- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

SEASON 2025: Registration Now Open (Hamburg, 24-25 Sept) - Early Bird until 1 August
by Rosie Graham 01 Aug '25

01 Aug '25

Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the inaugural SEASON conference (Search Engines and Society Network), taking place 24-25 September 2025 at HAW Hamburg. SEASON is a new international forum for researchers, practitioners, and activists critically engaging with the roles of search engines and algorithmic technologies in society. It aims to build community across disciplines and create space for shared reflection on search as both infrastructure and cultural force. The two-day program features: * 2 Keynotes * 20 Long Presentations * 10 Short Presentations * 17 Posters * 2 Interactive Sessions Topics include: • Search engine bias and algorithmic visibility • Generative AI in search • Information disorders and disinformation • Regulation, policy, and platformisation • Everyday search practices and infrastructures • Critical and creative approaches to search • …and much more. Early bird registration (until 1 August): * Regular: €100 * Student: €30 (From 2 August: €150 / €50) Register for SEASON 2025 here: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=season2025 More about SEASON: https://searchenginesandsociety.net<https://searchenginesandsociety.net/> We warmly invite you to join us in Hamburg and be part of the growing SEASON community. With best regards, The SEASON 2025 Organizing Team

1 0

AoIR2025 Early Registration Rate ends on August 1st
by AoIR Association Coordinator 31 Jul '25

31 Jul '25

*Please note: This email is being sent to all members of the AoIR list serv. If you have already registered please disregard this email.* *The early registration rate deadline for the #AoIR2025 Ruptures is 1 August 2025. After this date, the fees for conference registration increase* - https://aoir.org/aoir2025/aoir2025fees/ There are two different registrations AoIR2025 – one for in person attendees and one for remote attendees. In person only: https://members.aoir.org/event-6216401 Online only: https://members.aoir.org/event-6216484 Travel information can be found here: https://aoir.org/aoir2025/travelingtobrazil/ #AoIR2025 will be held at the Novo IACS - Instituto de Artes e Comunicação da Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) - Campus Gragoatá. The campus is close to the city centre and its hotels and hostels, and is very well served by public transport. Many passport holders are required to apply for a Visa prior to travel to Brazil. Please check visa requirements here: https://brazil.vfsevisa.com/ We look forward to seeing you all in Niterói! Your organizers of AoIR2025.

1 0

The Digital Conference CALL FOR PAPERS - King's College London, June 2026
by g. tavmen 31 Jul '25

