August 2013 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Informal meeting in DC
by tfolkes1 . 27 Aug '13

27 Aug '13

I have been developing internet research tools for over ten years and comes out of my work on context. My tools encompass AI, the use of multiple nomenclatures at the same time, polling multiple sources, and KM. I have also developed a non Boolean method of managing records, which is both easy and accurate. I was wondering what other tools and needs people had in the DC area. So I propose an informal get together in the DC area. Anyone interested? _

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Deadline Approaching: European Fandom and Fan Studies Conference, Abstracts Sept 10
by Eqmj 27 Aug '13

27 Aug '13

European Fandom and Fan Studies: Localization and Translation One Day Symposium, 9 November 2013 Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and University of Amsterdam Department of Media Studies Call for Papers The increasingly global circulation of media often threatens to obscure local contexts of reception, identification, interpretation, and translation. This one day symposium at the University of Amsterdam seeks to explore the state of Fan Studies and the variety of Fandoms focused within the social and geographical boundaries of Europe, particularlywith regard to processes of localization and translation, broadly interpreted. Inter-disciplinary papers are invited to explore the natureof the field itself, how different fandoms function within Europe, and how European fan cultures re-interpret, re-imagine, translate, and localize foreign media texts or foreign fan practices. Potentialavenues of exploration may include how Fan Studies is represented, studied, and received within European universities, by funding bodies and publishers. Paperson fandoms may explore how European (English and non-English speaking) fans of European and non-European objects of fan appreciation participate in fandom, the differences between internet fandoms and local/national/international fan practices, and objectsof fan appreciation that originate within Europe. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: -Regional fan histories. -Negotiation between international and local fan infrastructures. -Local and national adaptation of fan cultures and identities. -European fans’ impact on international public policy and industry practice. -Fans’ relationships to national media industries and public policy. -National and transnational economies within fandom and/or fan studies. -Crossing national, cultural, and language boundaries in fandom and fan studies. -Translation, both linguistic and cultural. -Fans’ local and international languages and economies of desire. -Framing local European fan objects and cultures within fan studies. -Processes of translation, adaptation, and localization in European fans’ interaction with global media. The symposium is associated with a special issue of the journal of Transformative Works and Cultures tentatively slated for 2015, with full papers due January 1, 2014. Event Details The symposium will be held in the center of Amsterdam, easily accessible from Amsterdam international airport. Submission Process Please send a 300 word abstract along with a short (100 word) biographical note to Anne Kustritz (A.M.Kustritz(a)uva.nl)or Emma England (E.E.England(a)uva.nl)by 10 September.

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Re: [Air-L] Research on memes and internet fail sites (Sanni Pennanen)
by Sean Rintel 27 Aug '13

27 Aug '13

G'day Sanni, I've written on crisis memes and, informally for The Conversation, several news-y articles about memes, including the roles of memes in slacktivism and snarktivism. Rintel, S. (2013). Crisis Memes: The Importance of Templatability to Internet Culture and Freedom of Expression. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 2(2): 253-271. DOI: 10.1386/ajpc.2.2.253_1 (Happy to send a PDF if you can't get access). Rintel, S. (2013, April 10). ‘Slacktivism’ vs ‘snarktivism’: how do you take your online activism? The Conversation (Online).https://theconversation.com/slacktivism-vs-snarktivism-how-do-you-t… Until anon, Sean -- Dr Sean Rintel Lecturer in Strategic Communication | Honours Program Coordinator School of Journalism and Communication Joyce Ackroyd Building (37) Room 309 The University of Queensland Brisbane QLD Australia 4072 +61-7-3346-8297 | s.rintel(a)uq.edu.au<mailto:s.rintel@uq.edu.au> | @seanrintel | http://seanrintel.com | http://efa.org.au CRICOS Provider: 00025B | Don't even THINK about printing this email! On 27/08/2013, at 1:31 AM, <air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org>> <air-l-request(a)listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org>> wrote: Message: 6 Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 14:13:13 +0300 From: Sanni Pennanen <sanni.pennanen(a)gmail.com<mailto:sanni.pennanen@gmail.com>> To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] Research on memes and internet fail sites Message-ID: <CANJ6VZVqHncnt9TkXJJ2vV5B0ydSDow6DNEMM+2RUsjp5YM0wg(a)mail.gmail.com<mailto:CANJ6VZVqHncnt9TkXJJ2vV5B0ydSDow6DNEMM+2RUsjp5YM0wg@mail.gmail.com>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Dear all, I would be interested to know if there are researchers amongst you who would be focusing on memes and/or internet fails (for example lamebook etc.). Also tips about readings on the matter would be highly appreciated. I'm currently planning my PhD studies in folkloristics with the topic of Internet fails, memes and questions of authenticity in online communication. Thanks! Sanni Pennanen M.A., Folkloristics University of Turku Finland

