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Deadline extended AISB/IACAP 2012: Symposium on SOCIAL COMPUTING SOCIAL COGNITION SOCIAL NETWORKS AND, MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS
by Judith Simon 13 Mar '12

13 Mar '12

**Apologies for any duplication** ------------------------------------------------------- EXTENDED DEADLINE: Symposium on SOCIAL COMPUTING SOCIAL COGNITION SOCIAL NETWORKS AND MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS @ AISB/IACAP 2012 July 2^nd 3^rd , 2012. https://sites.google.com/site/socialturnsnamasaisbiacap2012/ CALL FOR PAPERS Extended deadline: April 8, 2012. The symposium is part of the AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012 in honour of Alan Turing, held on July 2nd to 6th, 2012. University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/turing12/& http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb12/ The event is jointly organized by The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) [http://www.aisb.org.uk <http://www.aisb.org.uk/>] and The International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) [http://www.ia-cap.org <http://www.ia-cap.org/>] ------------------------------- INVITED SPEAKERS Bernhard Rieder, New Media, University of Amsterdam. Marek Sergot, Imperial College, London.GRANTS: ------------------------------- GRANTS The European Network for Social Intelligence is offering a limited number of travel grants for PhD students and early stage researchers. Please indicate in your paper submission if you want to apply for the travel grants. Further information will be made available on the symposium website. ------------------------------- SYMPOSIUM CHAIRS Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Mälardalen University, Sweden. Antonino Rotolo, CIRSFID, U. di Bologna, Italy. Giovanni Sartor, EUI and CIRSFID, Italy. Judith Simon, University of Vienna, Austria and & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. Clara Smith, UNLP and UCALP, Argentina. --------------------------------- This 2012 symposium merges the symposium entitled Social Turn: Social Computing - Social Cognition - Social Intelligence; and the SNAMAS symposium, focused on Social Networks and Multi-Agent Systems, which have precursor symposia in Social Computing at IACAP and the SNAMAS in AISB conferences. ---------------------------------- TOPICS The field of social computing has two different foci: social and computational. There is the focus on socialness of social software or social web applications. Widespread examples of social software are blogs, wikis, social bookmarking services, instant messaging services, and social networking sites. Social computing often uses various types of crowdsourcing techniques for aggregation of input from numerous users (public at large). Tools such as prediction markets, social tagging, reputation and trust systems as well as recommender systems are based on collaborative filtering and thus a result of crowdsourcing. Another focus of social computing is on computational modeling of social behavior, among others through Multi-agent systems (MAS) and Social Networks (SN). MAS have an anchoring going beyond social sciences even when a sociological terminology is often used. There are several usages of MAS: to design distributed and/or hybrid systems; to develop philosophical theory; to understand concrete social facts, or to answer concrete social issues via modelling and simulation. MAS aim at modelling, among other things, cognitive or reactive agents who interact in dynamic environments where they possibly depend on each other to achieve their goals. The emphasis is nowadays on constructing complex computational systems composed by agents which are regulated by various types of norms, and behave like human social systems. Finally, Social networks (SN) are social structures made of nodes (which are, generally, individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, disease transmission, among many others. Social networks analysis plays a critical role in determining the way specific problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals. Social networks analysis has addressed also the dynamics issue, called dynamic networks analysis. This is an emergent scientific field that brings together traditional social network analysis, link analysis and multi-agent systems. The symposium addresses, but is not limited to, the following topics: - Conceptual issues such as Socialness (notions of the social used and/or enforced in social computing and research on social cognition or social intelligence) and Computational Models and mechanisms of social computing (information processing) as well as models and social mechanisms of cognition and intelligence. - Agency & Action in social computing systems: How can agency be understood and/or modeled in systems consisting of human and non-human agents? - Social Coordination & Norms: Emergence of norms (e.g. in Wikipedia) and compliance including their computational modeling in socio-technical systems. - Interaction & Communication in socio-technical systems and their computational models - Knowledge: the epistemological and ethical consequences of distributed knowledge creation in social computing and its computational models - Relations between the individual and the social: Forming of individual existence in relation to social computing (e.g. digital identity), including its computational modeling. - Agreement technologies. - Electronic Institutions. - Empirical and/or theoretical studies on a specific social or legal relationship (power, solidarity, legitimity, dependency...). - Empirical and/or theoretical studies on social relations' regulations. - Formalization of Normed Systems. - Logical frameworks for representing, describing and analysing agent's social or legal relationships. - Relations between the individual and the social: Forming of individual existence in relation to social computing (e.g. digital identity), including its info-computational modeling. - Responsibility, Accountability & Liability. What is epistemically and ethically responsible behavior