31 Jul '25

Dear all,I'm very pleased to circulate the below CfP. We look forward to your submissions. Best wishes, Güneş Dr Güneş Tavmen Lecturer in Digital Infrastructures and Sustainability Department of Digital Humanities King’s College London KCL DDH The Digital Conference CALL FOR PAPERS Digital Humanities Today: Critical Inquiry with and about the Digital (23-26 June 2026) >From the 23rd to 26th June 2026, the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London will host an international conference exploring the evolving role of Digital Humanities in a world increasingly shaped by digital technologies. Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of Centre for Computing Humanities officially becoming a department of KCL, and 15th anniversary of being renamed as Department of Digital Humanities in 2011, we welcome scholars from around the world to critically reflect on what ‘digital’ entails in today’s world. Digital technologies have transformed the ways we live, work, create, and connect. From online grassroots movements to open-source tools, from digital archives to experimental art and music created with code, the digital has become a vital part of how we express ourselves, tell stories, and shape our futures. In our daily lives, the digital enables new forms of community and care, especially for those historically excluded from institutional or geographic centres of power. But these same technologies have also raised urgent questions. There is a growing concern across various disciplines and communities. Recent political, environmental and technological developments have shown that we cannot afford to treat “the digital” as neutral. It is shaped by geographies, specificities, regulatory environments, sociocultural contexts, and linguistic hierarchies, which condition how digital technologies are produced, used, and experienced across the globe. From the resurgence of extremist ideologies and algorithmic manipulation of public discourse, to the exploitative dynamics of platform economies and the environmental costs of large-scale computing, the digital now permeates nearly every aspect of our lives. Artificial intelligence is being used against workers, stealing their creative outputs and triggering a race to the bottom of working conditions. In addition to the socio-political impact of generative AI models, the deleterious environmental effects are also becoming increasingly clear. At the same time, computational and digital methods have enabled new forms of collaborative, interdisciplinary, and public-facing humanities research. They are reshaping not only our methodological choices but also how we conceptualise methods themselves—prompting us to revisit questions of reliability and reproducibility. These methods offer powerful tools for analysis, visualisation, preservation, and dissemination, while also enriching humanities scholarship by scaling up our analyses and opening up new avenues of inquiry. Unlike the underlying code, “the digital” is never binary. This is why, more than ever, we need to come together to discuss and debate its implications. There is a long tradition of critical research on digital methods and other issues concerning “the digital” at King’s, dating back to the early 1970s. The Department of Digital Humanities, established as the Centre for Computing in the Humanities in 1992, has been a key site for this work. Today it is home to a wide range of approaches to developing and applying digital methods in the humanities, as well as to interrogating the broader social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of the digital. Building on over fifty years of innovation and critical inquiry, this event invites scholars, practitioners, and communities to reflect on the role of Digital Humanities as both a methodological practice and a lens to understand and shape the digital world. We invite proposals that explore (but are not limited to) the following themes: - Computational humanities and computing culture: computational history, music computing, geoanalytics, digital classics, computational linguistics, computational social science, cultural analytics, computational literary studies - Creative digital practice and the arts, music and the digital, arts-based methods - Design, Interfaces, and Interaction: UX/UI - Digital ecologies, environmental justice and sustainable digital futures - Digital gaming and play - Digital health, digital care, and transformation of the care industry - Digital knowledge and epistemologies and critical technical practices and digital methods - Digital labour and economies, platform studies - Digital media - Digital Research Infrastructures and funding - Embodiment and identity: the digital and the embodied, digital childhood & youth - Global and decolonial digital cultures, digital commons, digital audiences, creator cultures - Politics, power, and resistance in the digital age: digital politics, deplatformisation, the digital university, engaged digital research We welcome contributions from across the humanities and beyond, from those who use and interrogate digital tools and those who develop them. We invite proposals for paper presentations (max. 15 mins) and panels (max. 4 x 15 mins) with a title and an abstract of no longer than 300 words, along with a short biography, no longer than 50 words. You can submit proposals via THIS FORM until the deadline of 30/09/2025. We aim to notify acceptance of abstracts by 15.11.2025. Please note: The conference will be face-to-face only, with career plenary sessions instead of keynotes (a panel consisting of academics from every stage). We offer a limited number of conference fee waivers, as well as limited numbers of partial bursaries for travel and accommodation. We will provide more information on these and conference fees after acceptance of abstracts have been sent out. For any inquiries, please contact thedigitalconference(a)kcl.ac.uk. Webpage: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/digital-humanities-today-critical-inquiry-with…

1 0

The Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2026): Second Call for Papers
by Announce 31 Jul '25

