Urban Media and Participatory Spaces Research Group

Cues, Cases, and Inequalities

11 and 12 June 2026

John Cabot University – Via della Lungara, 233 – Rome, Italy

The Urban Media and Participatory Spaces Research Group presents The Aesthetics of Digital Vigilantism Symposium, an interdisciplinary forum to be held on 11 and 12 June 2026 at John Cabot University, in Rome.

The symposium happens during a time of increasing sharing of urban and personal experiences via digital devices. The current scenario suggests a situation of constant surveillance, in which civic participation and personal interaction depend on growing online vigilantism and technology used for monitoring purposes.

This 2-day symposium will discuss how the advent of digital vigilantism affects contemporary cities, domestic settings, and marginalized populations.

Scholars from across the world will meet in the Eternal City to approach this topic’s many intersections while imagining new boundaries and setting up an agenda for the future.

Confirmed panels include the gendered aspects of digital vigilantism, AI and smartphone vigilante behaviour, the globalization of digital vigilantism. Find the program below:

THURSDAY, 11 JUNE

15:00

Registration and Welcome (Opening address)

Nicholas James Startin, Dean of Academic Affairs, John Cabot University

15:30-17:00

Panel 1: Urban Precariousness, Mobile Vigilante Action and the Aesthetic of Violence

Moderator: Isabella Clough Marinaro (John Cabot University)

Nicola Bozzi (University of Greenwich), Stefano Brilli (Università Degli Studi, Urbino)

From “Criminal Hoods” to Digital Vigilantism: How Crime Lore Influencers Shape the Perception of Urban Crime on YouTube

Eleonora Diamanti (John Cabot University), Helton Levy (London Metropolitan University)

“The boy who cleans Rome”: Erasing Rome’s Rome’s graffiti as masculinized city maintenance

17:00-17:30

Urban Media and Participatory Spaces Research Group Launch (Information Session)

FRIDAY, 12 JUNE

9:00 – 09:30 Breakfast

09:30-10:15

Panel 2: Feminist Approaches to Digilantism

Moderator: Miriam Tola (John Cabot University)

Aida Gallego-Márquez and Pablo Soto-Casás (Universidad Complutense Madrid)

Watching and Being Seen: A Feminist Ethnography of Twitch’s Hypervigilance

Patricia Prieto Blanco (Lancaster University), Suay Ozkula (University of Salzburg, UK)

Platforms, Patrick, and Visual digilantism: Phones, Crowds, Spectacles

Feeza Vasudeva (University of Helsinki)

The Materiality of Mob Violence in India

10:45 – 12:15

Panel 3: Artificial Intelligence and Visual Everyday Witnessing

Moderator: Daniel Trottier (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Carlo Alberto Treccani (Hong Kong University)

The Suspicious Eye: Checking Practices in the Age of AI Images

Pedro Queirós Pinto (University of Bergen)

Super-Vigilant(h)e(ro)s: (Self) Superheroization, GenAI, and the aestheticisation of persecution in Digital Out-group Vigilantism

Tolga Gurocak (Afyon Kocatepe University, Turkey)

The Visual Architecture of Evidence: Generating Evidence and Visual Distortion Strategies, Miscontextualization, and Counter-Aesthetics in Video Art

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Event resumes

Panel 4: Identity Clashes and Domestic Technologies

Moderator: Patricia Prieto Blanco (Lancaster University)

Yash Sharma (University of Cincinnati)

Militant Masculinity and the Aesthetics of Vigilantism in India

Yutaka Yoshida (Cardiff University), Yoko Demelius (University of Turku)

Legitimising Alt-Masculinities of Vigilante YouTubers: Shinjuku Aesthetics Meets Online Attention Economy

María Florencia Esmoris (Conicet Argentina)

The Domestic Politics of Surveillance: Objects, Emotions and Everyday Control in Argentina’s Urban Peripheries

15:30 – 16:00 Break

16:00 – 17:00 Keynote

Delia Dumitrica and Daniel Trottier (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Habitual Witnessing: The Hybrid Aesthetics of Documenting and Contesting Immigration Enforcement on Reddit

17:00-17:30 – Closing panel and workshop

Collective discussion on digital vigilantism

The event is free to attend. If you intend to attend in person, please register with this link or the barcode below. If you would like to receive the details for hybrid attendance online, please register via our Eventbrite.

For further information, please email digitalvigilantism@gmail.com

The event is sponsored by JCU’s Department of Psychological and Social Sciences, Department of Political Science and International Affairs, and the Dean’s Office

Organizers:

Eleonora Diamanti (John Cabot University)

Helton Levy (London Metropolitan University)