with respect to social software and how can it be supported? What are the responsibilities of different human agents (e.g. software users, designers, researchers, etc)? - Rules and standards. - Social Networking Sites: philosophical implications of socialness in social networking sites (e.g., privacy, social structures, etc.). - Info-computational models of social networking sites. - The role of agents? attributes in structuring social and legal relationships. - The role of specific social relationships in structuring groups and organizations. - Trust in social computing. Differences and similarities between notions of trust e.g. in multi-agent systems, social networking sites, recommender systems, etc. Differences and similarities between trust online and offline. How can trust be supported by a computational system itself? ------------------------------ IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission deadline: April 8, 2012. Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2012. Camera ready version deadline: June 1, 2012. Symposium: 2nd -- 3rd July, 2012. --------------------------------- PAPER SUBMISSION Guidelines for paper submission are as follows: - The paper should be written in English. - The maximum length of a paper is 6 A4-sized pages in ECAI format (format download: http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb08/download.html) - The paper should be in PDF format. - Please choose one track between SOCIAL TURN and SNAMAS, and submit via the online paper submission system to the corresponding track at: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=socialturnmasaisbiac ------------------------------------- PROGRAM COMMITTEE Doris Allhutter, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria. Frederic Amblard, IRIT, U. Toulouse, France. Giulia Andrighetto, ISTC-CNR, Italy. Carlos Areces, UN Córdoba, Argentina. Guido Boella, University of Torino, Italy. Pompeu Casanovas, UAB Institute of Law and Technology, Spain. Cristiano Castelfranchi, ISTC-CNR, Italy. Mark Coeckelbergh University of Twente, Netherlands Diego Compagna, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Rosaria Conte, ISTC-CNR, Italy. Charles Ess, Aarhus University, Danmark. Ricardo Guibourg, UBA, Argentina. Hamid Ekbia, Indiana University, Indiana Lars-Erik Janlert, Umeå University, Sweden Matthias Mailliard, Cemagref, France. Antonio A. Martino, U. Salvador, Argentina. Jeremy Pitt, Imperial College London, UK. Melina Porto, UNLP, Argentina. Leon Van der Torre, U Louxembourg, Louxembourg. Serena Villata, University of Torino, Italy. Jutta Weber, University Paderborn, Germany. Christian Fuchs, Uppsala University, Sweden. --------------------------------------- POSTERS AND SYSTEM DEMONSTRATIONS There will be one session for system demonstrations, and one day poster exhibition. ---------------------------------------- PROCEEDINGS AND POST PROCEEDINGS There will be a separate proceedings for each symposium, produced before the Congress. Each delegate at the Congress will receive, on arrival, a memory stick containing the proceedings of all symposia. Selected papers of the Symposium, under a second review process, will be considered for a special issue of the AI & Law Journal, Springer http://www.springer.com/computer/ai/journal/10506; and for the open access TripleC journalhttp://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC. -------------------------------------- ABOUT THE CONGRESS The Congress serves both as the year's AISB Convention and the year's IACAP conference. The Congress has been inspired by a desire to honour Alan Turing, and by the broad and deep significance of Turing's work to AI, to the philosophical ramifications of computing, and to Philosophy and computing more generally. The Congress is one of the events forming the Alan Turing Year (http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/) The intent of the Congress is to stimulate a particularly rich interchange between AI and Philosophy on any areas of mutual interest, whether directly addressing Turing's own research output or not. The Congress will consist mainly of a number of collocated Symposia on specific research areas, interspersed with Congress-wide refreshment breaks, social events and invited Plenary Talks. All papers other than the invited Plenaries will be given within Symposia. This symposium is closely connected to UmoCoP, Symposium on Understanding and Modelling Collective Phenomena, which will be held on July 3rd-5th 2012. There will be a joint panel from both symposia on July 3rd. ---------------------- CONTACTS For further inquiries please contact any of the chairs: gordana.dodig-crnkovic(a)mdh.se <https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1qosmuj0mmwqg/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=gordana.dodig-c…>,judith.simon(a)univie.ac.at <https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1qosmuj0mmwqg/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=judith.simon@un…>(SOCIAL COMPUTING - SOCIAL COGNITION - SOCIAL NETWORKS) antonino.rotolo(a)unibo.it <https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1qosmuj0mmwqg/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=antonino.rotolo…>,giovanni.sartor(a)libero.it <https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1qosmuj0mmwqg/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=giovanni.sartor…>, csmith(a)info.unlp.edu.ar <https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1qosmuj0mmwqg/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=csmith@info.unl…>(MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS) -- Judith Simon Department of Philosophy <http://philosophie.univie.ac.at/> - University of Vienna (PI: Epistemic Trust in Socio-Technical Epistemic Systems <http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/abstracts/abstract.asp?L=E&PROJ=P23770>) ITAS - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology <http://www.itas.kit.edu/english/index.php> (Senior Researcher) Institut Jean Nicod <http://www.institutnicod.org/notices.php?user=Simon> - Ecole normale supérieure - Paris (Associate Post-doctoral fellow)

