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Introducing the inaugural projects and fellows of the Center for Technology, Society & Policy
by Galen Panger 19 Nov '15

19 Nov '15

We're extremely pleased to announce <https://ctsp.berkeley.edu/introducing-ctsp-inaugural-collaborative-projects…> the inaugural class of 11 collaborative projects <https://ctsp.berkeley.edu/projects> and 28 fellows <https://ctsp.berkeley.edu/people> of Berkeley's new Center for Technology, Society & Policy. If you get a chance, take a look at these stellar projects and fellows, and if you're in the Bay Area on Thursday, December 3rd (5:30-7p in South Hall <http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/visitorinfo>), we hope you'll come out to our happy hour, where you can have a beer or some wine and mingle with the fellows. Here's a tweet <https://twitter.com/CTSPBerkeley/status/667413962363826176> to retweet about our announcement if the mood strikes. Sincerely, Galen Panger & Nick Doty, CTSP Co-Directors -- galen(a)ischool.berkeley.edu galen.website / @gpanger <https://twitter.com/gpanger>

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C. Fuchs: Reading Marx in the Information Age: A Media and Communication Studies Perspective on Capital Volume 1.
by Christian Fuchs 18 Nov '15

18 Nov '15

Fuchs, Christian. 2016. Reading Marx in the Information Age: A Media and Communication Studies Perspective on Capital Volume 1. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138948563 (paperback), ISBN 9781138948556 (hardback). 416 pages. Book page: http://fuchs.uti.at/books/reading-marx-in-the-information-age-a-media-and-c… Critical media theorist Christian Fuchs provides a thorough, chapter-by-chapter introduction to Capital Volume 1 that assists readers in making sense of Karl Marx’s most important and groundbreaking work in the information age, exploring Marx’s key concepts through the lens of media and communication studies via contemporary phenomena like the Internet, digital labour, social media, the media industries, and digital class struggles. Through a range of international, current-day examples, Fuchs emphasises the continued importance of Marx and his work in a time when transnational media companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook play an increasingly important role in global capitalism. Discussion questions and exercises at the end of each chapter help readers to further apply Marx’s work to a modern-day context. The book is especially suited as accompanying literature for existing reading groups, new reading groups and individual readers of Marx’s “Capital”. It provides a general introduction for each chapter as well as connections to media and communications topics. The chapters can be read all together in combination with Marx’s book, but are also written in a way that they can be used in modules and reading groups as companions to single chapters in Marx’s “Capital”. At the end of each chapter, there are multiple exercises that allow readers a practical understanding of Marx. Sample chapters: Introduction: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/introduction.pdf Appendix 2: Knowledge, Technology, and the General Intellect in the Grundrisse and its Fragment on Machines: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/Grundrisse.pdf Review copies: Email review.copy(a)taylorandfrancis.com with: The title of the book you’d like to review. Information on the publication in which the review will appear. Your contact information. Call for contributions to two panels about media and communications at the conference “Marx 2016”: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/26

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CFP: Streams of Consciousness: Data, Cognition and Intelligent Devices
by nathaniel tkacz 18 Nov '15

