the 4th International Conference ComSymbol on
Believe in Technology: Mediatization of the Future and the Future of Mediatization
Co-organized with Research Center Serge Moscovici, Aurel Vlaicu University from Arad, Romania on the occasion of the Great Union Centenary
Scientific Partners
Grupo de Pesquisa Midiatização e Processos Sociais (GPMPS) of University do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – UNISINOS, Brazil
Centre d’études et de recherches multimédia (CERM), Mons University, Belgium
Cox Center for International Mass Communication Training and research, Georgia University, USA
at
Aurel Vlaicu University
November 8-9, 2018, Arad, Romania
The 4th International Conference ComSymbol aims at identifying, emphasizing and questioning the characteristics and issues of the mediatization of mankind and society’s future in the specific context of believes and dogmas of faith in technology. Understood as part of the process of communicative construction of the nowadays socio-cultural reality in a world where science, conquered by artificial intelligence, is being caught up by religion, the mediatization of the future, on the one hand, clumps together the fears of an apocalypse where the future of humanity is a life taken over by technology and, on the other hand, arouses an almost evangelical hope for a beneficial percolation of technology into the human bodies and their environment. Considering this contradictory dichotomy of media openings on the phenomenon, diverging and complementary at once, the aim of this conference edition is to provide some answers to these two main questions:
1. How the mediatized representations of the future account for the mythical and religious thinking, to which the scientific and Para scientific predictions on technology make a contribution? The point is to explore the social construction of scenarios about the future, expectations in the near future, roadmaps for tomorrow, futuristic promises of any kind, etc. in order examine the mythical and religious imaginary which plays a role in the offer of media contents about the materiality of the technological being.
2. How the mediatization of scientific, political, philosophical, economic, sociological etc. discourses on the technology of the future contributes to the mystification and/or the demystification of the faith in technology? The point is to question how the media participate in the creation and the development of ideologies linked to the technological future of society and humanity, as well as to the economic, ethical, psychological, political etc. impact of this development, which induces changes among social interactions and practices.
So as to achieve this goal, the conference is open to a range of approaches from multiple perspectives (the following list is not exhaustive):
– New upcoming InfoCom technologies
– Sociology of the future of the media
– Social networks and economy of trust in the technology of the future
– New media storytelling and the future of organisations
– Future of diversity and of its media representations
– Predictions on social transformations induced by the media
– Media investments in the policies of the future
– Technologies as an image of humankind and images of humankind in the invisible
– Mediatized explorations of the mysteries of matter, life and mind
– Cyber culture and anthropology of the future
– Media and constructions of myths on power as an immanent aspect of artificial intelligence
– Intentional servitudes to the NTIC against the liberties and rights of humankind
– Marketing of the social media and psychology of the future
– Religious representations in the mediatization of the technological future
– Mediatization of affaires and digital justice
– Education and future behaviours shaped by media
– Intelligent mediatic desacralization of religious practices
– Game of power and spirituality in the ecosystems of the future
– Figures of hope aroused by the mediatization of the technological future
– Transhumanism and ideologies of the future
– Media, ethics of the future and genetic programming
– Apocalypses and technological disasters forecasted by the media
– Roles of the media in the futurological extrapolation between believable and uncertain
– Future of spirituality in the context of immersive audio-visual media
– Media promises on the robotization of faith
– Future markets of media and the rise of the economy of the forbidden
– Start-up
– FrenchTech, Silicon Valley…
– Mediatization of the scientific imagination in touch with religions
– Mediatization of believes, convictions, predictions, utopias, the uncertain, the immanent, etc. and of the human-machine interactions
– Etc.
The conference welcomes scientists of any disciplines as well as digital technology professionals.
