BrIAS Thursday Seminars: BIFD Jolanda Jetten & BIFD Andrew Chadwick

Explore how inequality affects social and political vitality, and how AI challenges societies’ informational and epistemic sovereignty. Living in an unequal world: Consequences for societies’ social and political vitality by Jolanda Jetten Societal inequality has been found to have pernicious effects reducing mental and physical health and decreasing societal cohesion. However, this work lacks compelling, theory-driven explanations for why inequality has these effects and when and for whom these effects are likely to emerge. These are important gaps because to respond effectively to inequality we need a holistic understanding of its effect on individuals as well as the collectives within which they are embedded and that structure their interactions with one another. A social psychological analysis can help to fill the gaps in this picture in at least three ways: (1) by pointing to the processes that explain why inequality has negative effects for individuals and societies, (2) by emphasising the relevance of subjective perceptions of inequality, and (3) by identifying the group dynamics that underpin the negative effects of inequality. I will present a range of studies and contexts where we have examined the effect of objective measures of inequality as well as perceptions of inequality on outcomes such as well-being, the desire for more, the wish for a strong leader, prosocial behaviour, and the endorsement of conspiracy theories. The findings underscore the notion that inequality may have even more far-reaching consequences than believed until now. Investigating the effects of inequality on citizens’ socio-political behaviour may be increasingly relevant in the light of today’s turbulent political and social landscape. BioJolanda earned her PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1997 and has held academic positions at the University of Queensland and the University of Exeter. She returned to the University of Queensland in 2007 as a Research Fellow and has since held ARC Future and UQ Development Fellowships, as well as the Belgian Francqui Fellowship (2018) and ARC Laureate Fellowship (2019–2024). Her research examines group processes, social identity, and intergroup relations, particularly their effects on mental health and well-being. She also studies economic inequality, collective responses to societal change, and resilience following disasters. Jolanda has served as co-Chief Editor of leading journals and held presidential roles in professional societies. Her honours include the Spearman Medal, Kurt Lewin Medal, and Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Association of Social Psychology. She is a Fellow of ASSA and has served on Australian and European research councils, as well as the Australian Government’s BETA academic panel. AI and the New Politics of Protective Epistemic Sovereignty by Andrew Chadwick In this talk, I will introduce the concept of protective epistemic sovereignty (PES), an ‘umbrella’ concept for making sense of some key challenges AI poses and how polities might respond. PES concerns AI’s role in social and civic harms that have communicative, informational, and knowledge-based dimensions. It explicitly recognises that governance institutions can intervene either to regulate AI directly or to coordinate and cultivate regulatory PES norms among non-state actors operating at multiple levels. Public attitudes about AI’s future have entered a more balanced phase: the boosters and the refusers are joined by a growing group of the uncertain and the worried. Concerted activity to embed PES is therefore likely to be a necessary political response to AI in future. BioAndrew Chadwick (PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science) is Professor of Political Communication in the Department of Communication and Media at Loughborough University and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. He studies how digital media are implicated in social and political power in four main areas: political mobilisation, political engagement, deception and dis/misinformation, and news and journalism. His work has won multiple international awards from the American Political Science Association, the International Communication Association, and the American Sociological Association. In addition, The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power (Oxford University Press, 2013; 2nd Edition, 2017) received the International Journal of Press/Politics Best Book Award, which recognises an outstanding book over a ten year period. Earlier books include Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication Technologies (Oxford University Press, 2006) and The Handbook of Internet Politics (Routledge, 2009; co-edited with Philip N. Howard). Andrew has published more than 120 academic research articles, book chapters, public reports, reviews, and press articles and is series editor for Oxford Studies in Digital Politics, which he launched in 2010. In recent years, he has advised various policymaking bodies, including for example the UK Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, the Government Office for Science Rapid Project on AI-driven disinformation, and the DCMS’s scoping for the BBC Royal Charter Review and its implementation phase. How to arrive to BrIAS The event will take place in the Polina Mendeléef Seminar Hall. See the map below for instructions how to arrive to our Seminar hall from Avenue de la Couronne/Kroonlaan.