Public lecture series on Public Sphere, Crowd Sentiments and the Brain @ Copenhagen Business School, March/April 2013

Public lecture series on Public Sphere, Crowd Sentiments and the Brain 

Recent discussions in both strategic management and critical management studies have hailed the coming of a new era of democratized forms of the co-creation of value within business systems, an era of democratic participation of consumers and citizens as professional consumers (‘prosumers’) and co-creators of innovation. Behind this reassessment of value-creation structures lies the justified frustration with contemporary forms of capitalism and its lack of attention to social justice and environmental sustainability. Many contributors to these debates, like Eric von Hippel, Adam Arvidsson, C. K. Prahalad, and Russell L. Ackoff, suggest that the restructuring of capitalism around modes of public deliberation stands a higher chance of meeting future needs for more sustainable, responsive, flexible, and globally inclusive forms of economic organizing.

Curiously, these visions rely on the notion of ‘productive publics’ and ‘productive collectives’ in the form of actual and virtual crowds. The production of an open-access software, the targeting of a misbehaving corporation through a Facebook campaign, and the emergence of a crowd-sourced service or product through the interaction between firms and twitter- and wiki-communities all have in common the assumption that there exists what James Surowiecki has called the ‘wisdom of the crowds’.

The remarkable return of ‘the crowd’ and its wise foolishness is the subject of this public lecture series which aims to bring together researchers and activist to discuss the themes of public sphere, crowd behaviour, economic organizing, and recent advances in neuroeconomic and neuromarketing research. The lecture series aims at widening the conversation about how much crowd psychology there is in current neuroeconomic and neuromarketing research, and what the return of fin-de-siècle crowd psychology means for the ontology, methodology and axiology of theorizing in contemporary management and organization research. In the same vein, our guest lecturers will raise the question whether the rapidly growing interest in neuroscientific methods in economics, marketing and management might provide the stimulus for the integration of social and natural sciences.

• For the seminar the 14th of March, sign up before the 8th of March 2013
• For the seminar the 21st of March, sign up before the 18th of March 2013
• For the seminar the 11th of April, sign up before the 8th of April 2013
• For the seminar the 18th of April, sign up before the 15th of April 2013

Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy, Copenhagen Business School: ‘Neuromarketing: What’s All the Noise About?’ 14 March, 12.30-2pm, Porcelaenshaven 18B, Room 3.135

Thomas is Group Leader of the Decision Neuroscience Research Group at the Department of Marketing and senior researcher at the Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance. Amongst his latest publications is ‘Branding the Brain: a Critical Review and Outlook’, in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. 

Andrea Mubi-Brighenti, University of Trento: ‘Social multiplicities: A Return on the Notion of Individual’ 21 March, 3-5pm, Porcelaenshaven 18B, Room S.023

Andrea is a sociologist whose main research threads include space and society, visibility and social theory. His latest monograph is Visibility in Social Theory and Social Research (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). He is co-editor of the ethnography journal Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa and editor of a collection of articles on The Wall and the City (Professionel Dreamers, 2009)

Tony Sampson, University of East London: ‘Putting the Neuro Doctrine to Work’ 11 April, 3-5pm, Porcelaenshaven 18B, Room 3.135

Tony is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Arts and Digital Industries, University of East London. Tony researches social contagion in electronic media, and he is the co-editor (with Jussi Parikka) of Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture (Hampton Press, 2009). His latest book is Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2012.).

 Tanja Schneider, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford: ‘Neuroscience beyond the Laboratory: the Commercialization of Neuroscientific Knowledges and Technologies’ 18 April, 3-5pm, Porcelaenshaven 18B, Room 3.135

Tanja Schneider is a Research Fellow in Science and Technology Studies. Her areas of expertise include social studies of markets and marketing, media and consumer culture as well as the politics and practices of food governance. Among her latest publications is ‘Technologies of Ironic Revelation: Enacting Consumers in Neuromarkets’ in Consumption, Markets and Culture.

Read more