Lecture | Leiden University Nationalism Network
Nationalism and Social Media: Panel Discussion
- Date
- Wednesday 17 May 2023
- Time
- Series
- Leiden University Nationalism Network events
- Location
-
Gravensteen
Pieterskerkhof 6
2311 SR Leiden - Room
- 0.11
Abstract
Initially, the invention of internet led to optimistic dreams about the world being turned into a global village. However, nationalism seems to have invaded cyberspace. Since algorithms give priority to emotional content exalted nationalism, xenophobia and hate-speech seem to have gotten free reign on social media. The filter bubbles and echo chambers of social media further encourage chauvinism and polarization. Are the users passive pawns in the hands of transnational corporations and their algorithms or do they actively contribute to the heating up of nationalist feelings through their own behavior? In this panel three internationally recognized experts reflect on the role of nationalism on social media.
Speakers
Krisztina Lajosi-Moore is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European Culture at the Department of European Studies of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Her main research area is nationalism and transnationalism studies, with a special focus on the intersections between culture, history, media and political thought. She is the author of Staging the Nation: Opera and Nationalism in 19th-Century Hungary (2018) and recently she edited a special issue on The transnational circulation of digital nationalism.
Saif Shahin is assistant professor in the Department of Culture Studies at Tilburg University. He studied Media and International Relations in India, Britain and the United States and is an expert on digital politics and critical data studies. His research takes a critical look at the production of power in digital discourses and the politics of online identity construction. He has published widely on nationalism and social movements on social media. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Information Technology & Politics.
Florian Schneider is senior lecturer Modern China Studies at Leiden University. He is an expert on nationalism and Chinese digital media. In 2013 he received an NWO VIDI grant to examine Sino-Japanese history in online networks. His China’s digital nationalism was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. His research interests include questions of governance, political communication, and digital technology in China, as well as international relations in the East-Asian region.
Join meeting
The meeting will be held on campus, at Gravensteen 0.11, but will also be streamed via Zoom.