IRC 22 - Proposed Session - # ActFromHome

Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 - # Home - Call for Sessions

Session Type: Workshop or Collaborative Working Session

Session Plan

Objectives of the Session

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, nations across the world instituted a range of public health  measures that limited mobility in many areas, while confining families to homes for indefinite periods of time.  Poverty, unemployment and other forms of inequality rose - both within and outside the home. Further, angst  against various issues rose- worsening climate injustices, racial violence, gender discrimination, arbitrary  layoffs across workplaces, and silencing of minority voices. In a pre-pandemic era, such issues would have  elicited physical protest movements by the groups concerned, but with limited mobility - the digital space has  become an arena for home-based protests and movements.

This workshop seeks to answer a fundamental question: “Can democracies under crisis survive the home based protests across digital platforms?” It will highlight the role of emerging technologies in shaping the  role of home-based digital protests across nations and cultures, with a specific focus on perspectives from  Israel and India. Further, it will analyse the immense opportunities and pitfalls of driving home-based social  movements on digital platforms. Moreover, the workshop will investigate the ambiguous positioning of online  government surveillance and content moderation on collective human rights, with a specific focus on human  rights within the home. In addition, it will examine the impact of digital home-based protests upon the aptness  and scope of modern democratic regimes.

Course of the Session and Work Division

1. Overview on the role of digital spaces and emerging technologies in promoting the role of the home as a space for protest
2. Thought exercise involving participants in  analysing the merits and demerits of digitising  home-based social movements.
3. Discussion on government surveillance and content moderation
4. Discussion on the impact of digital home-based protests
5. Group work involving participants in designing a digital social movement for a given cause (from a range of causes including climate action, gender  equality, vaccine nationalism etc.)