September 2011 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

CFP Mobilities (Local and Mobile) conference 2012
by Adriana de Souza e Silva 19 Sep '11

19 Sep '11

***Apologies for cross-postings*** 3rd Mobilities conference 2012 Local and mobile: Linking mobilities, mobile communication and locative media Conference website and abstract submission: http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/mobilities/ From March 16-18 2012, the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) Program and the Mobile Gaming Research Lab at NC State University will be hosting the 3rd joint international conference of the Pan-American Mobilities Network and the Cosmobilities Network. Invited keynote speakers: · Paul Dourish (University of California, Irvine) · Rich Ling (IT University of Copenhagen) · Teri Rueb (University of Buffalo, SUNNY) Mobilities has become an important framework to understand and analyze contemporary social, spatial, economic and political practices. Being interdisciplinary in its nature, Mobilities focuses on the systematic movement of people, goods and information that “travel” around the world in rates much higher (or much slower) than before. As such, mobility studies challenge traditional scholarship that often ignores the social dimensions of mobility, overlooking how travel, movement, and communication and transportation networks help to constitute modern societies and communities. Mobility has always been critical for the creation of social networks and to the development of connections to places. In addition, Mobilities contributes to study of the technological, social and cultural developments in transportation, border control, mobile communication, “intelligent” infrastructure, surveillance. While mobility is an important framework to understand contemporary society, the pervasiveness of location-aware technology has made it possible to locate ourselves and be networked within patterns of mobility. As user generated maps and location-aware mobile devices become commonplace, we experience a shift in the way we connect to the internet and move through space. Networked interactions permeate our world. We no longer enter the internet--we carry it with us. We experience it while moving through physical spaces. Mobile phones, GPS receivers, and RFID tags are only a few examples of location-aware mobile technologies that mediate our interaction with networked spaces and influence how we move in these spaces. Increasingly, our physical location determines the types of information with which we interact, the way we move through physical spaces, and the people and things we find around us. These new kinds of networked interactions manifest in everyday social practices that are supported by the use of mobile and location-aware technologies, such as participation in location-based mobile games and social networks, use of location-based services, development of mobile annotation projects, and social mapping, just to name a few. The engagement with these practices has important implications for identity construction, our sense of privacy, our notions of place and space, civic and political participation, policy making, as well as cultural production and consumption in everyday life. We invite papers that address themes at the intersection of mobility and location, or related topics, such as: · Mobile communication and location awareness in everyday life practices; · New urban spatialities developed with mobile gaming and locative social media; · Privacy and surveillance issues as they relate to mobile and location-based social networks; · Identity and spatial construction through locative media art / embodied performance; · Civic engagement and political participation through mobile social media, new mapping practices and location-aware technologies; · Borders, surveillance, and securitization with ubiquitous and mobile technologies; · Aeromobilities, air travel, and aerial vision; · Alternative mobilities and slow movements; · Planning, policy and design for future mobilities and location-based services; · Tourism, imaginary travel, and virtual travel; · Transitions toward sustainable mobilities; · New methodologies for mobilities research. Disciplines represented at the conference may include (but are not exclusive to): Anthropology, Architecture and Design, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Communication, Criminology, Cultural Studies, Geography, Media and Visual Arts, Politics and International Relations, Public Policy, Sociology, Theater and Performance Studies, Tourism Research, Transport Research, and Urban Studies. Conference location: North Carolina State University, Raleigh (NC), USA Conference hotel: Brownstone Hotel (http://www.brownstonehotel.com/) Discounted rates will be available to registered participants. Important dates: Deadline for abstracts: 30 October 2011 (800 words, including references) Notification of acceptance: 15 December 2011 Registration deadline: 30 January 2012 Conference Dates: 16-18 March 2012 Please submit your abstracts through the conference website: http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu/mobilities/ Organizing Committee: Adriana de Souza e Silva (NC State University, USA) Heather Horst (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia) Lee Humphreys (Cornell University, USA) Ole B. Jensen (Aalborg University, Denmark) Mimi Sheller (Drexel University, USA) Irina Shklovski (IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark) Phillip Vannini (Royal Roads University, Canada) For further information, contact: Adriana de Souza e Silva, Ph.D Associate Professor of Communication Interim Associate Director, Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media Ph.D program North Carolina State University http://www.souzaesilva.com adriana(a)souzaesilva.com ________________________ Adriana de Souza e Silva, Ph.D Associate Professor of Communication Interim Associate Director, Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media Ph.D program North Carolina State University http://www.souzaesilva.com

