Publications, appointments, fieldwork notes and public interventions.
Applications are invited for 5 postdoctoral positions in the new ERC consolidator grant project on small social media platforms. Visit LMU job board for the links and full description of the positions. Contact ai4dignity@ethnologie.lmu.de for more information. Deadline for application: 31 August 2024
Read article →Sahana Udupa received the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2023) for a five year multi-country study on small social media platforms and contentious speech. A team of postdoctoral researchers and Udupa will explore small platform discourses and their implications in an anthropologically rooted comparative framework. The project will also provide policy recommendations for small platform governance. News coverage: European Research Council | Forschung & Lehre Magazine | LMU Munich
Read article →At the UNESCO organized Design Challenge, 136 participants from 36 countries pitched their ideas to address gender discrimination and violence in the digital space using methodologies from digital anthropology. Sahana Udupa served on the jury with Gabriela Ramos, Richard Rogers, Anders Munk and Patrik Wikstorm to select the winning projects.
Read article →The Belgium based Francqui Foundation has awarded Sahana Udupa the 2022 Francqui Chair in recognition of her contributions to critical digital research. The chair is linked to a series of lectures on the subject of “Online Extreme Speech” that Udupa will deliver in spring 2022 at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU). More about the award here.
Read article →Two open positions (one doctoral and one postdoctoral) are available (starting from 1 March 2022) in a new multiyear project on online misogyny. The project is funded by a new grant Sahana Udupa has received together with Juergen Pfeffer and Janina Steinert from the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation.
Read article →Team AI4Dignity is organizing a two-day collaborative coding event with fact checkers, AI developers and academic researchers to improve machine learning models to flag and label online extreme speech. The event will also feature public plenary and panels on, “AI, Extreme Speech and Disinformation: Global Challenges and the Way Ahead”.
Read article →Sahana Udupa has been selected as a Joan Shorenstein Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. During her fellowship in Fall 2021, she will write a research paper on artificial intelligence, extreme speech and the autonomy of fact checkers. The paper will critically evaluate the global practice of fact checking by inquiring into the interrelated axes of digital labour, political control and technology deploymet.
Read article →Project AI4Dignity has organized the first international meeting with fact checkers at LMU Munich to assess the needs and challenges facing online extreme speech moderation.
Read article →The Media Anthropology Network at the European Association for Social Anthropologists is hosting the paper, “Decoloniality and Extreme Speech” authored by Sahana Udupa at its 65th E-Seminar. Sindre Bangstad (Research Professor, KIFO, Norway) and Gabriel Dattatreyan (Senior Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London) are the discussants. The full paper is available here or here. You can participate in the e-seminar by subscribing to the mailing list: https://easaonline.org/networks/media/mailinglist
Read article →New York based Henry Luce Foundation has awarded the ONLINERPOL project team with a new grant under the program, “Religion in International Affairs”, to build a multimedia installation project on digital dignity.
Read article →At the International Communication Association Annual Conference 2020, Sahana Udupa has organized a panel, “Aggressive Emotion, Precarious Labour and Colonial Continuities: Theoretical Debates on Disinformation and Extreme Speech Online”. The panel contributes to debates around online vitriol and disinformation by advancing theoretical insights into aspects of emotionality, cultural variation and political economy in a contextually rooted and historically sensitive global framework.
Read article →European Research Council has awarded project PI Sahana Udupa Proof of Concept award for the proposed AI4Dignity project. With a team of international collaborators and software architects, Udupa will develop AI4Dignity as a collaborative Artificial Intelligence model to tackle online extreme speech. For more on the award, see here (in German)
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