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Invitation to Book Launch: Critical Political Economy and Southern Approaches to AI: A Dialogue
by Preeti Raghunath 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

Hi everyone, I hope you are well. Our group of fabulous authors and I as editor of the new collection Critical <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-14090-6> Political Economy and Southern Approaches to AI: A Dialogue <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-14090-6> (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) would like to invite you to our online book launch. I would love for you to come by and hear our authors speak about their respective chapters and the research underpinning them. Online joining details as well as information about the book are below: Online book launch of ‘Critical Political Economy and Southern Approaches to AI: A Dialogue’, edited by Preeti Raghunath Date: May 12, 2026/Tuesday Meeting time and time zones: Yogyakarta: 8 - 9.30 pm New Delhi: 6.30 - 8 pm São Paulo: 10 - 11.30 am Toronto/Ontario: 9 - 10:30 am Texas: 8 - 9:30 am Sheffield: 2:00 – 3:30pm Google Meet joining info: https://meet.google.com/xhy-vyha-jcd About the book: This book presents a dialogue between two seemingly incompatible bodies of social theories - Critical Political Economy and Southern approaches - to the study of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. In doing so, the book presents scholarly engagement with the ways in which AI is being experienced in sites in the Global South, with authors exploring questions of sociality, further entrenching of inequities along labour and caste lines, socio-legal ramifications of digital IDs, and undesired outcomes such as deepfakes and their integration in the political ecosystem, among others. These perspectives interrogate and provide scholarly vocabulary to understand the various applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in our professional, legal and media spaces. Table of contents 1. Conversing Across Incommensurables?: Critical Political Economy and Southern Approaches to Artificial Intelligence Preeti Raghunath 2. Data, Anthropology and the Surplus Value of Sociality Deepak Prince 3. The Plight of Female Gig Workers in Indonesia Suci Lestari Yuana 4. A Critical Political Economy of Campaign Deepfakes in Indian Elections Sananda Sahoo 5. The Brazilian State and Human Rights: Citizen Identification and Informational Separation of Powers Gabrielle Bezerra Sales Sarlet, Lucas Reckziegel Weschenfelder 6. Caste Bias in Indian Prison Datasets: A Data Feminism Study on Kaggle.com Nishanshi Shukla 7. Epilogue: From Frontier Technologies to Frontier Lives Preeti Raghunath This book is published as part of the Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business Series <https://link.springer.com/series/14699>, which has published over 22 books since its launch in 2012. Concentrating on the social, cultural, political, political-economic, institutional, and technological changes arising from the globalization and digitization of media and communications industries, the series considers the impact of these changes on business practice, regulation and policy, and social outcomes. If you’re interested in pitching to the book series, you can reach the editors and editorial board here <https://link.springer.com/series/14699/editors>. Looking forward to seeing you there! Best, Preeti Dr Preeti Raghunath, SFHEA Lecturer in Digital Media and Society School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations University of Sheffield, UK 🌐preetiraghunath.com

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Two fully-funded PhD positions - Communicative AI - University St. Gallen (Switzerland)
by Philip Di Salvo 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

