The Future of Global Digital Cultures
What are the profound changes brought about by digitization around the globe? And what will the future of global digital cultures look like? From cultural practices to the rise of AI, from new forms of friendship and sexual relations to platform cooperativism and the digital solidarity economy – in this event we will explore the recent past and future of global digital cultures.
This event marks the close of the Research Priority Area Global Digital Cultures at the University of Amsterdam. In the past years, GDC has constituted a vibrant, interdisciplinary research community for comparing and analyzing the profound changes brought about by digitization around the globe. These changes have ranged from the transformation in cultural practices, from friendship, intimacy and sexual relations, to the construction, targeting, and surveillance of publics.
Digital platforms and mobile apps, such as Facebook, Tinder, YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, the Russian platform VK, and the China-based WeChat, TikTok, and Tantan, have rapidly become central to the production, circulation, consumption, and monetization of culture. But how wide-ranging and sweeping have these changes been, and what will be the future of global digital cultures?
In his keynote lecture, Prof. Rafael Grohmann (Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Critical Platform Studies, University of Toronto) will reflect on these topics and discuss changes brought about by in and around digital labour, the rise of AI in work and the cultural sector, particularly from the perspectives of workers and through platform cooperativism and digital solidarity economy, especially in Latin America.
The roundtable will continue this discussion and reflect on the possibilities and unfinished futures of digital cultures and its global implications.
The roundtable will be moderated by current RPA GDC directors, Stefania Milan (Professor of Critical Data Studies at the Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam) and Valentina Carraro (Assistant Professor, GPIO: Political and Economic Geographies, University of Amsterdam).
