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Registration extended: Affective Fabrics of Digital Cultures: new registration deadline 26 May
by Adi Kuntsman 20 May '10

20 May '10

***There are still places left and registration has been extended to 26 May 2010*** Affective fabrics of digital cultures: feelings, technologies, politics. 3-4 June 2010, University Place, The University of Manchester For further information, details on plenary sessions, conference programme and to register, please visit the conference website http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ricc/events/digital_affect/index… Plenary speakers: Una Chung (Sarah Lawrence College); Patricia Clough (Queens College, CUNY); Anne-Marie Fortier (Lancaster University); Melissa Gregg (The University of Sydney); Athina Karatzogianni (The University of Hull) This two-day international conference brings into creative tension two fields that are receiving growing scholarly attention: cultural studies of affect, public feelings and the politics of emotion, on the one hand, and scholarship on digital culture, new media and information-communication technologies, on the other. The conference aims to create a space for intellectual dialogue between the two fields by examining the relations between technologies, and in particular, new digital technologies – the Internet, digital cinema and photography, mobile communication, CCTVs, computer games – and affective politics. Bringing together contributions from the fields of sociology, media and cultural studies, arts, politics and science and technology studies, the conference will engage with the following questions: How does affect work in on-line networks and digital assemblages? What are the affective regimes of on-line sociality? What kind of perceptions, sensations, affective movements and public feelings emerge in our highly mediated and digitalised environments? What is the cybertouch of war, violence, terror? What are the structures of feeling that operate in the digitalised everyday and computerised ordinary? How can we theorise psycho-political formations of nation, race, empire, population and generation in the age of digital reproduction, mediated visions and globalised communication technologies? How do digital cultures shape our political horizons of fear, anxiety, mourning, hate, hope? Registration Early Bird Registration Fee before 15th April: Waged: £60/ Unwaged: £35 Full Conference Registration Fee after 15th April: Waged: £80/ Unwaged: £45 Registration fee covers refreshments, lunch and wine reception. Final deadline for registration is 26th May To register, please visit the conference website http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ricc/events/digital_affect/index… For further information, please contact Caitriona Devery at caitriona.devery [@] manchester.ac.uk Dr. Adi Kuntsman Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures The University of Manchester Second Floor, Arthur Lewis Building, room 2.007 Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/ricc/index.html http://adi.kuntsman.googlepages.com

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Edward Castronova lecture in Copenhagen, streaming online
by CarrieLynn D. Reinhard 20 May '10

20 May '10

Guest lecture by Edward Castronova, June 4th 2010, CBS Professor Edward Castronova will be visiting the Virtual Worlds Research Project this June and guest lecturing at the Copenhagen Business School June 4th 14:00-16:00. For those unable to be in Copenhagen, the Virtual Worlds Research Group will be streaming the lecture live on their blog at http://worlds.ruc.dk. The title and content of the lecture is as follows: On Magic and Money: The Growing Economic Importance of Virtual Goods Professor Edward Castronova of Indiana University explores how trade in virtual goods has exploded since 2005. The real and virtual economy has been blurring for the past decade, and the boundary is increasingly hard to find. Are gold pieces in online games real money? If you buy virtual flowers for someone’s Facebook page, is it a real gift? Castronova explores these questions at two levels. First, the social: What has the sale of virtual goods gone up so rapidly? What are the markets saying? Secondly, the psychological: Why do people treat virtual items like real items? The lecture concludes with predictions about virtual business, virtual work, and the real profits to be earned from both over the next decade. Program 14.00 – 14.10 Welcome by Professor Flemming Poulfelt, Copenhagen Business School 14.10 – 15.50 ON MAGIC AND MONEY by Professor Edward Castronova, Indiana University 15.50 – 16.00 Closing remarks by Professor Flemming Poulfelt, Copenhagen Business School Following the lecture there will be an opportunity to continue the conversation and enjoy a glass of wine. Location Room PH408, CBS Porcelænshaven, Frederiksberg For further information and registration contact dixi(a)ruc.dk (or phone 46743813) Edward Castronova, PhD in Economics and Professor of Telecommunications, Indiana University is an expert on the economies of large-scale online games. He has numerous publications on that topic, including a book entitled Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Synthetic worlds are online environments where millions of users share a persistent, fabricated geographic space at the same time. These places, billed and sold as games and/or social platforms, actually seem to be offering something more than mere entertainment. They act as a fantastical alternative to ordinary life, and as such they pose a significant challenge to business-as-usual in ordinary society: markets, public policy, politics, law, romance. In the area of economics, one pressing issue involves the extent to which people are paying real money to buy items for their game characters, thus blurring the distinction between the game economy and the real one. Chronicle of Higher Education’s review excerpt: “Synthetic Worlds is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they are real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations.” See also http://mypage.iu.edu/~castro/ and http://terranova.blogs.com/