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Mapping the Arab Spring: Call for Chapters
by Aziz Douai 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

Colleagues, Please circulate widely, and apologies for cross-postings. *Mapping the “Arab Spring”: Social and Political Influence of New Media in the Arab World* *Call for Chapters* * * Editor: Aziz Douai Editor: Mohamed Ben Moussa Faculty of Social Science and Humanities Art School and Humanities University of Ontario Institute of Technology Canadian University of Dubai Email: aziz.douai(a)uoit.ca Email: m.benmoussa(a)cud.ac.ae * * *Abstract Submission Deadline:* October 15, 2013 *Notification to Authors:* October 30, 2013 *Final Paper Submission deadline:* February 30, 2014 * * *Introduction* The popular uprisings in in Arab countries took the world by surprise. Described as the beginning of “the Arab democratic spring”, and likened to the fall of the Arab “Berlin” wall, the wave of protests has galvanized the attention of the world not only because of its transformative political implications for the region, but also because of the alleged central role of the Internet, specifically social media platforms in bringing about the first “Facebook” and “Twitter” revolutions (Wan, 2011), and in empowering “generation 2.0” (Hererra, 2011) to rise against tyranny and defy fear and repression. However, after more than two years since the beginning of the uprisings, and the deposition of several dictators, democratic transition in the region is facing formidable challenges, chief among them political and economic instability, deep polarizations between Islamist and secular/liberal movements, multiple forms of sectarian, ethnic and religious cleavages, in addition to endemic corruption and inefficient governance. These challenges have already shifted into full-blown civil war in Syria and are threatening other countries, such as Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Against this background, one key question that needs to be addressed is whether ICTs in general can play a role in promoting civil society, civic culture and trust, bridging political elites to disenchanted young people and the general population, and enhancing governance. In conjunction with this question, there is an urgent need to examine how identity politics is informing and shaping how the notions of civil society, citizenship, and pluralism are imagined and enacted online and the implications thereof for democratic transition in the region. While the outcome of these regional upheavals is still difficult to predict, we believe the time is ripe for a rigorous debate and research into the intersections of the cultural, political and technological issues that led to the “Arab Spring.” *Objectives of the Book* Editors seek innovative contributions that analyze the role of ICTs, particularly the Internet and other new media, in the ongoing upheavals in Arab societies. We are interested in chapters that interrogate the implications of these technologies for cultural expression, and identity building at the individual and collective levels in these societies. Given how new cultural forms of self-expression from rap music to blogging have become intertwined in the Tunisian and the Egyptian revolutions, for instance, we seek contributions on the various linkages between self-expression, self-reflexivity, political dissent and new media discourses in the region. Underscoring the linkages between identity politics, collective action repertoire, political culture, and new communication technologies, this book seeks to examine the Arab new media environment leading to the Arab Spring and its aftermath. *Sample Topics* We encourage multidisciplinary approaches that employ social movement theory, cultural studies, radical democracy theory, or network theory, among others, to study and interpret dissent, resistance, collective action, and democratic transition in Arab societies. Other theoretical, empirical and methodology approaches are also welcome. Themes and questions to be considered could include but are not limited to 1) Research that theorizes/applies social movement theory to analyze the “Arab Spring;” 2) Cases studies addressing new cultural forms and Arab/Muslim identities (e.g. hip hop music, digital art, and photography); 3) Critical assessment of youth movement, youth culture, and political consciousness; 4) Case studies addressing ICTs, new media audiences, ethnic minorities and identities; 5) New empirical analyses of ICTs and political Islam/other social movements in the Arab world; 6) Theoretical and empirical assessments of the intersection between new media and gender in the region (e.g. feminist movements, women identities and self-expression); 7) Comparative analyses of new journalism forms in the Arab world (e.g. citizen journalism); 8) Conceptually- and theoretically-informed evaluation of the intersections between new media and democracy in the region; 9) Other approaches that fit with the above themes and contribute to theory building are welcome. *Submission Requirements* Interested authors should send an *abstract* of no more than 600 words and *a short bio *to the Editors’ email addresses by*October 15, 2013*. Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by *October 30, 2013* and asked to submit a *full chapter* of no more than 8,000 words by *February 30, 2014*. Chapter proposals must be original work that has not been published. Authors should follow the American Psychological Association (APA) style manual and submit abstracts and chapters in MS Word. All submissions should be sent as email attachments to *BOTH* editors at aziz.douai(a)uoit.ca<https://webmail.psu.edu/webmail/blankIe.html> and m.benmoussa(a)cud.ac.ae. All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed by an international editorial board. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aziz Douai, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Faculty of Social Science and Humanities University of Ontario Institute of Technology 55 Bond Street East Oshawa, ON L1G 0A5, Canada Tel: 905.721.8668, ext. 3790 Fax: 905.721.3372 E-mail: aziz.douai(a)uoit.ca Web: http://socialscienceandhumanities.uoit.ca/research/researcher-profiles/dr.-… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both." James Madison, 1822 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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A Sunday morning curiosity: Marlon Brando and Medium Theory in 1953?
by Charles Ess 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

