August 2007 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Fwd: Job: 5-years position for a PhD in the area ofInteractive/Multimedia Design
by Jeremy Hunsinger 21 Aug '07

21 Aug '07

Begin forwarded message: > From: Luís Teixeira <lteixeira(a)PORTO.UCP.PT> > Date: August 21, 2007 9:13:05 AM CDT > To: PHD-DESIGN(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK > Subject: Job: 5-years position for a PhD in the area ofInteractive/ > Multimedia Design > Reply-To: Luís Teixeira <lteixeira(a)PORTO.UCP.PT> > > Please forward this email to all potential interested people. Thanks. > > Luis > > > > P.S. - Sorry for duplicate messages. > > > > -- > > > > Assistant Researcher in the area of Interactive/Multimedia Design > > > > http://www.eracareers.pt/opportunities/index.aspx? > task=global&jobId=6889 > > > > CITAR invites applications for Assistant Researcher in the area of > Interactive/Multimedia Design to be responsible for the design and > development of multimedia contents, translating scientific data and > public requirements into creative, highly usable interfaces, design > wireframes and prototypes, plan and run usability tests, and write > detailed user interface specification documents. > > > > The selected candidate will integrate the multidisciplinary team of > this project, Science and Society â€“ promoting citizenship through > the reflection on ethical issues in life sciences. The project is > the result of the established partnership between the Centre for > Bioethics Research and the Research Centre for Sciences and > Technology of the Arts, both belonging to the Portuguese Catholic > University [please see UCP/GIB/2007 Job reference]. The Project > aims at developing the role that universities and research centres > have in the knowledge society as well as their contribute to > citizenship > > > > CITAR is a research unit of Portuguese Catholic University located > at the Regional Centre of Oporto. Citar's mission is to foster > scientific research, through art, science and technology. The > centre hosts and promotes interdisciplinary studies by fostering > work developed together by artists, scientists and engineers with > different backgrounds, knowledge, and cultures to create art, > audiovisual objects and technologies. Unique in Portugal, it > presents a model of practice-based research and innovation in which > scientific and technologic investigation is undertaken using > traditional methods and experience from arts. > > > > Requirements: The applicant will be responsible for the different > aspects of content production, including concept, content and > communicating design, by analyzing specific life science content > and user scenarios for different target audiences and proposing new > user interaction design and content production to meet project > goals for the best possible user experience. The applicant will > work with multidisciplinary teams to plan the navigational > structure, design the interface requirements, and develop > multimedia content needs for the different types of projects that > can vary from CD/DVD-ROMs, Flash applications, or Web Applications. > > Salary and Benefits: Salary will be ca. 42 000 â‚¬/year before > taxes, in accordance with the CiÃªncia 2007 guidelines. Benefits > include private health insurance, social security and paid vacations. > > > > Application Procedure: > > > > Candidates should send the following by mail to the address > mentioned below* > > > > - CV (including an e-mail address and publication list). > > - Portfolio (online and DVD) > > - Motivation letter > > - Name and contact information for 2-3 persons who can provide a > letter of recommendation if needed. > > > > Contact for further information: > > LuÃ s Teixeira > > CITAR - Portuguese Catholic University > > Porto, Portugal > > Telephone: +351-22-6196214 > > Fax: +351-22-6196291 > > Email: lteixeira(a)porto.ucp.pt > > > > Application deadline: > > 05 September 2007 > > > Esta mensagem (incluindo quais quer anexos) pode conter informação > confidencial ou legalmente protegida para uso exclusivo do > destinatário. Se não for o destinatário pretendido da mesma, não > deverá fazer uso, copiar, distribuir ou revelar o seu conteúdo > (incluindo quaisquer anexos) a terceiros, sem a devida autorização. > Se recebeu esta mensagem por engano, por favor informe o emissor, > por e-mail, e elimine-a imediatamente. Obrigado. > > This message may contain confidential information or privileged > material, and is intended only for de individual(s) named. If you > are not in the named addressee, you should not disseminate, > distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender > immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake > and delete this e-mail from your system. Jeremy Hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu) Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Byron