Dear colleagues, With apologies for cross-posting - please share widely The Media and Culture Research Unit at the MCM Institute, University of St. Gallen is hiring: *We are seeking two highly motivated PhD candidates to join an exciting new SNSF-funded research project investigating the persuasive power of communicative AI (comAI) in the everyday lives of adolescents and families across Europe. * *The Project* Chatbots, virtual assistants, and AI writing tools are becoming a normal part of daily life for young people across Europe. Yet we know surprisingly little about how these technologies actually influence adolescents - their attitudes, decisions, and relationships - in the context of everyday family life. This four-year cross-national ethnographic study investigates the persuasive power of comAI among adolescents aged 13–18 and their families across Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. It examines AI influence along three dimensions: the interpersonal dimension, exploring how young people perceive AI as a social actor and navigate questions of agency and relationship; the social and cultural dimension, focusing on how families respond to AI-generated disinformation, bias, and errors; and the technical dimension, examining how families understand emotional design, data profiling, and manipulative by-design features in comAI. Findings will inform AI regulation and digital literacy programmes across Europe. *The DOK Programme* Successful candidates will be enrolled in the PhD Programme in Organisation Studies and Cultural Theory (DOK) at the University of St. Gallen. The DOK programme integrates the university's core and contextual subjects in an interdisciplinary form of doctoral studies, bringing together organisational research and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS). The programme is particularly suited to research that engages with complex social, cultural, and technological questions from multiple disciplinary perspectives, making it an ideal home for this project. *What We Offer* - A fully funded PhD position (100%) for four years supervised by Prof. Veronica Barassi, starting in September 2026. - Enrolment in the DOK programme at the University of St. Gallen, one of Europe's leading universities. - Integration into the Media & Culture research unit (=mcm3) at the Institute of Media and Communications Management Institute, a dynamic, international, and interdisciplinary research team. See more information about us here: https://mcm.unisg.ch/en/das-institut/lehrstuehle-und-forschungsbereiche/mcm… . - Access to a growing network of researchers through the PersuasiveAI Futures Network *Your Profile* - Master's degree in communication sciences, social sciences, political sciences, or a related field. - Proficiency in English and fluency in at least one or two of the project languages (German, French, or Italian) is mandatory. - Willingness and ability to spend extended periods conducting fieldwork in one of the following cities: Berlin, Paris, or Milan. - Knowledge of qualitative and ethnographic research methodologies is a strong advantage. - Curiosity, intellectual independence, and a genuine interest in the social impacts of comAI. *How to Apply: * Application must be submitted by 4 May. In person interviews will be held by 15 June, with decisions communicated by the end of that month. *Please send along: * - A cover letter explaining who you are, your background, and why you are interested in the PhD position, including your level of language knowledge and your connection to one of the ethnographic areas - A one-page document outlining your potential PhD project - Your CV - Proof of Degrees - A writing sample (MA thesis, article, etc.), if available but not mandatory *APPLICATION LINK: https://jobs.unisg.ch/offene-stellen/two-fully-funded-phd-positions-m-w-d/5… <https://jobs.unisg.ch/offene-stellen/two-fully-funded-phd-positions-m-w-d/5…>* For information about the job opening or general questions, please contact philip.disalvo(a)unisg.ch <philip.disalvo(a)unisg.ch?subject=> (applications must be submitted through the application link, applications coming via email won't be considered). Best, -- *Philip Di Salvo, PhD* Researcher <https://mcm.unisg.ch/en/personenverzeichnis/9479a240-e20b-4b1e-aaa4-249f2ca…> | journalist <https://twitter.com/philipdisalvo> Zürich

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Postdoctoral Research Associate on AIDEMOCRACY
by Lina Dencik 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

Dear all, Goldsmiths is recruiting a post-doctoral researcher to work on the AIDEMOCRACY project either full-time (6 months) or part-time (12 months). More details below: The post-doctoral research associate will work on the international project ‘Democracy, AI and Big Tech: Assessing corporate activities in the advancement of Artificial Intelligence in the UK, US and Canada [AIDEMOCRACY]’ led by Prof Lina Dencik and funded by the Transatlantic Platform scheme on Democracy, Governance and Trust. The research explores ‘Big Tech’ influence in the spheres of government, policy, media and civil society in key areas of AI strategy, most notably environmental sustainability. The candidate will use desk-based research, including some digital methods or data science, to collect and visualize data relating to public procurement and investment in AI infrastructure and map social networks across the technology industry and political sphere. Goldsmiths’ School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies is one of the longest established departments for teaching and researching media in the world. Housed in the award-winning Professor Stuart Hall Building, it has an internationally outstanding reputation for creative and radical thinking and practice. We are committed to a vibrant teaching and research programme that combines theory and practice with interdisciplinary engagement with the latest developments in media, communications and cultural studies. The School is currently ranked 18th in the world (and 3rd in the UK) for communication and media studies (QS World Rankings by subject 2026) and second in the UK for research assessed as 3* and 4* - with 96% of our research evaluated as 'world leading or internationally excellent'<https://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/research/#d.en.1895366> in the latest Research Excellence Framework (2021). Apply here: https://jobs.gold.ac.uk/vacancy/postdoctoral-research-associate-610219.html Best, Lina -- Professor Lina Dencik University Research Leader in AI Justice Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Goldsmiths, University of London Co-Founder of Data Justice Lab