31 Jul '25

*** Second Call for Papers *** The Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2026) March 23-26, 2026, 5* Coral Beach Hotel & Resort, Paphos, Cyprus https://iui.hosting.acm.org/2026/ The ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (ACM IUI) is the annual premier venue where researchers and practitioners meet and discuss state-of-the-art advances at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Ideal IUI submissions should address practical HCI challenges using machine intelligence and discuss both computational and human-centric aspects of such methodologies, techniques, and systems. This area is crucial as AI is increasingly integrated into everyday technology. Understanding and shaping AI systems for human needs is essential to ensure that AI systems are effective and responsible. As these techniques become increasingly powerful, new use cases and human-AI interactions can be explored. This conference offers an opportunity to focus the research community on important problems at the intersection of AI and HCI and bring together experts from various disciplines to discuss and build on these ideas in workshops, breaks, and networking sessions. Contributions are welcome from all relevant arenas, including academia, industry, government, and non-profit organizations. Diverse insights are critical to the vitality of the IUI community, and the conference will accept papers for both long and short oral presentations. Contributions to IUI are expected to be supported by rigorous evidence appropriate to the claims (e.g., user study, system evaluation, computational analysis). Topics IUI 2026 topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Human-centered AI methods, approaches, and systems • Explainable AI methods • Democratization of AI • Persuasive technologies in IUI • Privacy and security of IUI • Knowledge-based approaches to user interface design and generation • User modelling for intelligent interfaces • User-adaptive interaction and personalization • IUI for crowd computing and human computation • Human control in daily automations • Trust and reliance in intelligent systems Computational innovation • Interactive machine learning • Human-in-the loop AI testing and debugging • Human-centered recommendation and recommender systems • Generative models • Human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning • Intelligent user interfaces for generative AI Innovative User Interfaces • Affective interfaces • Intelligent aesthetic interfaces • Intelligent collaborative interfaces • Intelligent AR/VR interfaces • Intelligent visualization and visual analytics • Intelligent wearable and mobile interfaces • Intelligent tangible interfaces Intelligent Multimodal Systems • Embodied agents • Multimodal AI assistants • Intelligent multimodal interfaces Intelligent Applications • Education and learning-related technologies • Healthcare and wellbeing • Automotive • Assistive technologies • Entertainment • Workplace happiness • Social media • Internet of Things (IoT) • Smart homes Large Language Models and Agentic AI • End-user interaction with LLMs, agents, and multimodal models (e.g., chatbots, image generation) • LLMs and agents in the workplace • Human-agent interaction and multi-agent systems • Bias in LLMs and agents • The effects of LLMs and agents use on creative tasks • Personalized user interaction with LLMs and agents • Prompt engineering • User control and steering of LLMs and agents (e.g., RLHF, chaining, instruction tuning) Evaluations of Intelligent User Interfaces • User experiments and studies • Reproducibility (including benchmarks, datasets, and challenges) • Meta-analysis • Mixed-methods evaluations Papers We invite original paper submissions that are not under consideration elsewhere. Accepted papers will appear in the ACM Digital Library and citation indices. At least one author of all accepted papers must register with full registration fee (not student registration fee), attend in person, and present their paper during the main conference program. One registration covers one paper only. A selected set of accepted top-quality full papers will be invited to submit their extended versions for publication in an ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS) special issue titled “Highlights of IUI 2026” that will appear in 2027. Reflection of practical and societal impact We encourage authors to consider practical and societal implications of their work (as well as its shortcomings) throughout their projects and to include a reflection on those implications in their papers, in particular how the proposed methods and insights could be applied and deployed in a realistic setting and how they can improve people's lives in the real world. We also encourage authors to discuss potential ethical considerations of their work in terms of diversity, inclusion, and equality; and other topics under the broad responsible AI topic and its societal impact. We recognize that technology is rarely neutral --- simply by making some things easier than others, it reshapes society (Winner, 1980; Green, 2020). Further, given the incredibly short invention-to-application cycles for AI-related technologies, it is becoming increasingly unlikely that “somebody else” will carefully consider how an emerging intelligent user interface technology might impact the world before this technology is deployed. Our purpose is to help authors ensure that the likely societal consequences of their work are consistent with their intentions and values. For colleagues who are not yet experienced with incorporating societal impacts into their IUI research but who are willing to give it a try, here are some ideas to consider. Anonymization ACM IUI uses a double-blind review process. All submissions (and supplemental materials) must be appropriately anonymized according to the following guidelines: • Authors' names and affiliations are not visible anywhere in the paper. • Acknowledgements should be anonymized or removed during the review process. • Self-citations should be included where necessary but must use the third person. For example, "... as shown in our previous user study [2] ... " is not allowed, whereas "... as shown in Smith et al. [2] " is acceptable (because in this case the citation [2] will NOT be perceived as self-citation). Failure to follow these guidelines may result in submissions being desk-rejected without review. Accessibility Authors are asked to make their paper submissions accessible (so that reviewers with vision impairments can access them, for example). The authors of accepted papers will be required to make their final PDFs accessible. Please use the SIGCHI Guide to an Accessible Submission for detailed instructions. If you are submitting a video as supplemental material, please provide captions, as described in Technical Requirements and Guidelines for Videos. Please refer to the Accessibility page of the conference site for further details and guidelines. Usage of Generative AI All submissions must comply with the ACM policy on the usage of GenAI: the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship and Frequently Asked Questions. Text generated from a large-scale language model (LLM), such as ChatGPT, must be clearly marked where such tools are used for purposes beyond editing the author’s own text. Authors should include a “GenAI Usage Disclosure” section, right before the references, to provide full disclosure of all use of GenAI tools in all stages of the research (including the code and data) and the writing. This section, together with the references, will not be counted toward the word limit. While we do not anticipate using tools on a large scale to detect LLM-generated text, we will investigate submissions brought to our attention and desk reject papers where LLM use is not clearly marked. Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects Any research in submitted manuscripts that involves human subjects must go through the appropriate ethics review requirements that apply to the authors’ research environment. As research environments vary considerably with regard to their requirements, authors are asked to submit a short note to reviewers that provides this context. Please also see the 2021 ACM Publications policy on research involving human participants and subjects before submitting. Additional Policies Authors should also be aware of the SIGCHI Policy for Submission and Review at SIGCHI Conferences and ACM Publications Policies. Submission Format, Length, and Platform We adopt the ACM TAPS Workflow. Please prepare your submission for review in a single column format, using the latest templates: Word Submission Template, or the LaTeX template using \documentclass[manuscript,review,anonymous]{acmart} for the LaTeX template. Papers are of variable length. Paper length must be proportional to its contribution. We encourage authors to stay within a 10,000 word limit. Authors of papers exceeding 12,000 words should add a note at the end of their manuscript explaining how the length of the paper is commensurate with the contribution of the work. Submission Platform All materials must be submitted electronically to the Precision Conference Submission (PCS) Portal (https://new.precisionconference.com/) by the abstract and paper deadlines. In PCS, first click “Submissions” at the top of the page, from the dropdown menus for Society, Conference, and Track, please select “SIGCHI”, “IUI 2026”, and “IUI 2026 Papers”, respectively, and then press “Go”. Note: If the corresponding author (the individual who submits the paper, not necessarily the first author) is affiliated with a participating institution that has an open access agreement with ACM, the Article Processing Charges (APCs) will be waived for publishing the paper. Details are under “Publication and Open Access”. Supplemental Materials Submitting supplemental material (e.g., questionnaires, demo videos of applications, data sheets) is optional but encouraged. If supplying a demo video, please follow the SIGCHI Technical Requirements and Guidelines for videos. Publication and Open Access The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%). Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM. Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer: * $250 APC for ACM/SIG members * $350 for non-members This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period. This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026. Important Dates (AoE) • Abstract: October 3, 2025 • Full Paper: October 10, 2025 • Decision Notification: December 12, 2025 • Camera-ready Submission: January 23, 2026 Organisation General Chairs • Tsvi Kuflik, The University of Haifa, Israel • Styliani Kleanthous, Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus Local Organising Chair • George A. Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Program Chairs • Li Chen, Hong Kong Baptist University, China • Giulio Jacucci, University of Helsinki, Finland • Alison Renner, Dataminr, USA