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public/private and imagined blog audiences (I just couldn't stop myself from posting)
by David Brake 21 Aug '07

21 Aug '07

I have been fascinated and a little dismayed at the way this argument has developed and polarised in the last few days. It seems to me that part of the problem is a lack of clarity about what is being argued about. It is important to be clear whether in discussion you are talking about: 1) What is legal to do (and in what country?) 2) What an IRB will allow 3) What is or should be considered ethical. Similarly, and based on my own research, I feel it is important to distinguish between a) What the 'technical' publicness of speech is (ie can the public actually read it) b) The attitudes people 'should' have to what they have written given the technical nature of the medium and c) The attitudes people *actually* have to the publicness of what they have written (which may or may not correspond to the technical characteristics of the actual choice of medium). I don't have enough specialist knowledge to address 1 or 2 but do have a view on 3. To put it more simply and in response to this particular circumstance: In my view, what is important, ethically, in deciding whether asking for permission to use a weblog text is necessary is not whether a web page is actually publicly readable or whether its author is reasonable to expect privacy given their choice of medium, but whether a broader exposure of the text to additional readers (if it is then connectable to its author) is likely to cause the authors significant harm, whether immediate or future, which is likely to be connected to the question whether it seems likely its author envisioned the audience for that page as a private one. I am particularly vexed with the attitude exemplified by Charlie Balch's comment: > As a bottom line, if you post it on the net, it is public. The > publisher > might regret their post but that does not make it private. Yes, > additional > exposure might bring some greater harm to the poster but the poster > has > brought it upon themselves. Also by Jeremy's: > i expect your mom, like my mom, to be able to become comfortable > with blogging over a period of time, to be able to master what skills > they desire to have, and from there to make decisions. The main problem here is often that people who blog don't think through that they have a public private issue to deal with. We have developed rules about what we can and can't use in research based on offline situations that have arisen over centuries and are well understood by all. My feeling (based on my research to date as well as some 20 years of experience online) is that we should be cautious about our use of material that has been posted during this transitional period where the boundaries of public and private online are not widely understood by many participants. In a decade or so when most Internet users are practiced enough to have reached a real understanding of the consequences of expressing one's self online in spaces that are widely accessible and indefinitely archived, we could then consider re-examining our ethical stances. People sometimes make dumb decisions it is true, but as researchers we are bound not to exploit those bad decisions for our own benefit if this is likely to cause them significant harm. Bringing a 'public' text which in practice is very unlikely to be read by significant numbers of people to the attention of a larger or more influential group through publishing it - particularly when such publication comes with a judgement attached - *is* effectively an intervention. Of course you could argue as Charlie does that academic journal readers represent a quite small number of people, and that they are unlikely to have any connection to the research subjects or reason to act on what they have learned about them. This is an argument I have some sympathy with but historically this doesn't seem to weigh strongly in academic decision making. And of course academic research can leak into the broader public discussion - some of us might end up writing newspaper articles that point people to our research (which we might make publicly available on our web pages these days) or we might end up writing 'cross-over' books which talk about our academic work but are aimed at a more general audience. On the other hand if there is significant potential harm to an individual it might be more than compensated for if research gives us important new insights. (Yes I'm a utilitarian). PS Intellagirl wrote: > Has there > been any research on what audiences bloggers etc really think they are > reaching, want to reach etc? The rift between the the ideal > audience and the > actual audience? One of the core aspects of my thesis on personal webloggers will be an examination of just this issue. An early exposition of it is in print but alas only in Norwegian! Here is a selection of other literature on this topic. It is not exhaustive and I would be interested to hear of others' work in this area: Gumbrecht, M. (2004) "Blogs as 'Protected Space'". in World Wide Web Conference, New York, p. 5, http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/ www2004gumbrecht.pdf Nardi, B., D. Schiano and M. Gumbrecht (2004) "Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary?" in CSCW, p. 11, http://home.comcast.net/~diane.schiano/CSCW04.Blog.pdf boyd, d. (2004) Broken Metaphors: Blogging as Liminal Practice Last accessed: 13 Dec 2004 Last updated: 12 Dec 2004 Address: http:// www.danah.org/papers/BrokenMetaphors.pdf. Viegas, F. (2005) "Bloggers' Expectations of Privacy and Accountability: An Initial Survey ", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10 (3). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html Lenhart, A. and S. Fox (2006) "Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers" Pew Internet & American Life Project http:// www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/186/report_display.asp Norwegian speakers might want to look at: Brake, D. (2007) 'Personlige webloggere og deres publikum: Hvem tror de egentlig at de snakker med?' i Lüders, M., Pritz, L. & Rasmussen, T. (Red.) Personlige medier: Livet mellom skjermene, 141-163. Oslo: Gyldendal. I have (the original) English language version, "Personal webloggers and their audiences: Who do they think they are talking to?" and will share it on request (though there is much I would change with it now). --- David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London School of Economics & Political Science <http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm> Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/ (personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog) Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ dealingwithemail/> callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone) Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm