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4S 2026 CfA: Open Panel on ontologies of (ac)counting with and beyond data
by Srravya C 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

Hi everyone, We invite abstract submissions (250 words) to our 4S open panel on "Counting matters: The ontologies of (ac)counting with and beyond data.” The panel will be hybrid, with options to join in-person in Toronto or online. Please find the panel abstract below. For accepted submissions, we aim to offer an opportunity to submit extended abstracts (closer to the conference dates) for engaged feedback with discussants. ---- *[Panel: 213] Counting matters: The ontologies of (ac)counting with and beyond data* Techniques and technologies of counting have roots in colonial practices that aimed to ‘see’ populations in specific ways. Such acts of “seeing” were never merely descriptive, whether undertaken by colonial states or markets (Scott 1998; MacKenzie 2008; Fourcade and Healy 2017). Rather, they actively shaped how populations were governed and valued. Even as data-driven technologies and their processing capacities have evolved, these histories continue to shape how states, markets, civil society, and communities perceive citizens, workers, consumers, and themselves (Sriraman 2018; Eubanks 2017; Noble 2018). Be it national citizenship registries, Covid-19 dashboards, targeted advertising, or productivity metrics, these contemporary projects are deemed apolitical and neutral tools for impartial investigations and ‘evidence-based’ governance. Crucially, this framing treats counting as descriptive rather than constitutive, obscuring the logics (and politics) through which certain realities are made to count over others. Against this backdrop, this panel invites critical explorations of contemporary modes of (ac)counting with and beyond data. Here, we understand counting as encompassing the norms and practices of enumeration through which our worlds are made to count and data, as encompassing not only datasets and metrics but also qualitative accounts, records, proxies, and other material–discursive forms. Moving beyond dominant framings of counting as problems of surveillance and control, we problematise counting as world-making (Verran 2001) — what ways of being and becoming are counted and accounted for? How are contemporary data-driven technologies implicated in these processes, co-producing these realities? We invite contributions, including empirical studies, theoretical and methodological reflections that explore themes including: How are data-driven practices and methods deployed to enumerate various spheres of everyday life? What actors, institutions, and relations are caught within and shaped by contemporary modes of counting? What specific counts are produced, normalised, or overlooked by these practices? And how do they (re)make the worlds they enumerate? ----- Please share the call with students and colleagues who may be interested in the themes of this panel. 4S 2026 is happening in Toronto from Oct 7 - 10. The deadline for abstract submission is April 30. More details on how to make a submission can be found here <https://www.4sonline.org/call_for_submissions_toronto.php>. If you have any questions about the panel, please reach out to any one of us at: Anushree Gupta, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, la20resch11008(a)iith.ac.in Srravya Chandhiramowuli, University of Edinburgh, srravya.c(a)ed.ac.uk Janaki Srinivasan, University of Oxford, janaki.srinivasan(a)sant.ox.ac.uk Very Best, Srravya, Anushree, and Janaki

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10th Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH) @EMNLP: 2nd CFP
by Agostina Calabrese 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