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tool for mapping outgoing links
by Anna Keshelashvili 19 Sep '11

19 Sep '11

Dear all, I'm looking for a tool that would analyze and visualize outgoing links from a random website (one that I have no administrator's access to). Any suggestions, any ideas, any tools you've used and liked or hated? thanks, a -- Ana Keshelashvili http://postsbyme.com http://socialblurbs.ge http://twitter.com/anano

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Re: [Air-L] Arab spring & social media evidence
by John Paul Laprise 18 Sep '11

18 Sep '11

The most compelling finding for me based on discussions with my students and people in the region is not found in the PITPI report. The most compelling and generalizable IMO finding relates to participator behavior, especially when connectivity is turned off. Heavy content participators who consume and produce content, are unwilling to accept state limitations on their ability to participate and in fact choose other means if blocked. When Egypt shut down it's Internet, participators did not simply stop participating. Having developed a participatory inclination through the frequent use of communication technology, they sought to continue their participation when that outlet was limited. In practice, this resulted in unexpected vectoring of information as activists disconnected from technology resorted to more traditional communication methods e.g. knocking on the door of their neighbor. Participatory neighbors activated their less participatory (and likely therefore less informed) neighbors leading to a broader public mobilization outside what might be expected out of technological (and possibly economic) channels. I'm still struggling with the language as my gut instinct is actually to characterize heavy participators as addicts who suffer withdrawal when the state limits access and who then seek out substitutes. The reason why I find this so compelling is that I suspect that this is likely true globally, not just in revolutionary situations. For some, online participation is so important that finding themselves with limited access they find a replacement for it. The Arab Spring provides evidence of the powerful societal effects that this behavior can have. Best regards, John Laprise Visiting Assistant Professor in the Communication Program Northwestern University in Qatar

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Submission Reminder CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
by Christian Fuchs 18 Sep '11

