Anticipatory Democracy in Hybrid, Virtual and Immersive Environments

Anticipatory Democracy is a research area which addresses one of the fundamental dimensions of democracy: individual participation in the common well-being of an entire community. Born out of ideas about how to project the future onto present life and how to involve public in employing such project in the design of their near-, as well as on far future (Toffler, 1970), the very idea of the discipline of Anticipatory Democracy has been defined as “a process for combining citizen participation with future consciousness" (Bezold, 1978). Our section’s general research theme concerns the conceptual, deliberative, material, informational and cognitive ways, instruments, resources as well as individual, social, and political values, emotions, beliefs and attitudes people might employ in building up the future they want from a democratic point of view. This section emphasizes the relationship between anticipatory democracy in the aspirational futures paradigm with political culture, political participation and political identity areas of research as follows: (i) value-based approach on how desirable futures could be build by public participation under a certain public vision about such futures (ii) emotion-based approach on how political and social preferences are driven toward selecting or creating the values, beliefs, attitudes, cognitions and identities which allow for achieving a “vision toward inside”, that is, a vision about the necessary individual as well as civic and political culture concepts, ideas, principles, and resources (iii) participatory and anticipatory capabilities about what democracy would look like and could bring like in the desired futures. Our section and panels welcome paper submissions reporting research in the below mentioned areas with theoretical and applicative concern on how desirable futures are built up by people in any small or large communities, how people employ a public vision ahead to design a desirable future, and what affect, values, beliefs, attitudinal and cognitive components are revealed or created in order to make action decisions on how the desired future could be actually achieved. Virtual and immersive environments make this question even more interesting to answer and this is the reason we welcome research approaches addressing such environments and experiments. Panels: 1. Desirable Futures: Cinematography, Anticipation and Political Cultures Chair: Camelia Florela Voinea Abstract The power of cinematography and its impact at societal, and political cultural layers of human society has never been fully understood as well as it has never been deeply employed in shaping the future of human society. Cinematography with its huge power of storytelling through image, motion, and sound has been the very first instrument of shaping a desirable future and make it look real, put it at work and let us all immerse ourselves in it like a very part of it. Our research questions is about the anticipatory capabilities of cinematography to employ its basics – storytelling, image, motion, sound – as a constructive approach to the issue of desirable worlds in our hybrid environments of today and in the virtual and immersive realities of the environments of the near and far future. The panel call for papers and worldwide participation from Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Continental Asia, and Asia-Pacific is meant to enhance the public perception of cinematography as the art of defining, designing and running some wonderful anticipatory machinery of DesirableFutures-making. 2. Anticipation, Political Party Loyalty and Partisanship Chair: Bruno Ferreira Costa The study of political parties, their organisation and their activists are a traditional and decisive sub-area of political science. The aim of the Anticipatory Studies is to contribute to the presentation of theoretical and empirical studies aimed at deepening knowledge of intra-party dynamics, both from an organisational and structural point of view, and from the point of view of the actions of political agents. The use of the theoretical and methodological dimension corresponds to the challenge of bringing together contributions that ensure the study, systematisation, comparison and detailed description of the contribution of the perspective of Anticipatory Studies to the development of studies focusing on party militancy and loyalty. This panel proposal focuses on these three dimensions: political parties organization and adaptation to contemporary democracy; party loyalty and the impact of political party activism in the elections. 3. Political Communication, Political Discourse and Anticipation Chair: Paula Espírito Santo The field of Political Communication, Anticipation and Political Discourse allows for a wide range of approaches, as it intersects with multiple domains in Political Science including online social networks, media studies, wartime news coverage, artificial intelligence, new technologies methods of contacting voters and communities to name just a few. Because they are cutting-edge areas, requiring permanent research, and because they are the scene of rapid changes and updates from a technological point of view, we consider that they should be observed through the prism of Anticipatory Research studies. As such, in this panel we call for research studies, both theoretical and empirical, that allow us to find new spaces for academic discussion, under the anchor of Anticipatory studies, that allow to glimpse new horizons of practice in terms of Political Communication, considering discursive, media, technology and online social networks, to list the most prominent ones. 4. Anticipatory Democracy, Human Rights and Immersive Environments Chair: Isabel Xavier Cabrita Immersive environments are designed to fully engage users by creating a sense of presence in a virtual world. These environments often use technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that have a high potential for transforming the real world and the way in which we interact with it. Immersive environments are used in various fields, including education, training and entertainment. The ability of virtual reality and other immersive communication technologies to provide sensory experiences that mimic real-world interactions makes it a powerful tool to promote and assist the implementation of human rights standards. In this context, the panel call for papers, both theoretical and empirical, to understand how existing and emerging digital technologies could enable citizens to develop the values, skills, attitudes, and knowledge necessary to participate fully in the fight for human rights. Section Chair profiles: Paula do Espírito Santo is a Political Scientist, Associate Professor with Habilitation, Researcher and Professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP) - University of Lisbon (ULisboa), Portugal, and is Visiting Professor in other Universities. Her research interests are in the areas of political communication, social sciences methodology and party affiliation, political culture. Bruno Ferreira Costa is a Political Scientist, Associate Professor at University of Beira Interior and Researcher at Praxis – Centre of Philosophy, Politics and Culture (Portugal). He holds the Jean Monnet Chair “POLMEDIA_EU – Political Systems, Political Participation and Media in the EU – 2024-2026). His research interests are in the areas of political systems, political participation, political communication, quality of democracy and the European project.