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Seeking Expert
by Kelly Boudreau 08 Jul '14

08 Jul '14

We have recently been contacted by a journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who is writing a story on sexting and is looking to speak with an expert in this area. If you are interested in talking with him, please contact me directly and I will make the connection. Sincerely, Kelly Boudreau, Association Coordinator Association of Internet Researchers

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MECCSA: “Theorizing Digital Divides
by Massimo Ragnedda 08 Jul '14

08 Jul '14

Dear Colleagues, Glenn W. Muschert and I are proposing a panel on “Theorizing Digital Divides” for the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MECCSA) conference that will be hold at Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK), in January 2015. If you are not familiar with this association or conference, there is more information here: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/conference/. We plan to propose one or more panel session(s) at MECCSA on the topic of “Theorizing Digital Divides,” which we intend to use as point(s) of departure for an edited volume on the same topic. The intention is to create panels as an opportunity for colleagues to present their papers, and of course to have the opportunity to meet in person. We intend the panel(s) not merely as sets of talks with limited interaction among panelists, but rather as interactive opportunities for us to examine our common theme. The aim is to promote lively dialogue among experts, and to offer a venue for fruitful and satisfying discussion of how we theorize digital divides. Each session is 90 minutes, and in order to increase the interaction with the audience, we will make every attempt to limit the number of participants for each session. The final number of sessions will depend on the number of participant, and we will try to avoid parallel session in order to increase the interactivity and the discussion. As we mention, we also plan an edited volume on the topic of Theorizing Digital Divides, and we anticipate the conference sessions on this theme as a point of departure for that project. The deadline for us to propose a panel at the conference is the 1 September 2014. Therefore, if you would like to participate in the MECCSA this conference, we request that you please send us the details of the authors/participants and a brief abstract of 150-200 words. We would need to receive proposals to contribute to the MCCSA by 10 August 2014 at the latest (emailed to Massimo Ragnedda – ragnedda(a)gmail.com and Glenn Muschert – muschegw(a)MiamiOH.edu) One point that might be obvious, however which perhaps bears clarification, is that participation in the MCCSA conference panel does not imply, nor is it contingent upon, final acceptance of a manuscript for the proposed volume on theorizing digital divides. While the MECCSA panels and the planned volume may complement one another, they are nonetheless separate projects. In particular, acceptance for publication in the edited volume will require successful peer and editorial review prior to publication. We mention this simply to be clear, and to avoid any potential confusion. In organizing a number of session at the same conference, it is ultimately our intention to provide venues for those interested in digital divide studies. In all, we hope to have a number of sessions which will be of interest to you and other scholars, and we will be happy to bring together numerous innovative and dynamic scholars. For now, please feel welcome to be in contact if you have any questions or concerns. With best regards, Massimo Ragnedda (Northumbria University, UK) ragnedda(a)gmail.com Glenn Muschert (Miami University, USA) muschegw(a)MiamiOH.eduo _______________________________ Massimo Ragnedda Senior Lecturer in Mass Communication Northumbria University (Newcastle, UK) mragnedda.wordpress.com http://notizie.tiscali.it/opinioni/Ragnedda/184/ skype: massimo.ragnedda http://northumbria.academia.edu/MassimoRagnedda Twitter: @massimoragnedda

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reminder: Disability and Social Media (Edited collection, abstracts due 15 July 2014)
by Mike Kent 08 Jul '14

08 Jul '14

Dear colleagues, The closing date for the below cfp is nearing Call for Papers CFP: Disability and Social Media (Edited collection, abstracts due 15 July 2014) Disability and Social Media edited by Dr Katie Ellis & Dr Mike Kent Internet Studies, Curtin University Social media is popularly seen as an important media for people with disability in terms of communication, exchange and activism. These sites potentially increase both employment and leisure opportunities for one of the most traditionally isolated groups in society. However, the offline inaccessible environment has, to a certain degree, been replicated online and particularly social networking sites. For example, despite recognized benefits of social inclusion for people with disabilities, Scott Hollier notes the continuation of inaccessibility in social media in his report Sociability: Social Media for People with a Disability: ...all of the popular social media tools remain inaccessible to some degree. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, blogging websites and the emerging Google+ all feature limited accessibly, denying many consumers with disabilities the opportunity to participate in social media. Fortunately, users have often found ways around the accessibility barriers such as alternative website portals, mobile apps, additional keyboard navigation shortcuts and online support groups. This is a rich source of expertise, and social media users with disability continue to find creative ways to access the most popular platforms. (Hollier 2012) Although Hollier paints a dreary picture regarding accessibility in social media, his report holds much scope for optimism, as do we. Social media is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives yet the impact on people with disabilities has gone largely unscrutinised. This collection will explore the opportunities and challenges social media represents for the social inclusion of people with disabilities. The book will be published as part of Ashgate's Interdisciplinary Disability Studies series Some suggested topics (which are by no means exhaustive): * Activism * Communication * Community creation * Leisure/Entertainment/ Socialising * Creating new types of representation * Web/media literacy * Mashups * Education * Social Network specific case studies We are particularly interested in chapter proposals that explore social networks popular outside the Anglosphere Submission procedure: Potential authors are invited to submit chapter abstract of no more than 500 words, including a title, 4 to 6 keywords, and a brief bio, by email to both Dr Mike Kent <m.kent(a)curtin.edu.au<mailto:m.kent@curtin.edu.au>> and Dr Katie Ellis <katie.ellis(a)curtin.edu.au<mailto:katie.ellis@curtin.edu.au>> by 15 July 2014. (Please indicate in your proposal if you wish to use any visual material, and how you have or will gain copyright clearance for visual material.) Authors will receive a response by 15 August 2014, with those provisionally accepted due as chapters of no more than 6000 words (including references) by 15 November 2015. About the editors: The editors are from the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University. Dr Katie Ellis is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University. Her research focuses on disability and the media extending across both representation and active possibilities for social inclusion. Her books include Disability and New Media (2011 with Mike Kent), Disabling Diversity (2008), Disability, Ageing and Obesity: Popular Media Identifications (2014; with Debbie Rodan & Pia Lebeck), Disability and the Media (2015; with Gerard Goggin), and Disability and Popular Culture (2015). Dr Mike Kent's research focus is on people with disabilities and their use of, and access to, information technology and the Internet. His other area of research interest is in higher education and particularly online education, as well as online social networking platforms. His edited collection An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World's Largest Social Network was released in May 2014 through Routledge.

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CfP: Media Architecture Biennale 2014 Doctoral Consortium
by Marcus Foth 08 Jul '14

08 Jul '14

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION MEDIA ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2014: Doctoral Consortium November 19-22, 2014 Aarhus, Denmark http://mab14.mediaarchitecture.org/doctoral-consortium/ The Doctoral Consortium at MAB is a full-day workshop on 20 November 2014. The colloquium session is primarily intended to highlight and confer around the work of research students, fellows and doctoral candidates working at the intersections of public space, digital media, socio-cultural analysis and theory, techno-artistic practices and critique. We welcome theoretical, analytical, and practice-based research. Researchers undertaking scholarly work at the PhD level are invited to take part in the Doctoral Consortium via the presentation of papers, work-in-progress and multimedia presentations (approximately 30 minutes in length). The Doctoral Consortium is free and open to other MAB delegates, too. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to: * How to support the development of social structures with urban digital media * Social & Cultural Aspects of Media Architecture * Participatory Architecture & City Planning * Spatial Locative Media * Case Studies of Specific Projects * Future Trends & Prototypes * Media Facades & Urban Displays * Interaction Techniques & Interfaces * Critical & Historical Perspectives on Media Architecture * Design Processes & Methods 5 stipends of up to EUR 500 each are available for contributors to the doctoral consortium. These will be distributed according to financial need and quality of proposals. Please indicate that you wish to be considered for a stipend when you apply and list arguments for why you need the support. To apply to present your paper or presentation, please send an abstract of your study (max 500 words) to the Doctoral Consortium Chairs, Marcus Foth <m.foth(a)qut.edu.au> and Søren Pold <pold(a)cavi.au.dk>, with “MAB14-DC” in the subject line, by 1 August 2014. If you are selected to participate in the Doctoral Consortium, you will be invited to submit a short paper (max. 4 pages, a template will be provided) by 30 August 2014 that summarises either your overall research work-in-progress or a specific project that you are working on, as well as your questions and issues that you would like to discuss at the Doctoral Consortium. These papers will be included in the non-refereed part of the MAB 2014 conference proceedings. INFORMATION Twitter: @MABiennale Facebook: Facebook.com/MABiennale Web: http://www.mab14.org Email: MABiennale(a)mediaarchitecture.org Proceedings of the Media Architecture Biennale Conference 2012: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2421076 Host: Aarhus University, Denmark, in collaboration with Media Architecture Institute. Doctoral Consortium Chairs: Søren Pold (Aarhus University) & Marcus Foth (Queensland University of Technology) -- Associate Professor Marcus Foth Director, Urban Informatics Research Lab Principal Research Fellow, School of Design Queensland University of Technology 130 Victoria Park Road, Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia m.foth(a)qut.edu.au – @sunday9pm – http://www.urbaninformatics.net/ CRICOS No. 00213J