18 Sep '11

Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today   Call for Papers for a Special Issue of tripleC Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society.  Edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco   http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/CfP_Marx_tripleC.pdf For inquiries, please contact the two editors. In light of the global capitalist crisis, there is renewed interest in Karl Marxs works and in concepts like class, exploitation and surplus value. Slavoj iek argues that the antagonisms of contemporary capitalism in the context of the ecological crisis, the massive expansion of intellectual property, biogenetics, new forms of apartheid and growing world poverty show that we still need the Marxian notion of class. He concludes that there is an urgent need to renew Marxism and to defend its lost causes in order to render problematic capitalism as the only alternative (iek 2008, 6) and the new forms of a soft capitalism that promise, and in its rhetoric makes use of, ideals like participation, self-organization, and co-operation, without realizing them. iek (2010, chapter 3) argues that the global capitalistcrisis clearly demonstrates the need to return to the critique of political economy. Göran Therborn suggests that the new constellations of power and new possibilities of resistance in the 21st century require retaining the Marxian idea that human emancipation from exploitation, oppression, discrimination and the inevitable linkage between privilege and misery can only come from struggle by the exploited and disadvantaged themselves (Therborn 2008, 61). Eric Hobsbawm (2011, 12f) insists that for understanding the global dimension of contemporary capitalism, its contradictions and crises, and the persistence of socio-economic inequality, we must ask Marxs questions (13).    This special issue will publish articles that address the importance of Karl Marxs works for Critical Media and Communication Studies, what it means to ask Marxs questions in 21st century informational capitalism, how Marxian theory can be used for critically analyzing and transforming media and communication today, and what the implications of the revival of the interest in Marx are for the field of Media and Communication Studies.   Questions that can be explored in contributions include, but are not limited to:   * What is Marxist Media and Communication Studies? Why is it needed today? What are the main assumptions, legacies, tasks, methods and categories of Marxist Media and Communication Studies and how do they relate to Karl Marxs theory? What are the different types of Marxist Media/Communication Studies, how do they differ, what are their commonalities?  * What is the role of Karl Marxs theory in different fields, subfields and approaches of Media and Communication Studies? How have the role, status, and importance of Marxs theory for Media and Communication Studies evolved historically, especially since the 1960s? * In addition to his work as a theorist and activist, Marx was a practicing journalist throughout his career. What can we learn from his journalism about the practice of journalism today, about journalism theory, journalism education and alternative media? * What have been the structural conditions, limits and problems for conducting Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Research and for carrying out university teaching in the era of neoliberalism? What are actual or potential effects of the new capitalist crisis on these conditions?  * What is the relevance of Marxian thinking in an age of capitalist crisis for analyzing the role of media and communication in society?  * How can the Marxian notions of class, class struggle, surplus value, exploitation, commodity/commodification, alienation, globalization, labour, capitalism, militarism and war, ideology/ideology critique, fetishism, and communism best be used for analyzing, transforming and criticizing the role of media, knowledge production and communication in contemporary capitalism?  * How are media, communication, and information addressed in Marxs work? * What are commonalities and differences between contemporary approaches in the interpretation of Marxs analyses of media, communication, knowledge, knowledge labour and technology?  * What is the role of dialectical philosophy and dialectical analysis as epistemological and methodological tools for Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Studies?  * What were central assumptions of Marx about media, communication, information, knowledge production, culture and how can these insights be used today for the critical analysis of capitalism? * What is the relevance of Marxs work for an understanding of social media?  * Which of Marxs works can best be used today to theorize media and communication? Why and how?  * Terry Eagleton (2011) demonstrates that the 10 most common held prejudices against Marx are wrong. What prejudices against Marx can be found in Media and Communication Studies today? What have been the consequences of such prejudices? How can they best be contested? Are there continuities and/or discontinuities of prejudices against Marx in light of the new capitalist crisis?  All contributions shall genuinely deal with Karl Marxs original works and discuss their relevance for contemporary Critical Media/Communication Studies.  Eagleton Terry. 