18 Nov '15

STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS: DATA, COGNITION AND INTELLIGENT DEVICES 21st and 22nd of April, 2016 Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies The University of Warwick Call for Presentations: “What’s on your mind?” This is the question to which every Facebook status update now responds. Millions of users sharing their thoughts in one giant performance of what Clay Shirky once called “cognitive surplus”. Contemporary media platforms aren’t simply a stage for this cognitive performance. They are more like directors, staging scenes, tweaking scripts, working to get the best or fully “optimized” performance. As Katherine Hayles has pointed out, media theory has long taken for granted that we think “through, with and alongside media”. Pen and paper, the abacus, and modern calculators are obvious cases in point, but the list quickly expands and with it longstanding conceptions of the Cartesian mind dissolve away. Within the cognitive sciences, cognition is now routinely described as embodied, extended, and distributed. They too recognize that cognition takes place beyond the brain, in between people, between people and things, and combinations thereof. The varieties of specifically human thought, from decision-making to reasoning and interpretation, are now considered one part of a broader cognitive spectrum shared with other animals, systems, and intelligent devices. Today, the technology we mostly think through, with and alongside are computers. We routinely rely on intelligent devices for any number of operations, but this is no straightforward “augmentation”. Our cognitive capacities are equally instrumentalized, plugged into larger cognitive operations from which we have little autonomy. Our cognitive weaknesses are exploited and manipulated by techniques drawn from behavioural economics and psychology. If Vannevar Bush once pondered how we would think in the future, he received a partial response in Steve Krug’s best selling book on web usability: *Don’t Make Me Think!* Streams of Consciousness aims to explore cognition, broadly conceived, in an age of intelligent devices. We aim to critically interrogate our contemporary infatuation with specific cognitive qualities – such as “smartness” and “intelligence” – while seeking to genuinely understand the specific forms of cognition that are privileged in our current technological milieu. We are especially interested in devices that mediate access to otherwise imperceptible forms of data (too big, too fast), so it can be acted upon in routine or novel ways. Topics of the conference include but are not limited to: - data and cognition - decision-making technologies - algorithms, AI and machine learning - visualization, perception - sense and sensation - business intelligence and data exploration - signal intelligence and drones - smart and dumb things - choice and decision architecture - behavioural economics and design - technologies of nudging - interfaces - bodies, data, and (wearable) devices - optimization - web and data analytics (including A/B and multivariate testing) Confirmed Speakers: LOUISE AMOORE, JAMES ASH, DAVID BERRY, WILLIAM DAVIES, MICHAEL DIETER, STEVE FULLER, JENNIFER GABRYS, ANTOINETTE ROUVROY, NATASHA SCHÜLL, NICK SRNICEK, NIGEL THRIFT, MICHAEL WHEELER. Please submit individual abstracts of no longer than 300 words. Panel proposals are also welcome and should also be 300 words. Panel proposals should also include indvidual abstracts. The deadline for submissions is Friday the 18th of December and submissions should be made tocimconf(a)warwick.ac.uk. Accepted submissions will be notified by 20th of January 2016. Streams of Consciousness is organised by Nathaniel Tkacz and Ana Gross. The event is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. ----------------------- Nathaniel Tkacz | Associate Professor - CIM - The University of Warwick Tw: @__nate__ | Current Research: Interrogating the Dashboard: Data, Indicators and Decision-making <http://blogs.cim.warwick.ac.uk/readingdashboards/> Latest Book: Wikipedia and The Politics of Openness <http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo19085555.html> (University of Chicago Press, 2015) Times Higher Education Book of The Week, 2015

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CFP for ICA Post-Conference on Communicating with Machines - Due Date 12/15/2015
by Andrea Guzman 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

