January 2003 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

CFP: Towards New Media Paradigms
by Charlie Breindahl 21 Jan '03

21 Jan '03

This call may be of interest to AoIR list subscribers. Best, Nick Jankowski CALL FOR PAPERS Towards New Media Paradigms: Content, Producers, Organisations and Audiences University of Navarre 26-28 June 2003 The Internet is now a part of the daily life of large numbers of people throughout Europe and the developed world generally. Now that the period of Internet euphoria is a distant memory, we are in a clearer position to begin to analyse the nature of the changes that are taking place as a result of this new technology. Research shows that for many people, the uses they make of the Internet overlap in important ways with the historical functions of the mass media. The aim of this conference is to consolidate the work that is going on in Europe and elsewhere in order to analyse in depth the key changes to the media, and to suggest emerging paradigms for the communication industries. Abstract are invited for papers that focus on one of the following four main themes: 1. Media products: new news formats, new media languages, new forms of interactive content 2. Media producers: new professional skills, changes in training and education, new careers patterns 3. Organisations: new business models, convergence of media businesses, changing industrial structures 4. Audiences: changing relationships between media and society, the impact of new media on the public, social uses of the new and old media. Abstracts should be submitted by February 15. They will be refereed and proposers will be notified of decisions by 1 March. Completed papers will be expected by 30 May. Abstracts should be submitted electronically through the web page: http://www.unav.es/fcom/newmediaconference/eng/en_abstracts.html. The working language of the Conference will be English. The conference will take place at the School of Communication of the University of Navarre, in Pamplona, Spain. The School is one of the largest and best known in the Spanish-speaking world. For further information about the conference, the School of Communication and the city of Pamplona, visit the conference web site http://www.unav.es/fcom/newmediaconference. The conference is co-organised with the COST Network on the Impact of the Internet on the Mass Media. For information about the network, visit the website: http://cost-a20.iscte.pt.

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IM and SMS: Linguistic Analysis
by Naomi Susan Baron 21 Jan '03

21 Jan '03

I'm embarking on a linguistic comparison of the actual texts of IMs and SMSs, especially among high school and college students. Is anyone doing analysis of this sort? I'll be working with Rich Ling (at Telenor), who has been analyzing Norwegian SMSs, but I'm wondering if anyone else has actual IM or SMS corpora they have been looking at linguistically (or that could be used for that purpose). Thanks, Naomi Naomi S. Baron Professor of Linguistics American University Washington, DC 20016-8045

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(no subject)
by virtualart＠culture.hu-berlin.de 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

--Apologies for Cross-Posting--- VIRTUAL ART From Illusion to Immersion by Oliver Grau A Leonardo Book published by MIT Press (January 2003, ISBN 0-262-07241-6, 7 x 9, 360 pp., 89 illus) "Equally at home in art history, media history, and new media art, Grau situates immersive image spaces of new media within a rich historical landscape. A must-read for anyone interested in new media, visual culture, art history, cinema, and all other fields that use virtual images." (Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media) "Dismiss Oliver Grau's new book as a German multimedia theorist's scholarly treatise on art, and you'll miss a great read. Underneath its stald packaging, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion puts forth the sort of provocative insights that any Newromancer fan can appreciate." (WIRED, January 2003) CONTENT: Going beyond technical and ahistorical views of media art, Oliver Grau analyzes what is really new in media art by focusing on recent work against the backdrop of historic developments. Although many people view virtual and mixed realities as a totally new phenomenon, it has its foundations in an unrecognized history of immersive images. The search for illusionary visual space can be traced back to antiquity. Oliver Grau shows how virtual art fits into the art history of illusion and immersion and shows how each epoch used the technical means available to produce maximum illusion from Pompeiis Villa dei Misteri via baroque frescoes, panoramas, immersive cinema to the CAVE. He describes the metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image and relates those concepts to interactive art, interface design, agents, telepresence, and image evolution. Grau retells art history as media history, helping us to understand the phenomenon of immersion beyond the hype. GRAU also examines those characteristics of virtual reality that distinguish it from earlier forms of illusionary art and thus shows us what is really new in media art. His analysis draws on the work of contemporary artists and groups ART+COM, Maurice Benayoun, Charlotte Davies, Monika Fleischmann, Ken Goldberg, Agnes Hegedues, Eduardo Kac, Knowbotic Research, Laurent Mignonneau, Michael Naimark, Simon Penny, Daniela Plewe, Paul Sermon, Jeffrey Shaw, Karl Sims, Christa Sommerer, and Wolfgang Strauss. Grau offers not just a history of illusionary space but also a theoretical framework for analyzing its phenomenologies, functions, and strategies throughout history and into the future. Quotes from the press: "A key book -- Oliver Grau's art historical study taps into the new virtual image spaces." (Frankfurter Allgemeine) "The parallels revealed are astounding." (Sueddeutsche Zeitung) Oliver Grau is a new-media art historian and lectures at the Department of Art History, Humboldt University in Berlin. He is a visiting professor at the Kunstuniversity Linz and is head of the German Science Foundation project on Immersive Art in Berlin, also he is developing the first international data base resource for virtual art. (See also: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=26570CB6-AB47- 414B-A780 -1ECA08AAB2D3&ttype=2&tid=9214) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-6017318-2877562