2011. Why Marx was right. London: Yale University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 2011. How to change the world. Marx and Marxism 1840-2011. London: Little, Brown. Therborn, Göran. 2008. From Marxism to post-Marxism? London: Verso. iek, Slavoj. 2008. In defense of lost causes. London: Verso. iek, Slavoj. 2010. Living in the end times. London: Verso.   Editors   Christian Fuchs is chair professor for Media and Communication Studies at Uppsala Universitys Department of Informatics and Media. He is editor of the journal tripleC Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. His areas of interest are: Critical Theory, Social Theory, Media & Society, Critical Political Economy of Media/Communication, Critical Information Society Studies, Critical Internet Studies. He is author of the books Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies (Routledge 2011) and Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age (Routledge 2008, paperback 2011). He is co-editor of the collected volume The Internet and Surveillance. The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media (Routledge 2011, together with Kees Boersma, Anders Albrechtslund, Marisol Sandoval). He is currently writing a book presenting a critical theory of social media. http://fuchs.uti.at    Vincent Mosco is professor emeritus of sociology at Queen's University and formerly Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society. Dr. Mosco is the author of numerous books on communication, technology, and society. His most recent include Getting the Message: Communications Workers and Global Value Chains (co-edited with Catherine McKercher and Ursula Huws, Merlin, 2010), The Political Economy of Communication, second edition (Sage, 2009), The Laboring of Communication: Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite (co-authored with Catherine McKercher, Lexington Books, 2008), Knowledge Workers in the Information Society (co-edited with Catherine McKercher, Lexington Books, 2007), and The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004). He is currently writing a book on the relevance of Karl Marx for communication research today.   Publication Schedule and Submission   Structured Abstracts for potential contributions shall be submitted to both editors (christian.fuchs(a)im.uu.se, moscov(a)mac.com) per e-mail until September 30th, 2011 (submission deadline). The authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to write full papers that are due five months after the feedback from the editors. Full papers must then be submitted to tripleC. Please do not instantly submit full papers, but only structured abstracts to the editors. The abstracts should have a maximum of 1 200 words and should be structured by dealing separately with each of the following five dimensions:   1) Purpose and main questions of the paper  2) Description of the way taken for answering the posed questions  3) Relevance of the topic in relation to the CfP  4) Main expected outcomes and new insights of the paper  5) Contribution to the engagement with Marxs works and to Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Studies   Journal   tripleC (cognition, communication, co-operation): Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, http://www.triple-c.se    Focus and Scope: Critical Media-/Information-/ Communication-/Internet-/Information Society-Studies  tripleC provides a forum to discuss the challenges humanity is facing today. It publishes contributions that focus on critical studies of media, information, communication, culture, digital media, social media and the Internet in the information society. The journals focus is especially on critical studies and it asks contributors to reflect about normative, political, ethical and critical implications of their research.   Indexing: Scopus, EBSCOHost Communication and Mass Media Complete, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)   Open Access: tripleC is an open access journal that publishes articles online and does not charge authors or readers. It uses a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License) that allows reproduction of published articles for non-commercial purposes (without changes of the content and only with naming the author). Creative Commons publishing poses a viable alternative to commercial academic publishing that is dominated by big corporate publishing houses. -- Prof. Christian Fuchs Chair in Media and Communication Studies Department of Informatics and Media Uppsala University Kyrkogårdsgatan 10 Box 513 751 20 Uppsala Sweden christian.fuchs(a)im.uu.se Tel +46 (0) 18 471 1019 http://fuchs.uti.at http://www.im.uu.se NetPolitics Blog: http://fuchs.uti.at/blog Editor of tripleC: http://www.triple-c.se Book "Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies" (Routledge 2011) Book "Internet and Society" (Paperback, Routledge 2010) -- - - - Christian Fuchs Unified Theory of Information Research Group christian.fuchs(a)uti.at http://www.uti.at Personal: http://fuchs.uti.at NetPolitics Blog: http://fuchs.uti.at/blog Editor of tripleC: http://www.triple-c.se Book "Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies" (Routledge 2011) Book "Internet and Society" (Paperback, Routledge 2010) Chair in Media and Communication Studies Department of Informatics and Media Uppsala University Kyrkogårdsgatan 10 Box 513 751 20 Uppsala Sweden christian.fuchs(a)im.uu.se Tel +46 (0) 18 471 1019 http://fuchs.uti.at http://www.im.uu.se

