Conference Program

The rapid expansion of digital media ecosystems is profoundly transforming democratic culture, reshaping participation, collective imaginaries and the organisation of social time. Contemporary digital environments display what may be described as an “amphibious” nature: while expanding access to information and knowledge, they also intensify disinformation, polarisation and processes of data extraction and user profiling. Within the framework of platform capitalism, digital infrastructures operate through algorithmic personalisation and engagement maximisation, generating filter bubbles and echo chambers that weaken informational pluralism and the relational foundations of democratic life.

From a sociological perspective, these transformations must be interpreted within broader structural changes affecting labour, culture and everyday life. The transition from industrial capitalism to digital platform economies (Srnicek, 2017) contributes to redefining key social dichotomies such as individual versus collective, care time versus work time, and labour versus consumption, reshaping expectations, professional identities and life trajectories. Drawing on critical analyses of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019), digital infrastructures increasingly operate as mechanisms of social regulation influencing communication processes, subjectivities and democratic participation.

Within this scenario of democratic fragility, education emerges as a crucial space for critical reflection and democratic regeneration. Schools and universities represent key intermediary institutions capable of sustaining dialogical forms of democracy by fostering critical awareness of digital power structures. This requires moving beyond a purely instrumental understanding of digital competences and developing pedagogical practices capable of cultivating reflexivity, narrative interpretation and sociological imagination.

This paper proposes a transformative pedagogical approach grounded in biographical and narrative methods. The theoretical framework draws on the tradition of sociological imagination (Mills, 1959) and on the methodological contribution of biographical sociology (Ferrarotti, 1981), emphasising the heuristic value of life stories for understanding the relationship between individual trajectories and broader social transformations. Through processes of biographical learning (Alheit, 1994; Mezirow, 1991), students are invited to reflect critically on their experiences of digital life, media practices and representations of work and the future.

The paper presents an educational experimentation based on biographical narrative workshops implemented in higher education contexts. Students engage in autobiographical reflection, narrative writing and collective interpretation of life stories in order to connect personal experiences with broader socio-economic transformations. This pedagogical experimentation draws on the research presented in the book Storie di vita… e di lavoro. Raccontare il lavoro che cambia nell’era digitale (Barricelli, 2026), based on qualitative biographical interviews with professionals from different sectors.

The life stories collected in the research are used as narrative resources in teaching activities, enabling students to recognise the connections between personal biographies and structural transformations of digital capitalism. By linking sociological analysis with biographical learning, the paper argues that transformative education can foster critical agency and democratic awareness. Preliminary observations suggest that narrative practices enhance students’ reflexive capacities and their ability to connect personal experiences with broader socio-economic transformations, revitalising the sociological imagination in the age of algorithmic capitalism.

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping professional practices and democratic life, meaningful participation in algorithmically mediated societies requires that AI knowledge be accessible also to non-specialists. Beyond technical competence, overcoming the cultural and emotional barriers associated with transformative technologies represents a crucial educational and civic challenge.

This contribution presents a pilot experimental methodological approach, developed within an INAIL research workshop, aimed at fostering critical and operational AI literacy through everyday analogies, micro-narratives, and guided interactions with AI tools. All professionals of the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene were invited; 26 expressed interest and 19 participated (94% female; mean age 53; 50% in research or administrative roles).

The training module includes:

1. Analogical teaching: artificial neurons, neural networks, weights, and training are introduced through structured analogies with familiar activities (e.g., baking a cake), fostering intuitive comprehension of abstract computational processes.
2. From natural to artificial models: the narrative moves from biological intelligence to artificial neural networks and Large Language Models, presented as probabilistic predictive systems. Visual diagrams and bridging questions support the formation of coherent mental representations and critical awareness of how AI systems operate.
3. Active practice through prompt engineering: after introducing an acronym-based prompt structure, participants engaged in guided experimentation with generative AI, evaluated outputs, and constructed vertical chats to develop foundational operational skills and reflective use.

At the conclusion of the workshop, participants completed a structured questionnaire assessing interest and perceived impact. For 94% this was their first AI-focused training experience. All expressed satisfaction with materials and technologies; 86% reported that the content exceeded expectations. Before the workshop, 72% rarely or never used generative AI; afterwards, all participants reported increased interest in AI tools and related initiatives.

These preliminary findings suggest that analogy-driven, hands-on, and narratively structured methodologies can reduce cognitive and emotional barriers to AI understanding, contributing to more inclusive and critically informed engagement with algorithmic systems. In this perspective, AI literacy becomes not only a technical competence, but a condition for democratic participation in digitally transformed societies.

Within the platform society, the silent risk arising from the delegation of human decision-making to algorithmic systems manifests itself in a progressive erosion of human agency in relation to the automatism of algorithmic agency. In this context, it becomes essential to cultivate, from early childhood onward, a critical competence oriented toward understanding how algorithms function. Educational robotics, AI platforms, AI-powered toys, and conversational agents represent, from this perspective, privileged pedagogical devices, as they enable children to recognize the algorithmic influences that anticipate and shape action and decision-making processes. This, in turn, supports the protection of those “micro-spaces of attentional autonomy” (Lazzaroli, 2025), which are fundamental for counteracting the risk of algorithmic discrimination. Such a risk may undermine collective memory, which is grounded in democratic ideals and values, thereby contributing to the perpetuation of anti-democratic political and cultural orientations, as well as racist and gender stereotypes. These mechanisms influence the presentation of online information and intersect with anti-democratic and nationalist dynamics aimed at erasing the identities and sovereignty of peoples and nations.