10th Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH) @EMNLP: 2nd CFP *** Second Call for Papers *** We invite paper submissions to the 10th Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH), which will take place on 24-29 October at EMNLP 2026. Website: https://www.workshopononlineabuse.com/cfp.html Important Dates * Registration deadline for mentorship programme: April 10, 2026 * Notification of mentor/mentee match: April 25, 2026 * Submission due: June 26, 2026 * ARR reviewed submission due: August 3, 2026 * Notification of acceptance: August 15, 2026 * Camera-ready papers due: September 10, 2026 * Workshop: 24-29 October 2026 Overview Digital technologies have brought significant benefits to society, transforming how people connect, communicate, and interact. However, these same technologies have also enabled the widespread dissemination and amplification of abusive and harmful content, such as hate speech, harassment, and misinformation. Given the sheer volume of content shared online, addressing abuse and harm at scale requires the use of computational tools. Yet, detecting and moderating online abuse remains a complex task, fraught with technical, social, legal, and ethical challenges. The 10th Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH) invites paper submissions from a diverse range of fields, including but not limited to natural language processing, machine learning, computational social science, law, political science, psychology, sociology, and cultural studies. We explicitly encourage interdisciplinary research, technical and non-technical contributions, and submissions that focus on under-resourced languages. Non-archival papers and civil society reports are also welcome. Topics covered by WOAH include, but are not limited to: * New models or methods for detecting abusive and harmful online content, including misinformation; * Biases and limitations in existing detection models or datasets for abusive and harmful content, especially those in commercial use; * Development of new datasets and taxonomies for online abuse and harms; * Novel evaluation metrics and procedures for detecting harmful content; * Analyses of the dynamics of online abuse, its propagation, and its impact on different communities; * Social, legal, and ethical considerations in detecting, monitoring, and moderating online abuse. Special Theme: “Ten Years of WOAH: Reflecting on Progress and New Frontiers” In its 10th edition, WOAH highlights the theme “Ten Years of WOAH: Reflecting on Progress and New Frontiers”. Over the past decade, WOAH has become a central interdisciplinary venue for online harms research. As harms and enabling technologies have evolved, the field has moved beyond an early focus on textual hate speech and harassment to address more complex phenomena. Advances in AI and online ecosystems have expanded the scale and diversity of harms. Transformer models, multimodal platforms, and recommendation systems have contributed to the escalation of issues like misinformation, radicalisation, child sexual exploitation, identity-based abuse, algorithmic bias, privacy violations, and AI-mediated harms. Methods tackling this have evolved from monolingual lexicon-based approaches to deep learning, multilinguality, multimodality, interpretability, and interdisciplinarity. Despite this progress, fundamental challenges remain. There is limited consensus on what constitutes “harm”, how context and thresholds should be defined, or how harms vary across cultures and modalities. These ambiguities affect datasets and models, constrain comparability, and often marginalise affected communities. The past decade also calls for critical self-reflection. Research has frequently prioritised detection, high-resource languages, and narrowly defined phenomena over intervention, global perspectives, and systemic or structural harms, with insufficient attention to user agency, platform incentives, lived experience, and participatory approaches. Finally, ten years of work have underscored that interdisciplinarity is essential for addressing the sociotechnical nature of the phenomenon. Addressing future online harms will require deeper integration across NLP, ML, social sciences, law, policy, and HCI. WOAH 10 seeks to consolidate lessons from the past decade, identify enduring gaps, and connect research, practice, and policy to guide the next generation of work on online harms. Submission Submission is electronic, using the Softconf START conference management system. Submission link: TBA The workshop will accept three types of papers. 1) Academic Papers (long and short): Long papers of up to 8 pages, excluding references, and short papers of up to 4 pages, excluding references. Unlimited pages for references and appendices. Accepted papers will be given an additional page of content to address reviewer comments. Previously published papers cannot be accepted. 2) Non-Archival Submissions: Up to 2 pages, excluding references, to summarise and showcase in-progress work and work published elsewhere. 3) Civil Society Reports: Non-archival submissions, with a minimum of 2 pages and no upper limit. Can include work published elsewhere. All submissions must use the official ACL style files<https://github.com/acl-org/acl-style-files>. Submissions that do not conform to the required styles, including paper size, margin width, and font size restrictions, will be rejected without review. All submissions should adhere to the workshop policies https://www.workshopononlineabuse.com/policies.html. WOAH Community We are excited to share the WOAH community Slack channel — a workspace for researchers interested in or working on understanding and addressing online abuse and harms! Join us here: https://join.slack.com/t/hatespeechdet-47d7560/shared_invite/zt-2a8d96j4z-g… Contact Info Please send any questions about the workshop to organizers(a)workshopononlineabuse.com<mailto:organizers@workshopononlineabuse.com> Organisers Agostina Calabrese, Cohere Thomas Davidson, Rutgers University-New Brunswick Christine de Kock, University of Melbourne Urja Khurana, Delft University of Technology Marta Marchiori Manerba, University of Turin Paloma Piot, Universidade da Coruña Zeerak Talat, University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336.

