March 2022 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Job vacancy - Lecturer in Education - University of East Anglia
by Harry Dyer (EDU - Staff) 03 Mar '22

03 Mar '22

Dear all, The School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia is seeking a Lecturer in Education. Details of the post can be found here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CNM117/lecturer-in-education-atr1598<http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CNM117/lecturer-in-education-atr1598> This is a broad and open call for a research-based lecturer who can contribute to the school's existing research fields of: Pedagogy, Curriculum and Professional Learning<https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/school-of-education-and-lifelong-learning/resea…> International Education and Social Change<https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/school-of-education-and-lifelong-learning/resea…> Lifelong Learning Cultures<https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/school-of-education-and-lifelong-learning/resea…> Please do consider applying, the deadline for applications is 21st March 2022. All the best, Harry Dr Harry T Dyer Lecturer in Education, Course Director BA Education School of Education and Lifelong Learning University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ Follow me on Twitter at @harrytdyer<https://twitter.com/HarryTDyer>. You can find my TED talk here<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZteEZbAtsNI>, or read my latest book here<https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811557156> Find out more about Digital Culture and Education here<http://digitalcultureandeducation.com/>

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CFP: 2022 ACM SIGDOC Student Research Competition
by Sonia Stephens 02 Mar '22

02 Mar '22

Dear colleagues, The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on the Design of Communication (SIGDOC) invites you to submit a proposal to this year’s Student Research Competition (SRC). The SRC offers a forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at SIGDOC 2022 in Boston, MA, October 6-8. Students also have the option of preparing an Extended Abstract to be published in the conference proceedings Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to submit proposals of up to 800 words on topics related to the design of communication. For more information about SIGDOC and the SRC, see the attached CFP or online at: https://sigdoc.acm.org/conference/2022/student-research-competition/ Submit proposals to the SRC coordinator: Dr. Jack Labriola, at jlabrio1(a)kennesaw.edu. Proposals are due Friday April 29th, 2022. Best, Sonia ______________________________________ Dr. Sonia Stephens Associate Professor Department of English & Texts and Technology Program University of Central Florida sonia.stephens(a)ucf.edu

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Call for papers for workshop on EdTech platforms and platformisation in higher education 26 May 2022
by Vito Laterza 02 Mar '22