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Re: [Air-L] Arab spring & social media evidence
by Murray Turoff 18 Sep '11

18 Sep '11

There is a very interesting problem here. The fundamental reasons might have little to do with the use of social media except as way of people being able to receive the information which in it self may explain the cause of these revolutions. I really think what is needed is a content analysis of Wikileaks. There was a news article i read which might have been in the NYTimes some time back which pointed out: A lot of material in the famous release of u.s. secret cables by various diplomats and officials confirmed in the mind of many Arabs, especially the young ones, the real extend of corruptions among the leaders and their accumulation of wealth as a result of their leadership positions. While this was felt it was never really proved in the minds of these people until they could read it online or in circulated copies of materials downloaded by others. I did think this was a cause that was worth considering for the Arab Spring. Given they already did not trust their regular news sources Wikileaks was considered a more trusted source. I would like to see a real content analysis of Wikileaks to compare to other explanations for the Arab Spring. -- -- *Distinguished Professor Emeritus Information Systems, NJIT homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff *

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CFP: Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice
by Judd Ruggill 17 Sep '11

17 Sep '11

Call for Papers: Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area 33rd Annual SW/TX PCA/ACA Conference February 8-11, 2012 Albuquerque, NM The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area welcomes paper, panel, and other proposals on games (digital and otherwise) and their study and development. Possible topics include (but are in no way limited to): Alternative reality games Archiving and artifactual preservation Competitive/clan gaming Design and development Economic and industrial histories and studies Educational games and their pedagogies Foreign language games and culture Advertising (both in-game and out) Game art/game-based art Haptics and interface studies Localization Machinima MOGs, MMOGs, and other forms of online/networked gaming Performance Pornographic games Religion and games Representations of race and gender Representations of space and place The rhetoric of games and game systems Serious games Strategy games Table-top games and gaming Technological, aesthetic, economic, and ideological convergence Theories of play Wireless and mobile gaming For paper proposals: Please submit a 250 word abstract and biographical note about your connection to the topic to conference event management site at http://conference2012.swtxpca.org/. Make sure to select the Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice topic area. For panel and other proposals: Feel free to query first (jruggill(a)asu.edu) Panel and other proposals should also be submitted to the conference event management site and include the information requested for individual paper proposals, as well as a 100-word statement of the panel’s raison d’etre and any noteworthy organizational features. As always, proposals are welcome from any and all scholars (including graduate students, independent scholars, and tenured, tenure-track, and emeritus faculty) and practitioners (developers, artists, archivists, and so forth). Also, unusual formats, technologies, and the like are encouraged. The submission deadline is 12/1/2011. The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area is international in scope and emphasizes diversity, an openness to innovative approaches and presentations, and the energetic practice of post-conference collaboration and publication. Judd Ruggill, Area Chair Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice jruggill(a)asu.edu http://www.swtxpca.org