This CFP for a post-conference regarding Human-Machine Communication convened in conjunction with the International Communication Association's Conference in Fukuoka, Japan, in June 2016, may be of interest to some of you. Please distribute to your networks. You can direct any questions to me. "Communicating with Machines: The Rising Power of Digital Interlocutors in Our Lives" Overview: Digital interlocutors are increasingly standing in for humans in communication contexts. This post-conference focuses on the power of artificial entities fostered in and through Human-Machine Communication (HMC), which encompasses Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), and Human-Agent Interaction (HAI). We invite scholars to discuss their work regarding the individual, cultural, and philosophical implications of interactions with machines (including hardware and software). We seek to raise awareness of and further develop HMC research and the scholarly community surrounding it. Sponsors: University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Communication Northern Illinois University, Department of Communication Communication and Social Robotics Lab – Western Michigan University School of Communication and the University of Kentucky College of Communication & Information, School of Information Science Chairs: Andrea L. Guzman, Northern Illinois University David J. Gunkel, Northern Illinois University, Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago Autumn Edwards, Western Michigan University Chad Edwards, Western Michigan University Patric Spence, University of Kentucky Contact: Andrea L. Guzman, alguzman(a)niu.edu Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 Time: 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Location: Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk (Conference Hotel) Cost: Faculty, $75; Student, $50; Lunch and snacks included. Submissions should take the form of papers (750 – 1,000 words excluding references) that provide an overview of what the scholar would present at the post-conference in relation to HMC. Submissions are due by Dec. 15, 2015 to Andrea L. Guzman, alguzman(a)niu.edu. Notification of acceptance: Feb. 1, 2016 Participant Acknowledgment: Accepted participants will be listed along with the titles of their presentations in both the ICA Conference and the HMC Post-Conference programs. Post-Conference Focus: As artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and ICTs continue to develop and merge, we are increasingly interacting with digital interlocutors such as voice-based agents, robots, and social bots. We also are sending and receiving messages to and from wearable devices. We directly interact with the technologies surrounding us, and digital entities have been and continue to stand in for humans in everyday communication contexts. The recent surge of digital interlocutors into quotidian routines has been accompanied with questions – voiced by leading scientists as well as the average person – regarding the ramifications of these technologies and our interactions with them. In concert with the conference theme of "Communicating with Power," our post-conference focuses on the growing power of artificial entities in our lives fostered in and through Human-Machine Communication (HMC) and the power that we have as communication researchers to bring new insight into life and communication in a robotic culture. We invite scholars from a variety of epistemological and methodological backgrounds to discuss their work related to HMC, which includes Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), and Human-Agent Interaction (HAI), in this full-day post-conference. We will focus on the individual, cultural, and philosophical implications of the various ways in which we interact with machines. Possible topic areas for participant presentations include, but are not limited to: • communicative practices between humans and digital interlocutors • the integration of artificial entities into private and professional spaces • the incorporation of AI into journalism and other media industries • cultural discourse surrounding digital and robotic interlocutors • relationship dynamics between humans and machines • reinterpretations and representations of humans as digital entities • intercultural aspects of HMC. Post-conference format: Our goal is to provide a space for participants to present their research and engage in conversation with one another. We have adopted a two-tiered format in which some scholars will be invited to deliver a paper presentation while others will be invited to take part in a poster session. More details are forthcoming. CFP Link: http://www.icahdq.org/conf/2016/machinesCFP.asp _____ Andrea L. Guzman, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Dept. of Communication Northern Illinois University alguzman(a)niu.edu

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CfP: CSCW 2016 Workshop: Developing a Research Agenda for Human-Centered Data Science
by Cecilia Aragon 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

[Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CfP] ---------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS/PARTICIPATION: One-day Workshop on *Developing a Research Agenda for Human-Centered Data Science* in conjunction with CSCW 2016 http://cscw.acm.org/2016/ Sunday, February 28th, 2016 San Francisco, CA, USA Workshop Website: https://cscw2016hcds.wordpress.com/ ---------------------------------- Important dates: - 11th December 2015: Submission of Position Papers - 18th January 2016: Notification of acceptance - 25th January 2016: Camera-ready version - 28th February 2016: Workshop at CSCW 2016 ---------------------------------- TOPIC: The study and analysis of large and complex data sets offer a wealth of insights in a variety of applications. Computational approaches provide researchers access to broad assemblages ofdata, but the insights extracted may lack the rich detail that qualitative approaches have brought to the understanding of sociotechnical phenomena. How do we preserve the richness associated with traditional qualitative methods while utilizing the power of large data sets? How do we uncover social nuances or consider ethics and values in data use? These and other questions are explored by human-centered data science, an emerging field at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), human computation, and the statistical and computational techniques of data science. This workshop, the first of its kind at CSCW, seeks to bring together researchers interested inhuman-centered approaches to data science to collaborate, define a research agenda, and form a community. PARTICIPATION: This workshop provides a venue for attendees to discuss a variety of topics in human-centereddata science. We welcome researchers interested in exploring how data-driven and qualitative research can be integrated to address complex questions in a diverse range of areas, including but not limited to social computing, urban, health, or crisis informatics, scientific, business, policy, technical, and other fields. Researchers and practitioners working with large data sets (“big data”) and/or qualitative data sets looking to expand their methodological toolbox are invited to participate and share their experiences while learning from the broader community. Topics and themes of interest include, but are not limited to: - Deep ethnographic methods: How do we preserve the richness of traditional qualitative techniques in data science? - Scaling up qualitative data analysis: How do we deal with ever growing qualitative datasets? - Quantitative and behavioral methods: How are quantitative and behavioral methods related todata mining, machine learning, and qualitative methods? - Connecting across levels of analysis: How can we integrate the analysis of personal data with large-scale data? - Ethics and values of data use: What ethical questions should we raise in using large-scale online data? - Privacy of data use: How can we preserve anonymity and privacy within data ecosystems that can easily expose users? - Human-centered algorithm design: How do we design machine learning algorithms tailored forhuman use and understanding? - Understanding community data: How can we integrate knowledge gained about communities from their aggregate social data as well as their personal experiences? - Health and well-being at micro and macro scales: What understandings can be exposed or occluded by aggregate or granular perspectives on health and well-being? SUBMISSION: Please submit a position paper (from 2 to 4 pages in the CSCW ACM sigCHI EA format – see http://www.sigchi.org/publications/chipubform/sigchi-extended-abstracts-for…) by 11th December 2015 to hcds.cscw2016(a)gmail.com The submissions will be reviewed by the organizers with support of other researchers in a dedicated program committee and selected according to their potential to contribute to the workshop topic and to foster discussion. All accepted contributions (notifications will be sent out by 18 January 2016) will be made available on the website to allow participants to prepare for the workshop. The organizers may consider the publication of revised versions of accepted papers as part of a special issue in a CSCW related journal. ORGANIZERS: Cecilia Aragon, University of Washington. CJ Hutto, Georgia Institute of Technology. Yun Huang, Syracuse University. Wanli Xing, University of Missouri. Gina Neff, University of Washington. Jinyoung Kim, University of Maryland, College Park. Andy Echenique, University of California, San Diego and San Diego Supercomputer Center. Joseph Bayer, University of Michigan. Brittany Fiore-Gartland, University of Washington. CONTACT: For more details, check the workshop website: https://cscw2016hcds.wordpress.com/ For any further information on the workshop please contact hcds.cscw2016(a)gmail.com -- Cecilia R. Aragon, Associate Professor Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington Senior Data Science Fellow, eScience Institute 407A Sieg Hall, Box 352315, Seattle, WA 98195 USA http://faculty.washington.edu/aragon

