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UPDATE: CFP: Computer Culture (SW/TX PCA/ACA Conference, February 13-16, 2013)
by Andrew Shi-hwa Chen 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association February 13-16, 2013 Albuquerque, New Mexico http://www.swtxpca.org Proposal submission deadline: November 16, 2012 Conference hotel: Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center 330 Tijeras Ave NW Albuquerque, NM 87102 Phone: +1 505 842 1234 Computer Culture: Call for Papers We are accepting papers and forming panels for the area of Computer Culture, as one of the many areas within the 34th annual conference of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association (SW/TX PCA/ACA). Computer is broadly defined as any computational device, whether smartphone or abacus, and any form of information technology, including the origins of concepts of interactive text which may predate computational devices as traditionally conceived. Culture is rooted in the concept of cultural meaning. We ask not just operational questions such as, "How do people communicate using computers?" but questions of meaning such as, "What does it mean when people communicate using computers instead of using pre-computer approaches to communication?" "Computer Culture" can be understood in a variety of ways: - the culture of the computer, that is, as computers interact with each other, what culture do they have of their own? - the culture around the computer, that is, (sub)cultures associated with the production, maintenance, use, and destruction of computers - the culture through the computer, that is, explicit treatment of how computer mediation influences cultural phenomena that exist or has existed in forms that did not involve computer mediation, and what these influences mean - the culture by the computer, that is, the ways in which new (sub)cultures or (sub)cultural phenomena have arisen because of computers and understandings of these given awareness of the nature and/or workings of computers Example questions associated with Computer Culture would include, but not be limited to: * What implications are there because of the powerfulness of (computer/information) technology ___ and are these implications beneficial, detrimental, inevitable, or avoidable? * What are the cultural origins of computers, computer/information technologies, and practices (such as ____ ) associated with them? What is the descriptive and prescriptive outlook for the conditions of those cultural forces associated with those cultural origins? * How do cultural forces (such as changes from one generation to the next, trends in education or society, or other cultural phenomena) impact (and are impacted by) computer/information technologies/market-forces, and what do these impacts (in either direction or both) mean? Paper topics might include (but are not limited to) those that address: - issues of (re)presentation through computers (Web site analysis and design), - methods of discourse involving computers (blogging, Twitter, social networks, viral video, live feeds), - theories focused on the relationship between computers and culture, - uses of computers in particular contexts and the impacts thereof (computers and pedagogy, online literary journals), - the relationship between computers and cultural forces (such as news, politics, and terrorism), - security/privacy/fraud and computers (online security issues, spam, scams, and hoaxes), - and others. While we will consider any relevant paper, we have a preference for those that involve transferable methodological approaches. This is an interdisciplinary conference, and other conference attendees would benefit from being able to adapt your research methods to their future research. Scholars, teachers, professionals, artists, and others interested in computer culture are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are also particularly welcome with award opportunities for best graduate papers. More information about awards can be found at http://www.swtxpca.org/documents/48.html Specifically, we would like to highlight the following award opportunities: The "Computer Culture and Game Studies Award" : http://www.swtxpca.org/documents/112.html#ComputerCultureAward_Bookmark The "Heldrich-Dvorak Travel Fellowship" : http://www.swtxpca.org/documents/113.html Given how papers may often fall into multiple categories, there may be other award opportunities listed at http://www.swtxpca.org/documents/112.html which would be appropriate for your paper. (However, each presenter may only apply for one.) If you wish to form your own panel, we would be glad to facilitate your needs. Please pass along this call to friends and colleagues. For early consideration, submit 100-200 word abstracts and proposals for panels by 16 November 2012 to the conference electronic submission system which can be found at: http://conference2013.swtxpca.org/ If you have any questions, contact the Computer Culture area co-chairs, Andrew Chen (andrewsw(a)gmail.com) and Joseph Chaney (jchaney(a)iusb.edu)

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CFP: ICT and Work: the United States at the Origin of the Dissemination of Digital Capitalism
by Mathieu ONeil 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