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IR15 Doctoral Colloquium Deadline This Week
by Kendall, Lori 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

Just a brief reminder that submissions for the IR15 Doctoral Colloquium are due later this week: July 11. See the Call for Submissions here: http://aoir.org/ir15-doctoral-colloquium-call-for-submissions/ Lori Kendall President, Association of Internet Researchers

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Register now for IR15 in Daegu
by Kendall, Lori 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

Registration for IR15: Boundaries and Intersections in Daegu is now open! Thanks to the hard work of our local hosts Prof. Han Woo Park, Prof. Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki and their conference team in Korea, as well as to our other generous sponsors and association members, we have been able to keep our pricing the same. As before, the preconference workshops and the conference banquet are included in your registration fee! Extra banquet tickets can be purchased at an additional fee. Workshop space and banquet seating is limited, though, so register early! Remember that if you are presenting at the conference, you need to register by the early bird deadline of August 31 (Daegu time). Even if you're not, register early to get the price break. We'll have more information about the conference coming soon, including information about hotel registration, the keynote and plenary panel, and more about travel and Daegu. For more information and to register - please check out the conference wesbite<http://ir15.aoir.org/?page_id=142>. Please note: If you previously registered for IR15 in Bangkok (and you received your refund), the updated registration system will warn you that you already registered for the event when you being the process of IR15 in Daegu. Please disregard this warning, and continue the registration. Everyone must re-register We look forward to seeing you in Daegu in October! Lori Kendall President, AoIR

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Teaching a new media & society class?
by Anthony Nadler 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

If you are teaching something along the lines of a “digital media and society” course this coming semester, would you be interested in sharing pedagogical resources and ideas with other instructors teaching similar classes? I’m helping organize an experiment (called Collaborative Online Network for College Teaching - CONNECT) seeking ways to encourage collaboration among instructors teaching similar courses across campuses. We’re hoping members will share assignments, class activities, recommended reading and other media, reading guides, etc. Some members might find even more ways to collaborate, such as arranging cross-campus student peer critiques or group project or participating in live online interactions with guest speakers. We’ll use a WordPress site for sharing files, an email listserv or Facebook group for messages, and arrange occasional opportunities for video conferences. The goal is to help members enhance their teaching and hopefully save some time with course prep (how much time do you spend looking for the right clips or news articles?). We’ll all talk about what would be helpful and participation will be flexible, but every member should be willing to: · S - Share your syllabus prior to the start of the semester · -Share favorite readings or assignments. · - Respond to requests for help and ideas from other members Please let me know if you might be interested in participating by emailing me at anadler(a)ursinus.edu. -- Anthony Nadler Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies Ursinus College

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Deadline Extension: Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities at ISWC 2014
by Tope Omitola 05 Jul '14