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CfP: CSCW workshop: Toward a typology of participation in crowdsourcing
by Tanja Aitamurto 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Dear AoIR colleagues and friends, If you are fascinated by geekying about crowdsourcing, you might want to consider this. We are arranging a workshop at CSCW in San Francisco in February for developing a typology of participation in crowdsourcing. Papers are due December 7th. Please let us know if you have questions, and we hope to see you in San Francisco! *Call for papers* CSCW2016 workshop, February 28 *Toward a typology of participation in crowd work* Deadline for paper submissions December 7 http://ttpcw.blogs.dsv.su.se/ The development of technologies and practices of broad public participation are changing the notion of the public. As the use of participatory and social media has become widespread in society and enabled a more collaborative information production, the potential for a transformation of production relations through crowd-based activities affect many aspects of life. There are new potentials for transformative developments in government, work life, science, and emergency response. However, these new platforms for participation have not solved many of the pre-crowd problems regarding participation, such as lack of representativeness and flawed deliberative processes. Therefore it is important and relevant to look at the power relations within crowd production and to examine how different tools handle participatory processes in the crowd. This workshop examines different types of participatory process, in crowd work such as crowdsourced policymaking, crisis management, citizen science and paid crowd work, among other, focusing on relations and power dynamics within and beyond the crowds. We welcome researchers from a diversity of disciplines and perspectives to formulate a typology of participation in crowd work. *Typologies of participation* In the wider field of participation, in areas like participatory planning, design or participatory research, the power relations in the participatory setting are seen as central for the outcome of the participation. However, we haven’t seen a more structured overview of typologies of participation indicating levels of power and agency in the context of crowdwork. For this workshop, we therefore invite participants to look more closely at different types of participation within crowdwork, and at different levels of interaction. Possible sites of analysis could be the interaction between crowd workers, the participation in the work by different stakeholders, the potentially privileged levels of interaction with the data, or tensions in the agency of the crowdworkers in relation to the task. What types of ontologies exist in different types of crowdsourcing contexts, and how do these ontologies reflect one or more epistemologies? How is this expressed in the relations between the crowd and the sourcer, or in how different interfaces and tools support different roles and different modes of crowd participation? What are the relations between different attitudes towards knowledge and the social relations in the crowdsourcing process? What are the implications for power relations between different modes of participation? If we learn more about how participation in crowd work can be described in terms of power and relations, we might get a better understanding of how participation can be articulated, how different tools for crowd participation can be developed, and how the different perspectives and stakes in crowd work might be harmonized, or at least clarified. *Suggested subthemes and topics * Controlling economic structures in crowd work • Controlling levels of; access; transparency, secrecy, closeness, connectedness, alienation • Relation between crowd work control dynamics and power relationships outside the technology framework. • Differentiations in entry and exit points to the platform Intersecting belief systems in crowd work • Norms about crowds, collaboration and democracy • Balance between exclusive groups and democratic publics • Stakeholders’ different cultural assumptions • Tensions between individual scoring systems and collective sharing processes Community support in crowd work • Communication needs within the crowd • Available avenues of communication to support community • Apprenticeship models • Relations between the crowd and the “sourcers” • Navigating intersecting communities in crowd setting • Relations between different types of stakeholders in the crowd setting Going from crowd to public • Publics as performative states; co-constitution an interdependence • Ethics and power relations in crowd sourced research • The power relations between the designer/inventor and the crowd • Quantified selves, data sources or co-researchers *Workshop activities* This one-day workshop will explore the topics in mini presentations and brainstorming sessions. The objective with the workshop is to develop a typology of participation in crowd work based on an overview of the field. Furthermore, selected contributions from the workshop will be considered for a special issue in a HCI journal. *Submission * Participants are selected based on their submitted position-papers. The maximum length of a paper is 2,000 words. Deadline for submissions is *December 07.* Send submissions and inquiries to: crowdtypologies(a)gmail.com *Organization* The workshop builds on four earlier successful workshops: Back to the Future of Organizational Work: Crowdsourcing Digital Work Marketplaces, Structures for Knowledge Co-creation between Organizations and the Public hosted at ACM CSCW 2014, The Morphing Organization – Rethinking Groupwork Systems in the Era of Crowdwork hosted at ACM GROUP 2014, and Examining the Essence of the Crowds: Motivations, Roles and Identities at ECSCW 2015. (2) This workshop is organized by: Karin Hansson PhD, the Department of Computer & Systems Sciences at Stockholm University. Michael Muller, PhD, the Cognitive User Experience group of IBM Research, Cambridge MA USA Tanja Aitamurto, PhD, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at the School of Engineering at Stanford University. Ann Light, Professor of Design and Creative Technology at the University of Sussex and leader of the Creative Technology Group. Athanasios Mazarakis, PhD, Web Science at Kiel University. Neha Gupta, PhD student at the School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK. Thomas Ludwig, Ph.D. student at the Institute for Information Systems at the University of Siegen, Germany. Dr. Tanja Aitamurto Deputy Director Brown Fellow, postdoctoral The Brown Institute for Media Innovation <http://brown.stanford.edu/> School of Engineering Stanford www.tanjaaitamurto.com <http://brokenfence.flavors.me/> ~ examining collective intelligence in journalism, governance and design ~

