March 2023 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Wikihistories mailing list
by Heather Ford 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

Please see the CFP for the 2023 inaugural wikihistories conference (titled “Wikipedia and its implications for memory (and forgetting)”. Abstracts are due this Friday the 17th of March. Please also consider joining the mailing list https://groups.google.com/g/wikihistories if you’re interested in Wikipedia and history making. All best, Heather. --------------------------- Dr Heather Ford Associate Professor and Head of Discipline, Digital and Social Media<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> School of Communication<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…>, University of Technology, Sydney<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> (UTS) Lead CI: http://wikihistories.net | Project Lead: www.questionmachines.net<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.questi…> Affiliate: UTS Data Science Institute<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> | Associate: UTS Centre for Media Transition<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> | Acting Co-Director: UTS Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> w: hblog.org<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhblog.org%…> / t: @hfordsa<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitte…> / pronouns: she/her “Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmitpress.…>” MIT Press University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences PO Box 123. Broadway NSW 2007 Australia I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and the Boorooberongal People of the Dharug Nation upon whose ancestral lands our campuses now stand. I pay my respect to Elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this place. https://wikihistories.net/2023-conference/<https://wikihistories.net/2023-conference/> wikihistories 2023: Wikipedia and its implications for memory (and forgetting) June 7th/8th 2023 for participants from the Asia-Pacific (1000-1300 AEST<https://time.is/1000_8_June_2023_in_Sydney/Johannesburg/SGT/London/Berlin/L…>). June 8th/9th 2023 for participants from Africa and Europe (1600-1900 AEST<https://time.is/1600_9_June_2023_in_Sydney/Johannesburg/SGT/London/Berlin/L…>). Call for papers >From its earliest beginnings shortly before 911 [1], Wikipedia has documented history as it happens. Revolutions [2], terrorist attacks, earthquakes [4], fires and floods have been written about on the platform, often within minutes of the first recorded protests, attacks, and blazes. This practice of documentation, conducted by volunteers who are connected by shared interest rather than shared expertise, falls between the disciplines of digital journalism and history. What does Wikipedia’s coverage of events “that haven’t even stopped happening yet” [5] mean for history-making on the platform? Researchers have noted that recent events are covered more than early history [6], and stories are more often presented from colonialist rather than local perspectives [7]. More recently, Wikipedia has been uncovered as a site of both conscious forgetting and the “frenzy of commemorations,” [8] a venue for nationalist propaganda projecting particular stories that favour particular ideologies and social groups. * How does Wikipedia construct history and collective memory? * Does Wikipedia enable the forging of a collective memory via consensus? [9] * How are some versions of the past pushed to the fringes? * What gets remembered and what gets forgotten? * How can we study history-making on the platform? In this first annual workshop of the wikihistories project, we will take stock of what we know and what we still need to know about Wikipedia as a history-making platform. We do this because Wikipedia’s representation of history matters. Its facts travel through knowledge ecosystems and rest as answers to questions provided by digital assistants, search engines and other AI-enhanced tools. Wikipedia’s claims to neutrality are more a hope than a promise, a guise that hides the dreams and ideologies of the individuals and groups that understand its power and are determined to master its form. We invite Wikipedia scholars and researchers to participate in a two-day symposium being held online on the 8th and 9th of June. Please send an abstract of 250-300 words to michael.falk(a)uts.edu.au<mailto:michael.falk@uts.edu.au> before March 17 (close of day anywhere in the world) responding to any of the above questions. We expect a mixture of both analytical and methodological contributions for the event which will be held annually for the 3 years of the wikihistories project. Confirmed Keynote Speakers This year’s symposium will feature a keynote by Dr Simon Sleight<https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/simon-sleight>, Reader in Urban History, Historical Youth Cultures and Australian History at King’s College, London. Dr Sleight is the co-editor of History, Memory and Public Life: The Past in the Present<https://www.routledge.com/History-Memory-and-Public-Life-The-Past-in-the-Pr…> (Routledge, 2018) and will provide a rich background to our investigations of collective memory from the history discipline for an interdisciplinary audience. Our second keynote speaker will be Dr Shira Klein<https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/shira-klein>, Associate Professor of History at Chapman University. Her recent article on “Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust” has garnered tens of thousands of views since its publication in February, has received media coverage in English, Polish, Hebrew, German, and Spanish, and has triggered a rare self-initiated action of English Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee. This project is supported by the Australian Research Council<https://www.arc.gov.au/> Discovery Programme. [1] Brian Keegan, “An Encyclopedia with Breaking News,” in Wikipedia@ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution, ed. Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2019), 55–70, https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12366.003.0007<https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12366.003.0007>. [2] Heather Ford, Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2022). [3] Bunty Avieson, “Breaking News on Wikipedia: Collaborating, Collating and Competing,” First Monday, April 30, 2019, https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i5.9530<https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i5.9530>; Christian Pentzold, “Fixing the Floating Gap: The Online Encyclopaedia Wikipedia as a Global Memory Place,” Memory Studies 2, no. 2 (May 2009): 255–72, https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698008102055<https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698008102055>. [4] Brian Keegan, Darren Gergle, and Noshir Contractor, “Hot off the Wiki: Dynamics, Practices, and Structures in Wikipedia’s Coverage of the Tōhoku Catastrophes,” in Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym ’11: The 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration, Mountain View California: ACM, 2011), 105–13, https://doi.org/10.1145/2038558.2038577<https://doi.org/10.1145/2038558.2038577>. [5] “All the News That’s Fit to Print Out,” New York Times (Online) (New York: New York Times Company, July 1, 2007. [6] Graham, Mark, Scott Hale, and Monica Stephens. “Geographies of the World’s Knowledge.” 2011. [7] Brendan Luyt, “The Nature of Historical Representation on Wikipedia: Dominant or Alterative Historiography?,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62, no. 6 (2011): 1058–65, https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21531<https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21531>; Bunty Avieson, “Two Wikipedias in Bhutan: Problems and Solutions for Knowledge Equity in the Digital Age,” Asian Journal of Communication 32, no. 5 (September 3, 2022): 399–416, https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2021.1937248<https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2021.1937248>. [8] Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 85. [9] Brendan Luyt, “Wikipedia, Collective Memory, and the Vietnam War,” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 67, no. 8 (2016): 1956–61, https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23518<https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23518>; Pentzold, “Fixing the Floating Gap”; Marlon Twyman, Brian C. Keegan, and Aaron Shaw, “Black Lives Matter in Wikipedia: Collaboration and Collective Memory around Online Social Movements,” in Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 2017, 1400–1412, https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998232<https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998232>. UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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AoIR selected papers from Dublin question
by Piotr Siuda 12 Mar '23

