In juni organiseer ik samen met mijn collega Marco Mostert (UU) de conferentie “Trust and Emerging Media”. We gaan dan helemaal de geschiedenis induiken op zoek naar een antwoord op de vraag hoe het eigenlijk komt dat we bepaalde media meer geloven dan andere. Hoe komt geloofwaardigheid van een medium tot stand, en waardoor komt geloofwaardigheid juist in gevaar – van papyrus tot pixels, het wordt een hele reis.
Conference announcement
Trust is the basis of all social relations. It presupposes the concordance between word and deed, i.e. the predictability of human action. Because of that, trust is able to create security and stability. Rather than an emotion, trust is an attitude based on experience. It doesn’t rise spontaneously but comes from observation and socialization. As such trust is not only crucial for interpersonal relations, but also for society as a whole. In the absence of trust, neither social relations nor a political order will endure. Trust is expressed through communication and thus closely linked to the history of communication technologies.
The first interdisciplinary Symposium on Changing Literacies at Utrecht University brings together scholars from various backgrounds and disciplines to discuss one of the major problems posed by the emergence of new media technologies: that of trust. Regarding the preconditions for trust as culturally determined and thus object to change, the presentations will explore how media help to establish but also endanger trust in the life of the individuals as well as in the society as whole – today and in the past.
The presentations will concentrate on specific periods in the development of Western civilization during which certain media seem to have been predominant: the periods of the spoken, handwritten and the printed word and that of audiovisual electronic media. The goal of the conference is to get more insights in the dynamic process in which emerging media technologies have challenged established forms of communication and as a consequence of that fostered new literacies. The interdisciplinary dialogue will focus on the problem of trust and emerging media guided by questions like:
- What constitutes trust in media at a given time?
- What characterizes the discourses on trust and distrust and how do they change over time? What interests (socially, politically) do they serve?
- What rhetorical strategies are at work within the discourse(s) on trust and distrust in media? How do those strategies build on established formal conventions, authorized forms of knowledge and the institutionalized frameworks in which they are situated?
- How do discourses on trust and distrust in media help new media come into being, or, quite reverse, stand in their way?
- What role do rituals or ceremonies play in enhancing the trustworthiness of an emerging medium?
- What is considered a violation of trust and on what grounds?
In a final session, the specific problems of trust articulated at a given time will be discussed and a provisional answer will be sought to the question, whether or not all emerging media pose the same kinds of problems regarding truth and trust.
Organisation: Focus area Cultures & Identities (platform Changing Literacies) at Utrecht University.
For more information about Changing Literacies at Utrecht University: Please download my Changing Literacies Position under ‘publication’ and check out the UU website (Research/focusgebieden).