05 Jul '14

APOLOGIES FOR MULTIPLE POSTINGS CALL FOR PAPERS: 5th Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities Call For Papers: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/s4sc/ collocated with the 13th International Semantic Web Conference – Riva del Garda, Italy, 20 October, 2014. **Best papers from the Workshop will be considered for publication in the forthcoming Semantic Web Journal Special Issue on “The Role of Semantics in Smart Cities”.** Important Dates (All deadlines are Hawaii time) **16.07.2014 – Extension of full paper submission deadline** 31.07.2014 – notification of acceptance 25.08.2014 – submission of camera ready version 20.10.2014 – Workshop date CityPulse-sponsored 300 EUR Prize will be awarded to the Best Demonstration paper or experiment. ————————————————————————————————————————- 5th Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities Call For Papers collocated with the 13th International Semantic Web Conference – Riva del Garda, Italy, 20 October, 2014. The world’s population is rapidly urbanizing. By 2005, the world’s population had increased to 6.5 billion, with about 50% living in cities. By 2025, UN projections show that the world population is expected to exceed 9 billion with roughly 75% expected to live in cities. This rapid urbanization is continuing to put tremendous pressure on traditional urban infrastructures, such as roads, water, and energy, and on societal institutions. This urbanization challenges require new approaches that will transform modern cities to comfortable, economically successful, and environmentally responsible habitats. We are also seeing a rapid rise in the connection and usage of billions of low-end and affordable smart devices to the Internet, i.e. the Internet of Things, and witnessing the expansion of the Web into more areas of our personal lives. These trends make possible a new generation of smart city applications and services, with new smart city applications emerging as more data from different sources (e.g. from utility services, transport services, environmental data, and from social sensing) become available. These smart city data are large in volume, multi-modal, vary in quality, formats, and representation forms. These data need to be processed, aggregated, and higher-level abstractions need to be created from these data to make them suitable for the event processing and , knowledge extraction methods that enable intelligent applications and services for smart city platforms. Semantic Web technologies and Linked Data together with data analytics solutions play a key role in providing inter-operability, association analysis, information and knowledge extractions, and reasoning about trust, privacy, provenance, and security in smart city frameworks. Scope and Objectives This workshop will explore the interfaces between the Web, the Web of Data, and the City Smart environment. It will further explore how the Web, and the intelligences built on top of, and around the Web, can make the notion of the Smart Connected City possible and realizable. The workshop aims to gather researchers, city departments, service providers, application developers, entrepreneurs, and citizens to present and debate Semantic Web technologies, Linked Data and data analytics and evaluations for smart city applications as well as impact of user engagements and social networks. The workshop will also focus on related standardization activities in W3C, IEEE and ETSI. It continues on from the successful earlier workshops on the same theme at AAAI 12 (http://research.ihost.com/semanticcities12/) IJCAI 13 (http://research.ihost.com/semanticcities13/) SemCity13 (http://aida.ii.uam.es/wims13/semcity.php) and AAAI 14 (http://research.ihost.com/semanticcities14/) Topics of interest include but are not limited to: 1. Semantic platforms to integrate, manage and publish smart city data Provenance, access control and privacy-preserving issues in open data Collaborative and evolving semantic models for cities. Challenges and lessons learned Semantic data integration and organization in cities: social media feeds, sensor data, simulation models and Internet of things in city models Big data and scaling out in semantic cities. Managing big data using knowledge representation models Knowledge acquisition, evolution and maintenance of city data Challenges with managing and integrating real-time and historical city data. 2. Process and standards for defining, publishing and sharing open city data Platforms and best practices for city data inter-operability Foundational and applied ontologies for semantic cities. 3. Robust inference models for semantic cities Large-scale stream reasoning Semantic event detection and classification Spatio-temporal reasoning, analysis and visualization. 4. City applications involving semantic models Intelligent user interfaces and contextual user exploration of semantic data relating to cities Use cases, including, but not limited to, transportation (traffic prediction, personal travel optimization, carpool and fleet scheduling), public safety (suspicious activity detection, disaster management), healthcare (disease diagnosis and prognosis, pandemic management), water management (flood prevention, quality monitoring, fault diagnosis), food (food traceability, carbon-footprint tracking), energy (smart grid, carbon footprint tracking, electricity consumption forecasting) and buildings (energy conservation, fault detections) 5. City as a Smart Utility Internet of Things Interaction paradigms in the Smart City Smart City operating systems Semantic Complex Event Processing City services discovery Service ranking, provenance, and data discovery Submission Types and Publication For providing a forum for sharing novel ideas, SSC’14 welcomes a broad spectrum of contributions, including for example: Full research papers Position papers Case studies Descriptions of experiments Evaluations How to submit Authors of accepted works are expected to attend the conference to present their work. The maximum length of: Short papers, up to 6 pages Full Research papers, up to 16 pages Position papers, up to 4 pages Case Studies papers, up to 16 pages Demo papers, and descriptions of experiments, including evaluation reports, (up to 16 pages). Submissions to the Demo track should describe what will be demonstrated (this may include screenshots and sample script for the demo). Authors are encouraged to include a link to where the demo (live or recorded video) can be found. Authors are advised to make clear in their submission: What is the research background and application context of the demonstration? What are the key technologies used, and how does the demonstrated system, application or infrastructure relate to pre-existing work? What will be the key concepts learnt by participants of the demonstration? ***CityPulse-sponsored Best Prize will be awarded to the Best Demonstration paper or experiment.*** Submissions must be in PDF formatted in the style of the Springer Publications format for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS). For details of the LNCS style, see Springer’s Author Instructions. Paper submissions to be made electronically through the EasyChair submission system at: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ssc14 Important Dates (All deadlines are Hawaii time) 16.07.2014 – full paper submission deadline 31.07.2014 – notification of acceptance 25.08.2014 – submission of camera ready version 20.10.2014 – Workshop date Organizing Committee Payam Barnaghi, University of Surrey, UK Jan Holler, Ericsson, Sweden Biplav Srivastava, IBM Research, India John Davies, BT, UK John Breslin, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Tope Omitola, University of Southampton, UK Advisors Manfred Hauswirth, National University of Ireland, Ireland Amit Sheth, Wright State University, USA Mark Fox, University of Toronto, Canada Ralf Tonjes, University of Applied Science Osnabrück, Germany Programme Committee Konstantinos Vandikas, Ericsson, Sweden Andreas Emrich, DFKI, Germany Benoit Christophe, Bell Labs – Nozay, France Cosmin-Septimiu Nechifor, Siemens, Romania Rosairo Usceda-Sosa, IBM Mirko Presser, Alexandra Institute, Denmark Alessandra Mileo, National University of Ireland in Galway, Ireland Herwig Schreiner, Siemens, Austria Vlasios Tsiatsis, Ericsson, Sweden Pirabakaran Navaratnam, University of Surrey, UK Sebastian Rios, University of Chile, Chile Robert Schloss, IBM T.J. Watson, USA Stefan Schulte, The University of Vienna, Austria Alistair Duke, BT, UK Freddy Lecue, IBM Monika Solanki, Aston University, UK Taha Osman, Nottingham Trent University, UK Pramod Anantharam, Knoesis, Wright State University, USA Spyros Kotoulas, IBM Research, Smarter Cities Technology Centre, Dublin, Ireland Jose Manuel Gomez Prez, iSOCO, Spain John Goodwin, Ordnance Survey, UK

