Tech Trends
Using ICT for Co-creation of Inclusive Public Spaces
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aelita Skarzauskiene
The paper aims at developing the strategies to increase the quality of public open spaces through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by influencing positively co-creation and social cohesion effects. The proposed C3PLACES methodology offers a framework to evaluate and compare the interaction between people-places-technology and identify cases that can be potentially transformed into effective co-creation ecosystems. For C3PLACES framework, Digital Co-creation Index was developed consisting of three Sub-Indexes: Place Attractiveness Index, Digital Inclusiveness Index, Social Responsiveness Index. The data and information collected on selected public open spaces in Belgium, Italy, Lithuania and Portugal enables C3PLACES to analyze and compare expectations, behaviors, and attitudes of different user groups.
Evoke: Digital Games, Empathy, and Social Change
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amanda Rodriguez Espinola
The second half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of entertainment-education as an academic field with the purpose of implementing a media message that entertains and educates an audience, contributing to social change. As digital media increases its impact in a hyper-mediated society, digital games have acquired relevance as a source of popular culture and as a tool for entertainment-education purposes. Over the last couple of decades, international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank have employed digital games to raise awareness about development and humanitarian issues. Originally, these games were directed to users in the Global North. However, in recent years, the movement of digital games for development has pushed for a more inclusive platform that integrates Global South participants in networks based on outgroup empathy and includes the diverse realities faced by the players. While research recognizes the potential of digital games as a mechanism to develop empathic behavior among users, there is a research gap in the study of digital games as tools that can enhance empathy among outgroups and the political-economic implications of their production. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how digital games, based on their unique potential to facilitate the processes necessary for generating outgroup empathy, can operate as an important tool for international organizations carrying social change programming. The importance of the project lies in bringing together the fields of digital game studies and social change through the exploration of empathy building.
Online Dispute Resolution: Fair Passage for the Few or the Many?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dr Constantina Sampani
The rigorous deliberations of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) to create a global regulatory framework for Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) has failed to generate consensus amongst its participants. This paper analyses whether the ambition of UNCITRAL to develop an inclusive regulatory platform for ODR has dully considered the complexities of cutting across cultural boundaries and power (im)balances. The objective of this inquiry is to challenge the UNCITRAL’s prevailing assumption that the a-territorial nature of technology facilitates homogeneity in ODR. To this end, the paper attempts to conceptualise the implications of globalisation and evolution of diverse cultures on ODR. The proposition is that an alternative approach will fundamentally be a combination of both cosmopolitan and legal pluralism in developing a mutually trusted platform of reference by all parties involved. The findings of the paper will inform policy makers and regulators, including those in UNCITRAL, to consider the role and interaction of various stakeholders across multiple communities in developing a framework for ODR. As such, the significance of this study lies in bringing out that the creation of the regulatory framework for ODR will need to be more deeply nuanced, due to its nature as a normative and legal hybrid, than currently envisaged by UNCITRAL.