1 0

SEASON 2025 (Search Engines and Society): Registration Now Open (Hamburg, 24-25 Sept) - Early Bird until 1 August
by Lewandowski, Dirk 31 Jul '25

31 Jul '25

Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the inaugural SEASON conference (Search Engines and Society Network), taking place 24-25 September 2025 at HAW Hamburg. SEASON is a new international forum for researchers, practitioners, and activists critically engaging with the roles of search engines and algorithmic technologies in society. It aims to build community across disciplines and create space for shared reflection on search as both infrastructure and cultural force. The two-day program features: * 2 Keynotes * 20 Long Presentations * 10 Short Presentations * 17 Posters * 2 Interactive Sessions Topics include: • Search engine bias and algorithmic visibility • Generative AI in search • Information disorders and disinformation • Regulation, policy, and platformisation • Everyday search practices and infrastructures • Critical and creative approaches to search • …and much more. Early bird registration (until 1 August): * Regular: €100 * Student: €30 (From 2 August: €150 / €50) Register for SEASON 2025 here: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=season2025 More about SEASON: https://searchenginesandsociety.net<https://searchenginesandsociety.net/> We warmly invite you to join us in Hamburg and be part of the growing SEASON community. With best regards, The SEASON 2025 Organizing Team -- Prof. Dr. Dirk Lewandowski Professor (Information Research & Information Retrieval) Hamburg University of Applied Sciences T +49 40 428 75-3621 dirk.lewandowski(a)haw-hamburg.de HOCHSCHULE FÜR ANGEWANDTE WISSENSCHAFTEN HAMBURG Fakultät Design, Media und Information Department of Information, Media and Communication Finkenau 35 / 22081 Hamburg / Germany https://www.searchstudies.org/dirk Book a meeting: https://app.usemotion.com/meet/dirk-lewandowski/sprechstunde