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Full specs for AOIR-ICS issue
by Barry Wellman 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

Some folks have asked for a clarification of the requirements for the spcial AoIR issue of ICS. Here it is. In short ... Sept. 1st papers come in. Oct. 1 comments go back. Nov. 5th final revised versions come in. >From the email sent to potential authors ... ... the process goes as follows: Phase 1 -- Completed -- A short list of papers/authors were invited by the editors to submit a formal paper by Phase 2. The list has been closed. Phase 2 -- Heads-up to the Short List 2. If you're on the short list, please submit a full paper of 5-7,000 words by ** September 1, 2007 ** to both editors: Haythornthwaite and Wellman. NOTE: This is a hard deadline. No papers will be considered after this deadline. 3. The editors will return comments and suggested edits on your paper by October 1, 2007. (We may also secure an additional referee, if needed.) 4. Return the final paper to both editors by ** November 5, 2007 **. Please note that due to the quick turnaround time to have the special issue out early in January 2008, *no* extensions will be given for these deadlines. You are, of course, free to submit the paper at a later date for ICS, but it will no longer be considered part of the special issue if you miss either the September 1 or November 5 deadline. (Please submit late papers directly to Brian Loader, the ICS editor). Papers should conform to ICS style as indicated at this URL. Please pay particular attention to ICS formatting for references both in text and in the final reference list. See http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/ricsauth.asp In addition, please follow these guidelines for papers sent to the special issue editors: -- Use Times Roman typeface, 12 pt text for normal text throughout -- Double space throughout -- Add line numbers, by page (in Word for Windows this is under File: Page Setup: Layout; on Word for Mac this is under Format: Document: Layout) -- Submit Word files only (no pdf, LaTex, or Word Perfect please). Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Room 418 Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-7162 Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL USA 61820

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Reminder: Firm Oct 1 deadline
by Barry Wellman 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

Just a reminder that those of you planning to send in AOIR papers for the special issue of Information, Communication and Society MUST submit them by midnight, Central (US) Daylight Time, October 1, 2007. Send a .doc copy online to each of myself and co-editor Caroline Haythornthwaite (haythorn(a)uiuc.edu) No late submissions; no excuses. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Room 418 Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-7162 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days _______________________________________________________________________

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traditional web marketing fails on social networks
by Ed Lamoureux 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

"get interactive or get out" http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2196857/traditional-marketing- failing-social-networks Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Multimedia Program and Department of Communication Co-Director, New Media Center 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378 <http://slane.bradley.edu/com/faculty/lamoureux/website2/index.html> <http://gcc.bradley.edu/mm/> AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam Second Life: Professor Beliveau

