- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

reminder: 'Internet Histories' cfp -- 16 April 07 close
by Gerard Goggin 30 Mar '07

30 Mar '07

[reminder: abstracts due 16 April] 'Internet Histories' a pre-AoIR 8.0 workshop October 16, 2007 Vancouver, Canada Despite the fact that the Internet is entering its fifth decade, the understanding and writing of its histories is very much in its infancy. In this one-day workshop, to be held 16 October 2007 directly before the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) 8.0 conference (http://conferences.aoir.org) we aim to explore the questions, assumptions, investments, frameworks, concepts, methods, biases, opportunities, archives, narratives, tropes, and logics that underlie the Internet’s diverse histories. In particular, in the spirit of our 2006 ‘Internationalising Internet Studies’ workshop (http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/conferences/2006/conferences-2006-ine…) we start from the notion that the history of Internet uptake has been widely divergent across cultures and regions. In Asia, in particular, the initial PC-based phase of connectivity typical of the US and Europe, has not been replicated. Instead, Internet penetration was achieved via a variety of mobile devices, including Internet-enabled cell phones resulting in very different cultures of use and practice. Accordingly, we call for papers on Internet histories, including, but certainly not limited to the following issues: • what sorts of Internet histories are currently available, or in progress — whether national, country-specific, local, subcultural, community, or transnational and translocal? • what are the histories and trajectories currently missing and why do these particular lacunae exist? What histories of the Internet are being foreclosed, overlooked, or not yet imagined, and what are the implications of this? • who is currently writing, reading, collecting, valorising, or even enshrining Internet histories? • what are the dominant accounts of Internet history, or dominant assumptions regarding these? • what histories do we have of Latin American, African, Oceanic, or Asian Internet, for instance, compared to European or North American Internet? • what challenges does doing Internet history pose? what is specific about Internet history compared to histories of media, communications, or other technologies, or broad social or cultural histories? • how do our understandings of Internet and mobile technologies and cultures vary depending on the kinds of quite specific histories that condition these? • how do a researcher’s own culture and patterns of use determine the kinds of questions s/he may raise concerning the history of ‘the Internet’? This project brings together researchers working on country-specific and regional histories of the Internet as well as those researching Internet use by local and transnational subcultures and communities. This will be the first of what is anticipated to be a series of workshops, leading to an edited collection aimed at understanding the different historical patterns of Internet deployment and cultural and technological development. We welcome abstracts of no more than 500 words by Monday 16 April 2007. Please send your abstract to both organisers: Gerard Goggin (gerard.goggin(a)arts.usyd.edu.au) and Mark McLelland (markmc(a)uow.edu.au) Acceptance will be advised by the end of April 2007. Subsequent to acceptance, presenters will need to register for the workshop and the AoIR conference via the AoIR online conference registration system. Please note that acceptance of your paper at the pre-conference workshop does not preclude you from also submitting a different paper to the main conference. For those selected, papers of 5,000 words will be due by mid-September 2007. Following the workshop, papers will be considered for inclusion in an edited collection on Internet Histories. The project website is: http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/events/2007/inet-histories/ About the organisers: Gerard Goggin is an ARC Australian Research Fellow in the Dept of Media and Communications, University of Sydney, Australia. His books include Cell Phone Culture (Routledge, 2006), Virtual Nation: The Internet in Australia (2004), and Digital Disability (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), and he is currently working on a study of global mobile media. Mark McLelland lectures in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communications at the University of Wollongong. His publications include Japanese Cybercultures (2000) and Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age (2005). Gerard and Mark are editors of Internationalizing Internet Studies (Routledge, 2007). -- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Dr Gerard Goggin ARC Australian Research Fellow Editor, 'Media International Australia' Department of Media and Communications The University of Sydney e-mail: gerard.goggin(a)arts.usyd.edu.au p: +61 2 9036 6424 f: 61 2 9351 5444 http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/media/?page=staff&id=gerard.goggin _______________________________________________ The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

1 0

Studies on You Tube comments
by Darren Purcell 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Dear AOIR listers, I have a student interested in the use of comments on political and territorial focused You Tube videos. What readings or studies could I send her to? She is particularly interested in the how the comments seem to be in two modes of communication 1) the profanity filled comments, 2) the reasoned, logical, fact-based discourse and debate. She notes that the majority of comments can be categorized in one of the two modes. Any studies on this issue that come to mind? Thank you, Darren Purcell