Hullo AoIRists, I recently looked more closely at the Marlon Brando movie, "The Wild One" (1953) (the source of a long-favored response to the question, "What are you rebelling against?" (Brando) "What-a-ya got?") About 20 minutes into the film there is, by my lights, a rather remarkable exchange between the (remarkably well-behaved) bikers and the ancient bar-keeper Jimmy. They are asking "what do you hicks do around here?", and in the course of his response, Jimmy makes a couple of interesting media pronouncements: == Jimmy: I mind my own business. Listen to the radio uh, music that is. News is no good. It excites people. (biker): Hey Jim what about TV? You like TV? Jimmy: What? (biker): That new thing, Jim. Television. Jimmy: Oh, pictures. No, no pictures. Everything these days is pictures. Pictures and a lot of noise. Nobody even knows how to talk. They just grunt at each other. == This seems a striking expression - somewhat ironic as it appears within a film as another "picture" medium - of a kind of "medium panic" (my term, I think), i.e., in parallel with "moral panic," but in this case the fear that a new medium will totally displace older ones, including speech itself. (Parallels with some contemporary critiques and concerns about more recent media are also nicely obvious.) At the risk of revealing (yet once again) my vast ignorance - if only as a historical curiosity - though perhaps now nicely illustrated in this little example - does anyone have an idea, suggestion, vague hunch, etc. - A) where might this "medium panic" have derived from, reflected in the larger culture, etc. Especially vis-a-vis B) any prevailing theories or views on communication and media at the time of the film that would have either supported or critique Jimmy's concern about picture media? Many thanks in advance, - charles ess Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/> University of Oslo P.O. Box 1093 Blindern NO-0317 Oslo Norway email: charles.ess(a)media.uio.no

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of interest? Left Coast Book Sale & No Excuses Writing Contest
by Annette Markham 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

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dystopian theme
by Barry Wellman 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

Charles, I also think the bartender's remark reflects the continuing dystopian meme that new tech is going to kill off old true community. Sherry Turkle's Alone Together is a recent example, as is the obssessive nature of NYT op-eds and magazine pieces (as distinct from their good news reporting). Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden first got me thinking about this, and I put a bunch of early internet examples into "Net Surfers Dont Ride Alone" and "Physical Space and Cyber Place" Marx traces back to Tommy Jefferson. One day, I'll do a book on this. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ NetLab Director FRSC INSNA Founder Faculty of Information (iSchool) 611 Bissell Building 140 St. George St. University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 3G6 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman twitter: @barrywellman Canadian and American citizen NETWORKED:The New Social Operating System. Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman MIT Press http://amzn.to/zXZg39 Print $20 Kindle $16 Old/NewCyberTimes http://bit.ly/c8N9V8 ________________________________________________________________________

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Re: [Air-L] {air-L] A Sunday morning curiosity: Marlon Brando and Medium Theory in 1953? (by Charles Ess)
by noam feinholtz 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

