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PhD scholarships at Sheffield, UK
by Andrew M Cox 22 Dec '12

22 Dec '12

The University of Sheffield Information School invites applications for PhD scholarships in any of its research areas that include information seeking and retrieval, information management, information systems, and librarianship. Deadline: February 1, 2013, 12 noon (GMT). Who is eligible? UK/EU nationals only Scholarships: - one Full Scholarship, including Fees, Maintenance (around £13,700) and a £750 per year Research Training Support Grant; - one Fees only Scholarship (value= approx. £4,000) - one partial Fees Scholarship (value=approx. £2,000), Criteria for award: · academic success and qualification (e.g., success in academic competitions, awards and/or previous assessment); · research experience of candidate (e.g., evidence of publications, experience as research assistant, etc.); · well articulated research problem (which emphasises also the value of the research to be undertaken); · an outline of research methods (that also shows awareness of the need for timely completion); · good match between the student’s proposed research, the supervisor’s expertise and the departmental research portfolio and research strategy. Along with your application form, please provide two academic references, your academic transcripts and your research proposal. Details on how to apply can be found at http://www.shef.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/scholarships. Alternatively, please email Matt Jones at ispgr(a)sheffield.ac.uk for further information about the application process, or one of the academic staff with whom you wish to work http://shef.ac.uk/is/staff.

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Dodson Visiting Professor of Information Studies, UBC
by Caroline Haythornthwaite 21 Dec '12

21 Dec '12

We are pleased to announce the call for applications for the 2013-14 Dodson Visiting Professor of Information Studies. This visiting position provides support for a scholar to pursue research and engage with faculty at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, the iSchool at UBC. The advertisement is produced below and also attached. /Caroline Caroline Haythornthwaite Director and Professor SLAIS, The iSchool at UBC c.haythorn(a)ubc.ca Dodson Visiting Professor of Information Studies Deadline: March 1, 2013 The University of British Columbia holds an international reputation for excellence in advanced research and learning. It is located in Vancouver, Canada, one of the world’s most beautiful and culturally diverse cities. SLAIS, the iSchool at UBC, is pleased to invite applications for the Dodson Visiting Professorship named in honour of Suzanne and Earl Dodson. This is a competitive position that provides funds to enable the successful candidate to spend an extended period of time, normally an academic term, engaged in research and teaching at the iSchool and with the iSchool and UBC Community. Academics at all levels from all countries are encouraged to apply. Applicants will normally hold a doctoral degree, and currently be employed in an institution of higher education. This year’s call is for a Visiting Professor in Information Studies, who will bring expertise and an active record of scholarship in information studies or one of the many sub-fields within this broad area of research. Preference will be given to candidates who have a proven track record of high quality research and experience in teaching and mentorship. This is an opportunity to work with well-known senior scholars at the iSchool as well as an outstanding group of junior faculty members active in areas such as human computer interaction, information behaviour, information policy, and knowledge organization. While all applications will be considered, preference will be given to candidates whose research interests align with those of one or more faculty members within the iSchool. This Visiting Professorship offers the opportunity to interact with the talented and engaged students in the MLIS Program by teaching up to two courses. The Professor will be fully integrated into the research culture at the iSchool and will be expected to attend research talks and events, interact with doctoral students and present his or her research at a colloquium, open to members of the iSchool and the community. . The Dodson Visiting Professorship funds this position for one term in the amount of $15,000, which can be supplemented through teaching (up to two 3-credit courses) to reach $30,000. Kindly address all enquiries and applications, comprising a letter of interest and a current CV, to: Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite Director – SLAIS, the iSchool at UBC The University of British Columbia The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Suite 470, 1961 East Mall Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1 CANADA Closing date: Review of applications will begin on March 1st 2013 and continue until the visiting professorship has been awarded. Start date: Either September 3th 2013 or January 6th 2014

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Book on eBay, brand cultures, and identities
by Michele White 21 Dec '12