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Youtube and methodology
by Candice Buss 13 Mar '12

13 Mar '12

I'm working on a project that involves analyzing the comments on a YouTube video that I posted with my first dance solo. I'm trying to clarify the methodology and theoretical underpinnings of the project. Could anyone point me to any resources that may be helpful for a project like this? Thanks, Casey -- Candice "Casey" Buss Women & Gender Studies MA candidate The University of North Carolina at Greensboro cdbuss(a)uncg.edu "Body politics that are less complicated than our bodies, will get us no where."~ Eli Clare "Love yourself, for who and what you are; protect your dream and develop your talent to the fullest extent." ~Joan Benoit Samuelson

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Literature on disadvantages of spatial proximity
by Melike Findikoglu (Technion) 13 Mar '12

13 Mar '12

Hi all, Looking for literature on disadvantages of spatial proximity between partnering firms. Anyone can help? Thanks -- Melike N Findikoglu, Ph.D. Technion - Israel Institute of Technology The William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management Cell: 972 54 976 6362 Office: 972 4 829 2856 http://www.linkedin.com/in/melikefindikoglu

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Ensuring privacy in online interviewing
by Janet Salmons, Ph.D. 13 Mar '12

13 Mar '12

Dear Jenni, I'd like to echo some points made by L. Wynholds and suggest some other questions that might help you to refine your proposal. I would be less concerned with privacy of the data in transmission, during the interview, and more concerned with protection of the data after the interview. You did not say what program you intend to use to record the interview, but I would suggest selecting one that allows you to download the interview (and as L emphasized, back it up!) then delete the copy stored on someone else's server in the cloud. I terms of the interviewee's privacy, as in the ability to speak freely without being overheard by others, that is hard to ensure in an online interview and all you can really do is spell out what you need from the interview and schedule the interview at a time when the interviewee feels they are best able to participate. I have a couple of other comments.... if I were reading your proposal, I would ask for a rationale explaining why you would use as your communication options one form that is all written (IM) and one that includes audio and visual interaction? The nature of the interactions and the types of data collected will be very different. * * How will you use the webcam? You can see the person-- how will you use those observations? Are you interested in non-verbal signals and affective responses? You will probably need to clearly define how you plan to use visual data. You could choose, for example, to review the recorded interview and use a notation system to record types of non-verbal expressions that are conveyed throughout the interview. Or, you could be looking for other visual information about appearance, the setting, what you can see in the interview. Of course you will have no data of that kind for the IM interviews....how will you address that disparity in the data analysis? If you are choosing Skype to do research that includes visual data, you need to explain it in your research design and in your recruitment/consent documents. If you are simply planning to focus on audio, or even audio with notes in text chat, then you will need to explain how you will bracket your own impressions of the participant in the video window-- or simply use voice only, essentially like a phone interview. You didn't mention whether or how you will use the interviewees' blog posts as data, which is another area for exploration and thinking about ethics... So... there are a number of things to think about as you look at your online data collection methods in the context of your methodology and study purpose, and by carefully exploring what you are doing and why, you'll develop a stronger dissertation proposal. I recently recorded a presentation made at a recent conference that might interest you: Visual & Virtual Interviews http://bit.ly/AcvSlM. Naturally I will also point to my books, *Online Interviews in Real Time*, which had a focus on ethics and an entire chapter on visual research online and *Cases in Online Interview Research*-- both from Sage Publications (see http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book233088) I hope you will make a convincing case for your study so you can conduct some valuable research! Best, Janet *Janet Salmons Ph.D.* *Capella University School of Business and Technology and Vision2Lead, Inc. *Site- http://www.vision2lead.com Follow Twitter at #einterview Now available: Cases in Online Interview Research<http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book235442> PO Box 943 Boulder, CO 80306-0943 jsalmons(a)vision2lead.com