*Apologies for multiple posts* Call for Submissions Interdisciplinary Conference HDEA – TCS ICT and Work: the United States at the Origin of the Dissemination of Digital Capitalism Université Paris Sorbonne, 29-30 May 2013 Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have revolutionized work practices: the acquisition, processing and storage of data thanks to hardware, software, and networks have changed the face of work in offices and factories. Their impact has been felt beyond the walls of traditional companies’ spaces, resulting in the modification of time and space constraints at work and in the constant blurring of the frontier between private and work life. The impact of ICT is often viewed in Manichean terms: some exalt the benefits of new technologies in terms of gains in interactivity, autonomy and creativity for employees, including atypical employees such as “independent contractors”, while others warn against increased stress due to constant demands, real-time control of working activities and surveillance of workplace interactions. While pros and cons of the use of ICT at work are widely debated, there is markedly less interrogation of what has made its existence and dissemination possible. The global dimension of professional uses of ICTs makes them look universal and, so to speak, ahistorical. Yet these uses have a precise origin: individuals have elaborated, reoriented, and disseminated these new techniques in specific places and at identifiable moments. Some of these practices refer directly to US cultural practices and ideologies. Moreover, the growing adoption of ICTs goes hand in hand with deep changes in labor markets such as flexibility, cost-cutting, casualization of work and deregulation, which ICTs have contributed to amplify, a phenomenon largely originating in the US. Further, the United States has continued to play a major role in the development, the dissemination and the control of ICTs, while the extension of the mediasphere has been accompanied by a corresponding extension of the anglosphere. It is therefore indispensible to re-territorialize the issue of ICTs. What have been, historically, the economic and sociological bases for the development and dissemination into the work sphere of those technologies, which carry with them the “new spirit of capitalism” (Boltanski and Chiappello 1999), or “digital capitalism” (Schiller 1999), but also that of freeware and digital commons such as Wikipedia. How did they interact, in synergy and conflict, with other social facts? The globalization of practices also raises the issue of interculturality, as various cultures become involved in a process of appropriation and modification of the globalized US culture, which ICTs have been so influential in diffusing. We encourage contributions that engage with the role of the United States in the development of ICT at work, including: - Entrepreneurial rhetoric and the deployment of ICTs. - The relationship between ICTs and neoliberal deregulation and delocalization. - Vectors of dissemination: management manuals, trade shows, public policies, media, awareness raising campaigns, seminars, industry rivalry (eg. Apple vs. Microsoft), model rivalry (eg. proprietary vs. free software). - Pre-existing modes of flattened and networked organizations and soft control in the US (advertising agencies and research projects are an example) and their interaction with the development of ICTs-related modes of work organization. - Emergence of new professional types such as the hacker and their set of values of expert autonomy, sharing and transparent exchange that contradict the values of capitalism but echo US cultural entrepreneurial values of self-reliance, DIY and distrust of institutions. - ICTs and masculine domination: the impact of technical changes on gender roles at work. - The role of consumers: from consumerism to prosumerism. - The governance of networks (including regulation through legal licences) and the US legal tradition. Please send submissions to fraysseo(a)aol.com and mathieu.oneil(a)anu.edu.au and include your name and affiliation. Abstracts for papers should be 250 words. Abstract submission date: December 15, 2012. Applicants will be advised by January 15, 2013.

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Re: [Air-L] Marxist Critiques of Online Advertising?
by Bodle, Robert 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

Hi Adam - and to anyone working on Marxist critiques of online advertising, there is an upcoming ICA preconference “Exploring and Remaking Critical Studies of Advertising” (abstracts due 11/30/12) I am co-organizing along with James Hamilton (http://hamilton.myweb.uga.edu/) where Marxist perspectives, analyses, approaches and critiques, would be most welcome. Conference info: http://criticaladstudies.wordpress.com/about/ To submit an abstract for review: http://bit.ly/UQzKZ9 Best, Robert Robert Bodle, PhD Associate Professor of Communication and New Media Studies College of Mount St. Joseph http://robertbodle.org/

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Re: [Air-L] Call for Participation: Broadening horizons: Current applications of sociotechnical perspectives and future directions - Covent Garden 20th November
by Jose Abdelnour-Nocera 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

> Dear Colleagues, > > > The BCS Sociotechnical Group invites you to this event on the 20th of > November 2012. > > There is a rich tradition of sociotechnical perspectives including > contemporary analyses of major projects such as the National Programme for > Information Technology in the NHS. Also, recent times have witnessed > increasingly diverse applications of sociotechnical approaches in response > to a range of organisational challenges. These include promoting green > behaviour, workspace design, social care and child welfare, and the > management of crowd behavior and crowd events. With this in mind the aims > of this workshop are: > > € To build awareness of these exciting advances and their impact on > practice > € To stimulate discussion on possible future applications of a > sociotechnical approach > € To identify opportunities for interdisciplinary research in this area > > > Wilkes Room 2, British Computer Society, The > Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA > (Nearest tube stations - Covent Garden, High > Holborn, Charing Cross) > > > > 20th November 2012, 10:00 15:30 > > > > > Organised by British Computer Society Sociotechnical Group > > For a detailed program and to register click on this link: > > http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/48360 > > > Any queries please email me @ > > Jose.abdelnour-nocera(a)uwl.ac.uk > > > > > > > > Dr. José Abdelnour Nocera > Postgraduate Computing Field Leader > Head of Centre for Internationalisation and Usability > University of West London > St Mary¹s Road, Ealing London W5 5RF > https://soc.uwl.ac.uk/~jabdelno > > > > > >

