‘Language, Ethics, & Fiction’ seminar, with the patronage of LEMMings. In collaboration with PhilTech.
Lucy McDonald (King’s College London), “Context Collapse Online”
Abstract: Social media platforms have significantly changed how we interact with one another, in part because they facilitate what internet theorists call ‘context collapse’. This is defined by Alice Marwick and danah boyd as the flattening of multiple, diverse audiences into one single audience (2011, 122). Much has already been made of how context collapse affects our social relationships – it makes it much harder to cultivate a sense of authenticity online, for example, and to satisfy the behavioural norms of multiple social groups. Yet context collapse has ramifications far beyond this. In this talk, I explore the impact of context collapse on communication in particular. Context collapse is surely one reason why online communication seems so different from offline communication, and why it has given rise to new communicative problems. On social media, we are not merely speaking to a large, diverse group – we are also attempting to participate in multiple overlapping conversations, with different rules, goals, and participants. I will develop a new model of ‘communicative context collapse’ and illustrate some of the political, epistemic, and moral ramifications of this radically new communicative landscape.
The seminar will be held in a hybrid mode, in person (Sala Martinetti, Via Festa del Perdono 7, Dipartimento di Filosofia “Piero Martinetti”) and online (Microsoft Teams). All are welcome!
Please, register here.
Organisers: Elisa Paganini and Laura Caponetto.
For any further information, feel free to contact Laura Caponetto at laura.caponetto1@unimi.it