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ISOC LIVE - What's On & What's New
by Joly MacFie 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

<https://substack.com/redirect/96c045a1-d74f-44fd-9dfb-37fa2514af3c?j=eyJ1Ij…> *Upcoming Events* - APR 28 17:00 UTC - ICANN Global Public Interest Framework (GPIF) and its Relevance to At-Large <https://substack.com/redirect/5d559930-7f3a-41f0-b592-11617ebb2523?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 29 12:00 UTC - ICANN EMEA: Phishing and DNS Abuse - Operational Blindspots <https://substack.com/redirect/4ea4a74a-20ea-4d0c-9893-06e1743668cd?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 30 12:15 UTC - SAIDGI - Social Media And Digital Sovereignty In South Asia <https://substack.com/redirect/f34fbb3d-780b-401e-a0b5-b0c523a2d800?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 5 02:00 UTC - ICANN Review of Reviews Cross Community Group Progress <https://substack.com/redirect/a63badce-0423-4681-b199-60d3b97ab071?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 7 18:00 UTC - What If We Could Rebuild the Internet? <https://substack.com/redirect/df00b55c-ddcd-45c5-9278-e57403c1fb53?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 11-12 - UN Virtual Worlds Day 2026 - Shaping the Future of Cities <https://substack.com/redirect/5214ca41-6731-430e-a39f-c9ec2a3ff9ea?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 11-15 - The West Africa Internet Governance Forum 2026 <https://substack.com/redirect/ba827398-d9e8-488f-83c8-8ea518b540f8?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 11 05:00 UTC - PCC - When the State Goes Digital: Public Platforms, Cooperative Hybrids, and the Politics of Infrastructure <https://substack.com/redirect/26f884dd-aff1-4e76-a0cf-12563923238a?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 11 14:00 UTC - topDNS Best Practice Series: Beyond the Perimeter - Managing Internet Routing as a Supply Chain Risk <https://substack.com/redirect/a596b2f8-68f2-461f-9edf-f5cfcebcb8c4?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 13 16:00 UTC - ICANN OCTO ISPCP/SSAC: Implementing DNS Blocking Responsibly <https://substack.com/redirect/81347776-3d5b-4b97-9d04-725f115a3496?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 27 12:00 UTC - What Makes a DNS Abuse Complaint to ICANN Actionable: Insights and Common Challenges <https://substack.com/redirect/44f6871e-5e59-4f85-99d7-17bf09b6bfc0?j=eyJ1Ij…> - MAY 27 13:30 UTC - ISOC PERU - Más allá del acceso: ¿qué significa ‘Internet significativo’ en educación? <https://substack.com/redirect/668147a0-5082-4176-ad95-2c7b406c0c21?j=eyJ1Ij…> *Recaps / Recordings* - APR 23 - ISOC Perú - Community-Driven Connectivity Solutions <https://substack.com/redirect/043bc746-8930-481d-a523-c69d521f83ec?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 15 - Digital Access Day 2026: Access, Autonomy, and the Open Internet <https://substack.com/redirect/7b09cd1c-fd84-44a5-82a5-6da48c4353ee?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 15 - The New gTLD Program 2026 and the Future of the DNS Ecosystem <https://substack.com/redirect/af8ad590-9510-47af-9ba2-c495b8101303?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 14 - Effective Youth Participation and Digital Inclusion Action Toward WSIS 2035 <https://substack.com/redirect/40eaf905-e1cd-4f6e-9089-fe7d6fae25a3?