21 Dec '12

Hi Folks, While we are considering the ways femininities, feminism, and postfeminism are incorporated into Internet cultures, I thought that I should mention my recent book: Buy It Now: Lessons from eBay (Duke University Press, 2012). I have chapters on the ways members respond to eBay’s normative conceptions of identity by selling their wedding dresses, “gay interest” underwear, and gay and “lesbian interest” vintage photography. I also consider how women self-represent and their sexualities are regulated on craigslist. Thanks to all the AoIR people who supported this project! Here is the book description and chapter list: In Buy It Now, Michele White examines eBay and its emphasis on community and social norms, revealing the cultural assumptions about gender, race, and sexuality that are reinforced throughout the site. She shows how instructional texts, rule systems, and advertisements "configure the user," allowing eBay to indicate how the site is supposed to function while also upholding particular values and practices. White details how eBay reinforces stereotypes about gender and sexuality, looking, for example, at descriptions included in wedding dress listings, and how eBay directs individuals to the "Adult Only" part of the website when they use the search terms "gay" and "lesbian." She discloses the ways that eBay promises a caring community but its "Black Americana" category reproduces racism by allowing sellers' narratives that excuse and romanticize slavery and insult African Americans. White also looks at how participants challenge eBay's categories, rules, and values, examining widely used strategies of resistance by sellers and buyers in the lesbian and gay interest listings. By analyzing the organizational and cultural logics present in eBay, White emphasizes how other Internet settings, including craigslist, are not as transparent, community-oriented, and empowering as they claim. She proposes methods for researching and reconceptualizing new media sites. Introduction. Lessons and Methods from eBay 1. Between Security and Distrust: eBay's Brand, Fan, and Virtual Communities 2. Pins, Cards, and Griffith's Jacket: Producing Identity and Brand Communities through eBay Live! Conferences and Collecting 3. You Can "Get It On" eBay: Selling Gender, Sexuality, and Organized Logic through the Interface 4. eBay's Visible Masculinities: "Gay" and "Gay Interest" Listings and the Politics of Describing 5. eBay Boys Will Be Lesbians: Viewing "Lesbian" and "Lesbian Interest" Vintage Photography Listings 6. Re-collecting Black Americana: "Absolutely Derogatory" Objects and Narratives from eBay's Community Afterword. Everything in Moderation: The Regulating Aspects of craigslist and the Moral Assertions of "Community Flagging" Warmly, Michele

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CFP Movement, Aesthetics, Ontology Conference, 16-17 May 2013, Turku
by Tero Karppi 21 Dec '12

21 Dec '12

** ** * please circulate - apologies for cross-postings ***** ** ** *Call for Papers***** ** ** *MOVEMENT, AESTHETICS, ONTOLOGY***** **** *IV Annual Conference on the New Materialisms***** * ***** *16–17 May 2013, School of History, Culture and Arts Studies, University of Turku, Finland***** **** **** New materialist approaches are increasingly announced, articulated, exercised and contested across a gamut of often entwining research fields from art theory, media studies and feminist philosophy to sociology, gender and sexuality research, and science and environmental studies. In addition to the cross-evolving discussions in these areas, there is growing need to consider the connections but also specificity of new materialisms in relation to many contemporaneous intellectual developments, such as new forms of realism or post-human(ist) thought. Given these conditions, the fourth international conference on the new materialisms suggests that it is crucial to steer clear of “a manifesto quality” when arguing for the distinctiveness and cutting-edge relevance of new materialist approaches, a risk perceptively noted by Barbara Bolt (2013). Instead, theorists and practitioners involved in this endeavour need to inquire with insistence, rigour and creativity what might be the distinguishing *concepts* of new materialisms, accompanied by associated problems, theoretical inspirations, methodological choices, and socio-political, ethical significances.**** **** To encourage inquiries of this kind, the conference at the University of Turkuinvites scholars and postgraduate students of wide (trans-)disciplinary diversity to submit proposals for 20 minute presentations and for panels ofmaximum four papers in reference to *three concepts. *Variations of them seem to inform much of the research done in the name of new materialisms orlinkable with these approaches. The concepts are *movement, aesthetics, *and* ontology*. Far from serving as prescriptive closures to what new materialisms involve, the concepts are offered here as condensation points of concerns that incarnate very differently depending on the context in which they are engaged. Yet, they are among the notions that arguably bring substance and consistency to new materialist modes of thinking and intervention – in ways both currently manifest and yet to be discovered. Movement pertains, for example, to the primacy given in many new materialist pursuits to process, emergence and the vibrancy of matter, whereas aesthetics may refer to the importance of sensation, affect, inter-/amodality or new sense- and feeling-based conceptions of politics. Ontology implicates a range of neomaterialist themes and affiliations from nature–culture continua to non-representational thought.**** **** ******* **** We look forward to receiving contributions of theoretical, empirical, practice-based and activist orientation that somehow explore, assess, elaborate or connectthese concepts with regard to the formative stages, recent actualizations and future potential of new materialisms. The work of our distinguished keynotespeakers is exemplary of the ways in which movement, aesthetics and ontology matter to and through new materialist examinations of the arts, the body, gender, technology, entanglements of materiality and sociality, and human–non-human relations.**** **** Topics of the presentation and panel proposals may include, as well as go beyond, thefollowing:**** **** - continua of theory and practice; art and philosophy; material and social**** - methodologies: how to study processes, relations, affect, the new?*** * - new or radical empiricism: how to take account of emergence and complexity?**** - revisiting aesthetics and politics**** - ontologies of art, object, sex, work, medium, etc.**** - neomaterialist analysis of social mobilities, activism, and economies **** - multisensory/intermodal movements of thinking and knowing**** **** **** *Confirmed keynote speakers***** **** Estelle Barrett (Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University, Australia)**** Barbara Bolt (Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia)* *** Patricia Pisters (Media and Film Studies, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)**** Jukka Sihvonen (History, Culture & Arts Studies, University of Turku, Finland)**** Iris van der Tuin (Gender Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands)**** Cecilia Åsberg (Posthuman Hub, Linköping University, Sweden)**** *Proposals for panels and individual papers***** Abstracts should be sent in the following format: (1) Title (2) Presenter(s) (3) Institutional affiliation (4) Email (5) Abstract (individual proposals: 200–300 words; panel proposals: general description of 150–200 words, 200–300 words for each paper)**** Please use your surname as the document title. Abstracts for panels and twenty-minute presentations should be submitted as an email attachment to 4thconference(a)newmaterialism.eu by* Monday 4 February 2013*. We are happy to consider both established and alternative presentation formats from academic papers to illustrations of artistic research practice, performance-talks, etc. We will advise all proposers of accepted presentations within two weeks of the deadline.**** *Attendance and accommodation***** Attendance at this conference is free of charge. University of Turku cannot provide orbook accommodation for presenters, but the conference website at http://movementaestheticsontology.wordpress.com/ will include information about possible places to stay in Turku once notifications of acceptance have been posted.**** *This conference is associated with the following conference series:***** - The international conference series on New Materialisms. The first conference ”New Materialisms and Digital Culture” was held at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge in June 2010 and the second ”Naturecultures” at the Utrecht University in April 2011. The third conference ”Entanglements of New Materialisms” was organized by Linköping University in May 2012. The keynote speakers of these events have included, among others, Stacy Alamo, Donna Haraway, Vicky Kirby, Adrian MacKenzie and Anna Powell. This event is the 4th New Materialisms conference.**** - Rethinking Art Studies (REARS) conference series. The first conference ”Regulated Liberties: Negotiating Freedom in Art, Culture and Media” was held at the University of Turku in August 2009. Keynote speakers included Bracha Ettinger, Brian Massumi and Tiina Rosenberg. This event is the 2nd REARS conference.****