1 0

CFP: Persistent Conversation minitrack at HICSS
by Tom Erickson 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

SECOND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Persistent Conversation Minitrack Digital Media and Content Track at HICSS 41 January 7-10, 2008 Hilton Waikoloa Village, the Big Island, Hawai'i See http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS_PC.html for an online version and further information. IMPORTANT DATES - Mon, April 16, 2007: Abstract submission - Tue, May 1, 2007: Feedback on abstracts - Fri, June 15, 2007: Paper submission [instructions on the HICSS site] - Wed, August 15, 2007: Accept/Conditional Accept/Reject notice ABOUT THE MINITRACK This interdisciplinary minitrack and workshop brings designers and researchers together to explore persistent conversation, the transposition of ordinarily ephemeral conversation into the potentially persistent digital medium. Persistent conversations occur via instant messaging, text and voice chat, email, blogs, web boards, MOOs, graphical and 3D virtual environments, gaming systems, video sharing sites, document annotation systems, mobile phone texting, etc. Such communication is persistent in that it leaves a digital trace, and the trace in turn affords new uses. It permits conversations to be saved, visualized, browsed, searched, replayed, and restructured. Persistence also means that conversations need not be synchronous: they can be asynchronous (stretching out over hours or days) or supersynchronous (with multiple parties 'talking' at the same time). Finally, the creation of persistent and potentially permanent records from what was once an ephemeral process raises a variety of social and ethical issues. ABOUT PAPER TOPICS We are seeking papers that address one or both of the following two general areas: * Understanding Practice. The burgeoning popularity of the internet (and intranets) provides an opportunity to study and characterize new forms of conversational practice. Questions of interest range from how various features of conversations (e.g., turn-taking, topic organization, expression of paralinguistic information) have adapted in response to the digital medium, to new roles played by persistent conversation in domains such as education, business, and entertainment. * Design. Digital systems do not currently support conversation well: it is difficult to converse with grace, clarity, depth and coherence over networks. But this need not remain the case. Toward this end, we welcome analyses of existing systems as well as designs for new systems which better support conversation. Also of interest are inquiries into how participants design their own conversations within the digital medium -- that is, how they make use of system features to create, structure, and regulate their discourse. Examples of appropriate topics include, but are not limited to: - Turn-taking, threading and other structural features of CMC - The dynamics of large scale conversation systems (e.g. blog networks) - Methods for summarizing or visualizing conversation archives - Studies of virtual communities or other sites of digital conversation - The roles of mediated conversation in knowledge management - Studies of the use of instant messaging in large organizations - Novel designs for computer-mediated conversation systems - Analyses of or designs for distance learning systems NEXT STEPS Submit a 250 to 500 word abstract of your proposed paper via email to the chairs: Tom Erickson (snowfall at acm dot org), Susan Herring (herring at indiana dot edu) by the deadline noted above. We will send you feedback on the suitability of your abstract by the deadline noted above. FOR MORE INFORMATION - About the minitrack, see http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS_PC.html or contact: Thomas Erickson (snowfall at acm.org) and Susan Herring (herring at indiana.edu) - About previous years' papers (including pdf's) and participants, see: http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/HICSS_PC_History.html - About the HICSS conference, see: http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/ ------------------------------ Tom Erickson and Susan Herring Chairs, Persistent Conversation minitrack and workshop, HICSS 41

1 0

Re: [Air-l] Origin of the term "Internet" ?
by Bram Dov Abramson 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

