Talk by Miira Hill in Milan on the construction of visibility

ZeMKI member Dr. Miira Hill from the DCID-Lab will give a lecture on the communicative construction of visibility and subjectivation under the socio-technical conditions of the digital at the University of Milan-Bicocca on May 8, 2025.

The talk entitled “The communicative construction of visibility: political communication and subjectivation under the socio-technical conditions of the digital” will take place from 14:30 to 16:00 in building U7 (room 08) of the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Milan-Bicocca (Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi 8, 20126 Milan, Italy). Prof. Dr. Barbara Grüning will be the moderator.

In her lecture, Dr. Miira Hill will shed light on how platforms shape digital public spheres and how actors develop new strategies to increase visibility, for example through the controversial purchase of followers. She will examine how subjectivation processes and social positioning change under the conditions of a digital public sphere shaped by metrics and visibility economies. A digital ethnography and the analysis of Trustpilot ratings of follower providers form the empirical basis. It will be shown that the purchase of followers is not only an economic transaction, but must be understood as a power technique and subject-constitutive act in the context of the platform economy. The lecture thus focuses on the communicative practices of visibility construction and their effects on communication and self-perception in the digital space.

Cover photo: Facquis, Bicocca edificio U12, Modificated, CC BY-SA 4.0