Several studies have shown that the data used to train algorithms are shaped by historical constructions and deeply rooted social practices, which contribute to the systematic reproduction of inequalities (Buolamwini & Gebru, 2018; Noble, 2018). Applications such as ChatGPT, for instance, do not allow users to clearly identify the criteria employed in the training process of algorithms, nor to reconstruct the sources from which responses are generated. This limited transparency may foster the reproduction of stereotypes and biases, as well as the phenomenon of so-called “hallucinations”, namely the generation of responses based on an incorrect interpretation of the user’s request. Consequently, the opacity of the processes through which responses are produced makes it difficult to assess their reliability and limits users’ ability to exercise critical oversight over the generated content (Bordogna & Rubbia, 2024). An additional risk is represented by deepfakes—manipulated images and videos that can be used to distort reality and influence public opinion (Balafrej & Dahmane, 2024). Their detection is particularly challenging due to the high degree of realism with which they reproduce faces and voices, thereby constituting a significant threat to information integrity and democratic processes.

Adopting a pedagogical approach grounded in experiential and cooperative learning, and acknowledging the educational value of play in early childhood development (Montessori, 1953), this paper aims to critically examine these processes. In doing so, it conceptualizes AI-based educational technologies both as tools for the pedagogical “debugging” of algorithmic automatism and as formative levers for strengthening critical agency within contemporary educational contexts.

Contemporary digital user experience is characterized by acute techno-social opacity. Algorithms determine and exert significant influence over user choices. Media Education Literacy, in its various constructs, focuses on the multiple risks this entails, as well as aiming to counteract power and its ideologies mediated by narrative, messages, and images, and thus its ideologies. However, insights into complexity through the lens of Morin and Foucault's power-knowledge theory are often overlooked, with the risk of investigating and overlooking certain phenomenological issues of user experience. Through Morin's lens, along with Foucault's, and in conjunction with multiple readings of algorithmic governmentality, including Rouvroy's, it is possible to understand how the power of platforms and stacks, as a meta-device no longer of bodies but of the mind, reaches the user well before conveying their messages, situating itself in the systemic opacity of the interface, inducing errors or gestural repetitions, or so-called digital sludges. Specifically, the aim is to trace and reconstruct the connections and processes that systemically link dark patterns, gamification and nudging, fluidity-error and complexity, distraction, grinding and excessive use as the purposes of digital power-knowledge and surveillance capitalism. Finally, it elaborates these visions in light of Slow Media education, a pedagogy of care as a fundamental basis in contemporary educational contexts.

The digital transformation of contemporary societies is reshaping social institutions, governance mechanisms, and educational practices. In the context of what many scholars describe as algorithmic capitalism, digital technologies—particularly artificial intelligence and data-driven systems—are increasingly embedded in decision-making processes that affect access to rights, services, and opportunities. While these technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for improving social intervention and public policy, they also risk reinforcing inequalities and opaque forms of governance if not accompanied by critical educational frameworks capable of fostering democratic agency and ethical awareness.

Within this context, the DIGICARE project (Digital Competences for the Improvement of Social Intervention Actions in Risk of Exclusion Contexts), funded under the Erasmus+ programme, addresses the growing need to strengthen the digital capacities of social intervention professionals working with vulnerable populations. The project responds to a structural gap in the social sector: despite the growing relevance of data management and artificial intelligence in service provision, many third-sector organisations still operate with limited technological resources and insufficient digital training. As a result, social professionals often lack the skills necessary to critically interpret data, evaluate algorithmic outputs, and integrate digital tools into evidence-based intervention strategies.

DIGICARE proposes an interdisciplinary approach that combines vocational education and training (VET), social pedagogy, and digital competence frameworks in order to support the development of innovative training resources for educators and practitioners. Through the creation of open educational resources, best practice repositories, and training modules on advanced digital tools applied to social intervention, the project seeks to foster a new generation of professionals capable of integrating technological innovation with socially responsible and democratically grounded practices.

From a theoretical perspective, the project is grounded in critical pedagogy and digital citizenship studies, which emphasise the importance of empowering professionals and communities to critically engage with digital infrastructures. In the age of algorithmic governance, education plays a crucial role not only in transferring technical skills but also in cultivating critical literacy about the social, political, and ethical implications of datafication. For social educators, this implies developing competencies that enable them to interpret complex datasets, evaluate the biases embedded in algorithmic systems, and ensure that technological innovation contributes to social inclusion rather than reproducing exclusionary patterns.

The contribution presented in this paper reflects on the DIGICARE experience as a case study illustrating how digital competence development can support democratic regeneration within social intervention practices. By promoting data-driven yet critically informed approaches, the project demonstrates how digital transformation can become an opportunity to strengthen participatory governance, improve the effectiveness of social services, and enhance the capacity of social professionals to address complex forms of marginalisation.

Ultimately, the DIGICARE initiative highlights the strategic importance of integrating digital literacy, critical pedagogy, and social innovation within vocational training systems. In doing so, it contributes to a broader European effort to ensure that the digital transition supports not only economic development but also social justice, democratic participation, and inclusive forms of knowledge production.