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CFC Extended - Collaborative Learning using Concept Mapping
by Rita Marriott 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

CALL FOR CHAPTERS Handbook of Research on Collaborative Learning using Concept Mapping 2-3 page proposal submission deadline extended: 9/30/2007 Full Articles Due: 1/30/2008 Recommended topics and chapter organization include, but are not limited to, the following: 1. Theoretical Foundation - The Fundamentals of Collaborative Learning - The Fundamentals of Concept Maps - From planning to assessment in the context of collaborative learning using concept maps 2. Practical Foundation - Successful experiences of collaborative learning using concept maps. - Interfaces for the construction of collaborative concept maps For more information, please visit: http://www.idea-group.com/requests/details.asp?ID=178 or send an e-mail to Rita Marriott at rita.marriott(a)yahoo.com. We look forward to hearing from you Rita Marriott & Patricia Torres University of Birmingham / UK & Universidade Catolica do Parana / Brazil --------------------------------- Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center.

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference, New Political Communication Unit, RHUL
by Chadwick Andrew 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

*Please distribute widely. Apologies for cross-posting* CALL FOR PAPERS: Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference Hosted by the New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London. http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-2-0-conference/ April 17-18, 2008. Has there been a shift in political use of the Internet and digital new media - a new Web 2.0 politics based on participatory values? How do broader social, cultural, and economic shifts towards Web 2.0 impact, if at all, on the contexts, the organizational structures, and the communication of politics and policy? Does Web 2.0 hinder or help democratic citizenship? This conference provides an opportunity for researchers to share and debate perspectives. Potential themes could include (in no particular order): - Theorizing Web 2.0. - Changes in political journalism, news production, and consumption. - Social networking (MySpace, Facebook) and election campaigning. - Citizen activism from the local to the transnational. - Blogs, wikis, and user-generated content. - Changing social, cultural, and political identities. - Social software and social media: design, technologies, tools, and techniques. - Social network analysis. - Surveillance, privacy, and security. - Security, foreign policy and international communication. - Hacktivism. - Radical transparency. - The impact of online video. - E-government, web 2.0, and new models of public service delivery. - New models of social and political organization. - 'Little brother' phenomena. - Political life in virtual worlds. - Netroots versus the war room model of election campaigning. - New challenges for media regulation. - Collaborative production of political knowledge networks. - Changing party, interest group, and social movement strategies. - Web 2.0 and political marketing. - Collective intelligence, smart mobs, crowdsourcing. - Fragmenting audiences, the long tail, and the political economy of web 2.0 media. - Civil society, civic engagement, and mobilization. - Web 2.0, ICT4D and the changing digital divide. - The politics of intellectual property. - Hyperlocalism. - The political aesthetics of Web 2.0. Journal of Information Technology and Politics special issue Conference presenters will be invited to submit their papers to a peer review process for publication in a special issue of the new Journal of Information Technology and Politics. http://www.jitp.net. Submitting a paper or panel proposal Paper proposals should be submitted via the secure online form at: http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/web-2-0-conference-form/ Please include: 1. Name and title. 2. Institutional affiliation and mailing address. 3. Email address. 4. Title of proposed paper and abstract of up to 300 words. 5. Please state if you are a graduate research student. Full panel proposals are also welcome. If you would like to propose a panel of three papers on a common theme, with or without a discussant, please email the proposal to the Conference Convenor: Dr. Andrew Chadwick (Andrew.Chadwick(a)rhul.ac.uk) **Deadline for all proposals: November 2, 2007** Further information, including details of keynote speakers and plenary sessions will be released in early autumn. Details of accommodation packages will be released early in 2008. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the New Political Communication Unit ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Led by the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, the New Political Communication Unit was created in the Spring of 2007. Our research agenda consists of three strands: Comparative and international political communication: the Internet's impact on political mobilization, campaigning and identity; the relationship between media, war, new security challenges and conflict; audience reception studies in the context of the proliferation of media; the dynamic between citizens' changing uses of media and a transforming news environment; citizen journalism; technology and mobilities. Communication and comparative governance: e-government, e-democracy and the changing interface between representative institutions, public bureaucracies and citizens; changing organizational practices shaped by new patterns of communication. Comparative and international communication policy: Internet and new media governance and regulation; privacy, surveillance and security, the political economy of new media; cultural diversity policy; digital divide and development issues. We offer a taught Masters stream in New Political Communication and PhD supervision in our areas of expertise. The Unit's network inside Royal Holloway incorporates academic staff from the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Department of Media Arts, the School of Management, the UNESCO Centre for ICT4D in the Department of Geography, the Department of Psychology and the Department of Computer Science. Our external networks include scholars and practitioners in a wide variety of organisations and countries. For more information, please visit http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About Royal Holloway ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Royal Holloway is one of the major Colleges of the federal University of London and is among the elite group of ten university institutions whose departments all hold the top three ratings for research, with scores of 4, 5 and 5*. Our beautiful parkland campus is about 15 minutes by taxi from London Heathrow airport, and about 35 minutes from central London by train. For further information visit: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/