02 Mar '22

Dear colleagues, See below call for papers for a 26 May 2022 digital workshop on EdTech platforms and platformisation in higher education. Details for abstract submission also below. Kind regards, Vito -- Assoc. Prof. Vito Laterza PhD Anthropology (Cantab) Associate Professor Department of Global Development and Planning University of Agder Norway Academic profile www.uia.no/en/kk/profile/vitol <http://www.uia.no/en/kk/profile/vitol> Al Jazeera English www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/vito-laterza-.html <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/vito-laterza-.html> Corona Times www.coronatimes.net <http://www.coronatimes.net/> Call for papers – Workshop “Varieties of platformisation? How EdTech shapes digitalisation of higher education worldwide” This is a call for papers for a Thursday 26 May 2022 online workshop on: “Varieties of platformisation? How EdTech shapes digitalisation of higher education worldwide.” This is part of a series on higher education (HE) digitalisation run by University of Agder (Norway), Aarhus University (Denmark) and KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), with funding from the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS). Discussion of tech platforms and ‘platformisation’ are rapidly gaining ground across social science, with increasing focus on the pervasive nature of platforms for economies and societies worldwide (Kenney et al. 2021). This is spearheaded by concerns for negative effects of Facebook, Google and other tech platforms on various social, economic and political dimensions, such as voter manipulation in democratic elections, spread of misinformation, and far-reaching “Uberisation” of working life (Bearson et al. 2021; Laterza 2021; Zuboff 2019; Srnicek 2016). Academic use of “platformisation” signals the issues at stake are not just specific workings of particular platforms. Rather, it focuses on how platform features and logics shape all kinds of social processes and phenomena. Such concerns ring true for HE, from learning management systems (LMSs) shaping organisation of physical classes and communication with students, to analytics ranging from low-tech video view count metrics to sophisticated datafication of student health data to establish learning interests and engagement, and AI-driven assessment (Ovetz 2020; Cope & Kalantzis 2019). Private sector online program management (OPM) companies run at-scale online versions of traditional part-time modules or full-time degrees in technical disciplines (Reich 2020) and a narrowing set of primarily commercial MOOC-related platforms still claim to massify elite education for underserved audiences with non-traditional lifelong learning and professional offerings (Walshok 2021; Thomas & Nedeva 2018). Simultaneously, educational technology (EdTech) platforms’ market flotations, for-profit mergers, and complex inter-platform interdependencies enable the growth of broadly conflicting platforms logics across much of HE (Grimaldi & Ball 2021; Ivancheva et al. 2020). These varying scales and scopes of digital transformations relate to uneven but potentially wide-ranging effects for teaching, labour, organisational practices, management strategies, funding models, ongoing corporatisation, and public missions of higher education institutions (HEIs). From 2020, pandemic emergency remote teaching accelerated digital online practices and platform usage. This catalysed widespread, short-term penetration of certain platform logics in HE, but with perhaps little understood long-term implications that will endure after the contingencies of fluctuating pandemic responses wane (Kalantzis & Cope 2020). Here, the political economy of EdTech platforms acquires truly global dimensions, connecting disparate locales and wide ranging HEI types. Yet, local and national factors interrelate with transnational dimensions. For instance, the extent of public regulation of higher education, including for personal data protection and its ‘assetisation’ (Komljenovic 2021), may shape highly specific trajectories for HE platformisation in different parts of the world (Laterza et al. 2020; Ruipérez-Valiente et al. 2020). In spite of growing academic, policy and media debates on tech platforms and platformisation outside HE, such social, economic and political effects of rising EdTech platforms remain largely unexplored for HE. Literatures on digital learning and HE digitalisation seem largely disconnected from current debates on platforms and digitalisation elsewhere. This may be due to techno-optimism that originally pervaded digital learning scholarship, and dominance of neoliberal paradigms in HE studies, seemingly positioning digitalisation as necessary for HE’s broader drive towards efficiency, entrepreneurialism and innovation (Selwyn & Gašević 2020). Building on an emerging but still relatively small critical literature on EdTech platforms/platformisation alongside increasing HE marketisation, our workshop plans to explore several dimensions of EdTech platformisation in HE. We focus on four analytical dimensions: a) Key political economy aspects of EdTech platforms/platformisation shaping HE in different countries and regions of the world, with a keen eye towards comparisons; b) Human-technology relations involving EdTech platforms and human actors (e.g., teachers, learners, IT professionals, software developers, HE managers) and their interactions with platform features; human and non-human influences and agency of multiple actors connected to platform development and commercialisation; c) The mediating and shaping roles of HEIs’ and national policies, using single-country or multi-country analyses focusing on highly marketized HE sectors and/or highly regulated, publicly funded ones, and/or HE sectors anywhere in between those two poles; d) Empirical and theoretical linkages between logics and features of HE platformisation on one hand, and platformisation trends in other sectors and broader