12 Mar '23

Dear Colleagues, this question could be because of pure ignorance, as I am quite new at AOIR. But does anyone know when we can expect AoIR Selected Papers from Dublin. I would gladly take some explanations on how the procedure of releasing these looks like. Warm Regards -- *Piotr Siuda* (PhD, Professor of Media Studies) piotrsiuda.com Institute of Social Communication and Media Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland *Recent papers:* *--** Darknet imaginaries in Internet memes: the discursive malleability of the cultural status of digital technologies*, *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication*, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmac023 -- *Toward Successful Esports Team: How Does National Diversity Affect Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Video Games*. *Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences*. *-- **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

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OA article: "AI as Agency Without Intelligence: On ChatGPT, Large Language Models, and Other Generative Models"
by Luciano Floridi 12 Mar '23

12 Mar '23

In case it may be of interest to members of the list: “AI as Agency Without Intelligence: On ChatGPT, Large Language Models, and Other Generative Models” has now been published in Philosophy and Technology. The free OA preprint can be downloaded @SSRN https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4358789 With best wishes, Luciano ______________ Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information Oxford Internet Institute Fellow, Exeter College University of Oxford PA Krystal Whittaker<mailto:lucianofloridi.pa@gmail.com> Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication Director, Centre for Digital Ethics Department of Legal Studies Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna SA Elisabetta Bulla<mailto:segreteria.amministrativa.cde@gmail.com>

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Nominations are open for the 2023-25 AoIR Executive Committee
by Michelle, Association of Internet Researchers 11 Mar '23