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facebook funded research
by S.Livingstone＠lse.ac.uk 20 Dec '12

20 Dec '12

Dear AOIR Some time ago, Facebook offered a set of research grants. I'm curious to learn what resulted from these, and how the process of working with Facebook went, from a researcher viewpoint. Best, Sonia Sonia Livingstone Professor, Department of Media and Communications, Room S105, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK Project director, EU Kids Online - See latest reports and get updates at www.eukidsonline.net <http://www.eukidsonline.net/> Project, The Class - see http://clrn.dmlhub.net/ <http://clrn.dmlhub.net/> Web: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/whosWho/AcademicStaff/SoniaLivingstone <http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/whosWho/AcademicStaff/SoniaLivingstone> Recent books: Children, Risk and Safety Online (Policy, 2012, with Leslie Haddon and Anke Görzig), Media Regulation (Sage, 2012, with Peter Lunt) Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer

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Open invitation - Onlife Manifesto - February 8, 2013, Brussels
by Charles Ess 20 Dec '12

20 Dec '12

Dear AoIRists, Especially those of you somewhat in the neighborhood might be interested in this event. (Several AoIRists are on the Working Group, FWIW: <https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/workshop-members>) The ³Onlife Manifesto²: Being human in a hyperconnected era, February 8, 2013 | 25, avenue de Beaulieu | Brussels What does it mean to be human in the computational era? How can we experience freedom and plurality in a hyperconnected reality? Is the public/private distinction still relevant? How can we endorse and attribute responsibilities in a world where artefacts become agents? It is often thought that philosophy is a luxury for persons who enjoy the beauty of the world of ideas, only. However, answers to philosophical questions such as the ones above, have concrete and direct implications on the design of policy frameworks. The deployment and uptake of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has a radical impact on the human condition, insofar as they modify relationships to ourselves, to others and to the world. In order to explore the policy-relevant consequences of the changes brought about by hyperconnectivity, a group of scholars in anthropology, cognitive science, computer science, engineering, law, neuroscience, philosophy, political science, psychology and sociology initiated a collective thought exercise, the Onlife Initiative. The group, chaired by Prof Luciano Floridi - Professor of Philosophy, UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics at the University of Hertfordshire and Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford- has chosen to publish the Onlife Manifesto, which reviews the referential frameworks on which policies are built. This document will be released on the 8th of February so as to contribute to the debate on the impacts of the hyperconnected era on public spaces, politics and societal expectations. This one-day event will be moderated in the morning by Mr Robert Madelin, Director General of DG CONNECT, and in the afternoon by Mr Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau, Deputy Head of Cabinet of EC Vice President Neelie Kroes, in presence of very distinguished speakers from the academic, non-governmental, business and policy-making worlds. Come, discover and react to the Onlife Manifesto Engage and discuss societal expectations for policy-making in a hyperconnected world! More information on the programme soon | Free registration - Webstreaming foreseen | 120 places available: first come first serve! To register and for information : nicole.dewandre(a)ec.europa.eu With all best wishes, charles ess -- Associate Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/> University of Oslo P.O. Box 1093 Blindern NO-0317 Oslo Norway email: charles.ess(a)media.uio.no