2 1

WEBCAST JUL 30 – ISOC Trinidad & Tobago – The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): Opportunities to Build the Internet
by Joly MacFie 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

[image: ISOC LIVE] <https://isoc.live/19537> *LIVESTREAM <https://youtu.be/X9bHdWttEdY> | PARTICIPATE VIA TEAMS <https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/c7ce5a7e-5ec0-4a12-8caf-f0b7627d51…> | ADD TO CALENDAR <https://addcal.io/e/rmhhivrqatpp> | PERMALINK <https://isoc.live/19537>* On *Wednesday 30 July 2025*, at *5pm-6pm AST* (13:00-14:00 UTC) the *Internet Society Trinidad & Tobago Chapter <https://isoc.tt/>* hosts a webinar ‘* The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): Opportunities to Build the Internet*‘. University students (Tech, Law, Policy, Mgmt), IT pros, engineers, digital policy minds, and curious Internet users with a passion for impact, are invited to attend to: learn how Internet standards are made; discover real ways to contribute to the IETF; network with global Internet leaders; and spotlight how Caribbean and especially Trinbagonian voices can influence the Internet’s future. *SPEAKERS* *Suresh Krishnan* – Distinguished Engineer, CISCO (on behalf of IETF) *Christian O’Flaherty* – Regional VP, LAC – Internet Society *** ISOC.LIVE is a free webcasting support service for the Internet Society Community - if you would like to become a monthly sponsor, or need support - contact support(a)isoc.live *** - -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

1 1

Job Posting of Possible Interest
by Cory Wimberly 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

Internet Researchers, My department got a last minute tenure-track line and I would like to encourage list members to apply—by August 10! We are primarily looking to add people to our new Applied Philosophy major which has a track in the “Philosophical Foundations of Computer Science.” Folks who have an interest spanning computing and philosophy are encouraged to apply. (Applicants need not have a technical background in CS to apply. A focus on things like digital capitalism, platform capitalism, surveillance capitalism, etc. are also welcome). Though the deadline is soon, that has to do with administration and the financial year end—there is no internal candidate. Please see the ad below and APPLY! Thanks, Cory Wimberly RPA Co-Director Search Chair https://careers.utrgv.edu/postings/47978

1 0

DEADLINE EXTENDED to August 7th: CSCW Workshop: Governments as Design Contexts
by Pelle Tracey 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

Hello again! We've extended the deadline to submit a (lightweight, ~1000 word) application to our CSCW workshop *Governments as Design Contexts *until *August 7th. *Please consider applying! Full call below: Please consider applying to our *CSCW 2025 workshop* "*Governments as design contexts: Institutional realities of technology and design in government settings*." This will be a *fully hybrid workshop*, and submissions (fairly lightweight, ~1000 words) are *due July 31*. So if you work in and around government design settings/fieldsites, we'd love to have you participate! Your perspective can be empirical, theoretical, critical, or a combination. We'll have an *exciting keynote from Northeastern's Chris Le Dantec*, and surely many other inspiring conversations. Here's the *workshop website*: https://sites.google.com/uci.edu/gov-as-design-context/overview and here is the *submission form*: https://forms.gle/mN4jBaFExLGB2jEx8. Particularly now, when so much of the relationship between technology, design, and the functions of government is changing rapidly, we need a lively and thoughtful conversation about these issues and our roles in them. Please let me know (ptracey(a)umich.edu) if you have any questions. Thank you! Pelle Pelle Tracey he/him/his Doctoral Candidate, University of Michigan School of Information pelletracey.github.io/

1 0

White Paper on AI Political Economies and Alternatives
by Anis Rahman 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