> --- Sue Cranmer <sue(a)jcranmer.freeserve.co.uk> wrote: >> Interesting discussion. How do aiorlisters then see >> the comparison between >> the the 'Internet' or 'internet' and the >> 'telephone'? The Internet, it seems to me, is a particular thing: it's the network that runs IP and uses the ICANN-administered addressing system and all the rest of it. The telephone is a class of things: it's a kind of device that we plug into the wall, because we want connectivity to a particular network. To the extent a mobile phone or cell phone gets to be a "telephone", I guess that telephone is a broader class of devices than that. Either way. many of us have several telephones. Few of us have several internets. Noone has more than one of the Internet. > The point is that there is a significant difference in > the evolution of telephone and the Internet. There > were always multiple telephone (and telegraph) > networks; there was no time where there was one > telephone network named The Telephone network. I don't know. Isn't the PSTN, The Telephone Network? Its one-ness federates a heterogeneity much in the way the Internet does: a single network because end-to-end (voice) connectivity bound by a common addressing system (ITU E.164, rather than ICANN DNS). In that sense agreement to coordinate to CCIT/CCITT/ITU-T has played a similar role in maintaining The Telephone Network (i.e. PSTN) as coordinating to IAB&IETF&Postel/ICANN has helped maintain an Internet. Sometimes the PSTN and the Internet overlap, as when E.164-numbered phone calls are terminated to Voice-over-Internet connection. They're not mirror images of one another: the Internet disaggregates some of the layers that the PSTN binds tightly together. But they're each a network, for remarkably similar meanings of "network". cheers Bram

1 0

Any good Free E-Learning Platforms out there?
by Michael Baron 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Hi, All I am trying to find a good Platform (e.g. something similar to Blackboard or E-Courses) that will enable me to deliver online courses free of cost. Is there such a platform? My training institution is small and can not really afford to subscribe to turnitin etc. thank you very much for your help, Michael Baron -- "My Body is my Temple" "Be The Change You Want to See In The World." Gandhi

9 9

PhD Studentships available at IPE, The Media School, Bournemouth University, UK
by Claudia Vieira 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

IPE - Research Centre in Interactivity, Personalization and Experience - The Media School - Bournemouth University PhD Studentships IPE is a collaborative interdisciplinary network focusing on the experiences derived from interactive, personalized, collaborative and increasingly mobile media forms. The centre aims to challenge notions of the consumer, the author, the user of interactive media and to diminish the perceived divide between the theory, production and experience of these forms. We are currently offering a PhD studentship in Networked Practices: Changing methodologies for interactive experience. Read more at: http://www.media.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/ipe_networked_practices.html For the next round of bursaries 08/09, we are especially interested in applications addressing the following topics: Interactivity and Personalization The commonality of interactive media lies in the users ability to directly manipulate and effect personal experiences of media. We are interested in supporting research projects that explore the changing climate of media personalization. Read more at: http://www.media.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/studentships/index.html#ipe_3 Cross-Platform Media The future of media is in innovative, flexible, repurposeable, 360 degree content. We are interested in supporting practice-based research projects that reflect creatively on the future of cross-platform media production. Read more at: http://www.media.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/studentships/index.html#ipe_1 For general inquiries about IPE and its activities, please contact me. :) cláudia gabriela marques vieira subject leader, interactive media production director of IPE, research centre in interactivity, personalization & experience the media school bournemouth university cvieira(a)bournemouth.ac.uk http://www.futurepresent.org http://www.media.bournemouth.ac.uk/impblog http://www.media.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/ipe.html _________________________________________________________ The present age ... prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence ... for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Feuerbach, Ludwig (1843) The Essence of Christianity. 2nd Ed: Preface [Online at marxists.org: www.marxists.org.uk/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/index.htm] In memory of Baudrillard.

1 0

Fwd: The 35th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy: deadline 31 March
by Jeremy Hunsinger 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

distribute as appropriate > Hosted by The National Center for Technology & Law, > http://www.tprc.org/TPRC07/CFP07.pdf > George Mason University School of Law > Arlington, Virginia > > September 28-30, 2007 > > TPRC is an annual conference on communication, information, and > internet policy that brings a diverse, international group of > researchers from academia, industry, government, and nonprofit > organizations together with policy makers. It serves two primary > goals: (1) dissemination of research relevant to current > communications regulatory and policy debates in the US and around > the world; and (2) promotion of new research on emerging issues. > > The TPRC program is developed primarily from submitted papers. The > Program Committee will also consider proposals for panels, > tutorials, and technology demonstrations. Proposals for a panel > should include a one-page description of the panel, its purpose, > and a list of the potential invited panelists, preferably offering > different points of view of the problems to be discussed. > Individuals interested in leading a tutorial or technology > demonstration should submit a one-page description and a list of > the topics to be covered. If it is a technology demonstration > please specify if the participants will have opportunity to use the > technology during the conference. > > TPRC is now soliciting abstracts of papers for presentation at its > 2007 conference. Proposals should be based on current theoretical > or empirical research relevant to communication and information > policy, and may be from any disciplinary perspective. TPRC welcomes > national, international, comparative, and multidisciplinary or > interdisciplinary studies. > > > >

