Saturday, December 5, 2009, 9am-6pm at Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, University of California, Berkeley

This one-day symposium will explore the questions: How are Internet communities re-configuring and re-constituting common conceptions of the public, the public good, the public interest, and civic responsibility? What new forms of dialogue are emerging with our new media? When do the pleasures of interacting with digital technologies coincide with, and facilitate, progressive social action?

Speakers

	Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
	Jim Buckmaster, CEO of craigslist
	Mitchell Kapor, Co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation
	Howard Rheingold, Critic and writer
	Dick Costolo, COO of Twitter
	Judith Donath, Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center
	Seth Goldstein, Co-Founder and CEO of SocialMedia Networks
	Reid Hoffman, Founder of Linkedin.com
	Lars Rasmussen, co-developer of Google Wave
	Hubert Dreyfus, Professor of Philosophy, author of What Computers Still Can't Do
	Jane McGonigal, Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future
	Kristen Whissel, Professor of Film Studies, author of Picturing American Modernity
	Laura Sydell, Arts & Technology Correspondent for the NPR newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition
	Marc Davis, Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Invention Arts

Jürgen Habermas’ treatise on “the public sphere” locates the seeds of the French Revolution in the 18th century rise of new media, such as newspapers and journals, coffee houses and reading clubs, that facilitated the rapid exchange of ideas among educated citizens outside the state’s control. In contrast, Søren Kierkegaard attributed the inertia of the mid-19th century to the public’s superficial engagement with media: “[T]he public comes into existence because all its participants become third parties….[T]his public gallery seeks some distraction, and soon gives itself over to the idea that everything which someone does, or achieves, has been done to provide the public something to gossip about…."

Internet forums – participatory and collaboratively authored online communities, discussion boards, blogs, and social networking sites – are rapidly changing the modes and norms of public communication. Is our new media age a revolutionary one, similar to that analyzed by Habermas? Or is it a period of widespread passivity, as Kierkegaard lamented of his own time?

Are the protocols of Internet affinity groups fragmenting the public into increasingly narrower niches, creating insularity and “echo-chambers” of opinion, thus undermining opportunities for productive debates amongst individuals with diverse worldviews? Or are contemporary Web users more often than not forging alliances and finding overlaps with strangers who are radically different from them in the “real world?”

The symposium will be presented by the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM), and will take place at the University of California, Berkeley. As a public university that has itself served as a medium for the emergence of new forms of public activism, UC Berkeley will provide an ideal setting for scholars to present pioneering research on new media and the public interest.

Registration is now open. Discounts available with advance registration through November 23. Space is limited, so register early. If you have questions, please call BCNM at 510-495-3505 or email us at info.bcnm@berkeley.edu. You can also join our mailing list to receive the latest updates about BCNM.

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