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Reminder: CFP Special Issue of the Information Society on Open Source and Public Sector
by Anna Maria Szczepanska 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

Reminder: CALL FOR PAPERS Special Issue of The Information Society on Open Source and Public Sector: Discourse, Politics and Practice Guest Editors: Jan Ljungberg, Magnus Bergquist and Anna Maria Szczepanska In the last ten years the Open Source (OS) and Free Software (FS) movement has come to challenge the norms and ideals, products and procedures of the dominant proprietary software industry. OS/FS represents a radically different logic within the field of software development. This logic is based on ideas that celebrate the rights of the user and informational freedoms and resist strong intellectual property laws and regulations. In addition to gaining ground in the commercial software market, the OS/FS-movement is also establishing itself as an interesting alternative for the public sector. Currently, discussions regarding OS/FS procurement and policy-making are taking place within governments and public sector organizations all over the world. The OS/FS-technologies advocates have promoted them on the basis of their potential cost-benefits, their value as "a public good", their egalitarian and digital divide-bridging qualities and so forth. But the public sector initiatives still seem somewhat hesitant. The OS/FS in public sector discussions and policy-making processes represent a discourse still very much in the making. This special issue will provide an opportunity for researchers to present valuable insights at an early stage about a relevant topic that crosscuts the information technology and policy processes and OS/FS movement’s institutionalization processes. We hope to bring together insights from multiple areas, such as political science, sociology, economics, IS-research, media studies, policy studies and cultural studies. Discourse analysis and case studies would both be welcome analytical strategies to provide breadth to the special issue. Contributions could include the following: - Papers identifying and discussing how underlying norms, values and practices inscribed in OS/FS and proprietary software are understood and dealt with in public sector discourse. - Case studies on evolving policies and laws related to Open Source / Free Software in the public sector. - Papers analyzing the rhetoric on the pros and cons of OS/FS in the public sector. - Papers identifying and analyzing the way actors (e.g. the media, business groups, academia, consumers, NGO’s, SMO’s, transnational advocacy networks) are organizing in order to influence, support or criticize policy processes and other activities relating to the dispersal of OS/FS products and ideas in public sector. The guest editors invite abstracts by September 1, 2007, which should be sent to anmar(a)ituniv.se. Authors with the most to offer to the dialogue will be invited to contribute full papers, which will go through the normal review process of the journal. For more information on TIS guidelines, please refer to: http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/

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CFP: IFIP WG 9.5 International Working Conference on Virtuality and Society: Massive Virtual Communities
by catherine middleton 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

