Maria Pawelec
Society, Culture and Technological Change
Maria Pawelec studied Politics and Public Administration and Contemporary European Studies in Konstanz, Istanbul, Bath and Berlin. She then worked for the Robert Bosch Foundation. In 2016, she joined the IZEW as a Research Associate. She is currently researching the prevention of digital desinformation campaigns within the projects digilog@bw and PREVENT, with a special focus on deepfakes.
Career
Maria Pawelec studied Politics and Public Administration and Contemporary European Studies in Konstanz, Istanbul, Bath and Berlin. She then worked in the department for “International Relations Europe and its Neighbors” of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart. From 2016-2019, she worked as a Research Associate at the IZEW on the project “Ethical implications of IT-export to sub-Saharan Africa (ELISA)”. Additionally, she supported the project Privacy-Arena in and coordinated the preparation of an expert report on behalf of the German Bundestag on the social and psychological impact of technological surveillance. In 2020, she worked on the project “Technological Innovation: Social Science and Ethical Analyses on Governance (TANGO)”. Since 2021, Maria Pawelec has been studying the “Ethical and societal implications of ‘deepfakes’ and opportunities for their regulation” within the project "Digitalization in dialogue (digilog@bw)". Since 2022, she is researching the prevention of digital desinformation campaign within the project PREVENT.
Publications
Monographs |
Pawelec, Maria; Bieß, Cora (2021): Deepfakes — Technikfolgen und Regulierungsfragen aus ethischer und sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. Mit einer interaktiven Lehreinheit von Cora Bieß. [Deepfakes —Technology assessment and questions of regulation from an ethical and social sciences perspective. With an interactive teaching unit by Cora Bieß.] Baden-Baden: Nomos. |
Journal articles |
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Book chapters |
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Project reports |
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Further contributions |
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Interviews and media appearances
- Wie groß ist die Gefahr von Deepfakes? [How big is the danger posed by deepfakes really?], Podcast by the project digilog@bw with Uwe Gradwohl, 17 December 2021.
- Deepfakes als Gefahr für die Demokratie: Wie digitale Bild- und Tonfälschungen unser Vertrauen untergraben [Deepfakes as a threat to democracy: How digital image and audio fakes undermine our trust], interview with Ulla Ebner for the Ö1-series Digital.Leben, 6 July 2021.
- #meetdigilog: Von Politik bis Pornografie: Gefahren (und Chancen) von Deepfakes [#meetdigilog: From politics to pornography: Risks (and opportunities) of deepfakes], live on Instagram, discussion with Sabine Faller, ZKM, 15 April 2021.
- Von Politik bis Pornografie: Gefahren (und Chancen) von Deepfakes [From politics to pornography: Risks (and opportunities) of deepfakes], digiloglounge, YouTube-interview with Sabine Faller, ZKM, 8 April 2021 (with Jessica Heesen).
- Audio-Deepfakes: Was, wenn wir unseren Ohren nicht mehr trauen können? (Audio Deepfakes: What happens if we can no longer trust our ears?) Feature by Julius Stucke in Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 3 Dezember 2020 (with Cora Bieß).
Talks and presentations
- Ethical implications of immersive technologies and deepfakes in art and culture. Keynote together with Céline Gressel at the workshop "Immersive technologies in arts and culture" of the Goethe Instituts, 14-18 November 2022 in Taschkent/Usbekistan. Keynote online. 17 November 2022. Slides.
- Deepfakes, Demokratie und öffentliche Kommunikation: Gefahren und Chancen [Deepfakes, Democracy and Public Communication: Challenges and Opportunities], NTA9-TA21 Conference "Digital, direkt, demokratisch? Technikfolgenabschätzung und die Zukunft der Demokratie" [Digital, direct, democratic? Technology assessment and the future of democracy] of the German network for Technology Assessment (NTA) and the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna/virtual event, 11 May 2021.
- Deepfakes as a blessing and a curse – and how to govern their use in public communication, DACH 21 - Three-Country Conference on Communication Science "#Communication #(R)Evolution: Changing Communication in a Digital Society", Zurich/virtual event, 9 April 2021.
- Encouraging the Development of Ethically and Societally ‘Desirable’ Technologies Through Innovation Governance, ECPR Virtual General Conference 2020 (European Consortium for Political Research), virtual event, 27 August 2020 (with Cora Bieß and Alexander Orlowski).
- Governing technology innovation processes for ethically “desirable” societal transformation EASST/4S 2020 conference (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology), Prague/virtual, 18 August 2020 (with Cora Bieß and Alexander Orlowski).
Completed projects
- digilog@bw (2021-2022, Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts): 'Digitalization in Dialogue'
- TANGO (2020, BMBF): ‘Technological Innovation: Social Science and Ethical Analyses on Governance (TANGO)’
- ELISA (2016-2019): ‘Ethical Implications of IT-Exports to Sub-Sahara Africa‘
- Expert report on behalf of the German Bundestag on the social and psychological impact of technological surveillance (2017)
- Privacy-Arena (2016, BMBF): ‘Research Project for a Cartography and Analysis of the Privacy-Arena’