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Teaching Participatory Design…a PDC2014 Workshop
by Maurizio 03 Jul '14

03 Jul '14

Apologies for cross-posting, I thought it could be of interest for many of you... Best regards M. --- The goal of the “*Teaching Participatory Design*” full-day workshop is to create a place where people can share plans and questions about the practice of teaching Participatory Design (PD). Through this workshop we aim to create a context for all of us to talk about how we design and set up courses, what challenges we face and how we solve them. The workshop is for people who are interested in the way people teach as well as in what is taught and what resources are gathered to aid the process. During the workshop, we will explore in an interactive manner how constructivist approaches to teaching can support the teaching and learning of participatory design in academic and non-academic contexts. We will also discuss experiences in using recent material such as the PD Handbook. We hope that this dialogue can become a regular part of PDC! For more information on the workshop: http://teachingpdworkshop.wordpress.com/ The workshop is scheduled for *Sunday 5th October, 2014* <http://pdc2014.org/index.php/workshops/workshops-sunday-5th-oct>. For more information about the *Participatory Design Conference* visit: http://pdc2014.org The 2014 PDC <http://pdc2014.org/> will be a platform to connect ‘in person’ with designers, researchers, artists, practitioners and other related people, to engage in fruitful dialogues, to participate in numerous activities such as tutorials, workshops, doctoral consortiums, participatory art encounters, paper presentations as well as game viewing and exquisite dinning. All in all you are looking forward to an unforgettable conference experience with many new insights and connections.

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Short-term visiting research fellowships at University of Canberra, Australia
by Deborah Lupton 02 Jul '14

02 Jul '14

Dear all I have some funding to cover travel and accommodation costs for visiting fellows who would like to spend some time in Canberra, Australia, working with me on a project sometime in the next year. I can fund visits for periods of up to 2 months. We would work together on either formulating a research project application for funding from a major funding body or on initiating a collaborative writing project with the aim of producing joint publications. My university profile gives some details on the topics I am working on. I would welcome ideas for collaborative research on any of these topics: http://www.canberra.edu.au/faculties/arts-design/communications-staff/media…. Please note that my interests and expertise are in qualitative and critical theory research. Please contact me by email if you are interested in discussing this opportunity further. There is no deadline ... Cheers Deborah

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