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Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme 2016
by Victoria Nash 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Dear all, It's my very great pleasure to announce that the application process is now open for SDP 2016. This will take place in Oxford from the 4th-15th July, and as usual will be designed to help late-stage PhD students improve their dissertations whilst immersing them in two weeks of intense multi-disciplinary seminars, classes and debate. And there will be punting... For more information go to our SDP pages at: http://sdp.oii.ox.ac.uk/ or feel free to contact us personally. All best wishes, Vicki PS If any fabulous potential tutors are likely to be passing through the UK then, please do also get in touch. Dr Victoria Nash Deputy Director Policy & Research Fellow Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/ Tel: 0044 1865 287231 Tw: VickiNashOII

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A new e-learning course – Why We Post - The Anthropology of Social Media
by Shriram Venkatraman 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

*A new e-learning course – Why We Post - The Anthropology of Social Media* A new MOOC – (free e-learning course), called Why We Post - The Anthropology of Social Media is now available for registration. The course will start on 29th February 2016. The course is available in eight languages. English version is on the FutureLearn platform, (a branch of the Open University) at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/anthropology-social-media/1 Registration for the Chinese, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil and Turkish versions at https://extendstore.ucl.ac.uk/catalog?pagename=why-we-post These versions are not time bound and can be followed at any time and duration from Feb 29th 2016. This five week course is taught by the nine anthropologists whose ethnographic research it is based on. *Week One*: What is social media - Polymedia and Scalable Sociality. The focus upon content rather than platforms. The 9 fieldsites. The practical uses of this research. Main fieldsite – village England *Week Two* – The shift to visual images in communication. Memes as the moral police of the internet. The significance for illiteracy. The diversity of the selfie. Main fieldsites - south Italy, Trinidad. *Week Three* – The impact on politics and gender. Why public social media is more conservative than offline life. The transformation of gender relations in Hindu and Muslim societies. Main fieldsites - south India and southeast Turkey *Week Four* –What we learn from The Chinese platforms. The impact of social media more generally on privacy, on education and on commerce. Main fieldsites – Industrial China, Rural China *Week Five* – The relation between online equality and offline inequality. When social media may not express identity or individuality. Seeing the normative. How the world changed social media. Main fieldsites – northeast Brazil and north Chile. Thanks, Shriram Venkatraman *http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-social-media <http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-social-media>*

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CfP AoIR 2016 Berlin: Internet Rules!
by Cornelius Puschmann 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