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Looking for texts for "Digital Interfaces" course
by Ryan S Eanes 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

Hi all, I've been given tentative approval from the assistant dean in my department to design a course for some of the undergraduates in our school, and I'm looking for texts that might be particularly relevant for the course. The course title is "Digital Interfaces," and the focus will be specifically on mobile devices as well as web usability and what makes for a compelling, useful and intuitive interface. As this will be an undergraduate course, right now I'm considering the following: Hoober, S. & Berkman, E. (2011). Designing Mobile Interfaces. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Krug, S. (2005). Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. Tidwell, J. (2011). Designing Interfaces. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. While students won't necessarily be designing interfaces, I would like to at least give them a viable introduction as to what makes for a good interface (which may make one or more of these texts irrelevant). Thoughts would be greatly appreciated! RE -- Ryan S Eanes Media Studies PhD Student & Graduate Teaching Fellow rse(a)uoregon.edu http://blogs.uoregon.edu/eanes University of Oregon School of Journalism & Communication 1787 Agate Hall, Room 124 1275 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1275

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Marxist Critiques of Online Advertising?
by Andy McStay 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

Hi Adam, Hopefully this doesn't come across as too spammy, but both my books below deal with critical conceptions of online advertising. The first is a more general account that outlines key areas we need to be thinking about in considering online advertising (for example as well as addressing dataveillance and privacy type issues it also discusses creativity). The second more directly addresses behavioural advertising systems, audience-as-commodity issues, biopolitics, feedback systems, sentiment mining and ways of pre-empting 'being'. McStay, A. (2009) Digital Advertising. London: Palgrave-Macmillan. McStay, A. (2011) The Mood of Information. New York: Continuum. Also see the Surveillance and Society special issue on Consumption and Surveillance: http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/journal/issue/view/Co… Cheers, Andy

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CFP for special issue on Internet Memes for Journal of Visual Culture
by Laura Portwood-Stacer 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

