Critical Deliberative Democracy Tech Workshop: Empowering Grassroot Collective Actions

As socio-political conflicts continue to emerge around the world, citizens are increasingly worried about how public interest decisions are made and how social tensions can be prevented, mitigated, and resolved. Recent surveys have shown that people are seeking new ways to engage in democratic and inclusive discussions about these issues. However, the deliberative spaces available for communities and institutions to co-create ideas and bridge ideas to actions are highly inadequate. This problem is only worsened by issues of loss of trust in public institutions, civic disengagement, unequally distributed power, and a lack of transparency of decisions.

The Critical Deliberative Democracy Tech workshop, organized by CALL in collaboration with the Knowledge Media Institute and in coherence with the ORBIS project goals, aims to address these issues. The workshop will be held within the framework of the 11th International Conference on Communities & Technologies and will focus on empowering grassroot collective actions. The workshop will explore new ways to enable citizens to participate in the democratic process and co-create solutions to the issues facing their communities.

The Critical Deliberative Democracy Tech workshop will bring together academics, practitioners, and activists to explore how technology can be used to facilitate deliberative democracy. The workshop will focus on how technology can be used to create more inclusive deliberative spaces, promote transparency, and empower citizens to take collective action. Participants will share their experiences and knowledge, discuss best practices, and develop new ideas and strategies for promoting deliberative democracy.

The workshop is open to anyone interested in promoting deliberative democracy and empowering grassroot collective actions. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with experts in the field, learn about cutting-edge research and tools, and collaborate with others to develop new solutions. If you are interested in attending the Critical Deliberative Democracy Tech workshop, please visit the event website [https://events.kmi.open.ac.uk/ct-2023/] for more information and registration details.

Make your proposal by May 17th and join us in Lahti on May 29th to discuss questions, tensions, norms for working with institutions, communities and technologies towards Deliberative Democracy.

With Thanks to Giulia Forsythe
Flickr image “Open Sustainable Research Communities for the Public Good”