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January, 2003 AoIR Executive Committee Report
by Steve Jones 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

January 19, 2003 Report of the a(o).i.r. executive committee Prepared by Steve Jones AoIR Executive Committee President: Steve Jones Vice-President: Nancy Baym Secretary: Ulla Bunz Treasurer: Benjamin Bates Open Seats: David Silver and Barry Wellman Appointed Seats: Matthew Allen and Leslie Shade Student Seat: Lisbeth Klastrup Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl 2002 Conference Coordinator: Monica Murero 2002 Conference Program Chair: Klaus Bruhn Jensen 2003 Conference Chair: Liss Jeffrey 2003 Conference Program Co-Chairs: Matthew Allen and David Mitchell Ethics Working Group Chair: Charles Ess Elections Working Group Chair: Mia Consalvo Net Resources Working Group Chair: Charlie Breindahl 1. Introduction & General (Jones) Below is the monthly report from AoIR executive committee members. If you aren't reading this...well, you ought to be. I know it can get lengthy, and it can get detailed, but it's the single best way to know what AoIR is up to, and to find ways to get involved with it (in any number of ways from contacting the people who report to volunteering to work on something you see mentioned to making suggestions to...). 2. Executive Officers' Reports 2.1 President (Jones) 2.1.1 The call for papers for the 2003 AoIR conference in Toronto was published a short while ago. If you haven't had a chance to read it, it will be re-posted several times over. Planning for the conference has been under way for some time now, and it promises to be a great one. I hope you can join us, and I hope you can have some of your colleagues who may not have yet attended an AoIR conference join us, too. 2.2 Vice President (Baym) 2.2.1 I've been working on the annual book project with Jeremy and others, thinking about future conferences post-Toronto, and participating in discussion, though not as much as usual because my colleagues on air-exec generally beat me to what I would have said these days. 2.3 Secretary (Bunz) 2.3.1 Participated in the CfP and "joint conference or not" discussions. Other than that, pretty slow month compared to the one before. December 16, 2002 - January 13, 2003 This month on the executive list: . The exec committee finalized its recommendations for the call for papers, especially with regard to topics and keywords. The recommendations were shared with the conference/program organizers. The CfP was posted to air-l by President Steve Jones on January 6. . We were approached by the ACM Special Interest Group on Computers and Society about possibly organizing a joint-conference. This lead to animated discussion about the issue of joint conferences in general, and possible collaboration with this specific group. Overall, sentiment was positive about collaborating with this particular group, though the proposed timing (June 2004) is not ideal. Other possibilities (such as special topic or summer conferences in addition to the annual AoIR conference) were discussed. The general topic of "affiliation" was discussed too, and we agreed that we need clear guidelines that govern when and why we "affiliate" or "collaborate" with any interested organization. . Beta-testing of the conference submission website (thanks Jeremy!) . The executive committee has been debating the report of the election committee actively. 2.4 Treasurer (Bates) 2.4.1 Staying pretty current on memberships, accounts. 2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman) 2.5.1 Silver: Nothing to report. 2.5.2 Wellman: Liaising between Exec Committee and the Toronto organizers of the 2003 conference (next October). 2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade) 2.6.1 Allen: In the past month I have concentrated on finalising aspects of the 2003 conference, as Program Chair, including assisting to finalise the call for papers (thanks to Liss and Steve and all), assisting to prepare the conference submission system (thanks to Jeremy for tech wizardry), and arranging the reviewing team. 2.6.2 Shade: Worked with Logie to figure out our contributions to AOIR conf book. 2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup) 2.7.1 Nothing much to report - have had to be AFK most of December/early January. The AIR-grad list is up and running and now have 50+ members! 2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl) 2.8.1 Hunsinger: the usual lot. I've been rewriting the submission system so it works the way it was requested. once that is finished, i plan on updating the listserve system, after that I probably have to start working on some sort of election system, as that is coming up soon too. 2.8.2 Breindahl: I have been overseeing postings and subscriptions on AIR-L and our other lists as usual. I have also done some minor editing and additions to our public web site and continue to update the book list. There has been no activity in the 'Net WG. 2.9 2003 Conference (Liss Jeffrey, Chair; Matthew Allen, David Mitchell, Program Co-Chairs) 2.9.1 Jeffrey (with her team: Katherine Parrish, Jason Nolan, Alex Kuskis, and steering committee chair Barry Wellman): - Call for