New Marxian Times! Reflections on the 4th ICTs and Society Conference “Critique, Democracy and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of Social Media”.

  • Christian Fuchs Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media
Keywords: critique, critical theory, political economy, Critical Media and Communciation Studies, Critical Internet Studies, information society, democracy, philosophy, ICTs and society

Abstract

This paper presents reflections on the conference “Critique, Democracy and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of the Information Society” that took place at Uppsala University from May 2nd-4th, 2012. About 160 participants attended the conference. It featured 15 plenary talks in seven sessions, 15 paper presentation sessions organised in 5 slots that each had 3 parallel sessions. The conference was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council and organised by Uppsala University’s Department of Informatics and Media, the ICTs and Society Network (http://www.icts-and-society.net), the European Sociological Association’s Research Network 18: Sociology of Communications and Media Research (http://www.europeansociology.org/research-networks/rn18-sociology-of-communications-and-media-research.html), tripleC – Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society (http://www.triple-c.at), the Unified Theory of Information Research Group (UTI), Aarhus University’s Department of Information and Media Studies, the Vienna University of Technology’s Institute for Design & Assessment of Technology, and Jönköping University’s  School of Education and Communication.

Author Biography

Christian Fuchs, Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media
Christian Fuchs is professor and chair in media and communication studies at Uppsala University's Department of Informatics and Media. He is board member of the Unified Theory of Information Research Group and editor of tripleC (cognition, communication, co-operation): Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. He holds a venia docendi in the field of ICTs and society. He is chair of the European Sociological Association's Research Network 18 - Sociology of Communications and Media Research.
His research interests are: critical theory, social theory, media and society, ICTs and society, information society theory/research, political economy. He is author of many publications in these fields, including the books 'Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age' (Routledge 2008), which presents a social theory of contemporary society with a special consideration of media, information, and technology, and the book 'Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies' (Routledge 2011), which is an introduction to the theoretical and methodological foundations of critical media studies and critical information science.
He is co-ordinator of the research project 'Social Networking Sites in the Surveillance Society' (funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF), co-ordinator of Uppsala University's involvement in the 2 EU FP7 projects PACT and RESPECT, and management committee member of the EU COST Action 'Living in Surveillance Societies'.
URL: http://fuchs.uti.at
Published
2012-05-06
Section
Reflections (Non Peer-Reviewed)