Routledge Lecture: 'Ethics for Communication in a Digital Age'

Join Baroness Onora O’Neill as she examines why the promise of digital technologies to extend possibilities for communication in ways that support democracy and wider civic participation has not been sustained.

Ethical and epistemic standards for communication have been discussed since antiquity. And since antiquity they have periodically been disrupted by technological innovations, then revised and reinforced by cultural and latterly by legal and regulatory measures. However, the transformations produced by the mushrooming growth of digital technologies in the late twentieth century, which has coincided with growing globalisation and the declining regulatory capacities of states, may prove particularly challenging. These technologies were initially seen as extending possibilities for communication in ways that would support democracy and wider civic participation. The promise has not been sustained.

This annual lecture is organised by the Faculty of Philosophy and is free and open to all thanks to the generous sponsorship of Routledge. Book your place via Eventbrite.

The lecture begins at 5:30pm on Thursday 7 March and will take place in the Cynthia Beerbower Room, Newnham College, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge.