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The Digital Divide. The Internet and Social Inequality in International Perspective
by Massimo Ragnedda 20 Jun '13

20 Jun '13

Dear colleagues, We are happy to announce publication of *TheDigital Divide. The Internet and SocialInequality in International Perspective<http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415525442/> *, edited by Massimo Ragnedda and Glenn W. Muschert that contains 20 contributions on more than 320 pages. This book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of inequality and the stratification of the digital sphere. Grounded in classical sociological theories of inequality, as well as empirical evidence, this book defines ‘the digital divide’ as the unequal access and utility of internet communications technologies and explores how it has the potential to replicate existing social inequalities, as well as create new forms of stratification. *The Digital Divide* examines how various demographic and socio-economic factors including income, education, age and gender, as well as infrastructure, products and services affect how the internet is used and accessed. Comprised of six parts, the first section examines theories of the digital divide, and then looks in turn at: - Highly developed nations and regions (including the USA, the EU and Japan); - Emerging large powers (Brazil, China, India, Russia); - Eastern European countries (Estonia, Romania, Serbia); - Arab and Middle Eastern nations (Egypt, Iran, Israel); - Under-studied areas (East and Central Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa). Providingan interwoven analysis of the international inequalities in internet usage and access, this important work offers a comprehensive approach to studying the digital divide around the globe. It is an important resource for academic and students in sociology, social policy, communication studies, media studies and all those interested in the questions and issues around social inequality. You can read and download the Preface, the Introduction and the table of Content here<http://mragnedda.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/introduction-and-table-of-cont…>. 20%of discount with this flyer.<http://mragnedda.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/the-digital-divide-flyerpdf.pdf> With kind regards, Massimo Ragnedda and Glenn W. Muschert -- Massimo Ragnedda mragnedda.wordpress.com http://notizie.tiscali.it/opinioni/Ragnedda/184/ skype: massimo.ragnedda http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sass/about/media/staff/ragnedda/?v… uniss.academia.edu/MassimoRagnedda Twitter: @massimoragnedda

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#SMSociety13 : Keynote and Presentations Announced for 2013 Social Media & Society Conference!
by Anatoliy Gruzd 19 Jun '13

19 Jun '13

(Apologies for cross-posting) We would like to invite you to attend the *2013 SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY CONFERENCE * to be held on September 14-15, 2013 at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. We have a great line-up of presentations by researchers and practitioners from 60+ institutions hailing from 15 different countries! This year keynote will be Dr. Sharad Goel (Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research) who will present on 'Going Viral' and the Structure of Online Diffusion. (*) The full list of accepted panel, paper and poster submissions is now available at http://SocialMediaAndSociety.com/?page_id=7 (*) The general registration is now open, and the "early-bird" deadline is August 1, 2013: http://SocialMediaAndSociety.com/?page_id=5 If you have any questions about the conference, please email to Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd at gruzd(a)dal.ca Hope you can join us for this exciting event and contribute to this emerging research area! -- Organizing Committee, #SMSociety13 http://SocialMediaAndSociety.com Twitter: #SMSociety13

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CfP: JoCI Special Issue on Urban Planning & Community Informatics
by Marcus Foth 19 Jun '13