11 Mar '23

Dear AoIR Members, I am happy to announce that nominations for the new Executive Committee, to take office in October of this year and serve until October 2025. Nominations are open. Below, you will find: (a) a timeframe for the election, (b) a description of the AoIR governance system and the elected positions, (c) our nominations and elections processes, and (d) some key questions for candidates. A. Timeframe of the Election: *1. The call for nominations opens on 11 March 2023 and will remain open for fifteen (15) days.* *2. Nominations for all positions close on 26 March 2023.* 3. Candidates will be listed on aoir.org and further information will be made available on our membership system, where discussion fora will let you ask questions of the candidates. 4. Voting begins on 22 April 2023 at our online balloting site and will remain open for ten (10) days. (Details for accessing this site will be sent in a later message through our membership system.) 5. Voting ends on 1 May 2023, expiring at 12:00 noon, U.S. Eastern Time in the State of Delaware. Election results will be announced on air-l. The new Executive Committee is formally introduced and assumes its duties during the Annual General Meeting during the AoIR conference in Philadelphia, on 21 October 2023. More information about our election processes can be found in the AoIR Bylaws: https://aoir.org/bylaws/ Candidates should familiarize themselves with the duties laid out in the Bylaws. I also encourage persons interested in running for a specific position to contact me or any of the current office-holder(s) with any questions. In particular, the Treasurer needs to be financially literate, including the use of budgeting spreadsheets, and should ideally liaise with the current Treasurer or Vice-President in advance of nominating. B. AoIR Governance and Description of Elected Positions: The organizational structure of AoIR is simple. There are 5 officers (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Graduate Student representative). The 9-member Executive Committee consists of these officers, plus the Past President and 3 Open Seat representatives. Elected officials hold their positions for two years. After two years, the Vice President becomes President. Nominations are invited for Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Graduate Student representative, and 3 Open Seats. You may nominate yourself or someone else you think would do a good job. Details on the nomination procedure follow below. Nominations officially open on 11 March 2023. Duties of the President: Article 4/Section 6 of AoIR's bylaws. Duties of the Vice President: Article 4/Section 7 of AoIR's bylaws. Duties of the Secretary: Article 4/Section 8 of AoIR's bylaws. Duties of the Treasurer: Article 4/Section 9 of AoIR's bylaws. Duties of the Graduate Student Representative: Article 4/Section 10 of AoIR's bylaws. Duties of Open Seat representatives: Represent the membership of AoIR, and contribute to decision-making. Members of the Executive have their membership fees waived for the duration of their term, and pay a reduced conference registration fee. C. Nominations and Elections Processes: *Only current members of AoIR can run for a position.* They may be nominated by anyone, including themselves. If nominated for more than one position, a nominee must choose to run for one (and only one) position in this election. You may nominate yourself or others. If nominating someone else, confirm with that person that they are willing to run, and eligible to do so. Self-Nominations: Email AoIR Association Coordinator Michelle at <ac at aoir dot org> and indicate the position for which you are nominating yourself. Please provide in your nomination email a short candidate statement addressing the questions below. Nominating Others: Email AoIR Association Coordinator Michelle at <ac at aoir dot org> with the name of the person you want to nominate, the position for which you are nominating this person, contact information for the person, and an indication of whether you know if this person would accept this nomination. (If you don't know, we'll contact them and ask.) All candidates for election will be required to provide answers to the questions listed below, have the answers posted to the AoIR election forum, and participate in an online candidate forum. In addition, the Graduate Student candidates must confirm in their response that they comply with the by-laws: the Graduate Student Representative must be actively enrolled in a degree program at the time of nomination and election. The Treasurer needs to be financially literate, including the use of budgeting spreadsheets, and should ideally liaise with the current Treasurer or Vice-President in advance of nominating. The voting system used by AoIR allows one vote per member for each of the elected positions listed above. Votes will be tallied using a balloting software. In the case of the four directly elected officers, the candidate with the highest number of votes shall be declared the winner; in the case of the Open Seats, the candidates with the highest, second-highest, and third-highest votes shall be declared the three winners of the Open Seats. In the case of tied results for the officer positions, the winner shall be determined by the ballot counters, by drawing of lots, using a method that ensures each of the tying candidates has an equal chance of success and witnessed by at least 1 person independent of the association. In the case of tied results for the open seat positions, the drawing of lots shall be used only when there are more tied candidates than seats available. D. Questions for Candidates (these questions must be answered in your nomination email): 1. What are your qualifications for this position (including prior experience and participation in AoIR)? 2. Please describe two or three short-term goals you would like to achieve through membership on the executive (including a rationale for each and how you would contribute to their achievement). 3. What is your long-term vision for AoIR? 4. What else should voters consider when deciding on whether or not to vote for you? In answering the questions, please be concise and give information specific to the position for which you are nominating, to enable voters to assess your case for election to that position. I sincerely hope that you will consider running, or nominating someone who you think would help advance AoIR and its community of Internet scholars. Many thanks in advance to those willing to serve! Tama Leaver President, Association of Internet Researchers

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Fwd: ESC Inaugural Tessier-Ashpool Distinguished Lecture on the Societal Implications of AI: Adam Harvey (3/17, 11am ET)
by Christian Sandvig 10 Mar '23

10 Mar '23

Dear AoIR colleagues, I wanted to forward and highlight Sophia's email about this event in case you didn't see it -- I don't think it was sent to this list. Many of you who work on surveillance will already be familiar with Adam Harvey's totally amazing CV Dazzle anti-face-detection makeup / hairstyles ( https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle/) or perhaps his HyperFace obfuscation fabric (https://adam.harvey.studio/hyperface/) He has some thrilling newer projects about machine learning data provenance and the use of computer vision for human rights problems -- such as landmine detection. It is possible to participate online from anywhere in the world, and the talk timing is good for Europe. I hope you will join us. Also: In case you see this email late, it is OK to RSVP immediately before the Zoom event starts or even after it has started. This will still work. Sincerely, Christian Sandvig Co-Director, Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC) H. Marshall McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Information, Communication & Media University of Michigan, Ann Arbor http://umich.edu/~csandvig - http://esc.umich.edu/ ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Sophia Brueckner <sbrueckn(a)umich.edu> Date: Tue, Mar 7, 2023 at 2:13 PM Subject: ESC Inaugural Tessier-Ashpool Distinguished Lecture: Adam Harvey (3/17) To: Sophia Brueckner <sbrueckn(a)umich.edu> The Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC) is excited to announce the Tessier-Ashpool Distinguished Lecture Series on the Societal Implications of Artificial Intelligence! Our first speaker for our annual series is Berlin-based artist and researcher Adam Harvey: *Adam Harvey (US/DE) is an artist and applied researcher based in Berlin focused on computer vision, privacy, and surveillance. He is a graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University; a member of Forensic Architecture; and the creator of the VFRAME.io computer vision project, Exposing.ai dataset project, and CV Dazzle computer vision camouflage concept.* Please join us* 11a-12p ET March 17, 2023* at the Rackham Amphitheatre at 915 E. Washington Street. The talk will also be available via zoom. *Please RSVP for in-person or Zoom here: https://esc.umich.edu/event/adam-harvey-tessier-ashpool-distinguished-lectu… <https://esc.umich.edu/event/adam-harvey-tessier-ashpool-distinguished-lectu…>* This event is co-sponsored by the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS). Please feel free to forward, and we look forward to seeing you there! -- *Sophia Brueckner* Associate Professor - Stamps School of Art & Design, School of Information, Digital Studies Institute Co-Director - Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC) University of Michigan - Ann Arbor http://www.sophiabrueckner.com ************************** https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y4zZNXXNKDm8cci_PZD6x4Rb78f8-XMb/view?usp=…

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2023 APSA Information Technology & Politics Awards - Call for submissions
by Filippo Trevisan 10 Mar '23

10 Mar '23

Hi all, Did you come across some stellar research in Information Technology and Politics published in 2022, or did you write some yourself? Consider nominating your work or the work of others for one of the 2023 APSA Information Technology & Politics Section Awards: * Best Information Technology & Politics Book Award (for books first published in 2022) * Best Article in Information Technology & Politics (must have appeared in a journal issue in 2022) * Best ITP Conference Paper Award (for papers presented in the ITP section at APSA 2022) * Best Student Conference Paper (for papers presented in the ITP section at APSA 2022) * Best PhD Dissertation in Information Technology & Politics * Best Public-Facing Scholarship in Information Technology and Politics The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2023. More information, including contact details for award committees can be found here: https://www.apsanet.org/section18 (please address any questions about submission procedures and eligibility directly to the relevant award committee). Best, Filippo ——— Dr. Filippo Trevisan Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs Associate Professor - School of Communication Deputy Director - Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP) American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC - 20016 Tel: +1 (202) 885 6930 Email: trevisan(a)american.edu<mailto:trevisan@american.edu> Web: www.filippotrevisan.net<http://www.filippotrevisan.net/> Twitter: @filippotrevisan<https://twitter.com/filippotrevisan> In paperback: “Disability Rights Advocacy Online: Voice, Empowerment and Global Connectivity<https://www.routledge.com/Disability-Rights-Advocacy-Online-Voice-Empowerme…>” NY: Routledge, 2017. All my publications: www.filippotrevisan.net/publications<http://www.filippotrevisan.net/publications>

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Job! Assistant Professor, Strategic Communication, Social Media & Society - Communication and Digital Media Studies, Ontario Tech University
by Tanner Mirrlees 10 Mar '23

10 Mar '23

https://ontariotechu.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/4/home/requisition/505?c=on… The Communication and Digital Media Studies (CDMS) program in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities (FSSH) at Ontario Tech University (OTU) invites applications for an Assistant Professor in the area of Strategic Communication, Social Media & Society. The FSSH believes that an interdisciplinary approach to research, teaching, and community outreach is essential to developing the leaders of tomorrow, and embraces a social justice mandate. The CDMS program focuses on the fast-changing communication and digital media environment in which we live, work, play, vote and influence. From a look at the global creative and entertainment industries to immersion in new technological developments surrounding the Internet and social media platforms, our program’s curriculum explores the drivers and impacts of communication and digital media in relation to the dynamics of the broader society and culture that shape them. Students learn about the uses, roles, goals, arts, industries, audiences, policies, technologies, practices, messages, and effects of communication and digital media in relation to the pursuit of a good life for all. We seek applications from outstanding candidates who are committed to building and making contributions to the CDMS program’s teaching, research and service excellence. In particular, we seek applicants who are prepared to support our Strategic Communication, Social Media & Society degree specialization, and one or more of our minor program areas in Social Media Advocacy and Activism, Digital Media Politics & Policy, and Professional Communication/Public Relations. As the FSSH values interdisciplinarity, and as related to OTU’s commitment to tech with a conscience, we welcome applicants that possess additional expertise in related sub-fields such as the sociology of technology, science, technology & society (STS), the political economy of the Internet, as well as social media advocacy experience. To learn more about the position and apply to it, see here: https://ontariotechu.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/4/home/requisition/505?c=on… To learn more about the SSH faculty and CDMS program, check out the website here: https://socialscienceandhumanities.ontariotechu.ca/ Application submission deadline / review date: April 7, 2023 Position start date: July 1, 2023 Tanner Mirrlees Associate Professor Director, Communication and Digital Media Studies Faculty of Social Science and Humanities Ontario Tech University Faculty Profile https://tannermirrlees.academia.edu/

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Last chance to register - Trine Syvertsen on Digital Disconnection + Activism - 13th Mar in London
by Zeena Feldman 10 Mar '23

10 Mar '23

Dear friends and colleagues, Join us on Monday 13th March at King’s College London for Professor Trine Syvertsen's (University of Oslo) lecture on Digital Disconnection and Activism. This in-person event will run 16.00-17.00 on Monday at King's Strand Campus, room K3.11. It is free and open to all; please register here<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-disconnection-and-activism-tickets-5…>. Digital disconnection is often seen as an individual endeavour and a lifestyle choice, yet activists often use terms like "movement" and "cause" to talk about digital detoxing. To that end, Trine Syvertsen discusses activist initiatives encouraging people to log off digital media. Based on an analysis of ten initiatives, this seminar considers how detox activists present the problems to be solved, potential solutions, and how they recruit participants and mobilise support. Trine Syvertsen is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Oslo. She is the author of Media Resistance; Protest, Dislike, Abstention (2017) and Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting (2020). She chairs the project Intrusive Media, Ambivalent Users and Digital Detox (Digitox), funded by the Research Council of Norway (2019-2024). Best wishes, Zeena Dr Zeena Feldman (she/her) Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture King’s College London Department of Digital Humanities The Strand, Chesham Building, 0.03 London WC2R 2LS

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CfP Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis
by Christian Fuchs 10 Mar '23

10 Mar '23

CfP Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis Special Issue of the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique (http://www.triple-c.at) Edited by Thomas Allmer, Sevda Can Arslan, and Christian Fuchs (Media Systems and Media Organisation Research Group, Paderborn University) https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/40 Submission deadline: Thursday, April 20, 2023 Please submit abstracts of 250-600 words by e-mailing the completed submission form http://triple-c.at/f/FirstName_FamilyName_tripleC_DigitalCapitalism.docx to thomas.allmer(a)triple-c.at This special issue presents critical perspectives on digital capitalism. Its contributions show how we can best critically theorise digital capitalism and what forms of political praxis exist and are needed in social struggles that stand in the context of digital capitalism. The issue will feature contributions by Jodi Dean, Christian Fuchs, Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, and Sabine Pfeiffer. Facebook and Google exploit our digital labour. That's digital capitalism. In late 2022 and early 2023, Google laid off 12,000 employees, Microsoft 10,000, Twitter more than 10,000, Amazon 18,000, and Facebook 11,000. That's digital capitalism. Algorithms are used by corporations for socially sorting and discriminating against customers who struggle to make ends meet and live in deprived neighbourhoods. That's digital capitalism. Lots of clickwork is conducted by poorly paid women in the Global South. That's digital capitalism. Digital fascism, fake news, post-truth culture and algorithmic politics circulate on capitalist and state-capitalist Internet platforms. That's digital capitalism. Information war and echo chambers polarise the digital public sphere, making a new World War between imperialist powers that compete at the global level for the control of territory, economic power and political as well as ideological hegemony and the nuclear annihilation of humankind and life on Earth more likely. That's digital capitalism. Recently, digital workers assembling iPhones protested against the poor working conditions they faced at Foxconn in Zhengzhou during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's a praxis that challenges digital capitalism. In 2021, warehouse workers founded the Amazon Labor Union. That's a praxis that challenges digital capitalism. The non-profit federated Internet platform Mastodon has become a viable digital alternative in the light of users' discontent with Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. That's a praxis that challenges digital capitalism. Internet experts and users have co-written the Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto that demands turning the Internet into a public good and advancing digital democracy. That's a praxis that challenges digital capitalism. While fascists spread post-truth on social media, the progressive news hour Democracy Now! has since 1996 utilised the non-commercial Internet, Public Service Media, as well as community radio and television stations for broadcasting a high-quality, independent news programme that reaches millions of viewers and questions fake news. That's a praxis that challenges digital capitalism. Digital capitalism matters. Digital capitalism shapes our lives. Digital capitalism needs to be better understood. We need critical theories of digital capitalism. We need to better understand praxes that challenge digital capitalism and aim at fostering digital democracy and digital socialism. tripleC's special issue on "Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis" wants to contribute to establishing foundations of critical theories and the philosophy of praxis in the light of digital capitalism. We invite contributions that engage with theoretical and praxeological questions. More information: https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/40

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2023 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication (AssoComPol)
by Antonio Martella 10 Mar '23

