[Air-L] CfP: International Workshop on WhatsApp, hate and disinfo/ March 30-31, 2023, abstracts due 30 Nov 2022

[sahana udupa]

Apologies for cross-posting!



*Call for papers *

*International Workshop*



*Hate and Disinformation on WhatsApp: Global Perspectives*

*30, 31 March 2023*

Venue: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Stellenbosch,
South Africa

Hosted by

Sahana Udupa, University of Munich (LMU), Germany

Herman Wasserman, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

*Extended abstract deadline:  30 Nov 2022*

*Full papers due: 28 Feb 2023*

This workshop aims to examine the cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp
and its relationship with disinformation and extreme speech in a global
perspective. Our objective is to contribute to disinformation and extreme
speech scholarship by exploring the unique cultures, affordances and
challenges of WhatsApp. Based on insights from different regions and
diverse contexts of use, we aim to map the differences, similarities and
connections globally, and highlight regulatory and methodological
challenges that encrypted information services such as WhatsApp have raised
for academic research and policymaking. WhatsApp’s popularity has been
linked to low Internet connectivity and high data costs in the global South
contexts but its uptake in different regions of the world, including parts
of the global South, awaits systematic research around how distinct user
practices, infrastructural conditions and political deployments have
developed around the messaging service, and how such features have uniquely
inflected disinformation and extreme speech environments.


The workshop will have five interrelated focal points: Culture, regulation,
content, infrastructure and method. Questions we will be exploring include:

*Cultures and contexts*

   - What contextual social and cultural conditions amplify the
   co-creation, consumption and spread of disinformation and extreme speech on
   Whatsapp? What kind of practices have emerged around WhatsApp, and how do
   they fold into extreme speech as habitual, deliberate and lived forms of
   discourse and meaning?
   - How do contemporary practices of extreme speech and disinformation on
   Whatsapp map onto longer social, political and cultural histories?
   - To what extent do political cultures shape the nature and tone of
   discourse on Whatsapp?
   - How do political campaigns and disinformation services engage and
   deploy WhatsApp? How do such strategies include the very
   instrumentalization of “fake news”, “hate speech” and “disinformation” as
   rhetorical and misleading devices for divisive politics?
   - How does state surveillance against political dissent unfold on and
   with WhatsApp?
   - What kind of subversive speech practices and anti-hate activism have
   developed in and through WhatsApp?


*Regulation*

   - What is an appropriate normative framework within which Big Tech can
   be held accountable for the spread of extreme speech and disinformation on
   their encrypted and cross-platform messaging services?
   - What challenges does Whatsapp pose for policy-making across countries
   and regions with vastly different media rights environments?


*Content*

   - What are examples of problematic content on Whatsapp? How do they
   connect with or draw from problematic content types circulating on other
   platforms?
   - How can problematic content on WhatsApp be countered, corrected or
   challenged?
   - What challenges do content in languages other than English as well as
   visuals, memes and multimedia materials pose for regulation and moderation?


*Infrastructure*

   - What affordances offered by WhatsApp facilitate or help amplify
   problematic and harmful content? How do these affordances develop in
   situated contexts of use and as sociotechnical architectures shaped by
   global technology?
   - How should we understand the impact of low connectivity and high data
   rates on the popularity of Whatsapp?
   - What challenges to awareness raising campaigns are posed by WhatsApp’s
   significance in low-data environments?
   - What are the unique infrastructural possibilities of WhatsApp where
   data and connection are not an issue?
   - What capacities does Whatsapp offer to tackle disinformation?
   - How does WhatsApp as an infrastructure intersect with and constitute
   the disinformation ecosystem in very specific ways?
   - To what extent can solutions for disinformation on Whatsapp be
   relevant for similar encrypted information services?


*Method:*

   - What are the unique methodological challenges that encrypted messaging
   services such as WhatsApp have posed to research? What are the ways to
   overcome emerging problems?
   - How do researchers negotiate ethical and practical issues of data
   protection, privacy, confidentiality and trust in studying WhatsApp?
   - What are the opportunities for researchers to combine ethnography,
   field experiments and computational methods in WhatsApp research?
   - How do WhatsApp networks challenge methodological nationalism?


The types of problematic content we will be covering in the workshop
include:

Extreme speech (derogatory, exclusionary and dangerous),
Dis-/misinformation (including health misinformation, political
disinformation, conspiracy theories, rumors and scams) and foreign
influence operations.

We welcome a wide range of methods and approaches, including ethnographies,
field experiments, online content analysis, political economy analysis,
network analysis and NLP,  and policy and regulation research.

*Workshop Format: *

The workshop will run over two days. To enable participants to learn from a
diverse range of perspectives, approaches and methods, all sessions will be
in plenary format.

We invite researchers to send extended abstracts (1200 words) to
whatsappworkshop at ethnologie.lmu.de before 30 November 2022. Selected
participants will be notified by 15 December 2022. Abstracts should contain
a clear outline of the argument, theoretical framework, methodology,
empirical findings, and a brief note on how your research links to the
overall theme of the workshop. Please also include 3-5 keywords that
describe your work, and a short bio (up to 100 words, stating affiliation).
Full papers (6000 words) of selected submissions are due on 28 February
2023.

Attendance to this closed workshop is fully funded. Organizers will cover
the costs of travel and accommodation. Submissions will contribute to a
planned co-edited volume, and should therefore not be under consideration
for publication elsewhere.



***

Sahana Udupa | Professor of Media Anthropology | University of Munich (LMU)

Out now:
https://shorensteincenter.org/ethical-scaling-content-moderation-extreme-speech-insignificance-artificial-intelligence/


https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/digital_technology_and_extreme_speech_udupa_17_sept_2021.pdf