19 Jun '13

Call for Abstracts: JoCI Special Issue on Urban Planning & Community Informatics due 16 August 2013 http://www.urbaninformatics.net/joci/ A forthcoming Special Issue of the Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net) will be devoted to ‘Urban Planning and Community Informatics.’ This Special Issue will be guest-edited by an international team of researchers whose urban scholarship intersects with community informatics. For this Special Issue of JoCI, we are inviting the submission of original, unpublished articles. The focus will be on community informatics practices that relate to the following types of urban research areas: urban informatics; urban planning and design; urban studies; urban geography; urban sociology; urban anthropology; and urban technologies. The Journal of Community Informatics (JoCI) is a platform for research of interest to a global network of academics, practitioners, national and multi-lateral policy makers. Community informatics explores applications of ICTs in economic, ecological and socio-cultural development. A community informatics focus seeks to ensure that individuals and communities can take advantage of the opportunities that ICTs can provide, while remaining in control of these technologies and their management. We welcome research articles with themes at the intersections of urban research and community informatics—from a diversity of themes and geographical scales. Articles may be theoretical or practical in nature, but should conform to the scholarly standards as outlined in JoCI’s writing guidelines. Research notes or case studies from the field are also encouraged—including insights or analyses from practitioners and policy makers. This Special Issue will be guest-edited by an international team of scholars with interests in urban studies and community informatics including: Liisa Horelli (Finland), Geisa Bugs (Brazil), Jennifer Cowley (USA), Marcus Foth (Australia), Reinout Kleinhans (The Netherlands), Joanna Saad-Sulonen (Finland/Lebanon/France), David Sadoway (Canada/India/East Asia), Carlos Nunes Silva (Portugal/Africa), and Patrick Sunter (Australia). All research articles will be double blind peer-reviewed. Additional details can be found in the full call for papers at: http://www.urbaninformatics.net/joci/ · Deadline for submission of preliminary abstracts: 16 August 2013 · Deadline for final paper or technical note submissions: 20 October 2013 · Publication target date: Spring 2014 For information about submission requirements, including author guidelines, please visit: http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For further information, clarifications, or suggestions, and for submitting short abstracts of papers for consideration, please contact the Special Issue’s Coordinating Editor: Dr Liisa Horelli YTK – Land Use Planning and Urban Studies Group Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics Aalto University, Finland liisa.horelli [at] aalto.fi -- Associate Professor Marcus Foth Director, Urban Informatics Research Lab Principal Research Fellow and A/Research Leader, School of Design Queensland University of Technology (CRICOS No. 00213J) 130 Victoria Park Road, Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia m.foth(a)qut.edu.au – @sunday9pm – http://www.urbaninformatics.net/

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Workshop on “Ubiquitous games and gamification for promoting behavior change and wellbeing” @ CHItaly 2013
by Stefano De Paoli 19 Jun '13

19 Jun '13

Our apologies for crossposting. Please consider submitting your work or passing this message on to someone you know who might be interested. Call for Papers: Workshop on “Ubiquitous games and gamification for promoting behavior change and wellbeing” - http://www.monicatentori.com/ubigames4health/ When: September 16 Where: Trento, Italy @ CHItaly 2013 - http://chitaly2013.disi.unitn.it/ Paper submission instructions: Papers should be submitted through EasyChair system (https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=ubigames4health) and should follow the HCI Extended Abstract format for up to 4 pages ( http://chi2013.acm.org/authors/format/#archiveformat) Paper submission deadline: June 30 Notification of acceptance: July 19 Camera ready: August 16 Games constitute a basic component of human experience in all cultures and they typically involve mental and/or physical stimulation. This motivated researchers to explore the fusion of game-based approaches and modern technologies for maintaining and regaining both physical and mental wellbeing. In particular, Gamification and Serious game-based approaches have demonstrated a great potential of promoting well-being and physical activity, and transforming the prevention, management and treatment of diseases into a fun experience. Such relatively new concepts have opened an interdisciplinary research avenue that focuses on the employment of interactive technologies for stimulating a positive change in behavior. The domain of Ubiquitous Computing plays an important role by providing effective methods for analyzing human behavior, for assessing the level of positive change in healthy behavior, for evaluating user experience, for recognizing user performance in games, for connecting activities using game elements and in general for providing the link between physical and virtual world. Putting a user in the game context (which includes goals, rules, challenges and interactions) while monitoring real environment and tracking the user behavior provide a framework that offers an immense number of opportunities for stimulating a healthy life-style as well as for the rehabilitation of motor and cognitive functions. The goal of this workshop is to create a collaborative platform among experts from the game industry, healthcare, HCI, and UbiComp related domains to see where ubiquitous games can influence the attitudes, health and behaviors of people, and how can they be used to change human behavior to promote wellbeing. The workshop invites academic researchers and industry practitioners to submit contributions on innovative solutions, concepts, hardware/software and services for maintaining or regaining physical and mental health. The topics of special interest include (but are not limited to): - Gamification for health related applications, to promote exercise and physical activity - Ubiquitous games interaction experiences to promote health - Automatic assessment of motor functions - Evaluation of emotional response in ubiquitous designs - Serious games for wellbeing - Games and Virtual environments for cognitive stimulation and rehabilitation - Supporting long-term home-based physical/cognitive rehabilitation - Ubiquitous interactive designs that promote social inclusion of elderly and people with cognitive disabilities - Ubiquitous games that observe and promote health - Recognition of behaviors, gestures and playful interactions for ubiquitous games - Technologies that promote sustainable behavior interfaces for gamification - Gamification design experiences - Case studies of use of gamification in industry and healthcare Technical Program Chairs: Nadia Berthouze, UCL Interaction Centre Stefano De Paoli, Fondazione <ahref Michela Ferron, Fondazione Bruno Kessler Yongqiang Lyu, Tsinghua University Paolo Massa, Fondazione Bruno Kessler Sergio F. Ochoa, University of Chile Monica Tentori, CICESE