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Re: [Air-L] New Zealand and Australian policy comparison (gene loeb)
by Fiona Martin 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

Dear Jen and Gene, Melissa Gregg and Jason Wilson have done a baseline NBN study of a small Australian town called Willunga, pop 2,100+. You can download the report via Mel's blog: http://homecookedtheory.com/archives/2012/01/12/willunga-connects-public-rel ease/ regards, Fiona DR FIONA MARTIN | Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online Media Postgraduate Coursework Coordinator and Degree Director: Master of Media Practice; Master of Publishing; Master of Health Communication Department of Media and Communications | School of Letters Arts and Media Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY Rm 205, Holme Building A09 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 T +61 2 9036 5098 | F +61 2 9351 5444 | M +61 428 391 122 E fiona.martin(a)sydney.edu.au W http://sydney.edu.au/ > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:09:21 -0500 > From: gene loeb <geneloeb(a)gmail.com> > To: air-l <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> > Subject: [Air-L] Fwd: [ciresearchers] New Zealand and Australian > policy comparision > Message-ID: > <CANE7V6rXVeUWp=DHTVeT0ahW06qS2DqG+zWMptTVv2wg6SYoEg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Hi all, > I thought some from this list might also be of assistance. > Gene > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: gene loeb <geneloeb(a)gmail.com> > Date: Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 5:08 PM > Subject: Re: [ciresearchers] New Zealand and Australian policy comparision > To: ciresearchers(a)vancouvercommunity.net, Jennifer Mitok <mitok(a)ualberta.ca> > > > Jen, > I am also interested in the connectivity issues on a worldwide bases and > would be interested in your results. You are doing important work in an > increasingly significant area. Pual budde and don cameron from Australia > know a lot from Australia and should be a good source of information.. Let > me know about your results or further information. I am also forwarding > this to the Association for Internet researchers who may also be of help. > gene > Gene Loeb, Ph.D. > > > On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Jennifer Mitok <mitok(a)ualberta.ca> wrote: > >> Hello, I am a student in Dr. Gurstein's University of Alberta course on >> Community Informatics. I am doing a research paper analyzing the policy >> differences between the New Zealand Digital strategy (2005) and Australia's >> NBN initiative. I'm looking for any research that has been done on the >> 'community' impact of these strategies, if anyone on the list has any >> recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it. >> >> Many thanks, >> >> Jen Mitok >> >

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Lecture: Dr. Sally Wyatt " Selling Genetic Tests Online" Friday, 16 March, 12:00pm
by Greg Elmer 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

Lecture: Dr. Sally Wyatt " Selling Genetic Tests Online" Friday, 16 March, 12:00pm Room 202, Rogers Communication Centre, Ryerson University, Toronto Genetic testing for disease is no longer confined to hospital clinics, as it is now available for purchase on the internet. This online market, known as ‘direct-to-consumer genetic testing’, is diverse, ranging from companies selling tests for rare inherited diseases, to newer companies wanting to enrol a broader public, with testing for common health conditions. Many of these newer companies utilise a range of web 2.0 platforms in order to market their product, and in one case to involve their consumers in genetic research. Sally Wyatt will present preliminary results from this ongoing project. Sally Wyatt is Professor of ‘digital cultures in development’, Maastricht University, Programme Leader of the eHumanities Group, KNAW (http://ehumanities.nl) and Director of WTMC (the Netherlands Graduate School for Science, Technology & Modern Culture, www.wtmc.net) She has worked at the Universities of Sussex, Brighton, East London and Amsterdam as well as at the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Recently, she has worked on the internet and social exclusion and the ways in which people incorporate the internet into their practices for finding health information and what digital technologies mean for scholarly practice. Together with Andrew Webster, she is editor of a book series, Health, Technology and Society, see http://www.palgrave.com/products/series.aspx?s=HTE Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair, Ryerson University Director, Infoscape Research Lab, www.infoscapelab.ca Columnist, The Hill Times, www.hilltimes.com Address: Room 309, Rogers Communications Centre Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3 416-979-5282 _______________________________________________