1 0

CfP: NRHM Special Issue on Studying the Users of Digital Education Technologies: Theories, Methods, and Analytical Approaches
by Cunliffe D J (AT) 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Call for Papers: New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia Special Issue on Studying the Users of Digital Education Technologies: Theories, Methods, and Analytical Approaches Guest editor: Michael Khoo National Science Digital Library, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, United States: mjkhoo(a)ucar.edu Submission deadline: 16 May 2007 Acceptance notification: 2 July 2007 Final manuscripts due: 20 August 2007 Digital technologies are increasingly integral components of educational settings and Digital Libraries, serving for instance as repositories, as scaffolds to enhance face-to-face pedagogy, and as distance-learning tools. How might we understand the impact of these technologies on knowledge and learning, and what lessons might be learnt from their use, that could be applied to future technologies? Addressing these research questions requires recognition of the highly complex character of digital education technologies: they vary in size from handheld PDAs to large distributed digital library projects; they are used in a range of formal and informal educational settings ranging from schools and universities to hospitals, clinics, museums and art galleries; and they serve learners of all ages. How may researchers approach this heterogeneity and work towards useful research outcomes? This special issue of NRHM addresses issues associated with the qualitative understanding of the use of digital educational technologies in real-life contexts (with a focus on digital libraries, broadly conceived), by emphasizing the importance of contextual sociotechnical studies of technology use and design. The issue will consider educational technologies as complex mixtures of people, practices and technologies, embedded in a range of institutional, technological and social contexts. The editor therefore invites contributions that address the qualitative and sociotechnical study of digital educational technologies and users 'in the wild.' Relevant topics include, but are not limited to: - Theoretical approaches Ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, sociotechnical, activity theory, practice-based, and other approaches to the analysis of digital educational technologies - Methodological approaches Ethnography HCI, user testing, scenarios, interviews, focus groups, etc. Discourse analysis Webmetrics and use models Etc. - Applications to particular domains Science education Medical Digital Libraries User groups and use-in-context Etc. - Applied approaches Case studies Qualitative research and project evaluation strategies Communicating qualitative research results to digital library developers and sponsors Etc. The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (NRHM) is published by Taylor & Francis and appears in both print and digital formats. For more details and indicative topics, see the journal website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13614568.asp Submissions should be sent by email to the guest editor, preferably in pdf format. Questions and enquiries concerning this call should be directed to the guest editor. Open topic papers meeting NRHM's scope in general are also welcome (send to Editor, dstudhope(a)glam.ac.uk)

1 0

Journal CFP reminder: Beyond Broadcasting
by Graham Meikle 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