papers has gone out, and is up on Toronto 2003 web site <www.ecommons.net/aoir web> . French translation was arranged and sent out. AIR-meet has been the place to send notice of the lists where our cfp is circulating. More to go. - Working committee member Alex Kuskis arranged the book display with Richard A. Koenigsberg, PhD and his Library of Social Science Book Exhibits group, after assuring us that Canadian authors would be represented and space and other issues addressed. Authors who wish to launch books or internet authors wishing to launch web sites should contact organizers with proposals. aoir(a)ecommons.net - Tech committee has met with Hilton Hotel (which is being very supportive). David Mitchell, program co-chair, came to town and had successful meetings with Ryerson and Toronto tech committee (Jason Nolan) Ryerson University has come on board to help, which is very welcome. - Fund raising is starting, slowly. No news yet on our grant request. Contact aoir(a)ecommons.net if you have sponsors you wish to propose, or if you wish to donate. - Steve Jones will give an invited lecture to the Knowledge Media Design Institute on February 13 (4 - 5:30, 40 St George St. University of Toronto) and on February 14th we will hold a Valentine special event 12 - 2 PM for volunteers and prospective sponsors for AoiR 4.0 (McLuhan Video conference room 140 St George St). - Volunteer, working and steering committees are all meeting in the next six weeks. contact bev(a)ecommons.net to get involved in Toronto. - Pre conference workshop list is in process, and we will report soon on further developments. Katherine Parrish playing a key role. - Thanks to my organizing committee, which is just terrific. 2.9.2 Mitchell: Over the past month or so I have been working with a sub committee which is planning for the technical needs for the conference. I visited Toronto last week and met with the Rogers Communication Centre at Ryerson University to ask for their help on the technical side and also perhaps with demonstration events. They were quite excited and later one of their members (Many Amrylou) accompanied me to the Hilton where we met Jason and Katherine from the Toronto team -- and together planned for connectivity needs. This week we met via videoconferencing to continue our group's discussion of technical needs and ideas. I am also trying to find funds to support bilingual translation for the conference. I will keep you posted on any progress here. 2.10 AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair) 2.10.1 There has been light discussion of very modest modifications of the ethics report (e.g., formatting, availability in HTML, wording regarding audience, requests for citation, etc.) - impeded, appropriately enough, by the solstitial holidays and a sense of well-deserved rest following the approval of the report. More to come, however! 2.11 AoIR Research Annual Working Group (Mia Consalvo, Chair) 2.11.1 The Research Annual Working Group has actively begun narrowing down appropriate themes for the first volume of the annual, which will include a selection of the research presented at the first three AoIR conferences. We are also determining a pool of potential contributors from conference presentations that fit the themes and represent some of the best work to come out of the conferences and the association. 2.12 AoIR Net Resources Working Group (Charlie Breindahl, Chair) 2.12.1 There has been no activity in the 'Net WG. ------------------------------------end of executive committee report------------------------------ The Association of Internet Researchers is a scholarly association dedicated to the advancement of the cross-disciplinary field of Internet studies. It is a resource and support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic borders. The association is international in scope. The association's web site is at http://www.aoir.org. Membership information is available at http://aoir.org/airjoin.html _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

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RE: internet regulation - few questions
by a-matwyshyn＠law.northwestern.edu 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

Ondrej, Here are a few national and international internet regulation resources for you - http://www.findlaw.com/01topics/10cyberspace/index.html http://www.bakernet.com/ecommerce/ http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/bib.html http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/index.html http://dmoz.org/Society/Law/Legal_Information/Computer_and_Technology_Law/I… http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/index.html http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/ The Baker website (the second URL) has a country by country and genre by genre breakdown of regulations that is updated pretty regularly. Also, I research, teach and practice law in the area, so please feel free to contact me directly with any questions about US internet regulation. best, Andrea M. Matwyshyn a-matwyshyn(a)law.northwestern.edu Adjunct Professor of Law Northwestern University School of Law Ph.D. candidate - Human Development and Social Policy Northwestern University

