MediaLaws is pleased to share the Call for Papers for a scientific conference titled “Understanding and addressing digital inequalities” organized by the Centre for a Digital Society, in cooperation with the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom. The conference shall take place on 20 to 21 November 2025, at Badia Fiesolana, EUI, Florence, Italy.
This Call for Papers builds upon a 2024 study commissioned by the European Parliament to contribute to the scientific debate on the multifaceted dimensions of digital inequalities, and to explore their impact on the digital public sphere. It aims to gather a wide scholarship interested in contributing to understanding the factors that influence digital inequalities and their impact on the functioning of democracies. It also aims to analyse policy tools that can bridge the digital divide and empower the democratic potential of digital technologies.
Topics include but is not limited to:
- The impact of digitalization on the existing inequalities and the new inequalities created in the digital environment.
- The role of algorithm bias on equal opportunities between genders and various social and ethnic groups.
- The impact of technological progress and platformization on the labour market, wage inequality, and jobs divide, focusing on the effects on social structures and organization.
- The role of innovation, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and entrepreneurship as vehicles to address and mitigate inequality. Exploring how key technologies of the future – AI, cloud computing, quantum computing, big data, and blockchain technology – can help to build digital capabilities and narrow the digital divide.
- Market power, opinion power, and agenda control: how the oligopolistic tendencies of the digital economy affect equal opportunities in civic and political participation.
- Access to information: the role of digital platforms in intermediating news consumption, analyzed by socio-economic and geographical characteristics; the emergence of territorial and social news deserts; the phenomenon of news avoidance; the divide in media and cultural consumption related to payment models.
- Social media divide: potential drivers of inequality in the use of social media, depending on individual skills, engagement and visibility; differences in passive or active use; and the impact on social capital and individual well-being.
- Data inequality and the role of individual agency in the digital sphere, particularly regarding personal data management and governance.
- Fragmentation of the public sphere, capabilities and resources for political participation, and transparency of the electoral processes. Exploring the empowering potential of digital technologies for civic engagement and participation, as well as the risk of their unequal distribution.
Extended abstracts (minimum of 1,000 words) must be submitted by 30 June 2025, using this link. Selected authors will be notified by the end of July 2025. The final version of the papers must be submitted by 20 October 2025.
Two (2) Best Junior Paper Awards will be given for the best contribution among those submitted by authors not older than 35 years.
For information about submissions and the programme please contact the organising committee: danielle.borges@eui.eu; roberta.carlini@eui.eu; natalia.menendez@eui.eu; leonardo.mazzoni@eui.eu; kot.david.adhal.nguar@eui.eu
For information about accommodation and logistics, please contact digital.society@eui
More details may be found here: Call for papers – Understanding and addressing digital inequalities