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 14 - From Spectrum to Service: Building with Unlicensed Fixed Wireless <https://substack.com/redirect/0e196ba6-8cf0-43b1-8e2f-6de1d85d55e8?j=eyJ1Ij…> - APR 13 - Quantum Technologies, Implications for the Global Digital Divide <https://substack.com/redirect/a6fa1ab6-b7ac-4bd6-b09a-70343b388da3?j=eyJ1Ij…> - FEB 26 - At-Large Meets OCTO-SSR <https://substack.com/redirect/f42ad6e8-218e-4593-99ea-9b3120df7b12?j=eyJ1Ij…> *Other Report Summaries* - FCC to Satellite Operators: Stay in Your Lane <https://substack.com/redirect/74548723-88bf-4ad9-b390-63cd2af6b97d?j=eyJ1Ij…> - ICANN and the IETF (summary) <https://substack.com/redirect/c9c4f048-bdd1-4872-8460-5ba323cd0714?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Age Verification Architecture (summary) <https://substack.com/redirect/29524084-29f1-45a7-95ec-8ff016dde711?j=eyJ1Ij…> *NYC Open Data Week 2026 <https://substack.com/redirect/4c153ce9-cc3c-47ea-a0dc-97b730fb3a29?j=eyJ1Ij…>* - NYC School of Data 2026 - Opening Session <https://substack.com/redirect/3697b784-2c69-4ad3-8d5d-e1e0f8c05e5d?j=eyJ1Ij…> - NYC School of Data 2026 - From Connectivity to Connection: Transforming Digital Equity Into Action <https://substack.com/redirect/161ef7a4-703b-4ace-91b2-d838ec00b131?j=eyJ1Ij…> - NYC School of Data - Building the Public Interest Tech Workforce <https://substack.com/redirect/19cd57dc-cc51-4b89-a263-5eb10fe324f2?j=eyJ1Ij…> - AI in Government: Opportunities for the Mamdani Administration <https://substack.com/redirect/29449150-b428-49e2-9a24-2ee2b0dac3aa?j=eyJ1Ij…> - How Has 10 Years of Civic Engagement Through Open Data Changed New York? <https://substack.com/redirect/14ac4141-58da-41c4-8739-9c181436d4a2?j=eyJ1Ij…> - NYC Health Department Health Data Tour <https://substack.com/redirect/89c518cd-6fb0-4b3e-bffa-214cfadbdeeb?j=eyJ1Ij…> - NYC Agency Maps, Tools, & Geospatial Data for 2026 <https://substack.com/redirect/5bd999d9-87f9-47f4-b674-730caea85737?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Tracking NYC Trash: Using Open Data to Understand and Improve the City’s Waste System <https://substack.com/redirect/f3b30052-1a41-4610-984f-e9085ac7c378?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Data for Disaster Recovery and Resilience: Exploring NYCEM’s Hazard History Consequence Tool and Recovery Dashboards <https://substack.com/redirect/c7188c40-78d0-4d3b-9b31-fdd34dd6d036?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Querying Big Bus Data off of the Open Data Portal <https://substack.com/redirect/a579b9ab-5ec5-4307-aee2-953201298b54?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Advancing Climate Compliance: How Data Informs & Challenges Building Retrofits and Decarbonization (Local Law 97) <https://substack.com/redirect/de1062ee-dda3-4906-85b9-e40bd1511c92?j=eyJ1Ij…> - From Open Data to Urban Impact: Data-Driven Research on Health, Safety, and Policy in New York City <https://substack.com/redirect/5bcb092c-372f-4e61-ac89-7565429b31aa?j=eyJ1Ij…> - DATA2GO.NYC: A Data Tool to Understand Well-Being and Need in NYC <https://substack.com/redirect/8b9dfa91-81ae-4c1d-b422-a846cecdb34b?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Vital City: Exploring 30 Years of NYC Crime - and What Comes Next <https://substack.com/redirect/b6273a29-7710-4d3e-89e5-ed7b3166ff71?j=eyJ1Ij…> - NYC’s Changing Landscape: Discover What’s Being Built Around You <https://substack.com/redirect/98e18f2b-9d47-4430-8049-548b84f2c3af?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Databook Update: Data Supporting Civil Service and Tech Procurement Reform <https://substack.com/redirect/93b71999-1ab8-465c-a955-8771880f0607?j=eyJ1Ij…> - Using Open Tools to Explore Open Data <https://substack.com/redirect/be7ef390-acc0-48f4-9718-18888afe97b7?j=eyJ1Ij…> -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