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Edward Castronova lecture in Copenhagen, streaming online
by CarrieLynn Reinhard 20 May '10

20 May '10

Guest lecture by Edward Castronova, June 4th 2010, CBS Professor Edward Castronova will be visiting the Virtual Worlds Research Project this June and guest lecturing at the Copenhagen Business School June 4th 14:00-16:00. For those unable to be in Copenhagen, the Virtual Worlds Research Group will be streaming the lecture live on their blog at http://worlds.ruc.dk. The title and content of the lecture is as follows: On Magic and Money: The Growing Economic Importance of Virtual Goods Professor Edward Castronova of Indiana University explores how trade in virtual goods has exploded since 2005. The real and virtual economy has been blurring for the past decade, and the boundary is increasingly hard to find. Are gold pieces in online games real money? If you buy virtual flowers for someone’s Facebook page, is it a real gift? Castronova explores these questions at two levels. First, the social: What has the sale of virtual goods gone up so rapidly? What are the markets saying? Secondly, the psychological: Why do people treat virtual items like real items? The lecture concludes with predictions about virtual business, virtual work, and the real profits to be earned from both over the next decade. Program 14.00 – 14.10 Welcome by Professor Flemming Poulfelt, Copenhagen Business School 14.10 – 15.50 ON MAGIC AND MONEY by Professor Edward Castronova, Indiana University 15.50 – 16.00 Closing remarks by Professor Flemming Poulfelt, Copenhagen Business School Following the lecture there will be an opportunity to continue the conversation and enjoy a glass of wine. Location Room PH408, CBS Porcelænshaven, Frederiksberg For further information and registration contact dixi(a)ruc.dk (or phone 46743813) Edward Castronova, PhD in Economics and Professor of Telecommunications, Indiana University is an expert on the economies of large-scale online games. He has numerous publications on that topic, including a book entitled Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Synthetic worlds are online environments where millions of users share a persistent, fabricated geographic space at the same time. These places, billed and sold as games and/or social platforms, actually seem to be offering something more than mere entertainment. They act as a fantastical alternative to ordinary life, and as such they pose a significant challenge to business-as-usual in ordinary society: markets, public policy, politics, law, romance. In the area of economics, one pressing issue involves the extent to which people are paying real money to buy items for their game characters, thus blurring the distinction between the game economy and the real one. Chronicle of Higher Education’s review excerpt: “Synthetic Worlds is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they are real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations.” See also http://mypage.iu.edu/~castro/ and http://terranova.blogs.com/

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Digital Methods, Cultural Politics and Feminist Approaches CFP
by Kathleen O'Riordan 20 May '10

20 May '10

Digital Methods, Cultural Politics and Feminist Approaches: A One - Day Graduate Conference ----------------------------------------------------------- Monday 5 July 2010, University of Sussex, Media Film and Music, Centre for Material Digital Culture & Doctoral School Research in the humanities and social sciences has increasingly incorporated visual media and digital methodologies. At the same time, relatively little attention has been accorded to the way in which feminist approaches to science and technology have informed the research process by contributing to discussions of private and public, materiality, network cultures and identity. This one-day conference aims to examine this emerging field in the intersection of digital methods, cultural politics and feminist theory. The conference hopes to bring together Doctoral students as well as early career researchers working in media and cultural studies, gender studies, digital media, feminist science and technology studies, and queer studies. Themes of discussion might include: -Digital methods and visual media in the research of political engagement. -Feminist approaches to researching science, culture and technology. -Internet research ethics, feminist ethics and research. -The concepts of public and private. -Epistemological and ontological issues in STS and material feminisms. -Actor Network Theory, media studies and Feminism. -Notions of difference and identity in digital networks. -Information flows and the problem of representation. -Gender, biological and information technologies. -Science, technology and social change We invite submissions of abstracts for 20-minute individual papers. Please send your abstracts of approximately 300 words by 1st June 2010 to a.fotopoulou(a)sussex.ac.uk. <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/rcmdc/1-2-4.html> Dr Kate O'Riordan Department of Media and Film University of Sussex Falmer Brighton BN1 9RG TEL 01273 876730 FAX 01273 877219 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/mediastudies/profile30746.html