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messages and digests
by Barry Wellman 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

James Watt's posting re 'Do Not Quote the Entire Message in Your Reply' was welcome to me. But I started thinking that the annoyance level of this depends on the form in which people receive messages. Something else for lingusitic/communication folks to analyze, perhaps. Watt and I are digest readers, and it is a PITA to plow through a series of quoted full-length replies. On the other hand, if folks are getting one message at a time, it is much less annoying, and perhaps even useful to quote full messages. You read the reply and enough of the quoted message to get context. So the medium affects the usefulness of the message;-) I wonder how many readers of this list are digest readers or one-at-a-time readers. Barry PS: It is also an undisputed PITA to plow thru HTML after plain ASCII, which too many folks do also: turn that HTML off, svp. ___________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman(a)chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 ___________________________________________________________________

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internet regulation - few questions
by Ondrej Veis 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

Hello, I'm gathering information on various aspects of internet regulation. For this purposes I've posted a short online form, it can be found at http://www.nms.cz/reg . I'd like to ask internet researchers who have some experience or present any opinion on such topic as internet regulation to visit the link and answer the form in short. That would be very helpful to me. Thanks everybody, Ondrej Veis phd student sociology dept. Faculty of Philosophy & Arts Charles University, Prague, Czech Rep. ICQ: 16287668, phone: +420.603450979

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SMS and VLMS
by James Watt 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

The members of this list are clearly interested in Short Messages, given the recent thread. I'd like to suggest that this interest be expanded to apply to the posts on this list -- my most recent digest contained a number of messages that quoted entire prior digests, that in turn quoted prior messages, that in turn were posted in both ASCII and Mime format. As a result, I had to plow through the same messages as many as 6 times in a single list digest. So this is what is turning into my annual appeal to posters to *not* quote entire digests, and to excerpt only the relevant material from long prior postings when replying. I enjoy the discussion on this list, but increasingly I just delete these huge, redundant digests rather than spending the time to separate the 30% of new material from the 70% of old stuff. A little care in preparing the post will improve the reading experience for lots of people. ======================================================== James H. Watt Professor and Chair, Department of Language, Literature, and Communication Director, Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street, Sage Lab 4708 Troy, NY 12180-3590 email: wattj(a)rpi.edu voice: (518) 276-2784 fax: (518) 276-4092

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Greetings and Games
by federico 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

Hello to everyone. I'm a PhD student in Mass Communication at the University of Georgia and have just subscribed to this list. I am in the preliminary stages (read: literature collection) of research project regarding the psychology of, and construction of community in, MMORPGs (Massively Muliplayer Online Role Playing Games). I was wondering if anyone knew of any academic studies of online gaming (in any context, not limited to the ones I described). I've only managed to find the works of Nicholas Yee regarding MMORPGs and Ever Quest in particular (but none of those have have been published anywhere despite being rather extensive). Any help/advice is much appreciated. Federico de Gregorio

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Re: SMS
by James Watt 20 Jan '03

20 Jan '03

RE: >Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 08:37:05 -0800 >To: air-l(a)aoir.org >From: Mark Warschauer <markw(a)uci.edu> >Subject: Re: [Air-l] SMS? >Reply-To: air-l(a)aoir.org > > >Where do you live, Mark ? > > >Southern California. > >SMS is not as prevalent here as in Europe, and apparently neither is >the term (though I'm sure people more astute than I are familiar with >it). >Mark > >Mark Warschauer >Vice Chair, Department of Education >Assistant Professor of Education and of Information & Computer Science >University of California, Irvine Since I mentally mistranslated "SMS" as "Synchronous Message Systems" (i.e., generic chat) for a moment (and I'm interested in in-group restricted language codes), I Googled "SMS " to see how out-of-it I was. Google found 48,300,000 hits, so I, too, must sadly confess to being acronym-impaired. Now if you had said "...thumb typing" ... ======================================================== James H. Watt Professor and Chair, Department of Language, Literature, and Communication Director, Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street, Sage Lab 4708 Troy, NY 12180-3590 email: wattj(a)rpi.edu voice: (518) 276-2784 fax: (518) 276-4092

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