10 Mar '23

*** 2023 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication (AssoComPol) *** Beyond digital political communication: platforms, algorithm and automation 8-10 June 2023, University of Torino, Italy https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2023/ Political communication is going through a phase of deep transformation. Communicative environments have reached full digitalization, and this new paradigm brings new challenges. The platformization of society and the web through its constitutive elements – data, algorithms, automations, and interfaces (Van Dijk et al., 2018) – has affected the public value of communication and information. Datafication affects different areas of society, and it is becoming increasingly relevant for both the production and communication of public policies. It changes the relationship between actors and processes. The development of information technologies has enabled the application of new analytical methodologies for investigating social phenomena by monitoring behaviours that would otherwise be difficult to detect (Theocharis & Jungherr, 2020). However, data produced by citizens/users and their interactions are not easily and/or fully accessible, mainly due to the convergence of proprietary platform logic and privacy protection. Access to these data have become increasingly difficult, even for academic institutions (Persily & Tucker, 2020). While data fuel platforms, algorithms allow and rule their functioning. >From a communication point of view, algorithms represent the manifestations and outcomes of media logic and how subjects perceive and interpret the latter, contributing to the development and deployment of algorithms (Klinger & Svensson, 2018). In this context, the development of increasingly advanced generative technologies such as Chat GPT raises questions from an ethical perspective and regarding the uses of platforms in relation to AI technologies as well. Algorithms have consistently raised the attention of social research on risks and possible consequences, such as the polarization and radicalization of public debate. However, successful concepts such as echo chambers (Sunstein, 2002) and filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011) seem fewer adequate to explain the complexity of the relationship between platforms and users. Indeed, polarization dynamics appear to be more related to the heterogeneity of opinions encountered on platforms than to the action of echo chambers (Tucker et al., 2018). Moreover, platforms driven by algorithms seem to widen the range of information sources to which citizens/users are exposed (Barberá, 2020) instead of “locking them up” in self-referential bubbles. Against this background, the success of Tik Tok, based on the algorithmic logic of #foryou selection (Newman, 2022), raises new and additional questions for main actors in political communication. Linked to polarization dynamics are also expressions of intolerance, hate, and incivility (Mason, 2018) that reinforce dimensions such as structural inequalities and biases based on gender, religion, ethnicity. These processes appear increasingly present in online public debate, especially during specific political events and controversial policies (Theocharis et al., 2022). In this case, the prominent role of platforms contributes to amplifying their visibility, but also the possibilities for detection and analysis through the use of computational methods (Theocharis & Jungherr, 2020). The spread of mis/disinformation is also often linked to the centrality assumed by platforms although, among its main causes is the way this is “packaged” (Vosoughi & Aral, 2018) beyond the support of coordinated online campaigns (Keller et al., 2019). Moreover, the ability to influence attitudes and behaviors depends primarily on alignment with pre-existing political, moral, beliefs (Freelon & Wells, 2020) and the citizens’/users’ level of partisanship (Druckman et al., 2021). Within the hybrid media ecosystem, even legacy media are not immune to these processes, considering that they are often forced to chase an increasingly faster flow of information that is difficult to verify. Platformization of communication has also affected information production and the journalistic profession. The dominance of platforms, in fact, has changed the ways through which users find information (Nielsen & Fletcher, 2020). However, news shared on social media are generally considered less credible, affecting trust in the media in the long run (Karlsen & Aalberg, 2021). Furthermore, the processes of adapting information to algorithmic logic play a relevant role in growing news avoidance (Skovsgaard & Andersen, 2019) and are increasingly changing newsmaking and publishing, including legacy media trying to remain competitive (Newman, 2023). Finally, all these processes take place in a scenario that has radically changed due to recent dramatic events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The scale of these events, on the one hand, has accelerated the digitization of the information ecosystem (Newman, 2022). On the other hand, it has provided the opportunity for outsider actors and new information channels to compete with traditional elites by further challenging roles and power relations (Van Aelst & Blumler, 2022). Starting from this framework, we encourage the submission of papers investigating the impact of platformization processes on the fields of political communication, journalism, and all other forms of communication. Research that focuses on digital native phenomena and forms of communication, but also on traditional ones and their adaptation to the new platformed environments, are welcome. We are interested in both theoretical essays and empirical studies, and we welcome different methodological approaches and research designs (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods). Issues of interest include (but are not limited to): - new communication scenarios in the increasingly close and complex relationship between political communication and platforms; - political and government communication strategies, election campaigns, and voting in national and international contexts; - the role of data, platforms, algorithms, and automation (AI, bots, etc.) in the processes of political communication and news reporting by institutional and non-institutional actors; - data access policies for purposes of research, campaigning, and profiling of the communication message; transparency of platforms and related tensions with the privacy paradigm; - the trends that have emerged in the communication styles of leaders and parties in a hybrid and platformized communication ecosystem; - the technological infrastructure of political participation (digital parties, networks, influencers, memes, UGC); - new repertoires of extra-institutional political communication related to protests, social movements, and civil society actors; - the transformations and controversies of public debate concerning processes of ideological and affective polarization, incivility, and online and offline forms of discrimination; - changes in contemporary journalism, with a particular focus on the growth of the phenomenon of news avoidance; - techniques of (computational) propaganda and mis/dis-information in conflict scenarios and transformations of news coverage in war contexts; - methodological proposals and theoretical elaborations to approach the transformations of political communication generated in the intersection of platform use and communication datafication. *Useful information on how to write an abstract for AssoComPol conferences can be found in the section “Abstract instructions”*. - Paper proposals must include: Title, Name of authors, Affiliation with email, extended abstract of 600/800 words excluding bibliography, 3 keywords, and bibliograhpical references. - Deadline for submission of proposals: April* 4* to call-for-abstracts-convegno-2023 <https://www.compol.it/call-for-abstracts-convegno-2022/> - Notification of acceptance: *April 27* - Full papers must be submitted by *June 1 *in the conference paper room (accessible by login)

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