society on the other. Example topics for workshop papers include, but are not limited to: - How platform logics from EdTech and other tech providers drive changes in HE teaching and learning, labour and management practices, organisational structures and HEI public missions; - Intersection of market and state logics in multifaceted relationships between EdTech providers and HEIs; - How learning analytics, EdTech platform algorithms and other processes of HE ‘datafication’ transform HE practices and goals,; - How HEI teachers and learners relate to platforms in everyday learning ecologies and their phenomenological engagement with various dimensions of platformisation; - How EdTech software developers, EdTech managers, HEI administrators, HEI IT staff, and HEI managers engage with various aspects of EdTech platforms/platformisation; - Policy, governance and institutional aspects of managing EdTech platforms at HE organisational and sectoral levels, including differences and/or similarities between specific countries and world regions; - Development of critical media literacy and ethical HE approaches, such as “digital bildung” (Shanley et al. 2020), to address the negative effects of HE platformisation; - Studies of alternative platform design features and/or alternative HE platforms to address shortcomings of commercialisation, pervasive datafication and algorithmic dominance. Contributions can be qualitative and/or quantitative empirical papers on single or multiple cases, as well as theoretical reflections. Submissions can cover cases from any region around the world. If you wish to submit a paper for consideration, kindly send a title and abstract (200-300 words) by 23 March 2022 to Vito Laterza (vito.laterza(a)uia.no <mailto:vito.laterza@uia.no>) and Duncan A. Thomas (dat(a)ps.au.dk <mailto:dat@ps.au.dk>). We will then provide a decision by 31 March 2021. We expect authors of accepted abstracts to submit a 3,000-4,000 words paper by 15 May 2022, before the workshop. We are currently scoping an international academic publisher to publish this project as a peer-reviewed, edited book collection (where we have institutional funds for open access). Our planned timeline is for: 1) a book contract before July/August; 2) submission of selected book chapters for external peer-review by 30 September 2022; and 3) book publication in early 2023. Vito Laterza, Associate Professor, Centre for Digital Transformation & Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder, Norway Duncan A. Thomas, Senior Researcher, Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark References Bearson, D., Kenney, M., & Zysman, J. (2021) Measuring the impacts of labor in the platform economy: new work created, old work reorganized, and value creation reconfigured. Industrial and Corporate Change, 30(3), 536–563. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2019) Education 2.0: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Test. Beijing International Review of Education, 1(2–3), 528–543. Grimaldi, E., & Ball, S.J. (2021) Paradoxes of freedom. An archaeological analysis of educational online platform interfaces. Critical Studies in Education, 62(1), 114–129. Ivancheva, M. P., Swartz, R., Morris, N. P., Walji, S., Swinnerton, B. J., Coop, T., & Czerniewicz, L. (2020). Conflicting logics of online higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(5), 608–625. Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2020) After the COVID-19 crisis: Why higher education may (and perhaps should) never be the same. ACCESS: Contemporary Issues in Education, 40(1), 51–55. Komljenovic, J. (2021) The rise of education rentiers: Digital platforms, digital data and rents. Learning, Media and Technology, 1–13. Kenney, M., Bearson, D., & Zysman, J. (2021) The platform economy matures: measuring pervasiveness and exploring power, Socio-Economic Review, 19(4), 1451–1483. Laterza, V. (2021) Could Cambridge Analytica Have Delivered Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Victory? An Anthropologist’s Look at Big Data and Political Campaigning. Public Anthropologist, 3(1), 119–147. Laterza, V., Tømte, C.E., & Pinheiro, R.T. (2020) Digital transformations with “Nordic characteristics”? Latest trends in the digitalisation of teaching and learning in Nordic higher education. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 15(4), 225–233. Ovetz, R. (2020) The Algorithmic University: On-Line Education, Learning Management Systems, and the Struggle over Academic Labor. Critical Sociology, 089692052094893. Reich, J. (2020) Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education. Harvard University Press. Ruipérez-Valiente, J. A., Jenner, M., Staubitz, T., Li, X., Rohloff, T., Halawa, S., Turro, C., Cheng, Y., Zhang, J., Despujol, I., & Reich, J. (2020) Macro MOOC learning analytics: Exploring trends across global and regional providers. Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge, 518–523. Selwyn, N., & Gašević, D. (2020) The datafication of higher education: Discussing the promises and problems. Teaching in Higher Education, 25(4), 527–540. 8 Shanley, D., Swierstra, T., & Wyatt, S. (2020) Bildung in a Digital World: The Case of MOOCs. In M. Stocchetti (Ed.), The Digital Age and Its Discontents (pp. 211–234). Helsinki University Press. Srnicek, N. (2016) Platform Capitalism. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press. Thomas, D.A., & Nedeva, M. (2018) Broad online learning EdTech and USA universities: symbiotic relationships in a post-MOOC world. Studies in Higher Education, 43(10), 1730–1749. Walshok, M. L. (2021) The Social and Economic Imperatives Driving the Need to Scale Access to Education and Training Across the Lifespan. In Moving Horizontally: New Dimensions of at-Scale Learning in the Time of COVID-19 (pp. 13–20). Georgia Institute of Technology. https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/64303/Moving%20Horizontal… Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Profile Books.

