Communication, Technology, and Human Dignity: Disputed Rights, Contested Truths

The congress of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) will take place from 7th to 11st of July of 2019 in the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the UCM. The premise of this edition is Communication, Technology, and Human dignity, seeking to generate a cross-disciplinary debate that brings differing but interacting perspectives to bear on the urgent issues raised by present developments.

The Audiovisual Studies Research Group is joining the congress with a conference on “Critical analysis of communication policies in the European Union: the incidence of audiovisual subtitling in the protection and promotion of minority languages”, the 10th of July. This work of Enrique Castelló Mayo, Margarita Ledo Andión, Antía López Gómez and Silvia Roca Baamonde is linked to the “EUVOS. Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial. Para un Programa Europeo de Subtitulado en Linguas Non Hexemónicas” project.

Communication, Tecnologies, and Human Dignity

The IAMCR Madrid 2019 aim to analyse the impact of the latest advances in communication technology on society, culture and human rights, giving special importance to the quality and authenticity of sources and messages in view of increased mechanization and artificial intelligence. The context of these problems is how the advance of technology affects the quality of human life, how communication technology affects the objectivity of facts, and how the geopolitical and socioeconomic contexts are affected by the most recent changes in the structure and modes adopted by communication processes.

Present tendencies and scenarios pose urgent questions for individual and social rights. How can communication continue to facilitate human connection ,understanding and mutual respect in the face of the ever-increasing technological nature of the media and geopolitical turbulence? How can we define and reflect on our personal and social identities at a time when the emerging technologies and other factors call into question the established notion of “belonging to a nation”?

Control over the organisation of innovations in communication and their applications has increasing passed from governments to corporations. Concern with the public interest and the common good has been increasing displaced by business models designed to maximise revenues. These models are bolstering appeals to consumption while weakening the social contract of citizenship, providing new and largely unregulated platforms for the dissemination of rumour, misinformation and ‘fake’ news, ushering in the era of so called ‘post truth’ and reinforcing social and political polarization

We are faced then with clear challenges in respect of the quality of communication, the quality of life and human dignity.

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