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Reviewers Needed for AEJMC 2012
by Carmen Stavrositu 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

Dear Colleagues, With the AEJMC 2012 deadline of April 1 fast approaching, the Communication Technology division of AEJMC is seeking reviewers for its paper competition. In the last two years, CTEC has received record numbers of submissions. As it is almost certain that CTEC will again field a very large number of paper submissions, I kindly ask that you volunteer to review for our division. Reviewers will have slightly over one month to complete their reviews, and depending on the total number of submissions, I will attempt to assign no more than three papers per reviewer. Of course, the more volunteer reviewers there are, the lower each individual reviewer's load. If you would like to serve as a reviewer, please take a few minutes to email me at ctec.research(a)gmail.com with the following information: 1. Your name and current email; 2. Your current affiliation; 3. Your area of specialization and preferred methodologies. As a general rule, we do not employ student reviewers for CTEC research papers, but do encourage students to submit their work to our division and participate in the Jung-Sook Lee student paper competition. Thank you for your consideration. Your service is deeply appreciated. All the best, Carmen Stavrositu ................................................................................ Carmen Stavrositu, Ph.D. Research Chair, CTEC/AEJMC Assistant Professor University of Colorado Colorado Springs Communication Department COB 4003, Campus Box COH3 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway Colorado Springs, CO 80918 719.255.4024 cstavros(a)uccs.edu ................................................................................

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CFP: JeDEM Vol. 4 (1) - Digital Citizenship and Activism
by Nathaniel Poor 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

Call for Papers: Special Issue: JeDEM Vol. 4 (1) - Digital Citizenship and Activism http://www.jedem.org/announcement/view/6 Nowadays, when citizens, activists and participants in social movements want to voice their opinions and negotiate their political identities they increasingly do so in hybrid media environments that are particularly suitable for mobilisation, organisation and discussion. With a massive increase in online social networking, digital infrastructures are lowering the threshold for political involvement. This, in turn, is considerably shifting the power dynamics of participation. Digital storytelling, for example, has become part of the strategies used by contemporary political activists. While strategies in the past revolved mainly around the attempts to influence the mass media and gatekeepers, today more and more citizens are becoming reporters and commentators themselves, often providing first-hand, real-time coverage of offline political activities. However, some have questioned the notion of social networking platforms as tools for social change and/or horizontal power structures, in particular in relation to issues of surveillance and data privacy. These sorts of critical views have been voiced in public debates on the implications of corporate ownership of social networks. Another question that has been raised is whether “clicktivism” is eroding the physical or embodied participation constituting traditional offline activism. It must be also taken into account that very few movements have succeed through mediated activism alone. Hence, on the one hand we are witnessing how increasing access to the internet has resulted in an array of new strategies and success stories for contemporary activism, in particular with regards to mobilisation. On the other hand, we are still groping in the dark when it comes to understanding the place of digital participatory activities in the shifting landscapes of power in late modernity. For this special issue of JeDEM, we invite scholarly research to shed light on the issues of power and participation online. Read more: http://www.jedem.org/announcement/view/6 Submission Guidelines Articles submitted for consideration must be written in English. Length of paper: 7,500-12,000 words, including footnotes. Template and guidelines are available at http://www.jedem.org/about/submissions#authorGuidelines Important Dates (dd/mm/yyyy) Call for papers 01.03.2012 Submission deadline 11.06.2012 Editor decision 16.07.2012 Camera ready paper 06.08.2012 ------------------------------- Nathaniel Poor, Ph.D. http://natpoor.blogspot.com/ https://sites.google.com/site/natpoor/

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Flossie 2012 CfP deadline extended
by Paula Graham 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

Flossie 2012 is a free, two-day event for women who use or are otherwise interested in Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in Digital Arts or Open Data, Knowledge and Education. Details here: http://www.flossie.org/?page_id=175 Link to submission form here: http://www.flossie.org/openconf Register to attend here: http://flossie2012.eventbrite.co.uk/ *Friday 25 May and Saturday 26 May 2012* Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, E1 4NS *Submissions DEADLINE NOW EXTENDED to 19 March 2012 Paula