***Apologies for cross-postings*** 1st Call for Proposals ================================ AoIR 2016: INTERNET RULES! Workshops: 5 October 2016 Main Conference: 6-8 October 2016 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany AoIR 2016 is the 17th annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, a transdisciplinary gathering of scholars interested in the place of networked technologies in social processes. AoIR 2016 will emphasize the relevance of the Internet in today’s culture and politics. The conference theme addresses the significance of the codes and rules that frame the Internet, as well as their playful circumvention, from technical protocols and popular platforms to the emerging, established, and contested conventions of online communities. Who are the actors both in practices of rule-making and rule-breaking, what are their motivations and resources, and how can their power relations and communicative figurations be described? How does the Internet influence the proliferation of the values that its platforms, services and infrastructures embody, and what spaces of creative resistance persist? How do various forms of technical, social, and cultural hacking subvert these orders? The committee calls for proposals for papers, panels, workshops, roundtables, and other events that engage with the conference theme or the field more generally. Topics could include (but are not limited to): - coordination and rule-making online - media, culture and identity - (h)activism and social justice - critical approaches to algorithms, platform studies - codes and practices of internet culture - connected devices and the internet of things - big data and predictive analytics - techno-social interfaces - digital labor, crowdsourcing and co-creation - internet governance and regulation - (global) social media - communication, participation and polarization online - philosophy of information and knowledge We particularly invite submissions that engage with or challenge the conference theme in new and exciting ways, are innovative, or present a novel approach to the topic. We encourage “experimental sessions” that extend research in unusual directions (via method, topic or presentation structure). We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the internet beyond the conference theme. The committee extends a special invitation to students, researchers, and practitioners who have previously not participated in an Internet Research event to submit proposals. *PROPOSALS* We seek proposals for several different kinds of contributions to encompass the breadth of relevant research. We welcome proposals for traditional academic conference PAPERS, organized PANELS, ROUNDTABLES, FISHBOWLS, EXPERIMENTAL SESSIONS, and PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS. We invite proposals that will focus on discussion and interaction among conference delegates. Finally, doctoral students are invited to participate in the DOCTORAL COLLOQUIUM preceding the main conference. *IMPORTANT DATES* 15 January 2016 Submission site opens for AoIR 2016 in Berlin 1 March 2016 Submissions due for PAPERS, PANELS, ROUNDTABLES and FISHBOWLS, EXPERIMENTAL SESSIONS, and PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS 15 March 2016 Nominations for Nancy Baym Book award and Best Dissertation Award due 5 May 2016 Notification of acceptances for presenters 7 June 2016 Applications due for conference travel SCHOLARSHIPS and for DOCTORAL COLLOQUIUM 1 August 2016 Early Bird Registration Deadline for all presenters For further information and updates, please visit the conference website at aoir.org/aoir2016. *SUBMISSION TYPES* Traditional papers: Paper submissions should articulate the issue or research question to be discussed, the methodological or critical framework used, and indicate the findings or conclusions to be presented and/or the relevance to wider conference themes. Papers can present any kind of research or analysis, but should be written so that the importance of the work can be understood by reviewers working in different disciplines or using different approaches. Cross- or trans-disciplinary work is especially encouraged. Paper submissions should be approximately 1200 words long, including references. Please note that paper submissions need not adhere to a pre-formatted template, but should give an indication as to the consistency, rigor and relevance of the work. Presentations at the IR conference are generally intended to be dynamic, and provide a broad overview of the scholarship being engaged, with the hope of generating useful conversation. Preconstituted panels: Panels should present a coherent group of papers on a single theme. Panel proposals should include 1200-word abstracts as above for each of the constituent papers, as well as a brief statement articulating the papers’ relationship to each other. It is recommended that panels include four papers, although submissions of three to five papers will also be considered. The organizer is responsible for compiling the proposal into a single document for submission. Preconference workshops: Workshops may be either half or full-day events that occur on the first day of the conference and focus on a particular topic. They may be a workshop of some kind (e.g., a publishing workshop), a methodological “bootcamp” (e.g., on ethnography or statistical analysis), an exploration of a theoretical tradition or topical area (e.g., symbolic interaction, political economy, or GIS) or anything else that may be of