AI in the public sphere: between promises and fears


Nell’ambito della prossima edizione del DIGITALmeet, PaSTIS presenterà i principali risultati della ricerca condotta sui principali quotidiani italiani per analizzare come viene affrontata l’intelligenza artificiale nel dibattito pubblico. La ricerca è parte del progetto TIPS, avviato nel 2014 con l’obiettivo di monitorare e analizzare il discorso mediale sulla tecnoscienza in Italia e in altri paesi.


L’incontro – che avrà luogo il 25 ottobre alle 18:30 presso la Sala Rossini del Caffè Pedrocchi a Padova – verrà introdotto e coordinato da Alessio Giacometti (Università di Padova, Dipartimento FISPPA) con interventi di Federico Neresini (Università di Padova, Dipartimento FISPPA) e Nicola Orio (Università di Padova). Ingresso libero.

“Manufacturing Refused Knowledge in the Age of Epistemic Pluralism”, di Federico Neresini, Maria Carmela Agodi, Stefano Crabu e Simone Tosoni


Siamo lieti di annunciare la pubblicazione del libro “Manufacturing Refused Knowledge in the Age of Epistemic Pluralism” curato da Federico Neresini, Maria Carmela Agodi, Stefano Crabu e Simone Tosoni, edito Palgrave Macmillan.

Il volume in open access esplora le pratiche contemporanee che sfidano la scienza, sostenendo che questa materia non può essere semplicemente considerata una nuova manifestazione di “antiscientismo”. Il libro, che comprende 11 capitoli, analizza i processi attraverso i quali le rivendicazioni di conoscenza, rifiutate dalle istituzioni e dalla comunità scientifica, cercano legittimità. Assumendo una posizione analitica agnostica, il lavoro esplora gli attori coinvolti in tali processi, i loro mondi sociali, le loro interazioni con le istituzioni epistemiche e i modi in cui mettono in atto tale conoscenza rifiutata nella loro vita quotidiana. Il volume si basa su un progetto di ricerca triennale condotto attraverso metodi misti, e dimostra come il sapere rifiutato possa essere considerato come una specifica modalità di conoscenza, adottata in risposta alle incertezze della vita quotidiana. In questo modo, il libro offre una comprensione più profonda non solo del modo in cui il sapere rifiutato acquista credibilità, ma anche di come il sapere in generale – compreso quello scientifico – emerga da specifici assemblaggi sociotecnici.

Il libro è disponibile in Open Access sul sito dell’editore al seguente link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-7188-6.

2° rapporto del progetto TIPS – Technoscientific Issues in the Public Sphere: 2022 È ANCORA PANDEMIA


Finalmente è online il secondo rapporto TIPS– Technoscientific Issue in the Public Sphere che indaga l’impatto della pandemia sulla copertura mediale della tecnoscienza. Dallo studio, coordinato da Federico Neresini e a cui hanno preso parte diversi membri di Pa.S.T.I.S tra cui Paolo Giardullo, Stefano Crabu, Barbara Morsello e Andrea Sciandra emerge quanto la pandemia sia ancora centrale nel contesto della comunicazione pubblica: i dati rilevati sui quotidiani mostrano chiaramente come gli avvenimenti pandemici si riflettano ancora sul discorso pubblico sulla tecnoscienza.

Call for participants in a Workshop within the ISRF 2021-2022 “Digital Intimacies and Emerging Adults in Southern Europe: Crisis, Pandemics and Resistances project”


We invite doctoral and post-doctoral researchers who are working in the following fields to participate in the Digital Intimacies and Emerging Adults two-day workshop which will take place at University of Padova (Italy) on 02 and 03 September  2022:

  • Sexual content production and consumption 
  • Sex workers and digital platforms
  • Discourses about platformed sex labour 
  • Sex industry and representations of the sexual body
  • Intersections of age, gender, race and sexuality
  • Sex work as aesthetic labour
  • Intimacy repertoires in public and private spaces
  • Social movement organizations around sex work and / or digital platforms
  • Debates about labour precarity and digital forms of work
  • Digital / online harassment connected to sex work
  • Censorship and regulation of the sex industry
  • The impact of mainstream financial companies in the pursuit of self-managed sex work
  • The multiple meanings of pornography, post-pornography and diversity in sexuality representation
  • The roles of physical media in a digital, networked, society
  • Porn literacies and intimate citizenship

The workshop will provide the participants the opportunity to discuss their research with the colleagues and a team of scholar experts in the field.