Charles, First of all thank you for this wonderful quote from the movie "The Wild One". Although I'm writing my doctoral research on 'media films', films that take television and the Internet as their central topics, I wasn't familiar with this movie. As to your question about the "Media Panic" phenomenon I would like to recommend some great books and papers dealing with this subject. Unfortunately very little has been written about this subject.** *Books:* Starker, S. (1989). *Evil influences: Crusades against the mass media*. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Stokes, J. C. (1999). *On screen rivals: Cinema and television in the United States and Britain*. New-York: St. Martin's Press. Young, P. (2006). *The cinema dreams its rivals: Media fantasy films from radio to the internet*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota press. *Papers:* Drotner, K. (1992). "Modernity and media panics". In M. Skovmand & К. С Schroder (Eds.) *Media cultures: Reappraising transnational media*. London: Routledge. Drotner, K. (1999). Dangerous Media? Panic Discourses and Dilemmas of Modernity. *Paedagogica Historica*, *35*(3), 593-619. Springhall, J. (1998). *Youth, popular culture and moral panics: Penny gaffs to gangsta-rap, 1830-1996**. *New York: St. Martin's Press.* * Drotner writes: "From the advent of mass-circulation fiction and magazines to film and television, comics and cartoons, the introduction of a new mass medium causes strong public reactions whose repetitiveness is as predictable as the fervor with which they are brought forward. Adult experts [...] define the new mass medium as a social, psychological, or moral threat to the young and appoint themselves as public trouble shooters. Legal and educational measures are then imposed, and the interest lessens- until the advent of a new mass medium reopens public discussion. That spiraling motion characterizes a *media panic* [...] In media panics, the mass media are both the source and the medium of public reaction" (Drotner, 1992, pp.43-44). My analysis focuses on 115 films from the last 20 years but since you are writing about the fifties I would recommend some early films that were made in the fifties and even earlier that show this rivalry between cinema and TV: *Murder by Television*- Clifford Sanforth, 1935 *Meet Mr. Lucifer*- Anthony Pelissier, 1953 *A King in New-York* - Charles Chaplin, 1957 *A Face in the Crowd*- Elia Kazan, 1957 All the best, Noam Feinholtz Noam Feinholtz . Ph.D. candidate - The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. (sites.google.com/site/smarthuji/noam-fainholtz-1)

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Re: [Air-L] A Sunday morning curiosity: Marlon Brando and Medium Theory in 1953?
by Anders Sundnes Løvlie 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

> the fear that > a new medium will totally displace older ones, including speech itself Plato put forward an argument of this kind, arguing that the medium of writing was inferior to the spoken word in dialogue, and believing that the act of writing made people loose their capacity for memorizing and ability to speak well (or something along that line). This is in "Phaedrus" and one of the letters I think. Now, whether or not Plato is the cause for Jimmy's medium panic in 1953, I couldn't say… Regards, Anders Sundnes Løvlie Gjøvik University College english.hig.no

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new book: From Protest to Surveillance - The Political Rationality of Mobile Media
by Oliver Leistert 26 Aug '13

26 Aug '13

Leistert, Oliver: >From Protest to Surveillance - The Political Rationality of Mobile Media Modalities of Neoliberalism Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2013. IX, 280 pp., 9 b/w fig., 8 tables ISBN 978-3-631-64313-6 hb. (Hardcover) Synopsis: The book argues that the mobile as a political technology in a broad sense facilitates the global export of the Western concept of individuality. This empowers those subjectivities and mindsets which can adapt to the communication regime of ubiquitous connectivity. Exemplifying two focal points – the use in protests and the surveillance of mobile phones – the book traces political trajectories of mobile phones, just as it provides deep insights into the actual practice of mobile phone use by activists and their surveillance. 50 semi-structured interviews with activists from countries including Brazil, India, Pakistan and Mexico offer a detailed and profound discussion of mobile phone success and failures in different struggles for justice. By situating mobile phone mass dissemination within a political rationality of neoliberalism and its political technology of governmentality, it shows how sovereign rule updates to catch up with the subject’s empowerment through mobile phones. The limits of mobile phone impact on activism are examined, and how it compromises its users when new sovereign means such as data retention or silent SMS surveillance are invoked. Contents: Mobile Media – Mobile Phones – Surveillance – Protest – Empowerment – Governmentality – Modalities of Neoliberalism – Activism – Media Studies – International Perspective – SMS – Sovereignty – Government – Social Struggles – Repression – Data Retention – Civil Society – Prepaid Mobile Phones – Secure Communication – Encryption – Grassroots movements. Oliver Leistert, Dr. phil., has been researching media activism and surveillance for many years. His research interests include governmentality studies, media theory, digital methods, surveillance studies, social media and empirical research. Starting October 2013 he will be a Post-Doc at the DFG Research Group "Automatisms" at University Paderborn, Germany.

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