interest to conference delegates. Proposals for workshops should explain for a general scholarly audience the goals of the workshop, the way it will operate, and an indication of potential audience or attendees who may be interested in attending (such as “early career scholars” or “researchers using statistical analysis”). Proposals for workshops should be approximately 600-800 words in length, and should name the workshop facilitators. Roundtable Sessions: Roundtables encourage discussion and interaction among delegates. They may involve brief introductory presentations by organizers. Proposals should include details on the theme or topic of discussion and its relevance, along with names of the organizers/initial participants. Roundtables can include no more than 5 initial participants. Roundtable submissions should be between 250-300 words long (to be included as the “abstract” in the submissions process–no separate document need be uploaded). Open Fishbowls: Fishbowl sessions should cover broad topics of interest to a wide segment of the AoIR community, and create a space for dialogue across different types of research. Submitted proposals should include a brief statement as to the core idea or theme for the fishbowl, emphasizing its relation to conference themes or relevance to the IR community. Fishbowls can include no more than 5 initial participants (named fish). Experimental Sessions: Experimental sessions are those that, while of interest to members or engaging with conference themes, meaningfully “push the envelope” beyond more traditional forms of conference engagement and participation and as such do not fit into any of the other proposal formats. Examples may include Ignite or pecha-kucha presentations, demonstrations, performances, installations, short-form workshops, unsessions, maker or code-based projects, or interactive experiences. Proposals for experimental sessions should describe for a general scholarly audience the goal or idea of the session and how it will operate, and discuss why the proposed format will be of interest to AoIR delegates. Organizers of experimental sessions will be responsible for supplying any necessary equipment beyond that usually provided for conference presentations, and should be prepared to coordinate closely with the conference committee as necessary to enable a successful presentation of the alternative format. To encourage this kind of submission, we are again offering the “Halavais Prize for Weirdness” this year for the most interesting and successful submission in a non-traditional format. Doctoral Colloquium: The Association of Internet Researchers believes that its emerging researchers are the best in its disparate constituent fields. In keeping with its commitment to students’ scholarship, we continue the tradition of bringing emerging and established scholars together through the AoIR 2016 Doctoral Colloquium. The colloquium offers PhD students working in internet research or a related field a special, day-long forum, to be convened on 5 October 2016. For many years, this pre-conference event has provided students with the opportunity to a concentrated amount of time with senior scholars to share research projects, address methodological and theoretical challenges, and exchange informal advice on juggling the multiple pressures associated with job searching, publishing, and finishing the dissertation Interested students should prepare a) a two-page summary of your research. This should provide a context for the research, describe the methods being used, the progress to date, and primary concerns and issues; and b) A brief statement indicating why you want to participate in this doctoral colloquium and what you hope to get out of it. These are due on or before 15 June 2016. *CONFERENCE SCHOLARSHIPS* In order to increase the diversity of participation in the AoIR conferences, the Association of Internet Researchers makes available conference fee waivers and partial travel stipends ($500) per year. The number of fee waivers and travel stipends will depend first of all upon the ability of the conference budget to sustain such waivers (a judgment to be made by the AoIR Executive Committee upon the advice of the AoIR Treasurer and the local organizing committee) as well as upon the quality of the applications for fee waivers. Conference scholarships are made available only to participants who have had papers accepted via the peer review process, and applications are due on 1 June 2016, after acceptances have been announced. More information will be made available regarding the scholarship application process at the conference website: aoir.org/aoir2016. *CONTACT INFORMATION* Please address any questions to the conference chair, Cornelius Puschmann, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, aoir2016 [at] aoir [dot] org. ================================ -- Dr. Cornelius Puschmann Postdoctoral Researcher (DFG) Berlin School of Library and Information Science (BSLIS) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Dorotheenstraße 26 10117 Berlin, Germany www.ibi.hu-berlin.de Research Associate Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) Oberwallstraße 9 10117 Berlin, Germany www.hiig.de Faculty Associate Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University 23 Everett Street, Second Floor Cambridge, MA 02138, USA cyber.law.harvard.edu p: +49 7541 6009-1321 e: cornelius.puschmann(a)hiig.de e: cpuschmann(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu w: cbpuschmann.net

