Digital Constitutionalism - Promoting Public Values in Digital Technologies › view all

BIGSSS PhD fellow and SOCIUM member Dennis Redeker has been granted a working group on "Digital Constitutionalism" at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Together with Mauro Santaniello (Università degli Studi di Salerno) and Claudia Padovani (Università degli Studi di Padova), Dennis assembled an interdisciplinary group of international scholars to study how basic rights and fundamental values can best be protected in the digital age. On November 20, they will conduct a kick-off workshop in Bochum which also includes a public event (please see below). 

Digital technologies are the outcomes of social processes and in turn they continuously transform our societies in fundamental ways. On the one hand, political, social and cultural values, beliefs and paradigms shape Internet architectures and design. On the other hand, the Internet and other digital technologies reorganize the way we work, keep in touch with friends, learn about the world or conduct our political affairs. In this context, the values that are embedded into digital technologies — through their design, their distribution, their governance, and their cultures of use — have a fundamental impact on our society.

The project of ‘Digital Constitutionalism’ seeks to find ways to ensure that the values of digital technologies align with shared, public values. The term includes a wide constellation of attempts to articulate fundamental rights and principles of legitimate governance of digital technologies. Digital Constitutionalism seeks to ensure that the power of both state and private actors is appropriately limited and constrained in order to protect rights and promote human flourishing. These initiatives include various undertakings by civil society, states, and business, to develop ‘Internet Bills of Rights’ and other constitutional principles that spell out adequate values for the digital age in a comprehensive way.

Public Event: Digital Constitutionalism - Promoting Public Values in Digital Technologies

How can we better protect fundamental rights and public values in the digital age? This public panel on the project of ‘digital constitutionalism’ discusses attempts to articulate and promote the requirements of better, more legitimate governance of digital technologies.

The panel discussion takes place at CAIS, Universitätsstr. 104, 44799 Bochum, on November 20, 2019, 16:00–18:30hrs.

Panel guests:

• Prof. Marianne Franklin (Goldsmiths, University of London)
• Prof. Yves Schemeil (Sciences Po Grenoble)
• Prof. Claudia Padovani (University of Padova)
• Prof. Nicholas Suzor (Queensland University of Technology)
• Moderator: Dennis Redeker (BIGSSS/SOCIUM, Universität Bremen and Jacobs University Bremen)

Please register for the event by sending an email to kolloquium@cais.nrw.