse? And what measures can be taken to promote the quality and diversity of discourse in the digital world? What role do big tech players play in digital democracy and how can their interests be reconciled with democratic principles? These and many more questions will be explored in the lecture. The lecture introduces theoretical foundations and evidence-based research on digital democracy. It will address the following questions: What characterizes deliberative democracies, how do democracies change, and what can damage them? How does social  polarization emerge and what drives it - off- and online. Accordingly, different platform types and phenomena of disinformation, such as clickbait, will be presented. The last part of the lecture series will deal with the search for approaches and alternatives to these problems.