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CFP: Transhumanist Education, Politics, and Design
by Jörgen Skågeby 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Call for Papers Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics Special issue on “Transhumanist Education, Politics, and Design” For this special issue on ‘Transhumanist Education, Politics, and Design’, we welcome contributions from scholars with various disciplinary backgrounds to debate transhumanistic issues in relation to education, politics, and design. In the soon to come future, technological revolutions are likely to change future societies, bodies and minds in more far-reaching ways than ever before history. Transhumanism can be described as ‘a new paradigm for thinking about humankind’s future’ (World Transhumanist Association). Transhumanism is a philosophy, a cultural movement and a growing field of study. More specifically, transhumanism is the belief in morphological freedom and the aspiration to enhance human abilities and attributes and thereby transcend human biological limits. This special issue of Confero encourages contributions that approach and analyse transhumanism transhumanism in relation to education, politics, and design. Topics suitable for this special issue could include, but are not limited to, the following: * Transhumanism, corporeality and (un)learning * Transhumanism and disease(s) * Transhumanism and monstrosity * Transhumanism and citizenship * Transhumanism and surveillance * Transhumanism and cognitive science * Transhumanism and values (social, economical, ethical, juridical, environmental, moral, instrumental, utilitarian, hedonic etc.) * Transhumanism and intersectionality (e.g. race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, able-bodied, crip) * Human enhancement, prosthesis and extension * Morphological freedom * Educating the transhuman * Queering transhumanism * Transhumanism and speed * Transhumanist design * Definitions, practices and consequences of transhumanism (e.g. bio-hacking and DIY citizenship) * A battle for/of the anthropocene? Posthumanism vs. transhumanism * Transhumanism as subversive power Notes for Contributors We encourage authors to use the Oxford referencing system. To give the essay form and improve its readability, we ask that the essay has a clearly defined topic or theme that is laid out in the introduction of the piece. We also encourage the writer to divide the text into sections, using headings to promote its readability. Authors are encouraged to refrain from selfreferences. The text should be proofread before submission. The journal applies double-blind peer review. Authors will also be invited to review papers for this special issue. Guest editors for this special issue are Mattias Arvola (Linköping University), Lina Rahm (Linköping University), and Jörgen Skågeby (Stockholm university). The editorial group can be reached at confero(a)liu.se<mailto:confero@liu.se>. A first full draft of the essay should be sent to confero(a)liu.se<mailto:confero@liu.se> on or before 1 April 2016. The subject line of the submission should read “Submission for SI on transhumanism”. For further information and instructions, please visit http://www.confero.ep.liu.se<http://www.confero.ep.liu.se/> Sincerely, _______________________________________ Jörgen Skågeby PhD Informatics Associate Professor Media Studies Dept. of Media Studies, Stockholm university http://www.su.se/profiles/jsk @giftingtech –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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