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ISOC Statement
by Joly MacFie 02 Mar '22

02 Mar '22

Andrew Sullivan weighs in https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/03/why-the-world-must-resist-call… -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

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CfP: Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic
by Piotr Siuda 02 Mar '22

02 Mar '22

Dear Fellow AoIR Members Please feel invited to submit a paper to the “Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic” collection. The editors of this CfP are already in discussion with the MIT Press GAME HISTORIES SERIES editors who enthusiastically voiced support for the collection. And/or maybe you could help and spread the word to whomever may be interested - e.g. forwarding this email to other researchers. You can find the CfP attached in this email. The volume seeks to examine the impact of Covid-19 and resulting government policies, especially the lockdowns, on one particular cultural sphere: games. Extended abstract submission deadline is May 1, 2022. All the best -- *Piotr Siuda* (PhD, Professor of Media Studies) piotrsiuda.com Institute of Social Communication and Media Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland *Recent papers:* *--** Microtransaction politics in FIFA Ultimate Team: game fans, Twitch streamers, and Electronic Art*, in*: **EA Sports FIFA: Feeling the Game, Bloomsbury Academic Press*. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ea-sports-fifa-9781501375347 *-- Sports gamers practices as a form of subversiveness - the example of the FIFA ultimate team*, *Critical Studies in Media Communication*, https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2021.1876897 -- *Information Protection in Dark Web Drug Markets Research*, *Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences*, https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/71184/0459.pdf

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IJOC-CfP: Artificial Intelligence and New Media in Challenges
by Seungahn Nah 02 Mar '22

02 Mar '22

******With an increasing number of inquiries, the deadline is extended by March 14, 2022********* *Call for Papers* *Artificial Intelligence and New Media in Challenges: Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Issues* Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and applications have rapidly penetrated into all aspects of social, political, civic, and cultural life. Despite the exponential growth in and development of AI, algorithmic bias toward gender, age, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and ideology prevails across digital media platforms, ranging from search engines through news sites to social media. This omnipresence of algorithmic bias results in social issues, such as systematic and repeated unfairness, discrimination, and inequality, privileging certain groups over others, violating privacy, and reinforcing social and cultural biases. However, scholarship still remains unexplored in light of the causes, components, and consequences of algorithmic bias and ethical issues. Recent successes in AI are based on "black-box" machine learning models trained with a tremendous amount of data, which makes it extremely difficult to understand or interpret their underlying mechanisms despite their remarkable predictive power. Therefore, this special section calls for papers which can address these structured, longstanding issues toward individuals, groups, communities, and countries across the socio-economic and ideological spectrums. The special section is particularly interested in studies empirically demonstrating the aforementioned issues and providing solutions for a better design, development, application, and implication of AI and digital media. Thus, the following research questions are central to this special section. What are the causes of algorithmic bias and how do these relate to ethical, policy, and legal issues like privacy? What are the components of biased algorithms? To what extent does algorithmic bias produce and reproduce social and cultural biases and vice versa? How can we understand, predict, and trust the behaviors of AI systems? What are the intended or unintended consequences of a biased and discriminatory algorithm? What are the best practices in data collection and model development of AI applications? How do we detect, understand, and mitigate algorithmic bias and the connected ethical, policy, and legal issues so that scholars and developers, alike, use best practices? In doing so, the special section emphasizes an inextricably interwoven relationship among data and media bias, model bias, and social bias. That is, data and media bias leads to unbalanced training resulting in model bias. Model bias, in turn, reinforces data and media bias and produces discriminatory impacts on humans and society. Human and societal bias then produces skewed representation and participation in data and media bias. This “vicious circle” reinforces bias toward AI system and its development, use, application, and practice. Given algorithmic bias toward individuals, groups, and communities across digital media platforms and ethical issues, this special section examines, but is not limited to, the following issues: • Algorithmic bias, discrimination, and inequality toward underrepresented groups and communities • Interaction and amplification of bias between AI and media • Perceived (un)fairness of algorithm-mediated communication, system, design, and applications • (Dis)trust in algorithm news curation, recommendation, and algorithmic gatekeeping • Algorithm bias in news, filter bubbles or echo chambers, opinion polarization, and gaps in knowledge and participation • (Dis)trust in algorithm development, management, and governance • (Dis)trust in practical applications of and data-driven decision-making in AI systems • Impacts of algorithmic bias on cognitive, affectional, attitudinal, perceptual, and behavioral bias in various social, political, civic, and cultural contexts • Impacts of automated surveillance technologies (e.g. face recognition) on privacy • Explainable AI for enhancing public trust • Algorithmic and non-algorithmic solutions to assess and mitigate AI biases and risks We are open to diverse methodological approaches such as quantitative, qualitative, and computational methods. Interested authors should submit an abstract with 1,000 words maximum, alongside a title page containing a brief author bio and contact information. Below presents a detailed timeline. *Proposed Timeline:* • Abstract submission due by March 1, 2022 (*now by March 14, 2022*) • Decision for full manuscripts due by May 1, 2022 • Full manuscript submission due by September 1, 2022 • Decision for publication due by December 1, 2022 • Final manuscript submission by January 1, 2023 • Anticipated publication by March 1, 2023 The final paper should be in accordance with the Journal’s Guide for Authors. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/about/submissions#authorGuidelines Special section inquiries can be directed to the guest editors, Dr. Seungahn Nah at snah(a)uoregon.edu and Dr. Jungseock Joo at jjoo(a)comm.ucla.edu. Please submit your abstract directly to the editors via email. *Guest Editors:* Dr. Seungahn Nah, University of Oregon, snah(a)uoregon.edu Dr. Jungseock Joo, University of California-Los Angeles, jjoo(a)comm.ucla.edu <seungahn.nah(a)uky.edu>

