Call for papers

For the 22nd consecutive year, the Ludovia scientific symposium continues to explore the issues raised by digital technology. It brings together approaches from the fields of education, information and communication sciences, in a multi-disciplinary dialogue with other disciplines.

In 2025, the theme is: “Attention & participation with digital technology”

Attention and participation were already addressed at Ludovia in 2016. There is a challenge to renew this questioning in the contemporary context, as organizations and ways of thinking continue to integrate digital technology and discover generative artificial intelligence. Questions around these themes have therefore evolved. In particular, they question the relationship between personal investment, time, self-image and efficiency.

Attention and participation are indicators in learning and in economies dedicated to “available human brain time” (Le Lay, 2004, cited by Bougnoux, 2014: 82). Technological advances in media and online platforms are changing the way we interact. The quality of presence and cognitive investment, once perceived as free, voluntary and spontaneous, seems to be encouraged, even imposed, by school, business, the public sector, the media, social networks, games and so on. They are becoming indicators of performance and productivity.

In education, schools are incorporating digital technology into their teaching methods (online or hybrid learning platforms, educational social networks). These mediations call into question the place of schools and educational teams in the daily lives of students and families. It modifies acts of educational sociability by encouraging students to invest in sociopedagogical devices. AIs could, for example, offer students more personalized support, optimizing their participation without replacing the work of the teacher, who would still act as an intermediary in “a true man-machine collaboration” (Cerisier and Pierrot, 2022: 9).

On the other hand, pupils and students come to school with their personal devices, without any real opportunities to take them into account. An overhaul of the school could be thought of including this reflection (Cerisier, 2015) because the presence of such tools blurs the boundaries with everyday life and extends attentional logics. While for the most optimistic, these technologies have the effect of extending acts of sociability, other discourses evoke nomophobia, fear of missing information or experiences, incitement to self-marketing, illusions of performance and personal institutionalization, etc. However, if there is an incentive, it is not enough to generate a compulsion to repeat these behaviors. Necessarily, such adherence is based on at least partially positive perceptions of digital objects and services, whether they be structuring, useful, conducive to learning, communication or the excitement provided by fake news. It is important to identify their effects, and to work on the issue of media education, which remains central (Frau-Meigs, 2021).

In recent work, Serge Proulx (2017, 2020) has highlighted the paradox whereby this participation, presented as free, is orchestrated and framed by digital platforms. These devices know how to metamorphose the most banal contributions into resources that can potentially be monetized by algorithms. Whether visible or invisible, they redirect attention and encourage participation, but also raise ethical questions. Indeed, immediate gains cannot conceal the fact that the emancipatory and democratic scope of the Web is being called into question, as it relates to ideals that are still relevant today (Bernholz et al., 2021; Oberforff, 2010), just as this emancipatory scope is not opposed to rationalization effects that can be observed, for example, in militant circles (Sedda, 2021).

Attention, understood as a resource and a lever for participation, is thus the subject of capture strategies that lead to regulatory effects. Yet multiple solicitations, the need for constant availability, surveillance and competition, superficiality of content leading to feelings of guilt and vacuity and other negative affects (Fourquet-Courbet, 2017) seem to be well-known consequences in the social space and by the media. How, then, do they take up so much space in the digital activities of individuals and schools? There's a paradox here, since these limitations simultaneously promote forms of personal innovation, facilitate the acquisition or palliation of skills, autonomy, and the management of time and daily life.

The learning patterns underlying the logics of attention and participation are based on ordinary social dynamics. Mutual aid, solidarity, the need to belong to a community, self-esteem, distinction, competition, emotions and, more simply, conversation (Cardon and Prieur, 2016), have shaped the Web since its inception. Likewise, freedom and the market act in concert for the development of digital technologies (Cardon, 2019). This is why, for this new edition, we are inviting researchers from several disciplines to look beyond the question of the continuous learning that online participation and attention require, and to which individuals, increasingly invited to construct themselves, must adapt. Without restricting ourselves to this, we wish to open up an interdisciplinary reflection on the hijacking of spontaneous logics of attention and participation for marketing and performance purposes, on the blurring of boundaries between personal, family and professional time, and on their inclusion in educational actions and programs. Ultimately, we're interested in understanding all the paradoxes that seem to emerge from the enduring anchorage of digital technology in our daily lives.

As in previous years, the Ludovia 2025 scientific symposium will bring together researchers from a wide range of disciplines. Proposals for papers may therefore concern, but this list is not exhaustive:

● Human and social sciences: work on attentional and participatory logics influencing the relationship with oneself and others, and even the question of authenticity;
● In education and training sciences: the mobilization of attentional and participatory logics at school and beyond. Does digital technology increase the presence of school at home, and how does it involve families?
● In political science: the participation demanded of public services questions the relationship that the individual maintains with technological injunctions and questions the concepts of property and freedom ;
● In philosophy (and formal sciences): how can we think about the changes brought about by these attentional and participatory logics on the scale of individuals and societies?
● In healthcare, how do attentional and participatory logics guide individuals in their care pathways and could help limit treatment refusals?
● In aesthetics: AIs enable as many people as possible to participate in the creation of images, what influence do they have on aesthetic experiences, shared representations, or the renewal of imaginaries?
● In game studies: are attentional logics and parti

Proposals can be submitted until April 30, 2025.

Between 1,500 and 3,500 characters in length, they should include a summary of the paper, the status and titles of the author(s), and the scientific section to which the paper belongs. If possible, the abstract should explain the theme, context, methodology, experimental field (if applicable) and references. The full article may be sent instead of an abstract.

Proposals should be submitted on the Ludovia registration platform: https://www.ludovia.fr/inscriptions.html 

Exchanges or information can be sent to: ludovia2025@sciencesconf.org and aurore.deramond@gmail.com 
Receipt of each proposal will be acknowledged.

Organization of paper selection

Proposals will be read by two double-blind readers (one from the corresponding research field, the other possibly from outside), each of whom will have access only to the text of the paper, with no mention of its author. Each author will receive a notice indicating acceptance (with or without conditions) or rejection of the proposal.

The final article must comply with the typographical and layout conventions set out in a standard style sheet sent with acceptance of the proposal.

The size of the article should be between 20,000 and 30,000 characters, including spaces. It should be sent electronically in .doc, .docx or .odt format, and should include the title, abstract, text and, where appropriate, numbered illustrations. Publication in the proceedings is subject to participation in the Ludovia conference.

Participation : selected authors will be invited to present their work in an oral presentation.

Publication

Abstracts of accepted papers, together with biographical and scientific notes, will be published on the Ludovia Summer School promotional website.
Papers will be published electronically after the conference in the conference publication area.
A subsequent scientific publication will be proposed in a qualifying scientific journal or book, and will give rise to a new selection procedure.

For further information, please visit the page :
https://www.ludovia.fr/colloque 

Further information about the symposium will be e-mailed to your attention.
Ludovia 2025 scientific symposium chairs
Thierry Gobert (Univ. Perpignan Via Domitia) : thierry.gobert@univ-perp.fr 
Camille Roelens (Univ. Lyon 1) : roelens.camillejean@orange.fr 
Aurore Deramond (Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comté) : aurore.deramond@gmail.com 

Comming soon.