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Facebook's New Privacy Policy (Version from September 7): What Has Changed?
by Christian Fuchs 17 Sep '11

17 Sep '11

What is Facebooks New Privacy Policy All About? More Complexity, More Intransparent Data Storage, Continued Internet Prosumer Commodification, Ideological Pseudo-Participation, and a Reaction to the Privacy Complaints Filed by Europe versus Facebook. http://fuchs.uti.at/699/ On September 7th, 2011, Facebook changed its privacy policy, replacing the policy that was updated on December 22, 2010. The policys length increased from 35 709 characters to 40 085 characters (from approximately 11 single-spaced A4 pages to 12), which shows that the complexity of the regulations increased. Facebook continues to collect data about user behaviour from other websites. New policy: Sometimes we get data from our advertising partners, customers and other third parties that helps us (or them) deliver ads, understand online activity, and generally make Facebook better. For example, an advertiser may tell us how you responded to an ad on Facebook or on another site in order to measure the effectiveness of and improve the quality of those ads. Old policy: Information from other websites. We may institute programs with advertising partners and other websites in which they share information with us: We may ask advertisers to tell us how our users responded to the ads we showed them (and for comparison purposes, how other users who didnt see the ads acted on their site). This data sharing, commonly known as conversion tracking, helps us measure our advertising effectiveness and improve the quality of the advertisements you see. We may receive information about whether or not youve seen or interacted with certain ads on other sites in order to measure the effectiveness of those ads. The content of this regulation has not much changed, but Facebook now claims that it collects information about users from other websites in order to make Facebook better. It is intransparent to the single user, which data from which websites Facebook stores about him/her. If a lack of data storage transparency makes Facebook better is a question of interpretation. The question is if it makes Facebook a privacy-respecting platform or not. The regulations about the storage of location data have been expanded, which reflects the increasing importance of mobile Internet use and therefore of mobile targeted advertising for Facebook: New policy: We may put together your current city with GPS and other location information we have about you to, for example, tell you and your friends about people or events nearby, or offer deals to you that you might be interested in. We may also put together data about you to serve you ads that might be more relevant to you. When we get your GPS location, we put it together with other location information we have about you (like your current city). But we only keep it until it is no longer useful to provide you services. Old policy: When you access Facebook from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit. Another new quality of Facebooks privacy policy is the instant personalization feature. Facebook shares certain user data with other platforms, with which it has entered business partnerships. The first time a user goes to the partner website, the platform should inform him/her that it uses Facebook information about the user. In Facebooks privacy settings, one can turn off instant personalization for all of Facebooks partner sites. This is, however, a opt-out solution, which shows that Facebook wants to share the information it collects about users with partner sites so that they can also use the data for targeted advertising. This circumstance is typical for the networked character of Internet commerce and shows how strongly advertising culture shapes social media and the World Wide Web (WWW). If a user at some point of time decides to deactivate instant personalization, but used a Facebook partner site that employ instant personalization before, the data that the partner site uses is not automatically deleted: If you turn off an instant personalization site after you have been using it or visited it a few times (or after you have given it specific permission to access your data), it will not automatically delete your data. But the site is contractually required to delete your data if you ask it to. This means that the user has to explicitly write to Facebooks partner sites to delete personal data. Furthermore, it is not transparent to a single user, which data exactly Facebook partners store about him or her. Facebooks instant personalization feature increases the non-transparency of data storage. The description of how targeted advertising works on Facebook has changed, but not the content of the description. Facebook still makes use of all user data, user communication data, user browsing behaviour, and even data collected from other websites in order to sell these data as commodity to advertising clients that serve targeted ads to users. Facebook thereby makes profit, the users create value, are not paid for this work and their data becomes a commodity. I have termed this process Internet prosumer commodification (see the articles here, here and here). Facebooks advertising settings have remained unchanged. There is no opt-in advertising and targeted advertising is always activated. The only opt-out options concern social adverts and the use of names and pictures in third-party advertisements. Regulations about targeted advertising in the new privacy policy: We do not share any of your information with advertisers (unless, of course, you give us permission).When an advertiser creates an ad on Facebook, they are given the opportunity to choose their audience by location, demographics, likes, keywords, and any other information we receive or can tell about you and other users. For example, an advertiser can choose to target 18 to 35 year-old women who live in the United States and like basketball. Try this tool yourself to see one of the ways advertisers target ads and what information they see at: https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/ If the advertiser chooses to run the ad (also known as placing the order), we serve the ad to people who meet the criteria the advertiser selected, but we do not tell the advertiser who any of those people are. So, for example, if a person clicks on the ad, the advertiser might infer that the person is an 18-to-35-year-old woman who lives in the US and likes basketball. But we would not tell the advertiser who that person is. After the ad runs, we provide advertisers with reports on how their ads performed. For example we give advertisers reports telling them how many users saw or clicked on their ads. But these reports are anonymous. We do not tell advertisers who saw or clicked on their ads. Advertisers sometimes place cookies on your computer in order to make their ads more effective. Learn more at: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp Sometimes we allow advertisers to target a category of user, like a moviegoer or a sci-fi fan. We do this by bundling characteristics that we believe are related to the category. For example, if a person likes the Star Trek Page and mentions Star Wars when they check into a movie theater, we may conclude that this person is likely to be a sci-fi fan. Regulations about targeted advertising in the old privacy policy: Advertisements. Sometimes the advertisers who present ads on Facebook use technological methods to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. You may opt-out of the placement of cookies by many of these advertisers here. You may also use your browser cookie settings to limit or prevent the placement of cookies by advertising networks. Facebook does not share personally identifiable information with advertisers unless we get your permission. [...] We dont share your information with advertisers without your consent. (An example of consent would be if you asked us to provide your shipping address to an advertiser to receive a free sample.) We allow advertisers to choose the characteristics of users who will see their advertisements and we may use any of the non-personally identifiable attributes we have collected (including information you may have decided not to show to other users, such as your birth year or other sensitive personal information or preferences) to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements. For example, we might use your interest in soccer to show you ads for soccer equipment, but we do not tell the soccer equipment company who you are. You can see the criteria advertisers may select by visiting our advertising page. Even though we do not share your information with advertisers without your consent, when you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement there is a possibility that the advertiser may place a cookie in your browser and note that it meets the criteria they selected. The policy regulation concerning deletion of an account has been changed. The major change is that Facebook now says that all information of an account will be deleted at latest 90 days after the user deleted the account, whereas the regulation in the old policy was somehow unclear, saying on the one hand that data is deleted, but on the other hand that Facebook we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested. New policy: When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook. It typically takes about one month to delete an account, but some information may remain in backup copies and logs for up to 90 days. You should only delete your account if you are sure you never want to reactivate it. You can delete your account at: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account Old policy: When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook. [...] Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested. [...] Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with that information on Facebook. (For example, if you post something to another users profile and then you delete your account, that post may remain, but be attributed to an Anonymous Facebook User.) Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested. If you have given third party applications or websites access to your information, they may retain your information to the extent permitted under their terms of service or privacy policies. But they will no longer be able to access the information through our Platform after you disconnect from them. Backup copies. Removed and deleted information may persist in backup copies for up to 90 days, but will not be available to others. On August 18, 2011, members of the initiative Europe vs. Facebook that was founded by Austrian law students filed a complaint against Facebook to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. Facebook Europe is legally registered in Ireland. The initiative members made 16 complaint points and asked the Commissioner to check Facebook violates European data protection laws in these 16 privacy areas. One point of complaint is that Facebook engages in excessive processing of data. One of the complainers demanded from Facebook to send him the data it stores about him. Although he had deleted his account, he received a print out with 1 200 pages of personal data stored about him by Facebook. This topic is addressed in the complaint under point 15: After using facebook.com for 3 years, Facebook Ireland gathered more than 1.200 pages of personal information about me (in fact Facebook Ireland might hold a much bigger amount of data, see Complaint 10), even though I have deleted just about everything I could (e.g. all my posts, all messages, and many friends). The Irish Data Protection Act says that data (iii) shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they were collected or are further processed, and (iv) shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes (DPA §2 (1) (c) (iii) (iv)). The EU Data Protection Directive regulates that Member States shall provide that personal data must be: [](c) adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which they are collected and/or further processed (Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament, §6 (1) (c)). Another complaint is that Facebook does not use opt-in options and thereby may breach the regulation that users have to give consensus to the processing of their personal data. This regulation is specifically important among other topics also for targeted advertising, which is organized without opt-in on Facebook. 2A. (1) Personal data shall not be processed by a data controller unless section 2 of this Act (as amended by the Act of 2003) is complied with by the data controller and at least one of the following conditions is met: (a) the data subject has given his or her consent to the processing or (Irish Data Protection Act, §2A (1) (a)). Member States shall provide that personal data may be processed only if: (a) the data subject has unambiguously given his consent (Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament, §7 (a)). Facebooks change of the data deletion regulations from rather ambiguous and unclear formulations to a clearer version may reflect the circumstance that a complaint against its privacy practices has been filed. This might be a direct reaction to the complaints filed by Europe versus Facebook, which were however filed on August, 18th, 2011, whereas Facebook changed its policy on September 7th. Therefore the old privacy policy is subject of the complaints. Furthermore it looks like many of the privacy areas addressed by the complaints have not been cleared out by the new privacy policy. Europe versus Facebook is not only a highly important initiative, it also shows that companies are unlikely to voluntarily protect users privacy, but to be only willing to do so if they feel the threat of the states law enforcement capacities. The profit motive is so inherent to companies that they always tend to put profit interests above users privacy concerns. The only two alternatives are to make use of the law for enforcing privacy protection and to support the creation of alternative non-profit platforms. Facebook has changed the content sharing options, it is now relatively easily possible to define with whom one wants to share content and to share it only with customized users. This change is also reflected in the privacy policy (in the section titled Control over your profile). It is likely that it has been taken because Google in June 2011 introduced its own social networking site Google+, which poses competition to Facebook and is based on the friend circles concept that allows customization of content. Other new regulations include a section about tagging (Tags), the possibility for other websites to provide a login into their sites by enabling users to log in with their Facebook accounts (section Logging in to another site using Facebook), social plugins (section About social plugins), sponsored stories (section Sponsored stories), and featured content (section Featured content). A new regulation is that Facebook says that it allows users to vote privacy changes under certain circumstances: Unless we make a change for legal or administrative reasons, or to correct an inaccurate statement, we will give you seven (7) days to provide us with comments on the change. If we receive more than 7000 comments concerning a particular change, we will put the change up for a vote. The vote will be binding on us if more than 30% of all active registered users as of the date of the notice vote. This regulation is extremely unclear. One can interpret every imaginable privacy policy change as legal change, administrative change or change of an inaccurate statement. It is therefore arbitrary and unclear, on which changes Facebook users are able to vote or not. Furthermore no link for comments is provided. It is also unlikely that 30% of all registered users will ever engage in a vote because privacy policy matters are a complex issue. It looks like Facebook wants to respond to the criticism that users have no decision-rights about the privacy of their personal data, but at the same time wants to immunize itself against loosing control of decision making power. We can summarize the changes of the Facebook privacy policy that took effect on September 7th, 2011: * The change of Facebooks privacy policies has come shortly after members of the initiative Europe versus Facebook filed privacy violation complaints against Facebook to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. * The length and complexity of Facebooks privacy policy has increased. * Facebook has introduced new features like instant personalization that have increased the non-transparency of data storage. It is not clear for a user, which data Facebook stores about her/him, with whom Facebook shares user data, and which data exactly Facebook partners store. * Facebook continues to receive data about users from other websites. * Facebook continues to commodify user data by using targeted advertising. It does not use opt-in for advertising, targeted ads are automatically and always activated. Internet prosumer commodification continues to be Facebooks capital accumulation model. * Facebook has implemented a user participation mechanism in privacy decision-making that is formulated in an extremely shallow way so that this regulation seems to be an ideological pseudo-participation strategy.