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Congratulations from iCS
by bl506＠york.ac.uk 20 May '10

20 May '10

May I as editor of iCS offer my congratulations to Laura on her CITASA award for best student paper this year and invite you all to download it for free as a gesture of our appreciation. Go to: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g921605698 and click on the paper. -- Brian D. Loader, Editor, Information, Communication & Society

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Update on Facebook ban in Pakistan
by Fouad Bajwa 20 May '10

20 May '10

Update on the Facebook.com ban in Pakistan: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Awab Alvi <drawab(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, May 20, 2010 at 2:03 AM Subject: [AGABBIP] PRESS CONFERENCE: Protest Against Nationwide Government Ban of Facebook / KPC on 20th May at 5:00pm To: PeoplesResistance <PeoplesResistance(a)googlegroups.com>, CRDP Mailing List <crdp(a)yahoogroups.com>, CMKP Mailing List <cmkp_pk(a)yahoogroups.com>, Proud Pakistani Mailing List <proud-pakistanis(a)googlegroups.com>, AGABBIP <AGABBIP(a)googlegroups.com>, Pakistan ICT Policy group <pakistanictpolicy(a)yahoogroups.com>, TGP Group <telecom-grid-pakistan(a)googlegroups.com> Please Join and spread the word Karachi, 20th May 2010 For Immediate Release Date: 20th May 2010 Time: 5:00 pm Venue: Karachi Press Club Defenders of Internet Freedom Protest Against Nationwide Government Ban of Facebook On Wednesday 19th May 2010, the Lahore High Court ordered the banning of Facebook across Pakistan. Facebook is the world's most popular social media network and is used by over 400 million globally. In Pakistan, over 2 million people use Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family, conduct business, manage events, and share photos, news, and other content. A few days ago, a page called "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" was created on Facebook asking users to submit drawings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on 20th May 2010. This page, interpreted as blasphemous, has triggered a nationwide ban on the entire Facebook domain. While we recognize that sites on the Internet are used to spew hatred and incite violence, we steadfastly believe that governments have no right to control access to information. We believe that every citizen has an inalienable right to freely access information and by censoring Facebook, the Government of Pakistan has taken away that right. This action will have a very negative impact on Pakistan, especially considering that countless small businesses, nonprofit organizations, restaurants, art galleries, magazines, and media outlets use Facebook to conduct day-to-day business and share information with their stakeholders. In 2006, the Supreme Court of Pakistan banned the entire blogspot.com domain for over 18 months over a similar incident where only one blog carried blasphemous cartoons. Thousands of Pakistani bloggers were deprived of the freedom to express themselves and interact with others. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority now has the ability to block specific pages on the Internet and could have banned just the single blasphemous page. As members of civil society and professionals who depend on social media networks for our daily communications, we demand the immediate restoration of Facebook and an end to Internet censorship by the Government of Pakistan. We would like to invite you to a press conference to discuss the worrying trend of Internet censorship and the resulting impact on civil liberties and the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and information. Date: 20th May 2010 Time: 5:00 pm Venue: Karachi Press Club http://bit.ly/bzuEzg Awab Alvi Blog: http://teeth.com.pk/blog Twitter: http://twitter.com/DrAwab -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Society Against Internet Censorship in Pakistan" group. To post to this group, send email to agabbip(a)googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to agabbip+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/agabbip?hl=en. -- Regards. -------------------------- Fouad Bajwa

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CFP: Game Studies Special Issues on Game Reward Systems
by Olli Sotamaa 20 May '10