Posted on behalf of the conference organizers, this conference may be of interest to members of the AoIR community: IFIP WG 9.5 International Working Conference on Virtuality and Society: Massive Virtual Communities Organizers: Niki Panteli, Martin Warnke Date: July 1st and 2nd, 2008 Place: Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany Scope & Theme Prominently within the gaming community, but also within other communities on the internet, very huge virtual communities begin to evolve. In games, an average number of people that is comparable to a smaller city is online at the same time, thus forming a proper society. People share their pictures and videos, they meet and date in virtual communities. In Second Life, even big companies start virtual branches to enhance customer relations. It is likely that this phenomenon will become even more significant in the near future for gaming, for business and private purposes, maybe even for administrative and political functions. It is already obvious that those massive virtual communities will have a substantial impact on society, economics, art, and -last but not least -technology. The workshop will bring together experts of that field to collect insights on a emerging major subject. Program committee Wolfgang Coy (Humboldt University Berlin, D) Velvet Landingham (Kent State University Geauga, USA) Niki Panteli (University of Bath, UK) Claus Pias (University of Vienna, A) Bryan K. Temple (Glasgow Caledonian University, UK) Martin Warnke (Leuphana University Lueneburg, D) The papers are published online as preprints. A book publication is intended. Important dates Deadline for full papers (previously unpublished material, not exceeding 12 pages single spaced, pdf format: January 15th, 2008, to be sent by e-mail to warnke(a)uni-lueneburg.de Notification of acceptance: March 15th, 2008 Conference fee: 100 Euro including an evening program at the first day of the conference and coffee breaks Venue Lueneburg is a smaller city in northern Germany, near Hamburg. It has a lively university and a medieval city centre. The famous Lueneburg heath is not far away. There will be a limited number of hotel rooms at special rates when booked early. Details on http://www.leuphana.de/ifip_mass_virt_comm/accommodation Sponsored by IFIP 9.5 Working Group "Virtuality and Society" http://www.ifip95wg.org/ Co-sponsored by the Gesellschaft fuer Informatik e. V., Section Computers and Society, Working Group "Computers as Media" Immediately afterwards, at July 3rd to 5th 2008, the Working Group "Computers as Media" will have its annual Workshop "HyperKult 17" at the same location.

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FW: [CPE=RN] International Protest Over Berlin Sociologist's Arrest
by Christian Fuchs 19 Aug '07

19 Aug '07

Dear colleagues, Please consider to sign the petition against the criminalization of critical social research in Germany in the case of a sociologist from Berlin who has been accused with charges of membership in a terrorist group due to categories like "gentrification" that he used in his scientific papers (!). With Kind Regards, CF -- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs Assistant Professor for Internet and Society ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs(a)sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/ Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at Forthcoming BOOK: Fuchs, Christian (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. **** Dear all, On 31st July 2007 the flats and workplaces of Dr. Andrej Holm and Dr. Matthias B., as well as of two other persons, were searched by the police. Dr. Andrej Holm was arrested, flown by helicopter to the German Federal Court in Karlsruhe and brought before the custodial judge. Since then he has been held in pretrial confinement in a Berlin jail. All four people have been charged with "membership in a terrorist association according to ァ 129a StGB" (German Penal Code, section 7 on 'Crimes against Public Order'). They are alleged to be members of a so-called "militante gruppe" (mg). The text of the search warrant revealed that preliminary proceedings against these four people have been going on since September 2006 and that the four had since been under constant surveillance. All four accused are critical social scientists and they do exactly what sociologists and political scientists should be doing. To read more about this situation, please visit: http://einstellung.so36.net/en/openletter. Newspaper article about those accused: "International Protest Over Berlin Sociologist's Arrest" http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2742395,00.html You can sign a petition at: http://www.policing-crowds.org/petition.html Best wishes, Manuel Manuel B. Aalbers Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University New York m.b.aalbers(a)gmail.com <mailto:m.b.aalbers@gmail.com> ***** This email came through the mailinglist of the Critical Political Economy Research Network of the European Sociological Association http://criticalpoliticaleconomy.blogspot.com/

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