Esteemed colleagues, I wanted to share a copy of my newly published white paper, “*Is Another AI Possible? Platforms, Political Economies, and Alternatives*,” (60 pages) released by the Media, Inequality & Change Center at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. “*As AI technologies become increasingly central to our daily lives, it’s > critically important that we imagine how they can best serve human needs, > not just corporate profits. Rahman’s pathbreaking political economic > analysis begins that vital conversation by critiquing structural problems > and introducing alternative models and democratic paradigms*,” says > Victor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political > Economy at the Annenberg School and co-director of the MIC Center. You can download this publication here: https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/media-inequality-and-change-cent… Kind regards, Anis -- *Anis Rahman, Ph.D.* Assistant Teaching Professor Department of Communication University of Washington, Seattle aniscom(a)uw.edu https://com.uw.edu/people/faculty/anis-rahman/ Affiliate Faculty, South Asia Center <https://jsis.washington.edu/southasia/> Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington Affiliate Researcher, Society + Technology <https://depts.washington.edu/societytech/wordpress/> University of Washington Co-Chair, 2021-2025, Public Service Media Policies Working Group <https://iamcr.org/s-wg/working-group/psm> International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Editorial Board, *Journal of Digital Media & Policy <https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-digital-media-policy>* Recent publications: *Rahman*, A. (2025). *Is Another AI Possible? Platforms, Political Economies, and Alternatives*. White Paper published by Media, Inequality & Change Center, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Open Access: https://tinyurl.com/48rmakww *Rahman*, A. (2025). Opportunities and challenges of AI in public media journalism. In A. D’Arma, M. Michalis, G. F. Lowe, & M. Zita (Eds.). *Challenges and developments in Public Service Journalism* (pp. 122 - 147). University of Westminster Press. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.16997/14610450 Raghunath, P. & *Rahman*, A. (2024). Opening up the black box of communication governance in South Asia: Critical Policy Ethnography as methodology. In Padovani, C., Wavre, V., Hintz, A., Goggin, G., & Iosifidis, P. (Eds.) *Global communication governance at the crossroads* (pp. 389–410). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29616-1_22

1 0

2025 AoIR Portuguese Dissertation Award
by AoIR Association Coordinator 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

