This international conference aims at exploring the digital economy, understood as the new forms of production, work, consumption, distribution, and finance ushered in by the diffusion of digital technology. From the way we work, to the way we consume and pay for products and services, to the rise of new platforms for consumption and collaboration, the economic field is being revolutionised by digital media. Yet, the jury is still out on whether these changes point to an even more exploitative or rather towards an alternative and fairer economic model.

The conference will explore these processes of transformation of the economy and their relationship with culture and society focusing on a number of specific phenomena that have been the object of intense debate in recent years and questioning the suitability of future trends and innovations: automation and its positive and negative repercussions on working conditions; crypto-currencies and whether they are freeing us from state control or reproducing neoliberal dynamics; universal basic income as a possible new form of welfare befitting the transformation of the economy in a digital era; the rise of digital giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon and the consequences of their oligopolistic position in the market; the new models of value formation connected to data mining and analytics; and many more.

We invite participants from various disciplines and streams of research including media studies, sociology, economics, consumer research, management, information and computer science. Together, we will address a set of recurring questions. How, for example, is digital technology restructuring the economy? Are crypto-currencies really alternative to established financial regimes or are they rather at the very forefront of new forms of financial speculation?   How do managerial practices evolve with the aid of digital resources? How do transformations in the mobile environment correlate to changes in the field of logistics? What are the features of the new forms of precarisation/casualisation of work that are described as “gig economy”? How does digital technology serve to enforce new forms of surveillance and measurement in the workplace? Can technological advancement promote alternative economic models as implied by references to terms such as “big data socialism” or “luxury communism”? Can digital media serve the construction of new forms of workers’ representation and trade-unionism?

The conference will comprise two plenary sessions and 4 breakout panels, and will host internationally acclaimed scholars as keynote speakers.

The conference will take on Friday, 11 May 2018.

Abstract are due by 7 March 2018.

Abstracts should be 250 words maximum, and include the author(s) name and position, and a short title.

Acceptance notices will be given on 20 March 2018.