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2013 AoIR Dissertation Award Announcement
by Kendall, Lori 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

I am pleased to announce the recipient of this year’s AoIR Dissertation Award. The award-winning dissertation, “Programmed sociality: A software studies perspective on social networking sites,” was written by Taina Bucher. Bucher received her PhD from the University of Oslo and is currently a Research Fellow in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo. Her dissertation examines the connections between social networking software and sociality, looking in particular at the ways that software influences norms and forms of social life. I would also like to congratulate Lauren Sessions Goulet and Yukari Seko, who each received Honorable Mentions from the committee. Goulet received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her dissertation is titled “Friends in all the right places: Social resources and geography in the age of social network sites.” She currently works as a researcher at Facebook. Seko received her PhD from York University with a dissertation titled “Wound uploaders: Visual narratives of self-injury on social media.” She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Toronto. As chair of the Dissertation Award committee, I would also like to extend my thanks to the committee members: David Brake, Caroline Haythornthwaite, and Erika Pearson. We received thirty-five dissertations, a significant increase over last year. We were quite impressed with the high quality and great variety of the dissertations. Please join me in congratulating Drs. Bucher, Goulet and Seko! Lori ____________________________________________________________ Lori Kendall Vice President, Association of Internet Researchers Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign loriken at illinois.edu

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Chris
by Chris 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

gxoa http://cigarette-rolling-tobacco.com/qp/szbng/pfhss/pxqd.htm Chris tfgn

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Re: [Air-L] NSA and privacy?
by William Bain 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

This is in a general way but I think interesting to all. It seems to me to underline the interdisciplinary nature of the idea of privacy. It's an article in The New York Times penned by the philosopher Peter Ludlow, key feature of which (in my humble) is the underlying multiple definitions of government (in Platonic garb, perhaps). Anyway, I'm sure many have already seen the article, if not, the link is below my name. Best wishes, William http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/the-real-war-on-reality/?hp

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Call for reviewers -- HICSS Social Networking and Communities minitrack
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

Hi all. We have an overwhelming response to our minitrack for the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences and are looking for new (or renewing) reviewers. To give you a flavor for the kind of papers there is an overview of the minitrack below. These will be full papers, no longer than 10 pages (in 10 pt). Reviews will be due end of July. If you are interested in reviewing, please send me an email with your name, institution (if any), position (student, faculty, other), and 3-5 keywords to describe the areas you feel most competent reviewing. Please also indicate if you are able to review 1, 2 or 3 papers. Thanks to volunteers in advance. /Caroline Caroline Haythornthwaite SLAIS, The iSchool at UBC c.haythorn(a)ubc.ca http://haythorn.wordpress.com/ Social Networking and Communities minitrack in the Digital and Social Media track http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/hicss_47/dsm.html The focus of this mintrack is primarily on social media and their interrelations with communities (online and offline) in the context of work, personal life, and education. We would like to attract papers that address issues of social media and online communities of practice, inquiry and interest; social, political and economic social media sustained and/or augmented communities. By ‘communities’, we include communities of practice, epistemic communities, communities of inquiry; as well as fully virtual communities, and social media use that supports or complements geographically based community. Social media use for maintenance of interpersonal and communal relations, real-time updates of local activity, and awareness and social network building is rapidly expanding. Community building and community management can be key success factors in the society, encompassing work, education, social life, and play. An understanding of design of technologies and practices, and the networks and behaviors emerging from the use of such media can play an important role in creating and sustaining effective educational, social, political and economic practices in the 21st century.

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NSA and privacy?
by Seda Guerses 17 Jun '13