At the opening of each day the workshop will host a keynote speech from two relevant scholars in the field: Jamie Hakim and Katherine Tiidenberg that will also take part in the discussions with the participants.

For this Call, please kindly submit, in no more than 1000 (a thousand) words:

  • A short overview of the area of work you’re developing or plan to develop
  • A short overview of the type of data that you are collecting, and that you would like to discuss and present during the Workshop
  • A few ideas about the type of feedback that you would like to receive during this Workshop by the research specialists that will be attending
  • A short rationale about why you think this workshop will considerably develop your research skills and how it aligns with the topics and framework(s) you are currently working on, or intend to work on.

We also ask you to include your current academic status (e.g., postdoctoral research fellow, PhD student), your host institution(s), country of origin, and whether you have any specific accessibility requirements that might impact your participation in this event.

Please send your submissions by 22nd May 2022 using the form that you can find here: https://ulusofona.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6R0mYCLhWv6CIxo

The team:

Cosimo Marco Scarcelli – University of Padova, Italy (cosimomarco.scarcelli@unipd.it)

Daniel Cardoso – Universidade Lusófona, Portugal; Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal (daniel.cardoso@ulusofona.pt

Despina Chronaki – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (dchronaki@jour.auth.gr

Scientific Committee

Daniel Cardoso, Despina Chrnoaki, Mirco Costacurta, Jamie Hakim, Cosimo Marco Scarcelli, Katherine Tiidenberg.

Organisational Commitee

Mirco Costacurta, Matilde Francisca, Davide Gerardi, Giulia Giacomelli, Rachele Reschiglian, Maria Zappi.

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

DAY ONE – 2nd September 2022

14.30 Introduction

15.00 – 16.30: Keynote Jamie Hakim

17.00 – 19.00: Participants’ presentations 1

DAY TWO – 3rd September 2022

10.30 – 12.00: Keynote Katrin Tiidenberg

12.00-14.00: Break

14.00 – 16.00: Participants’ presentations 2

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30 – 18.30: Participants’ presentations 3 

18.30 – 19.00: Conclusion

Visualizing science on screen: un nuovo progetto sugli Science Film Festival è in corso!


Un nuovo progetto è in corso sul caso-studio della Rassegna Internazionale del Film Scientifico-Didattico, dell’Università di Padova e della Mostra del Cinema di Venezia, tra il 1956-1975 in Italia.

Questo progetto di ricerca, basato sull’archivio, indaga su come le rassegne di film scientifici siano siti privilegiati per studiare il rapporto tra scienza, cinema, competenze e pubblico nel corso del ventesimo secolo. Il periodo preso in esame va, più precisamente, dalla metà degli anni ’50 alla fine degli anni ’70. Per maggiori informazioni visita la pagina del progetto nella sezione “Progetti” del nostro sito.

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OPEN CALL: 6th STS Italia Summer School


PASTIS Research Group – University of Padova 

STS Lab – University of Lausanne 

STS ITALIA – Italian Society for Science and Technology Studies 

is organizing the 6th STS Italia Summer School, “Disentangling Futures: Promises, Scenarios, Experiments“, to be held in Padova (Italy) from September 27th to October 1st, 2022.

The Summer School aims at providing a theoretical, analytical, and methodological toolbox to carry out STS-inspired research into the role of futures in co-producing technoscience and governance, and in reshaping science-technology-society interfaces.

Goals, main topics and aims 

In the last decade, Science and Technology Studies (STS) have paid increasing attention to the performative role of “futures”, anticipatory expectations, and “forward-looking statements” in co-defining knowledge-making processes and technological developments. Currently, this broad interest in disentangling the nexus between the future and technoscience flows into several research streams: from the assessment of long-term futures of technological innovation, setting out how future-oriented socio-technical imaginaries act upon real-time technoscientific innovation, up to actionable anticipatory frameworks and normative scenarios adopted to intervene in science, technology and innovation governance and policy-making. 

The 6th STS Italia Summer School aims at providing a theoretical, analytical, and methodological toolbox to carry out STS-inspired research into the role of futures in co-producing technoscience and governance, and in reshaping science-technology-society interfaces. 

