Mini conference: Democratic Implications of Online Business Models

The internet provides an important infrastructure for exchanging information that is essential for democracy. However, to navigate this information-affluent society we are increasingly dependent on mediation by platforms that apply algorithms designed to increase attention and revenue rather than secure that citizens and public debates are informed.

Algorithmic mediation is less transparent than traditional curation and changes in the landscape of media and information affect discourses and the access to information which constitutes a significant challenge to democratic governance and politics. Fundamental rights - which include the right to privacy and the freedom of expression - are challenged when the interference with communication is carried out by private businesses.

The conference is divided into two parts:

Part 1: Online business models, democratic implications and the role of research

14:00-14:05: Welcome - Jan Trzaskowski, CBS LAW

14:05-14:45: The Externalities and Societal Impacts of Online Business Models - Erik K Clemons, Wharton School

14:45-15:05: Rethinking Democracy in a Digital Age - Mitchell Dean, CBS Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy

15:05-15:25: Fundamental Rights in the Modern Information Society - Rikke Frank Jørgensen, The Danish Institute for Human Rights

15:25-15:45: Technology and Society - Niels Bjørn-Andersen, CBS Department of Digitalization

15:45-16:00: Short Break

Part 2: How can research contribute to saving democracy?

16:00-16:15: Technological Architecture - Mikkel Flyverbom, CBS Department of Management, Society and Communication, Torkil Clemmensen, CBS Department of Digitalization and Maya Mitre, CBS Department of Digitalization

16:15-16:25: Behavioural Architecture - Jesper Clement, CBS Department of Marketing, Anders la Cour, CBS Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy

16:25-16:45: Legal Architecture - Andrej Savin, CBS LAW, Vishv Priya Kohli, CBS LAW, Maria Jose Schmidt-Kessen, CBS LAW and Jan Trzaskowski, CBS LAW.

16:45-17:30: Discussions - Moderator (TBA) and Panel

17:30-18:30: Reception

Place: Copenhagen Business School, Porcelænshaven 26, room 408

Attendance is free, but registration before 20 May is mandatory (seats are limited!). Send an e-mail to: seminar.jur@cbs.dk

____________________________________________________________

If interested, some information about the speakers are given below:

• Eric K. Clemons is Professor of Operations Information and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research for the past 30 years has involved the systematic study of the transformational effects of information on the strategy and practice of business. His current focus is on the public policy implications of online business models, including privacy, manipulation of public opinion, platform-based businesses, and the challenges of applying current antitrust law businesses like Google and Facebook. His most recent project is integrating three decades of study into a single volume New Patterns of Power and Profit: A Strategist's Guide to Competitive Advantage in the Age of Digital Transformation, which was published in 2018.
• Mitchell Dean is Professor of Public Governance and Head of Department, Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, at Copenhagen Business School. He is author of the well-known Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (Second Edition, 2010) and seven other books. He is currently working on the politics of truth.
• Rikke Frank Jørgensen is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen. Her research focuses on the interface between human rights and technology, the role of private actors in the online domain, social media platforms and governance (gaps). Besides her scholarly activities, she has served as an adviser to the Danish Government, participated in Council of Europe's Committee on Human Rights for Internet Users, and been closely involved in civil society networks such as European Digital Rights. She holds a PhD in Communication and Information Technology from Roskilde University and a master's degree from Aarhus University.
• Niels Bjørn-Andersen is Emeritus Professor at Copenhagen Business School associated with Department of Digitalization. During his more than 50 years of research, he has studied the relationship on the one hand the invention, deployment, adaption, diffusion, maturity and obsolescence of a long range of digital technologies and other on the other hand the implications of those technologies for the attainment of societal/organizational/human values. He has published 25 books and more than 250 other publications.
• Mikkel Flyverbom is Professor (mso) of Communication and Digital Transformations at the Department of Management, Society and Communication, Copenhagen Business School. He is academic director of the research platform Digital Transformations and founding academic director of the BSc in Business Administration and Digital Management program, both at Copenhagen Business School. Further, he is a Research Fellow at The Centre of Information Technology and Society at University of California, Santa Barbara.
• Torkil Clemmensen is Professor at the Department of Digitalization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. His research interest is psychology as a science of design. His research focus on cultural-psychological perspectives on usability, user experience, and digitalization of work. He contributes to Human-Computer Interaction, Design and Information Systems.
• Maya Mitre is postdoc at the Department of Digitalization at Copenhagen Business School. Her current research focuses on the social, ethical and political implications of digital technologies and businesses, and on how these technologies shape and respond to policies, regulations, and human values.
• Jesper Clement is Associate professor at the Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School, and he has been involved in several research projects on consumer behaviour. He is the head of SenseLab at Decision Neuroscience Research Cluster (DNRC), at Department of Marketing, which is the home base for projects in the borderland between brain research and behavioural research. The cluster is an initiative within a new discipline of research, emerging from an integration of the traditional research areas such as consumer behaviour, economics, psychology and neuroscience.
• Anders La Cour focuses on how welfare and management are coupled within both policy documents and everyday practices of different welfare services, represent to day the overall frame for his research. He investigates the dynamics that these different couplings gives occasion to within especially three empirical fields. First, in relation to the state involvement with voluntary social work, second, in relation to the Danish state meta-governance of the house associations in Denmark and thirdly, in relation to the emergence of new welfare technologies that influences the welfare service of elderly people.
• Andrej Savin is Associate Professor and Director of CBS LAW. His primary research focus is on policy and regulation in the information society in the EU. He looks at how the EU formulates IT policy on the content (e-commerce, media) and the carrier (telecoms) layers and, in particular, what processes inform lawmaking, how lobbying influences IT laws, how the EU deals with the challenges of converged media and platform economy and how digitalization challenges fundamental premises on which lawmaking is based.
• Vishv Priya Kohli is Assistant Professor at CBS LAW. Her research interest primarily lies in the area of intellectual property rights, where she has a specific focus on counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical sector in the EU. In addition, she is carrying out research on the role of big data in the telemedicine sector and studying its reverberations on intellectual property rights, competition and innovation.
• Maria José Schmidt-Kessen is Assistant Professor at CBS LAW. Her main areas of research are intellectual property rights, competition law and internet governance. She is currently working on the concept of fairness in online market places and online dispute resolution systems. She also focuses on the regulation of online gambling.
• Jan Trzaskowski is Professor (mso) of market law at CBS LAW and he has for more than two decades been professionally engaged in legal aspects of information technology with particular focus on marketing an the protection of personal data. He takes a multidisciplinary approach to law by including behavioural sciences and economics in his analyses of the law. His current focus is on fundamental rights concerning information and communication in the modern information society.