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Reminder: CFP Articulating Alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of a time of crisis
by Eleftheria L. 12 Mar '12

12 Mar '12

*CFP: Articulating alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of a time of crisis* *A workshop for new scholars hosted by the Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths, University of London, May 3rd, 2012.* This is a workshop which addresses a series of issues around the mediation of political life in a time of crisis. The last couple of decades have witnessed the intensification of the neoliberal logic, culminating in a profound crisis of capitalism. This has been accompanied by the widespread de-legitimisation of political institutions as citizens lose trust in the political process and confidence in the capacity of political elites to protect their interests. Concomitantly, recent years have seen the emergence of a myriad of actors (from indigenous people’s movements to alter-globalisation movements to current mobilisations like the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement), which challenge the neoliberal hegemony and seek to construct alternatives. Such actors are engaged in various forms of knowledge production oriented towards the development of critiques of the current system as well as the elaboration of alternative forms of economic, social, and political organisation. In the workshop, we wish to explore some of the complexities of the relationship between mediated communication and politics in a time of crisis. The intensive mobilisation of citizens around the world raises a number of questions in relation to how agents of transformation are constructing political vernaculars and actions at different scales and across different sites, both physical and virtual. The notion of a politics of crisis is set as a framework for the exploration of the agencies, spaces and communication practices of counter-capitalist voices. Pertinent here is the addressing of the structures of both the nation-state and global economic actors where the use of digital communication channels ranges from information-spreading to organisation and mobilisation. Many recent protests have been distinctly invested in particular localities (squares, streets), but appear to also express a sense of globality (evident for example in the argued global reach of the Occupy movement). New communication technologies appear to be offering unprecedented opportunities for the dissemination and elaboration of ideas, potentially playing a significant role in social processes of knowledge production and the articulation of alternatives. At the same time, conventional media are arguably in a state of crisis, arising from tendencies of commercialisation and concentration of ownership. As the media lose the confidence of their publics and thus their privileged epistemic status, questions are raised about their capacity to foster democratic public spheres. We are interested in addressing questions in relation to the discursive construction of alternatives, the agents involved in these processes, the spaces that are being opened up for articulation and action, as well as the modes of politics which characterise the current time of crisis. The themes we wish to explore include: - *Agents*. Are there new actors emerging in the context of political, economic and social crises? What form do such actors take, and what kinds of politics do they engage in? What role do conventional media as well as new information and communication technologies play in the emergence and organisation of such actors? How might media contribute to the elaboration of alternatives and the construction of transnational solidarity across geopolitical boundaries? - *Spaces*. How do the geography and spatiality of politics impact on the perspectives and claims arising in resistance to capitalism? What spatialities and scales are enacted through current modes of political praxis and forms of communication? What is the ‘place of place’ in contemporary political practices and discourses, and how does this relate to the ‘national’, ‘transnational’ or ‘global’? What role do media play in the politics of place and scale? Where does the matter of politics exhibit itself both online and offline? - *Communication*. How can we conceptualise the relationship between media and citizenship in the current climate of crisis? What role do the media play in the communication of a politics of crisis? How might media be implicated in the continued subalternisation, exclusion or incorporation of alternative/emergent knowledges and practices? Can the mainstream media be reformed to resume their (idealised?) democratic function as the guarantors of an open democratic public sphere? Or should we instead entrust our hopes to the burgeoning field of social and citizens’ media? In order to facilitate in-depth discussion and collective knowledge production, the workshop will be restricted to a limited number of participants. We welcome submissions of original work from early-career researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds including (but not limited to): media and communications, sociology, politics, anthropology, cultural studies, geography, and information studies. Interested participants should submit a 250 word abstract and brief biography *by March 15th*, 2012 to Eleftheria Lekakis (e.lekakis(a)gold.ac.uk) and Hilde C. Stephansen (h.stephansen(a)gold.ac.uk) The authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by March 22nd, 2012 and are invited to submit working papers of between 1500-3000 words in advance of the workshop. -- **Research Fellow Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy Department of Media and Communications Goldsmiths College, University of London New Cross, London, SE14 6NW United Kingdom

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