Main themes that will be addressed: 

Science-society interface approaches related to the future, including technoscientific expectations, sociotechnical imaginaries, and technological promises; 

The role of future scenarios in shaping policies and processes of innovation; 

The role of emerging technologies in shaping technoscientific imaginaries and public discourses; 

Investigating technoscientific expectations, imaginaries and promises in newspapers and online media; 

The relationship between imaginaries and fictional representations in shaping technoscience; 

Taking inspiration from art, exhibitions and ‘art/science’ experiments to enhance the study of innovation in the future. 

Organisation 

The Summer School will be organised around lectures and seminars. To make the coursework more responsive, the participants will be engaged in seminars in which they will investigate the main themes of the Summer School working in small groups, through activities, discussions, inputs and examples. A group of scholars from STS Italia will participate in all activities as facilitators. Moreover, the School will include a guided tour to an exhibition art space in Venice, in order to offer materials and inspiration for workshop activities related to the relationship between art, technoscience and the future. All lectures and seminars will be in English. 

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

Marc Audétat (University of Lausanne – CH) 
Silvia Casini (University of Aberdeen – UK) 
Kornelia Konrad (University of Twente – NL) 
Federico Neresini (University of Padova – IT) 
Barbara Prainsack (University of Vienna – AT) 
Philippe Sormani (University of Lausanne – CH) 

Schedule, costs, and accommodation 

All participants are expected to attend the entire duration of the Summer School and a Certificate of Attendance will be provided at the end. The fee for participation is 250 €. The fee includes: 

  1. Access to all lectures and workshops 
  2. Lunches and coffee breaks 
  3. Social dinner 
  4. Welcome aperitif 
  5. A guided tour to an exhibition space in Venice 
  6. A two-month access to TIPS, an online platform for media analysis 

Attendants will be responsible to arrange their own accommodation. A list of selected hotels, B&Bs and budget accommodations will be provided to participants. 

Who should attend? 

This Summer School is intended for PhD students and junior researchers from different fields and disciplines (including science and technology studies, social study of health and medicine, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and/or related fields) who are interested in developing a STS sensibility toward this field of study. 

The maximum number of participants is limited to 25 people. Candidates will be selected based on their CV and research interests as well as with a view to maintaining a balance of genders and nationalities. 

Scholarships 

The Summer School includes two different scholarship schemes: 

  • Up to 5 scholarships (covering the participation fees) will be available for talented students. Scholarship applicants must send a statement of purpose (maximum 500 words) explaining why attending this summer school would be important for their academic studies or career and also outlining the reasons why a scholarship is required. Scholarship recipients will be selected on the basis of documented academic performance, personal achievements, and financial needs. 
  • Up to 5 scholarships (covering the participation fees) are available for PhD students and talented undergraduate students affiliated with Padova and Lausanne Universities. Scholarship applicants must send a statement of purpose (maximum 500 words) explaining why attending this summer school would be important for their academic studies or career. 

Benefits of attending 

Through both attending lectures and practicing concepts, theories and empirical methods in group discussions and workshops, students will gain insights and suggestions on how to develop STS sensibility in relation to the study of futures in technoscience-making processes. Moreover, the school is intended to act as an intellectually and socially stimulating environment. Drawing upon previous experience, the school is organised to foster informal learning opportunities, sharing of ideas, and developing networks among participants. 

Participants will be granted two-months of free access to the research online platform TIPS (Technoscientific Issues in the Public Sphere, http://www.tipsproject.eu/tips/#/public/home). The TIPS research online platform allows users to implement automatic procedures for collecting, classifying, and analysing digital contents available on the web – mainly online news – in order to monitor science and technology topics and their evolution. The platform includes UK, US, French, Spanish, Russian and Latin-American daily newspapers, with more than 2.6 million documents. 

How to apply 

The application form is available here. After space for personal details, the form includes a place to upload a short scientific CV (maximum 2 pages) and a statement of interest (maximum 300 words), which should describe the applicant’s current research and its relevance to the aims of the summer school. Finally, a statement of purpose (maximum 300 words) is mandatory only for scholarship applications. 

Applications must be submitted electronically to the Summer School Organizing Committee at: stsitaliasummerschool@gmail.com. 

The application deadline is April 30th, 2022. 

Schedule 

April 30th, 2022: Application deadline 

May 15th, 2022: Notification of acceptance and scholarship eligibility. 