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Postdoc position in Computational Methods and Digital Social Policy in Germany
by Cornelius Puschmann 28 Apr '26

28 Apr '26

The Center for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen is hiring a Postdoctoral researcher (TV-L 13, 100%, max. 4.5 years) for a research project on the digital transformation of social policy. The position is to be filled within the "Datafication and Mediatization" Lab led by Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp and the "Digital Communication and Information Diversity" Lab led by Prof. Dr. Cornelius Puschmann, as part of the lead project "Digital Social Policy: Challenges of a Radically Changing Media Environment." The position is available at the earliest possible date and is term-limited until the end of 2030. It forms part of the newly established Collaborative Research Center DIFIS-SOFO, which examines the social policy implications of technological developments such as artificial intelligence and digital communication. Brief Profile: • In-depth experience in conducting automated content analyses (e.g., topic modeling, sentiment analysis, stance detection, named entity recognition) • Expertise in applying statistical methods relevant to content-analytic data (including clustering, regression) • Solid programming skills in Python and/or R • Interest in working with press content and the communicative field of social policy • Near-native fluency in German (C2 CEF level) required Job Advertisement: https://zemki.uni-bremen.de/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Stellenausschreibung… The application deadline is May 13, 2026. Please direct any questions to puschmann(a)uni-bremen.de Best, Cornelius -- Prof. Dr. Cornelius Puschmann Professor of Media and Communication Zentrum für Medien-, Kommunikations- & Informationsforschung (ZeMKI) / Centre for Media, Communication & Information Research Universität Bremen / University of Bremen Linzerstr. 4 28359 Bremen, Germany zemki.uni-bremen.de/person/cornelius-puschmann/ Associated Researcher Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) Rothenbaumchaussee 36 20148 Hamburg, Germany leibniz-hbi.de p: +49 421 218 67633 e: puschmann(a)uni-bremen.de z: https://uni-bremen.zoom-x.de/my/puschmann *Recent papers:* Puschmann, C., Rauxloh, H., Merten, L., Stier, S., Weller, K., & Kulshrestha, J. (2025). How affect shapes online information seeking about political actors. *New Media & Society* (online first). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251346199 Hill, M., & Puschmann, C. (2025). Nostalgic for a better democracy? How German right-wing social media commentators (mis)remember the past. *Publizistik*, 70(1), 181–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-025-00891-w Nenno, S., & Puschmann, C. (2025). All The (Fake) News That’s Fit to Share? News Values in Perceived Misinformation across Twenty-Four Countries. *The International Journal of Press/Politics*. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612241311893 Puschmann, C., Stier, S., Zerrer, P., & Rauxloh, H. (2024). Politicized and Paranoid? Assessing Attitudinal Predictors of Alternative News Consumption. *Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,* 68(4), 489–518. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2024.2383411

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4S Toronto 2026 Panel #236: Communities of Critique (Deadline: April 30)
by Sayan Bhattacharjee 27 Apr '26

27 Apr '26

Hello all, We are really looking forward to 4S Toronto this year. Where does critique live now? From corporate ethics boards to AI fairness teams, the institutional homes of critique in practice have multiplied. We invite you to submit an abstract to our 4S Toronto panel and join a conversation that pushes STS into new territory. *Panel Abstract:* Nearly two decades after Latour (2004) asked whether critique had "run out of steam," it has found new institutional homes: from corporate ethics boards to AI fairness teams. How might we transform our investigations by treating critique itself as an object of analysis (Boltanski & Thévenot 1999)? How does critique circulate through organizations? What effect does this critique have in the world (or not)? How do we trace the arc from external critique to its transformation and materialization into novel technologies (Bhattacharjee and Ribes, 2025)? This panel examines the conditions under which actors acquire critical capacity and the novel networks that need to be assembled when navigating organizational terrains of critique. We invite contributions examining critique symmetrically, as an empirical phenomenon in the world and methodological challenge for our investigations. How can we compare the distinct purchase of different models of criticality across settings? We welcome contributions from across disciplines addressing (but not limited to): - Theoretical frameworks for analyzing communities of critique, their affordances and limitations - The novel networks organizations assemble to engage or manage critique - Where practitioners draw lines between evaluation and criticism - How critique functions as fuel for organizational change or not - How complicity relates to critical practice - Comparative studies of criticality's purchase in different institutional settings ---------------------------------------------------------- For any questions, please reach out to me at sayanbe(a)uw.edu. We are also open to online participation if you cannot make it in person. You can find the submission link here <https://www.4sonline.org/call_for_submissions_toronto.php>. Thanks, *Sayan Bhattacharjee* PhD Candidate Human Centered Design and Engineering University of Washington Pronouns: he/him