17 Jun '13

dear robert, i am responding to this note with a bit of delay, mostly because of the unfolding of events in turkey, and, yet, i think this is all related. in other words, i believe that the nsa leaks could and probably should make us look at assumptions about social media, web services, surveillance etc. in our research. on a related note, my colleague claudia diaz and i authored a paper [1] on a divide in privacy research on online social networks based in computer science. one approach takes as its basis government surveillance and threat models for studying privacy problems in online social networks and proposing solutions. the other approach concentrates on online social networks as mainly consumer services and privacy as the problem of negotiating personal boundaries between users or making informed decisions with respect to it. we found that a similar analysis of a division in research was given by kate raynes goldie in her thesis [1]. we argued that the two approaches abstract each other away and research in computer science could benefit if we could better integrate the diversity of concerns (surveillance, social privacy, institutional privacy but also other matters). surely internet researchers have been more differentiated about the relationship between government surveillance and online web services, but it would be lovely to hear, if anybody has put any of this and its effects on internet research on paper? or, if any of you had ideas on how to bring these issues together in internet research? i also say these things are related as the turkish government has announced today that it will make new laws to go after social media users that distribute "provocative and false" news, and another turkish company announced that it has suspended its services in turkey since they do not want to comply with the government's requirement to give the authorities physical access to their network data (an foia request has already been submitted) [3]. while the former may be specific to turkey, the latter is a re-instantiation of prism in other countries. given these announcements, protesters using social media have turned to various tactical communication methods some of which were discussed by alternetif bilisim [4]. it would be great to get references to recent studies on tactical media use of social media or to meet with others who are thinking about these questions. so, if you are interested, please do let me know. best, s. [1] http://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-2270.pdf [2] http://www.k4t3.org/2012/09/13/privacy-in-the-age-of-facebook-discourse-arc… [3] http://www.tulumba.com/newsletter/newsletter_e.html [4] http://www.alternatifbilisim.org/wiki/An_analysis_of_Gezi_Parki Message: 4 Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 16:04:49 -0400 From: nativebuddha <nativebuddha(a)gmail.com> To: "air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org" <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] NSA and privacy? Message-ID: <CFB2A49A-0D1D-4C82-A4CE-9C9A861B137D(a)gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Surprised that there's no discussion here on NSA and metadata collection. Seems like prime aoir material. Maybe some privacy scholars and cryptography experts can give some expert comments? -Robert

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Call for Papers:15th Intl Conference on Presence (ISPR 2014)
by lombard＠temple.edu 16 Jun '13

