Re-coding Black Mirror

Workshop in het kader van de CPDP Conference.

Black Mirror is a British sci-fi series directed by Charlie Brooker portraying a dystopian future emanating from the wide use of digital advancements. Even though Black Mirror’s episodes do not entirely rely on the widespread availability of existing technology, some of the advancements presented are not from such a distant future.

Re-coding Black Mirror aims at creating dialogue and connections between computer, data and social scientists and also activists and privacy advocates that are interested in the societal and ethical implications of digital technologies. In order to address emerging social phenomena from different perspectives, the workshop employs a novel interactive format, where researchers are invited to create futuristic scenarios as the ones depicted in Black Mirror exploring emerging societal and ethical concerns.

It will also be a forum for raising opportunities of networking with scholars from different fields to explore novel research problems that can be relevant to both the web and social science communities.

Tijdens de workshop ligt de focus op twee topics.

• How can web technologies enable or minimise scenarios like Black Mirror’s episodes?
  Works showing how the ongoing research in the web community could enable/lead to dystopic scenarios similar to the ones presented in Black Mirror episodes and also, how it could prevent/minimise such risks. For example:
  How could web technologies be used to integrate information about another person from multiple online sources (digital footprinting), providing a mean for stalking or even blackmailing them [S03E03 – Shut Up and Dance]
  How could web technologies be designed to prevent the abuse of user ratings based on the relations between people and information about their network/context? [S03E01 – Nosedive]
• Which societal and ethical concerns emerge from Black Mirror episodes?
  Works exploring the societal and ethical concerns emerging from digital technologies as presented in Black Mirror episodes. For example:
  How do technological developments impact parental surveillance strategies and consequently the family environment? [S04E02 – Arkangel]
  How does the normalization of surveillance through gamification change individuals’ relationship with the surveillance apparatus? [S02E02 – White Bear]

Meer info over de workshop via pinelopi.troullinou@open.ac.uk