CFP: The Ethical and Public Problems of Digital Culture (Edited by D. Sisto)

The Ethical and Public Problems of Digital Culture
Edited by Davide Sisto

"Lessico di Etica Pubblica" 
http://www.eticapubblica.it/call-for-paper/
Deadline: 30 gennaio 2018

Our time is deeply influenced by the radical changes brought about by digital culture, namely the set of new information technologies that have been developing within the public space in the last decades of the Twentieth century. In just a few years, Generation X – the one including those approximately born between 1965 and 1980 – will be the last one that has witnessed a historical period with no computers, no mobile phones and, more importantly, no Internet. These three devices have given to citizens new means of communication, information and expression of personal ideas that are wholly unprecedented if compared to the times before their spread, and have caused radical revolutions in our daily habits. Yet the meaning of the many sociocultural horizons that have thus opened is still unclear and indefinite to us.
Particularly, the spread of social networks and blogs, as well as the possibility to freely open our own webpage and express ourselves or offer any kind of information and resources to the international community a) has increased the contradictions that have always existed within the relationship between the real and the virtual, b) has added further juridical issues – mostly concerned with personal privacy – that were inconceivable up to a few decades ago, c) has changed the way in which we take part in the political, cultural and social life both on a national and an international level, d) has increased and at the same time diminished individual freedom, e) has transformed the notion of work, and f) has given us new potential to create relationships within the public space.
The topics and issues that stem from the progressive spread of digital culture are so wide that they need and interdisciplinary approach in their interpretation, one that can be applied both to technical and scientific disciplines and to the humanities, aiming at pinpointing the potentials and the risks that this culture brings into the public space where we live.
The aim of the next number of our review is therefore to highlight the main ethical issues concerning digital culture and its spread in the public space.