Charles Ess, Department of Information and Media Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark: Digital Media Ethics: Contemporary and Future Issues

Charles Ess is Professor of Philosophy and Religion, and Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Drury University (Springfield, Missouri, USA). He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Department of Information- and Media Studies, University of Aarhus, Denmark. During 2007-2009, Professor Ess served as President of the Association of Internet Researchers and served as the first chair of AoIR's Ethics Working Committee. He is co-chair of the biennial conference series on "Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication (see www.catacconference.org ). He is the author of the book, Digital Media Ethics, Polity Press, published in 2009 (see www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745641645).

Abstract: I will first take up privacy issues, including their historical background in Western conceptions of self and the modern liberal state, in order to show the ethical challenges raised by the blurring of "classic" boundaries between real / virtual and body / mind - dichotomies that have grounded traditional ethics as seeking primarily to avoid harm to _bodies_. These ethical challenges are further complicated as we consider (a) cross-cultural perspectives on the self and privacy, along with (b) the continued blurring of the real/virtual boundary through continued technological developments and our increasingly _becoming_ our digital information.

Välkomna!
Rikard Harr