[apologies for any cross-posting] **Reminder: Abstracts due 1 May 2007** Call For Papers: 'Media International Australia' Issue no. 126, Feb 2008 'Beyond Broadcasting: TV for the Twenty-First Century' Theme Editors: Graham Meikle and Sherman Young The broadcast era is over. The twentieth-century broadcast model of centralised, one-way transmission of pre-packaged content to large, simultaneous audiences is increasingly challenged and complemented by newer approaches. Content, distribution channels, geographical constraints, production values, business models, regulatory approaches and cultural habits are changing as the new media technologies empower users in unexpected ways and increasingly recast TV as something that audiences create as well as watch. Cheap hardware and software allow anyone to produce original or mashed-up¹ videos. The ubiquity of camera-phones and CCTV redefines reality television. Higher-quality resources bring near-broadcast quality to video blogs and citizen journalism. Affordable editing resources allow creative re-mixes of low-brow soap-operas. And sites such as YouTube demonstrate the online demand for such non-traditional video productions. Such media forms are unlikely to replace television as we know it. But they will displace it. This issue of 'Media International Australia' invites contributions that are able to push forward our thinking about television. The following gives some indication of the range of possible topics, but is not intended to rule out other questions. * What is television in the twenty-first century? Should our definition of television change? If television is considered a cultural habit, what new habits are emerging? * Does television require an *industry*? How are audiences reinventing themselves as producers? * What are the relationships between free to air, pay TV, public broadcasting and emerging new formats? * What are the impacts of new distribution models, both legal and illegal? * What impacts do the new technologies and habits have on traditional institutions, policies and regulatory frameworks? Papers should be approximately 4-5000 words and comply with the MIA style guide, available at <http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au/mia/index.html>. Further information is available from Dr Graham Meikle <graham.meikle(a)mq.edu.au> or Dr Sherman Young <sherman.young(a)mq.edu.au>. Abstracts should be sent to the theme editors by 1 May 2007. Following proposal assessments, papers for refereeing will be required by 1 August 2007, with any revisions to be completed by 15 November 2007 for publication in February 2008. About the journal: Media International Australia (MIA) publishes new scholarly and applied research on the media, telecommunications, and the cultural industries, and the policy regimes within which they operate (http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au/mia/index.html) MIA was founded by Professor Henry Mayer in 1976. It was published by the Australian Film, Television and Radio School until 1997, when it moved to the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy at Griffith University. At that time, it was merged with the Centre's journal, Culture and Policy. From 2004, it became a publication of the School of EMSAH and the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, at The University of Queensland. In 2005 the Henry Mayer Lecture was established in memory of the journal's founder. Broadly inclusive and inter-disciplinary, the journal welcomes the writing of history, theory and analysis, commentary and debate. While its primary focus is Australia, the journal also aims to provide an international perspective. Dr Graham Meikle ------------------------- Senior Lecturer, Department of Media, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia. tel: (61 2) 9850-6899 fax: (61 2) 9850-6776 email: <graham.meikle(a)mq.edu.au>

1 0

Re: [Air-l] naturally occurring conflicts?
by Joshua Raclaw 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

I think your use of 'naturally-occurring' is a little confusing because both forms of conflict that you've described fall under the rubric of 'natural' conversation (especially in the conversation analytic framework that you've chosen to use), and because classifying flaming as 'unnatural' privileges all other forms of verbal conflict as more common or intuitive to speakers. You might want to focus more on what you see as intentionality or provocation rather than naturalness (although this carries its own set of problems when thinking through the CA notion of procedural relevance). Joshua Joshua Raclaw - PhD student Department of Linguistics Culture, Language & Social Practice Women and Gender Studies University of Colorado at Boulder http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~raclaw/ ---- Original message ---- >Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:55:19 +0300 >From: Jonna Ahti <jonna.ahti(a)helsinki.fi> >Subject: Re: [Air-l] naturally occurring conflicts? >To: Ellis Godard <egodard(a)csun.edu> >Cc: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > > >Hello again, > >Citerar Ellis Godard <egodard(a)csun.edu>: > >> But I don't know what you intend to mean by "naturally occurring". Is >> flaming somehow unnatural? > >Actually yes, if I look at my data. It is of course sometimes hard to know >whether a conflict is naturally occurring or if it is provoked by a hostile >member. In my data most of the conflicts are caused by misunderstandings. >Example: >a: shut up just shut up shut up >b: what?! >b: do you mean that I should shut up??? >c: she sings black eyed peas: shut up >a: I'm singing black eyed peas >b: ah, ok, good :-) > >Sometimes the members talk about the verbal duels they are taking part in >which can be very intensive and rough. That intentionally conflict-seeking >behavior I would categorize as flaming. But as I said these things will and >have to be discussed in the dissertation. Also the cultural differences have >to be taken into account: my data is from a public chat-room for the Swedish >speaking minority in Finland. Similar data in Finnish would be much more >aggressive and I assume it has partly to do with the sense of community the >members create in different chat-rooms. > >regards, >Jonna > >-- >Ms. Jonna Ahti >PhD student >NORDICA - Department of Scandinavian Languages >and Scandinavian Literature >P.O.Box 24 >00014 University of Helsinki >Finland >tel. +358-40-5625497 >jonna.ahti(a)helsinki.fi > >_______________________________________________ >The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list >is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > >Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >http://www.aoir.org/

1 0