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How do medical professionals perceive the Internet interactions of patients?
by DOGA OZVEREN 20 Dec '12

20 Dec '12

>> Dear colleagues >> >> I am a PhD student in Media and Communications Department at London School of Economics. >> >> I focus on how psychiatrists perceive the Internet interactions of patients. I am conducting my literature review, however, I couldn't find any directly related academic article to my research subject. Therefore, I decided to conduct a wider literature review focusing on how medical professionals in general perceive the Internet interactions of patients. >> >> Can you please recommend me some academic articles, book chapters..etc. related to my research subject? >> >> Best regards >> Doga

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InMedia Issue 2 (Internet Studies in Europe CR)
by Mathieu ONeil 20 Dec '12

20 Dec '12

Hi all The second issue of InMedia (The French Journal of Media and Media Representations in the English-Speaking World) has just come out. It is dedicated to representations of masculinity in the media. The full table of contents can be seen at <http://inmedia.revues.org/301> People on this list may be especially interested in the following conference report: "Internet Studies in Europe: First Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society: Exploring the Digital Future, 25-28 October 2011, Humboldt University, Berlin; Fourth ICTs and Society-Conference: Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of Social Media, 2-4 May 2012, Uppsala University" <http://inmedia.revues.org/489> cheers Mathieu

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Re: [Air-L] Smartphone apps & relationships
by Julie Frizzo-Barker 20 Dec '12

20 Dec '12

Hello Ramsin, With regards to your study of smartphones and relationships, you may be interested in the latest special issue of Feminist Media Studies, "Mobile Intimacies." http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfms20/12/4 Peter Chow-White and I co-authored a paper in this issue called "'There's an App for That': Mediating Mobile Moms and Connected Careerists through Smartphones and Networked Individualism" which may relate to your project. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2012.741876 All the best, Julie Julie Frizzo-Barker PhD Student School of Communication Simon Fraser University @frizzbarks <http://www.twitter.com/frizzbarks>

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Social media and postfeminism?
by Tyler Bickford 19 Dec '12

19 Dec '12

Hi all, Can anyone direct me to scholarship linking social networking sites and postfeminism? Or better, arguing that certain phenomena of social media reflect a postfeminist sensibility? I'm thinking in particular of issues like self-branding, self-commodification, the public performance of private/intimate experience, and the critique of empowerment-through-consumption that seem to come up regularly in regard to both topics. For one example, Rob Horning frames his critique of Facebook in "Facebook in the Age of Facebook" (http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/facebook-in-the-age-of-facebook/) as a symptom of neoliberalism, but it seems to me like some of the phenomena he's pointing to are also characteristic of postfeminism, and I wonder if there's a gender critique here? I've seen arguments that the growth of the service sector under neoliberalism reflects a sort of "feminization" of labor (though I'd like to disavow that phrase a bit). Or also the converse, Arlie Hochschild's arguments about the "commercialization of intimate life." Both perspectives seems relevant to social networking sites, where the immaterial labor that users produce is perhaps also gendered in similar ways? That is, rather than gendered practices *within* Facebook, maybe I'm asking about Facebook etc *as* a potentially gendered practice. And then maybe Horning and others' desperation about inauthenticity can be seen as at least homologous with anxious narratives about labor precarity and male decline in the "new economy"? So perhaps my question is: postfeminism and neoliberalism have been linked, and neoliberalism and social media have been linked, but do we have to go through neoliberalism to connect the two, or has anyone directly linked social media practices to the postfeminist sensibility? Apologies for the long post. This is coming from a place of ignorance, so please excuse me if I've missed anything obvious. Thank you for your help!! Best wishes, Tyler ________ Tyler Bickford, PhD Core Lecturer Columbia University tb2139(a)columbia.edu 845-418-4049 http://www.tylerbickford.com

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