Please forward to any relevant academic, artist, and activist networks! *Call for Submissions: Internet Memes and Visual Culture* * A themed Special Issue of Journal of Visual Culture* *Issue Guest Editors: Laine Nooney (Stony Brook University) and Laura Portwood-Stacer (New York University)* The Editors are currently seeking proposed contributions for a Special Issue of the *Journal of Visual Culture* on Internet Memes and Visual Culture, to be published December 2014. The term *meme*, a portmanteau of * mimesis* and *gene*, was minted in 1976 by British ethologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins proposed the meme as a “unit of cultural transmission,” a self-perpetuating cultural phenomenon analogous to the gene as a replicator of biological data. Almost 40 years later, the term “meme” has become the coin of the realm within Internet subcultures, particularly on microblogging and social network platforms. In these contexts the designation “meme” identifies digital objects that riff on a given visual, textual or auditory form. For a digital object to become a meme, it must be appropriated, re-coded, and slotted back into the Internet infrastructures it came from—memes require continued user adaptation. Thus, memes are co-constitutive with the user practices of creative (re)production that are default modes of communicative interaction on major social media platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Memes are frequent objects of analysis among scholars of contemporary digital culture, socio-linguistics, fan culture, and social networking, wherein they are assessed as forms of generative vernacular communication and art-making that defy traditional models of top-down capitalist consumer control of mass media forms. Yet the speed, volume and insularity of meme-making often frustrates aesthetic, formal and techno-infrastructural scholarship on memes and meme distribution. This special issue of the *Journal of Visual Culture* will organize a conversation among cultural scholars, artists, activists, journalists and Internet content producers regarding the social, historical, and aesthetic significance of Internet memes. Our move to “take memes seriously” as communicative and aesthetic objects is especially timely, as memes' linguistic tropes, visual styles and means of transmission gain increasing visibility beyond their origins in online subcultural spaces such as 4chanor 9gag. One of the ways this special issue will take on these questions is by itself expanding on traditional modes of academic writing. Potential contributors are thus encouraged to incorporate visual and conceptual experiments intended to elucidate the meme form, performatively and materially replicating the phenomenon under study. The Editors are open to engagements with “Visual Culture” broadly writ. Contributions may consider the following topics or expand on other ideas, keeping a particular emphasis on relating memes to the visual: ñ how memes figure in a broader history of performative, humor-based, conceptualist, retro, or contemporary digital art practices ñ the formal aesthetics of different meme types and the technological infrastructures that undergird them (300x300 macros, supercuts, GIFs, screengrabs, photobombs, snowclones, etc.) ñ meme production in non-Western locations (particularly as they may be tied to political risk or Internet censorship) ñ meme transmission across national and cultural borders ñ how (if?) memes have enabled creative producers (particularly queer people and people of color) to contest presumptions of homogenous Western whiteness on the Internet ñ how memes have served as vehicles for political protest and resistance Proposed contributions may take the form of scholarly articles (5000-7000 words), but the Editors are particularly interested in shorter essays, graphic essays, and other creative formats. We especially encourage submissions in formats that can be showcased on the *Journal of Visual Culture*'s blog and a Tumblr devoted to this special issue. For a proposed academic paper, please email a single-spaced, extended abstract of 1000-1200 words that details a projected argument and possible example cases to be examined. Please also include a brief list of scholarly sources that will inform your paper (not included in the word count). For a proposed contribution in another formats (short essay, graphic essay, conceptual piece, etc.), please email a single-spaced description or artist statement that details the format and projected content of the submission. *The deadline for submission of proposals/abstracts is 15 January 2013.* The Editors expect to make final decisions about accepted contributions by mid-March 2013. Accepted contributors will be asked to submit their full contributions by January 2014. The Editors are aware of and open to shifts in content that may occur as the full submission develops, should the proposed contribution be accepted for inclusion in the issue. Inquiries and submission proposals should be directed to both Laine Nooney ( laine.nooney(a)gmail.com) and Laura Portwood-Stacer (lportwoodstacer(a)gmail.com) Emails should include the subject heading: Internet Memes special issue, JVC. Download CFP as pdf: http://www.lauraportwoodstacer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/JVCmemes_cfp2… -- Laura Portwood-Stacer Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, and Communication New York University

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PhD Scholarships, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, UK
by Helen Kennedy 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

Please forward to promising future PhD students ... ----------- ICS Full Scholarships The Institute of Communications Studies is offering a number of PhD Scholarships for study commencing in September/October 2013. The scholarships cover full maintenance and fees equivalent to the Home/EU rate, for a period of three years. They are intended to support full-time study leading to a PhD in any area of the Institute's research activities, and are open to both home/EU and international applicants Closing date for applications is 1 May 2013. ----------- ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Centre Studentship The University of Leeds has been allocated a number of studentships as part of the White Rose Doctoral Training Centre, a major collaboration between the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. One of these awards is for study at the Institute of Communications studies and is available on either a 1+3 or +3 basis. The awards are for study commencing 1 October 2013, and cover full fees and maintenance. Closing date for applications: 1 February 2013. ----------- Further details for can be found at http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/pg/phd/

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Marxist Critiques of Online Advertising?
by Adam Fish 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

Anybody know of any Marxist critiques of online advertising? Anything looking at Pagerank and YouTube advertising through the frames of monopolisation, commodification, and accumulation? Des Freedman has an excellent starting point in Web 2.0 and the Death of the Blockbuster Economy in Misunderstanding the Internet. Anything else? Thanks. Adam Fish, PhD Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies Bowland North, Floor B Department of Sociology Lancaster University, UK LA1 4YT p. 01524592699 a.fish2(a)lancaster.ac.uk @mediacultures, mediacultures.org http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/profiles/Adam-Fish/

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Key Texts on Informational/Communicative/Cognitive Capitalism
by Andrew Herman 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

Dear Fellow AOIRistas I will be teaching a 4th year undergraduate seminar on "Materialtialites and Imaginaries" of Informational/Communicative/Cognitive Capitalism. I am looking for suggestions on books and readings that would be appropriate for fourth year students in communication studies. These students get a lot of theory in their major, so don't be afraid to suggest pieces that bend in that direction. That said, pieces that feature empirical research are also most welcome, especially those of the ethnographic variety. Have at it, o hive mind! Andrew Andrew Herman, Ph. D. Associate Professor Department of Communication Studies Director, Graduate Program in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 CANADA 519 884-1970 x3693

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