June 15th, 2022: Registration deadline 

Scientific and Organising Committee 

  • • Marc Audétat (University of Lausanne) 
  • • Simone Arnaldi (University of Trieste) 
  • • Silvia Casini (Aberdeen University) 
  • • Luca Chiapperino (University of Lausanne) 
  • • Stefano Crabu (University of Padova) 
  • • Paolo Giardullo (University of Padova) 
  • • Paolo Magaudda (University of Padova) 
  • • Barbara Morsello (University of Padova) 
  • • Federico Neresini (University of Padova) 
  • • Francesco Panese (University of Lausanne) 
  • • Annalisa Pelizza (University of Bologna) 
  • • Philippe Sormani (University of Lausanne) 

Please do not hesitate to contact the Organising Committee via email at stsitaliasummerschool@gmail.com for any further questions regarding the school. 

The intricacies of power relations and digital technologies in organizational processes


E’ uscito sulla rivista Studi Organizzativi lo special issue “The intricacies of power relations and digital technologies in organizational processes” curato da Francesco Miele assieme ad Attila Bruni, Daniel Pittino e Lia Tirabeni. Il volume, ospitando sei contributi di autori italiani e internazionali, si propone di contribuire al superamento della visione determinista del rapporto tra cambiamento tecnologico e asimmetrie di potere sui luoghi di lavoro. Ponendosi all’incrocio tra studi organizzativi, sociologia del lavoro e science and technology studies, i lavori proposti riflettono sui complessi intrecci che coinvolgono le tecnologie e i loro usi emergenti, i processi organizzativi nel loro complesso e le dinamiche di potere e controllo nelle organizzazioni contemporanee. 

Seminar on Science, Technology and Media Studies: a Showcase of Empirical Research


Schermata 2021 06 21 alle 11.02.19 | Padova Science Technology and Innovation Studies <p>
Durante il mese di giugno Pastis curerà un ciclo di seminari su Science, Technology & Media Studies nell'ambito del PhD in Social Sciences: Interactions, Communication, Cultural Constructions dell'Università di Padova. Gli incontri, previsti per il 14, il 22 e il 30 giugno saranno curati Paolo Magaudda e Marco Scarcelli ed avranno diversi ospiti del panorama italiano ed internazionale, i quali saranno chiamati a condividere e discutere le loro esperienze di ricerca. Il primo appuntamento Media, Sexualities and Masculinities avrà come ospite principale John Mercer dalla Birmingham City University con un intervento sulle domande di ricerca e le sfide dei masculinities and media studies, mentre i due successivi si concentreranno principalmente su Science, Technology, Knowledge and Infrastructures con un primo intervento di Attila Bruni dall'Università di Trento sulle infrastrutture digitali di Arbnb mentre il secondo intervento di Barbara Morsello dall'Università di Padova, si soffermerà sul ruolo delle Refused Knowledge Communities (RKCs) online durante la pandemia da Sars-Cov2. Chiuderà il ciclo l'ultimo incontro su Media, Gender and Intimacy con Jamie Hakim dal King’s College London, con una riflessione sull'intimità digitale.</p>
Durante il mese di giugno Pastis curerà un ciclo di seminari su Science, Technology & Media Studies nell’ambito del PhD in Social Sciences: Interactions, Communication, Cultural Constructions dell’Università di Padova. Gli incontri, previsti per il 14, il 22 e il 30 giugno saranno curati Paolo Magaudda e Marco Scarcelli ed avranno diversi ospiti del panorama italiano ed internazionale, i quali saranno chiamati a condividere e discutere le loro esperienze di ricerca. Il primo appuntamento Media, Sexualities and Masculinities avrà come ospite principale John Mercer dalla Birmingham City University con un intervento sulle domande di ricerca e le sfide dei masculinities and media studies, mentre i due successivi si concentreranno principalmente su Science, Technology, Knowledge and Infrastructures con un primo intervento di Attila Bruni dall’Università di Trento sulle infrastrutture digitali di Arbnb mentre il secondo intervento di Barbara Morsello dall’Università di Padova, si soffermerà sul ruolo delle Refused Knowledge Communities (RKCs) online durante la pandemia da Sars-Cov2. Chiuderà il ciclo l’ultimo incontro su Media, Gender and Intimacy con Jamie Hakim dal King’s College London, con una riflessione sull’intimità digitale.