Digital Folklore

The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference, in collaboration with the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London

Hybrid conference

Friday 28 to Sunday 30 June 2024

Online and at King’s College London, Strand, London WC2B 4BG, UK

Digital and networked technologies offer a wealth of new modes of folklore genre, performance and transmission. Digital folklore has accelerated in recent decades with the increased popularity of the internet and social media platforms, yet emerged much earlier in the 1970s with the introduction of new technologies such as the photocopier and, latterly, email, to the workplace. Alongside these new folklore forms, the digital has given rise to the emergence of new communities and the development of new ways of ‘doing folklore’. Digital folklore has thus greatly added to, challenged and disrupted folklore studies. This conference explores various aspects of digital folklore, ranging from forms, transmission and communities to the methods and approaches of undertaking folklore studies of digital vernacular culture.

The conference will explore such themes as:

• Digital culture and communities
• Folklore and social media
• Digital folklore genres (e.g. photocopylore, email chains, creepypasta and internet legends, memes, rumours, and conspiracy theories)
• Transference of ‘analogue’ customs and traditions to online contexts
• Digital folklore enacted offline
• Digital vernacular language and communication
• Politicisation of folklore and folklorisation of political rhetoric in/through digital contexts
• The reassessment of folklore definitions and conceptualisations of ‘the folk’
• The development of new theories, methods and approaches in folklore studies as a result of the development and study of digital folklore
• AI and its implications for folklore studies

Join us for this 3-day exploration of digital folklore

Tickets: reduced rates for: Speakers, Folklore Society members, Seniors, Students

In-person participants (book via https://folklore-society.com/event/digital-folklore-conference/): £160 standard rate; £110 reduced rate

Online participants (book via Eventbrite): £100 standard rate; £80 reduced rate with Promo Code

Day rates also available. For more information, visit https://folklore-society.com/event/digital-folklore-conference/

Image: Plush emoji by Kevin Yan via Unsplash