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New journal announcement: Case Studies in Strategic Communication
by Brabham, Daren C 16 Sep '11

16 Sep '11

(Apologies for cross-posting) Manuscripts are now being accepted for the first volume of Case Studies in Strategic Communication, a new online, peer-reviewed journal. We welcome submissions from scholars, practitioners, and students! db +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Case Studies in Strategic Communication (CSSC) is dedicated to the study of strategic communication through the case study form. Case studies illustrate the strategies, tactics, and execution of communication campaigns through in-depth coverage of a single situation. CSSC is a peer-reviewed online publication housed at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Case studies have long been central to the study of strategic communication, but these cases have been scattered across textbooks and websites, are quickly outdated, are not fully representative of the many facets of strategic communication, and lack a common format useful for teachers and scholars. Through the ongoing publication of strategic communication case studies online, CSSC aims to develop a living resource of diverse case materials for teachers, scholars, and practitioners. As technological convergence and industry trends demand the integration of several branches of strategic communication in everyday practice, it is necessary to consider the approach to strategic communication holistically. Thus, CSSC welcomes case studies dealing with any of the following disciplines: public relations, marketing, advertising, integrated marketing communication, social media campaigns, crisis communication, special events planning, development and fundraising, internal or employee communication, investor relations, community relations, media relations, online community management, publicity, and more. There is no limit to topical coverage, and CSSC hopes to develop a resource that touches on as many industries, tactics, geographic regions, and diverse populations as possible. CSSC seeks case studies concerning all sectors, too: private companies (large and small), publicly traded corporations, non-profit organizations (large and small), political campaigns, government agencies (local and national), and educational institutions. In addition to success stories, CSSC also seeks case studies that explore failures, shortcomings, missed opportunities, and crises. Stories of failure are not often told in case study collections, but they sometimes yield the best lessons. CSSC publishes long case studies (3,000-8,000 words) covering full campaigns or programs, as well as short case studies (1,000-2,500 words) tightly focused on a single strategy, tactic, research method, or evaluation method used in real strategic communication programs. Visit www.csscjournal.org<http://www.csscjournal.org/> to learn more about the journal. Contact the editor, Daren Brabham, with any questions: daren.brabham(a)unc.edu. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --- Daren C. Brabham, Ph.D. Assistant Professor School of Journalism & Mass Communication University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Carroll Hall, CB 3365 Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (919) 962-0676 (office) (801) 633-4796 (cell) daren.brabham(a)unc.edu www.darenbrabham.com

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Arab spring & social media evidence
by nativebuddha 16 Sep '11

16 Sep '11

Does anyone have evidence (or links to studies) that show the impact, or lack thereof, of social media on the Arab spring? This cause-effect model still circulates in the mediasphere, but what is the evidence show? Thanks. -Robert

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Rumour Mongering through New Media: Nigerial trailing the blaze
by Wale Oni 16 Sep '11

16 Sep '11

The uniqueness of how Nigerians use the new media (appropriation) further yields itself to study when nationwide rumour broke out that answering calls from certain mobile phone numbers (09141-1) - obviously the date of the rumour, is deadly. Unprecedented calls and texting were made across new media space while the conventional media and news agencies (the transnational: AP, etc.) lend credence to the uniqueness of the urban legend. If you have witnessed such hyping in your commuities (local or national), kindly assist by commenting and providing useful information - Date, Situation, etc. The trend beagn in Nigeria in 2003, when mobile phones subscribers rumoured total switch off of their sets in protest for hike in call tariffs. The political/electioneering periods equally yielded data on such urban legends in (south west) Nigeria. My study focuses on new media appropriation and cultural influences (including demo-psychological) in south-west Nigeria. I'll like to request the most appropriate theoretical underpinnings, kindly assist. Thanks people. *'Wale Oni* *Communication Studies Dept.,* *College of Humanities & Culture, Osun State University* *IKIRE CAMPUS,* *221104 Nigeria* +234 8160831501, +234 8056673899 color=#0000ff>* Alt. Email: walegzy(a)email.com > color=#0000ff>*

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