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Gender & Tech Talk Series – May 5, 2026, 10:00am EDT – Possible AI Futures
by Jess Reia 27 Apr '26

27 Apr '26

Dear colleagues, The Digital Technology for Democracy Lab is pleased to announce the 10th and last session of the Gender & Tech Online Talk Series, scheduled for May 5, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. (EDT). The conversation on “Possible AI Futures” will explore the concepts of artificial intelligence from a global and critical perspective. It is an attempt to highlight the use of such terms as a marketing tool, as well as to rethink the possibilities of digital technologies that could positively serve democracy and public interest. Speakers will be invited to discuss: How do we guarantee social participation in the design, deployment, and evaluation of AI systems? In which ways have AI design and regulation been impacting gender minorities, and what are the responses and actions needed? How can people regain control over these technologies? Is an ethical, responsible AI a possibility? What are examples of bottom-up and gender-inclusive AI development and deployment? We are honoured to welcome two keynote speakers: Cynthia Khoo (Citizen Lab) Ploipailin Flynn (AIxDESIGN) The webinar is free and open to the public. You can register here: https://dtdlab.virginia.edu/event/gender-tech-possible-ai-futures/ The Gender & Tech Online Talk Series brings together leading scholars, advocates, and practitioners to examine the intersections of gender, technology, democracy, and human rights. Its purpose is to critically explore how digital platforms and technological infrastructures impact women, queer, and gender-diverse individuals, while also identifying pathways toward more inclusive, rights-based models of digital governance. The series is sponsored by the UVA DTD Lab. The conversation will be conducted in English, but we can facilitate questions submitted in ES, PT, and FR. We invite everyone interested in advancing equity and justice in tech governance to participate in this important conversation. Please feel free to share this announcement. Thank you! Jess and Yasmin *Jess Reia, Ph.D. (they/them)* Andrew Carnegie Fellow <https://www.carnegie.org/awards/honoree/jess-reia/> Assistant Professor of Data Science Faculty co-lead, Digital Technology for Democracy Lab <https://karshinstitute.virginia.edu/digital-technology-democracy-lab>, University of Virginia

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ARPANET resurrection update and possible significances?
by Charles Melvin Ess 27 Apr '26

27 Apr '26

Hi AoIRists, As I mentioned in an earlier note to Morten Bay, there is an active project to recreate the ARPANET from ca. 1972. You can see the update here: <https://obsolescence.dev/arpanet_home> Including the chance to log in yourself to one of the now 35 working nodes. One of the documents referenced here is titled SCENARIOS for using the ARPANET at the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER COMMUNICATION, Washington, D.C., October 24-26, 1972 and is in fact reproduced in the pages giving further instructions on logging in - along with 2026 scenarios that might also be fun to play with. One of the available programs from the MIT.AI node is: == DOCTOR is a LISP program written by Joseph Weizenbaum and described in "ELIZA - A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man And Machine" in the Communications of the ACM, January 1966. DOCTOR simulates a psychiatric interview with a Rogerian psychotherapist. == (I'll come back to this below.) I know that ARPANET is central to the work of e.g.,Janet Abbate's early history, _Inventing the Internet_ (1999). But what I'm asking here, especially of historians who know these domains far better than I: 1) how far did these early exchanges, so far as they could be followed and/or documented - and/or, as at least some study of primary aims, practices, affordances, etc. might have been possible - enter into early research on CMC? 2) Might this reconstruction project, insofar as it grants access to "the rest of us," be of possible use / interest for historical / current research on CMC and its descendants? E.g., I know a great deal has been written about ELIZA - but, to my knowledge at least, not with direct access to the working program itself. I suspect the working program would give researchers a chance to not only become much more familiar with how the program works and "behaves," but also to try out hypotheses as to how different sorts of engagements, expectations, etc. might be dis/confirmed through actually using it? In any case, to quote the welcome message from the first terminal I tried: Happy Hacking! - charles

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