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interview with Polish poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski about Russian invasion of Ukraine
by Paul Levinson 01 Mar '22

01 Mar '22

Here's an interview I did last night with Holocaust poet and member of Trupa Trupa band Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine - audio <https://paullev.libsyn.com/grzegorz-kwiatowski-interviewed-by-paul-levinson…> and video <https://youtu.be/4WdaOkBj6zM> -- PL It's Real Life <https://vocal.media/fiction/it-s-real-life> -- free, new alternate history short story about The Beatles

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[Call for Papers] CySoc 2022 Workshop at ICWSM
by Ugur Kursuncu 01 Mar '22

01 Mar '22

Call for Papers: CySoc 2022 - International Workshop on Cyber Social Threats @ICWSM 2022 Deadline: March 27, 2022 Website: https://CySoc2022.github.io/ <https://cysoc2022.github.io/> Submissions: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cysoc2022 <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cysoc2022> The International Workshop on Cyber Social Threats, CySoc 2022, will be held in conjunction with the 16th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2022) on June 6, 2022. This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners in computer, social, and medical sciences from both academia and industry to exchange ideas on understanding the multi-faceted social, psychological, cultural, emotional, communicative, and, linguistic aspects of harmful content while leading the discussion on building novel computational methods to reliably detect, derive meaning of, interpret, understand, and counter them. We welcome papers that employ quantitative and/or qualitative, analytical, theoretical approaches to examine a diverse range of issues related to online harmful communications. Papers on resources/data and tools will also be welcome either for demos or for short/regular talks. This year we offer a spotlight topic on vaccine misinformation and special consideration will be given to submissions that focus on this timely and important topic. Topics for research and discussions include (but not limited to): Spotlight topic: Vaccine Misinformation Online extremism Harassment and cyberbullying Hate speech Misinformation and disinformation (e.g., epidemics of fake news, images and videos, during a disaster, health issues and elections) Gender-based violence Human trafficking Illicit drug trafficking Mental health implications of social media Ethical considerations on privacy-preserving social media analytics Emotional and psychological support Trust relationship and community dynamics Relationship of the social web and mainstream news media Cultural implications of social web usage Influencer identification and community detection for movements Co-organizers: Ugur Kursuncu, Georgia State University, GA, USA. Kaicheng Yang, Indiana University, IN, USA. Francesco Pierri, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy. Matthew DeVerna, Indiana University, IN, USA. Megan Squire, Elon University, NC, USA. Yelena Mejova, ISI Foundation, Turin, Italy. Jeremy Blackburn, State University of New York at Binghamton, NY, USA.

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