20 May '10

CFP: Game Studies Special Issues on Game Reward Systems Guest editors Mikael Jakobsson (mikael.jakobsson(a)mah.se) and Olli Sotamaa (olli.sotamaa(a)uta.fi) Digital games have a long history of rewarding players for their efforts. It can be in the form of treasures, items, easter eggs, highscores, character outfits, achievements, or badges. The prolific use of rewards indicates that they play an important part in shaping the gaming experience. On one hand, it seems obvious that we enjoy being rewarded, but on the other hand, it is harder to understand the fascination with these seemingly empty gestures, given their virtual nature. This special issue of Game Studies is dedicated to the exploration of all aspects of game rewards and game reward systems. We invite our potential authors to think about the topic in relation to game culture as well as game design, but also hope to attract papers exploring connections to other areas of research such as psychology, sociology, economy, education, and law. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: - Means for approaching and understanding game reward systems - Reward typologies: characteristics and qualities - The role of reward systems in relation to other game mechanics - Player motivations in relation to game achievements - History of reward systems within game culture and beyond - Reward systems in social media applications - Understanding rewards as motivators The call is for full papers in English. All submissions will undergo a double blind peer review process and be reviewed by at least two reviewers. Papers should be submitted to submit(a)gamestudies.com. Please see the Game Studies submission guidelines for further details: http://gamestudies.org/1001/submission_guidelines Timeline Submission deadline: 15th of August 2010 Publication: November - December 2010 About Game Studies Our Mission - To explore the rich cultural genre of games; to give scholars a peer-reviewed forum for their ideas and theories; to provide an academic channel for the ongoing discussions on games and gaming. Game Studies is a crossdisciplinary journal dedicated to games research, web-published several times a year at www.gamestudies.org. Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games, but any previously unpublished article focused on games and gaming is welcome. Proposed articles should be jargon-free, and should attempt to shed new light on games, rather than simply use games as metaphor or illustration of some other theory or phenomenon. Please help us spread the call to anyone you think might be interested. It is also available on the web at: http://gamestudies.org/1001/articles/cfp_game_reward_systems

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posting to list
by Sarah Oates 19 May '10

19 May '10

This post might be of interest to subscribers: Lecturer in Global Security and Political Communication (perhaps with a special interest in the internet and/or terrorism) Politics Department, University of Glasgow, closing date 4 June 2010, for more details see: http://www22.i-grasp.com/fe/tpl_glasgow01.asp?s=raCzFKhUsJVaXxJsp&jobid=340… Apologies for the unwieldy URL, you'll need to cut and paste into the browser or just go to www.gla.ac.uk, click on Jobs at Glasgow and motor along from there ... Sarah Oates Professor of Political Communication, Politics Department University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8RT Email: s.oates(a)lbss.gla.ac.uk Website: www.media-politics.com <http://www.media-politics.com/> Telephone: (0)141 330 5124 The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401

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Sources for Ethics of Corporate Info Lit Initiatives
by Hill Taylor 19 May '10

19 May '10

Does anyone know of sources that might be relevant to an "ethical critique" of corporate information literacy/technology skills edcuation initiatives (e.g., MSFT's Partners in Learning). Thanks in advance for any insights. Best, Hill Hill Taylor, Ph.D. hilltaylor(a)unc.edu http://english.unc.edu/faculty/taylorh.html www.archivefever.com 215 Greenlaw Hall Writing Program/English Department UNC-Chapel Hill

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CFP: Critical Perspectives on Global/Local Tensions in New Media
by Ben Aslinger 19 May '10

19 May '10

This anthology seeks to add to scholarship on the cultural geography of new media networks and products and the tensions between the “global” and the “local” by examining a range of new media case studies. This project considers new media practices, texts, services, software, policies, infrastructures, and design discourses that enrich existing relationships between creative industries and cultures of production, reception, and engagement. We seek papers with prose and diction appropriate for the undergraduate classroom but that are also sophisticated enough to be read by beginning graduate students. While we are open to case studies that illuminate new commercial and sociocultural practices and debates in any national context, we are particularly interested in papers that examine intersections of the global and the local outside of Western Europe and the industrializing nations of the Asia-Pacific region. Despite this project’s basis in the English language, we are interested in incorporating authorial voices and topics from a variety of national, regional, and subnational perspectives. We seek papers that address one or more of the following subject areas: analog and digital media forms in the global market the role of new media in constructing “media capitals” the role of new media platforms in addressing diasporic audiences challenges of defining the local in the face of complex intersections with the global debates surrounding media globalization in a specific local contexts the construction of dominant models of web design and definitions of “quality” web aesthetics vernacular design aesthetics that resist hegemonic these models cultural policy and new media industries global/local visions of the future of computing and digital communication localized internet and mobile cultures, practices, industries, and technologies interrogations of the global, local, cosmopolitan, hybrid, or glocal in regard to new media development strategies and new media infrastructures multi-scalar digital divides global/local perspectives on gaming cultures or game development experiences of place through new media new media networks and nodes economies of import and export Please send a 250-word abstract with a preliminary bibliography by September 1st to either Ben Aslinger (Bentley University, Waltham, MA, USA, baslinger(a)bentley.edu) or Germaine Halegoua (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, grhalegoua(a)gmail.com) Our plan is for all 5000-word commissioned papers to be due by March 31, 2011.

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