We are delighted to announce that the recipient of the 2025 Portuguese Dissertation Award is Dr. Oscar Arruda d’Alva, Federal University of Ceará, for the outstanding dissertation ‘Estatísticas oficiais e capitalismo de plataforma: a transição para um regime de dataficação no Brasil’ (Official Statistics and Platform Capitalism: The Transition to a Datafication Regime in Brazil). In his dissertation, Dr. Oscar Arruda d’Alva develops a nuanced and layered critique of how Big Tech-driven datafication is – and is not – transforming one of Latin America’s most important institutions of governmentality: Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics – IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística). Building on a sophisticated reading of the history and philosophy of statistics, and informed by revealing interview and ethnographic data, the thesis identifies the productive tensions that have arisen from the clash between different epistemological and ontological understandings of what data are and how they should be collected and analyzed. As Dr. d’Alva shows, the for-profit logics of North American corporations are shaping – but not simply steamrolling – state institutions in Brazil: the allure of this new data science coexists with attempts to resist its power. In so doing, this work provides original and urgent insight into the often-neglected but immensely relevant entanglement of nation-states and corporate datafication in the Global South. The committee also recognises Dr. Ana Flávia Marques da Silva, University of São Paulo, and Dr. Daniel Rios Silva, Fluminense Federal University, with Honourable Mentions. In her dissertation, 'Uma só Globo: o caso da Globoplay na plataformização da empresa brasileira de comunicação' (One Globo: The Case of Globoplay in the Platformization of the Brazilian Communications Company), Dr. Ana Flávia Marques da Silva offers a nuanced analysis of platformization in Brazil’s most influential media conglomerate: Globo. Drawing on platform studies and communication and labor scholarship, her work critically examines how the company's streaming service, Globoplay, has become central to Globo’s transformation into a “mediatech” platform company. Through a rich and methodologically inventive case study, Dr. Marques da Silva reveals how platform logics of datafication, flexible accumulation, and algorithmic personalization are reshaping labor processes and infrastructures within a legacy media institution. Rather than importing Global North platform frameworks uncritically, the dissertation traces how Globo adapts and hybridizes these logics within a national monopoly context. In his dissertation, 'Diversidade e Dependência: Netflix e o campo de produção de séries no Brasil' (Diversity and Dependence: Netflix and the Series Production Field in Brazil), Dr. Daniel Rios Silva presents a detailed and critical analysis of Netflix's impact on the television series production landscape in Brazil. Drawing on a comprehensive review of industry documents and in-depth interviews with Brazilian screenwriters, the dissertation argues that Netflix's presence introduces a complex dynamic of diversity and dependency. Dr. Rios Silva demonstrates how the streaming service has broadened the range of series formats available in the country, creating new opportunities for creators. However, he also reveals how this has fostered a dependency among local professionals, who must navigate the company's opaque internal policies and the asymmetries of power, a situation exacerbated by Brazil's recent political and economic crises. AoIR is grateful for the hard work by this year’s AoIR Portuguese Dissertation Award committee: Nanci Oddone (Chair), Rafael Grohmann, Raquel Recuero and João Magalhães. ________________________ Prêmio AoIR 2025 de Melhor Tese em Português Temos a satisfação de anunciar que o vencedor do Prêmio de Melhor Tese em Português de 2025 é o Dr. Oscar Arruda d’Alva, da Universidade Federal do Ceará, pela excelente pesquisa de Doutorado “Estatísticas oficiais e capitalismo de plataforma: a transição para um regime de dataficação no Brasil”. Em sua tese, Dr. Oscar Arruda d’Alva desenvolve uma crítica sutil e multifacetada sobre como a dataficação liderada pelas Big Techs está – e não está – transformando uma das mais importantes instituições de governamentalidade da América Latina: o IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística). Apoiando-se em uma leitura sofisticada da história e da filosofia da Estatística, e fundamentado em reveladores dados de entrevistas e pesquisa etnográfica, sua pesquisa identifica as tensões produtivas que surgem do confronto entre diferentes compreensões epistemológicas e ontológicas sobre o que são os dados e como eles devem ser coletados e analisados. Como Dr. d’Alva demonstra, as lógicas lucrativas das corporações norte-americanas estão moldando — mas não simplesmente atropelando — as instituições estatais no Brasil: o fascínio pela nova ciência de dados convive com tentativas de resistir ao seu poder. Ao fazer isso, este trabalho oferece uma visão original e urgente sobre o entrelaçamento, muitas vezes negligenciado mas profundamente relevante, entre Estados nacionais e dataficação corporativa no Sul Global. O comitê reconhece ainda com Menções Honrosas as teses da Dra. Ana Flávia Marques da Silva, da Universidade de São Paulo, e do Dr. Daniel Rios Silva, da Universidade Federal Fluminense. Em sua tese, "Uma só Globo: o caso da Globoplay na plataformização da empresa brasileira de comunicação", a Dra. Ana Flávia Marques da Silva realiza uma análise sofisticada da plataformização no maior conglomerado de comunicação do Brasil: a Globo. A partir dos estudos de plataformas e da perspectiva em comunicação e trabalho, sua pesquisa examina criticamente como o serviço de streaming Globoplay se tornou peça central na transformação da Globo em uma empresa “mediatech”. Por meio de um estudo de caso rico e metodologicamente criativo, a Dra. Marques da Silva demonstra como as lógicas de plataformização, como a dataficação, a acumulação flexível e a personalização algorítmica, estão reconfigurando processos de trabalho e infraestruturas dentro de uma instituição midiática tradicional. Em vez de simplesmente importar paradigmas do Norte Global sobre plataformas, a tese acompanha como a Globo adapta e torna híbridas essas lógicas no contexto de um monopólio nacional. Em sua tese, "Diversidade e Dependência: Netflix e o campo de produção de séries no Brasil", o Dr. Daniel Rios Silva apresenta uma análise detalhada e crítica do impacto da Netflix na produção de séries de televisão no Brasil. A partir de uma revisão abrangente de documentos da indústria e entrevistas em profundidade com roteiristas brasileiros, a tese argumenta que a presença da Netflix introduz uma dinâmica complexa de diversidade e dependência. O Dr. Rios Silva demonstra como a plataforma ampliou a variedade de formatos de séries disponíveis no país, criando novas oportunidades para os criadores. No entanto, também revela como isso gerou uma dependência por parte dos profissionais locais, que precisam lidar com políticas internas opacas e assimetrias de poder, um quadro agravado pelas recentes crises políticas e econômicas do Brasil. AoIR agradece pelo trabalho árduo na comissão do Prêmio de Teses da AoIR: Nanci Oddone (Chair), Rafael Grohmann, Raquel Recuero and João Magalhães.

1 0