16 Jun '13

Call for Papers ISPR 2014: The 15th International Conference on Presence International Society for Presence Research Vienna, AUSTRIA March 17th - 19th 2014 http://presence2014.univie.ac.at Following a series of 14 successful PRESENCE conferences, ISPR 2014: The 15th International Conference on Presence will retain the single-track format and pleasant social environment of previous conferences while featuring expanded oral presentations, poster presentations, panels, keynote presentations and hands-on demonstrations of presence applications, services and projects. --> The concept of Presence: Presence is commonly referred to as a sense of "being there" in a technologically mediated environment and more formally as the perceptual illusion of non-mediation. In other words, the user of an artificial environment fails to accurately and completely acknowledge the role of technology in his/her experience and thus, feels and behaves in this environment as if it was `real´: for instance, we feel and act as if we´re actually with colleagues, friends and family when we use an increasing variety of conferencing technologies; we treat computer generated virtual agents as if they are sentient social entities even though we know they are not; we feel afraid of a virtual spider crawling over our hand or of an abyss opening up beneath us even though we are in fact aware that neither the spider nor the abyss exist; we like to be thrilled and deceived by 3D IMAX films which make us feel as if we are flying over the Grand Canyon or through outer space; and we `get lost´ in TV-shows, movies and videogames. The vast benefits and implications of the Presence experience for various areas of life are still to be revealed. To date, the advantages of this `as-if´ experience are broadly used in education and training: doctors learn how to operate on difficult injuries using simulators, students visit virtual classrooms, pilots train their reactions to critical situations via virtual reality, and post traumatic stress disorder patients learn to deal with their traumatic experience by being confronted step by step to the traumatic event, which to them - even though it is virtual - feels real. Presence is a rich, fascinating subject of scientific investigation, artistic exploration and technological development and design, with increasingly important implications for the ways in which people work, play and live. Today, Presence phenomena are the subject of research and theory in communication, computer science, psychology, business, philosophy as well as many other scientific and humanities fields; and they are a great challenge for designers and developers, who are trying to refine technology in order to create the most compelling and convincing - the `optimal´ - Presence experience. --> Topics: We seek original, high quality papers and demonstrations that contribute to our collective understanding of the power and breadth of presence phenomena and presence applications in any/every aspect of life. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Presence theory * Measures of presence * Presence and emotion * Presence and education * Presence and social interaction * Gender and Presence * Neuroscience approaches to Presence * Presence in gaming and entertainment * Philosophical perspectives on presence * Ethics of presence * Presence technologies and applications (e.g. in business, arts, medicine and therapy) * The future of presence research All accepted papers will be collected in the official conference proceedings (with ISBN) and will be permanently available for download in the ISPR conference archive. --> Conference Format: ISPR 2014 will have an interactive single-track format in which all participants (attendees, presenters, speakers, keynote speakers) attend each of the sessions as well as social events, allowing participants to exchange ideas and build knowledge together as the conference progresses. The first two days will feature oral presentations, panels and keynote presentations on a variety of topics designed to provide focused educational experiences on subjects related to presence technology, theory and measurement. Additionally, a poster session will allow insights into ongoing presence related projects. The final day of the conference will feature additional academic presentations as well as hands on presentations of presence applications and technologies. The language of the conference is English. --> Venue: The conference will be held at the University of Vienna in Austria (www.univie.ac.at) Founded in 1365 it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and with approximately 91000 students one of the largest in Central Europe. As the capital and largest city in Austria Vienna is regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy. It is furthermore known for being the home of Sigmund Freund, the founder of psychoanalysis. The city is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque buildings, castles and gardens as well as Romanesque churches and art nouveau structures and offers a great opportunity to dive into the cultural richness of European art and music. --> Accommodations: A number of hotels with specially discounted rates for conference attendees will be available. --> Registration: Registration will be available online. Fees, which will include meals and social events, will be at or below those for previous ISPR PRESENCE conferences. Every effort will be made to reduce fees for participating academics, and particularly for students. --> Submissions: We invite researchers and practitioners to submit their work in the categories below. Note that all submissions are to be in APA format and (with the exception of panel proposals) not identify the author(s) directly or indirectly (for blind peer review). PAPERS: Comprehensive descriptions of research or design work and/or theoretical investigation within the scope of the conference. Papers must relate to existing literature on presence and make an original contribution to it. Accepted papers will be included in the Proceedings and will be allocated time for oral presentation. SHORT PAPERS: Short papers may be up to 10 pages in APA format. Accepted papers will be included in the Proceedings and will be allocated time for oral presentation. PANELS: Sets of presentations on a single theme or topic within the scope of the conference. Submitters are encouraged to be creative regarding both the topic or theme and the format for panel proposals (formats that encourage guided discussion are particularly welcome). Panel proposals must identify and provide contact information for all proposed participants. Accepted panels will be included in the Proceedings. POSTERS: Visual display presentations. Poster proposals must describe and/or contain early drafts of the visual display. Accepted poster abstracts will be published in the conference Proceedings. Posters shall be in a DIN A0 (84.1 x 118.9 cm) format as they will be displayed on a board during a dedicated session of the conference. Each poster will be allocated a 2 minute oral preview. DEMONSTRATIONS/EXHIBITIONS: Step-by-step audiovisual demonstrations and/or hands-on experiences of non-commercial work within the scope of the conference. Accepted demonstration/exhibition proposals will be included in the conference Proceedings and will be presented during dedicated sessions of the conference. For the exhibitions of commercial products, please contact us for sponsorship terms and opportunities: Mareike Schmidt & Johanna Kafka Faculty of Psychology University of Vienna Liebiggasse 5/ 3 1010 Wien E: presence2014(a)univie.ac.at All submissions are to be made through the EasyChair conference online submission system (a corresponding link will be available on the conference web site: http://presence2014.univie.ac.at) Each submission will undergo a double-blind peer-review process by at least two selected reviewers. --> Important Dates: August 15th 2013 - Early registration opens August 30th 2013 - Submission deadline October 31st 2013 - Notification of acceptance decisions November 30th 2013 - Finished, camera-ready papers due January 15th 2014 - Early registration closes March 17th - 19th 2014 - Conference --> Conference Committee: Conference Chair/Hosts: Anna Felnhofer, Oswald D. Kothgassner (University of Vienna) Co-Chairs: Ilse Kryspin-Exner, Helmut Hlavacs (University of Vienna) The Program Committee members are prominent members of ISPR. --> For more Information: Web Site: http://presence2014.univie.ac.at E-Mail: presence2014(a)univie.ac.at --> About ISPR: The International Society for Presence Research (ISPR) is a non-profit membership organization founded in 2002 to support academic research related to the concept of (tele)presence. It publishes ISPR Presence News, which features news stories about presence; calls for participation in various presence-related conferences, publications and projects; job opportunities; and more, and is available in various formats (RSS feed; individual item and daily or weekly digest email; Twitter; Facebook). The ISPR web site - http://ispr.info - serves as a resource for those who conduct research, develop theory, design, market, write about, or simply are interested in, the concept and phenomena of presence. We encourage your questions, contributions, comments and suggestions (email: ispr(a)ispr.info) -- Matthew Lombard, Ph.D. Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA lombard(a)temple.edu http://matthewlombard.com

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