- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Research Methods
by Pam Brewer 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

Members of AoIR-- I have a request for resources. I am a PhD student in technical communication and rhetoric and will be conducting my dissertation research in order to respond to the following question: "How do cultural factors affect the international online communication that supports today's virtual office systems?" I am speaking specifically of communication across international cultures using online tools such as email, instant messaging, discussion boards, etc. In other words, I'm focusing on two-way communication. Now to the question--I have an extensive reading list which I won't attempt to list here, but I am anxious not to miss any important resources on methodology and content. If you have any suggestions for "don't miss" resources, would you please share them with me? I appreciate your help very much. Best, Pam Pamela Estes Brewer Lecturer -- Coordinator, Professional Writing Department of English and Philosophy Murray State University PhD Student in Technical Communication & Rhetoric, Texas Tech University 270-809-4719 fax 270-809-4545 pam.brewer(a)murraystate.edu

2 1

r-ICT 2007 1st Call for paper: Bandung Indonesia 6-7 Aug 07
by Yanuar Nugroho 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

hope of your interest .. y ---------- First Call for Paper r-ICT 2007 International Conference on Rural Information and Communication Technology 2007 August, 6-7th, 2007, Aula Barat, Institut Teknologi Bandung Jl. Ganesha No. 10 Bandung, Indonesia Finding effective and optimal ICT to develop well being of communities in rural areas is of primary importance to maximize benefits of this technology. The research problems include finding innovative network infrastructures, affordable computing, effective software applications, and sustainability policy scheme, social, economics, and regulation issues. The International Conference on Rural Information and Communication Technology 2007 (r-ICT 2007) will be held at Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia in 6-7th August 2007. Hosted by PPTIK-ITB (the ITB's Research Center for ICT), the r-ICT 2007 will be a great opportunity for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and anyone who are interested in any aspect of rural information and communication technologies, to share their ideas and to build a strong network among each others. All submitted papers will be blindly peer-reviewed by international experts and selected outstanding papers will be invited for a publication in a Special Issue of the Proceedings ITB on ICT-An International Journal. Topics covered in this conference are, but not limited to, the followings: Network Infrastructure for Rural-NGN . NLOS Radio Link for Rural Areas . Mesh Network s . Satellite and HAPS . Low Cost Antennas . Low Cost IT Backbone Affordable High Performance Computing . Mobile Computing . Low Cost Computing HW . Next Generation Interface . Grid, Cluster and Seamless Computing . Smart Computing . Open Source Applications . Network Management System for R-NGN . Telemedicine/eHealth . Tele-education . E-Government . Search Technologies and Data mining Cultural Content . Creative Contents and Local Cultures . Tele-environment Policy Study and Socioeconomic Aspect of r-ICT . USO (Universal Service Obligation) . Microfinance and r-ICT Business Model . Policy Study on Rural Communication . Modeling, Optimization and Game Theory Other Related Topics . Signal, Image , Video, and Multimedia Processing . Multidimensional and Array Processing . Internet Technologies . Graphical and Multimedia Computing Prospective authors are invited to submit a 1-2 pages extended summary containing important results by postal- or electronic- mail to r-ICT 2007 Secretariat The ITB Research Center for ICT (PPTIK-ITB) 4th Floor, Inter University Center (PAU) Building, Institut Teknologi Bandung Jl. Ganesha No. 10 Bandung, Indonesia, Phone: +62-22-4254034; Fax: +62-22-2508763 http://www.itb.ac.id/rICT2007; Email : r-ICT-2007(a)itb.ac.id In addition to the parallel tracks, there will be Exhibitions and invited lectures delivered by international experts. Important Dates . Extended Summary 30th April 2007 . Decision 30th May 2007 . Full/Camera Ready Papers 15th July 2007 . Conference Day 6-7th August 2007 ________________________________ Yanuar Nugroho http://myprofile.cos.com/yanuar-n Doctoral Researcher & Research Assistant PREST - Institute of Innovation Research The University of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL Tel. +44-161-275-5935 Fax. +44-161-275-0923

1 0

Re: [Air-l] COST 298: "Gender in a Broadband Society" special panel
by Larissa Hjorth 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

Dear all, As you are aware, COST 298 "Participation in the Broadband Society" is organizing a conference in Moscow 23rd - 25th May 2007 (costconference(a)fub.it) In the second strand "Humans as E-actors" (which will be chaired by Leopoldina Fortunati) I am organising a special panel on "Gender in a Broadband Society" which covers gender and mobile media. Please see the URL below for further details: http://conference.cost298.org/index.php?fl=0&p1=226&p2=253&p3=427&p4=557&id… I welcome submissions to the panel from interested parties. ^^ Thanks Larissa

1 0

CFP- Colloquium
by Viviane Serfaty 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

>From Viviane Serfaty Showing, Demonstrating Université de Marne la Vallée, France Research group: UMLV-Paris 12 : IMAGER June 15-16, 2007 Because the colloquium aims at cross-disciplinarity, its theme - Showing, Demonstrating - is meant to give rise to plural interpretations and encourage methodological hybridization. Showing and demonstrating are the basis of complex sets of relationships in a large array of fields, some of which include, but are not limited to, the areas of research exemplified below : · information: in many countries, the way the media stage-manage information is moving newsreports towards a degree of uniformity. The Internet is a prime vehicle for the globalization and uniformization of information flows and shows. Can these information flows be regulated ? With what technology? What presides over the choice of what the media show ? How does the Internet interact with traditional media ? · TV images, print media pictures, political cartoons : pictures, images or drawings are inserted in electronic or print media. What is the relationship between text and image, commentary and image ? How can the same images be made to demonstrate contradictory views ? How do pictures in TV news reports or newspaper pictures relate to reality ? How do images move from the status of witness to that of actor of history (Gervereau, 2006) ? What metaphors or other figures of speech are used to show and convince ? Are figures of speech used to show or point to the unsayable or even the unthinkable ? · Political activism: mobilizing supporters, staging a demonstration, and getting media attention are defining moments in the life of any militant or advocacy group. How do these groups construct their public image ? What do they strive to show ? Conversely, what do they carefully hide ? What tools do they use for their purposes ? What do these groups show when they build an Internet site ? · the production of private images : the widespread use of traditional and later on of digital cameras has led to the production and the preservation of often poor quality images. What do such images show when they are posted on sites such as youtube or dailymotion ? Do they transform our notions of privacy ? Do they show what ought to have remained hidden ? How can the large scale preservation of amateur pictures be analyzed ? · gaming: what is being played out in networked games ? does gaming demonstrate a new trend in sociality ? do the virtual worlds of networked games show anything about the underlying structures of contemporary sociality ? Can gaming be seen as a vector of acculturation for new technologies ? · the text image hypertext relationship : how can the iconic dimension of printed texts be thought through ? how are images mediated by texts ? can the frontier between text and images be described as porous ? the joint presentation of texts, images, videos or sounds paves the way for experiments in hypertextuality, ephemeral art or installations. Do these forms converge towards a rhetoric of multimedia (Bolter, Knoespel, 1994) ? Do they amount to new forms of visual writing ? --------------------------------------------- Please send 300-400 words-long anonymous proposals in English or French with a brief biographical sketch in a separate document to : vivianeserfaty(a)yahoo.fr or serfaty(a)mlv-univ.fr Deadline : January 31st, 2007. The scientific committee will examine the proposals by March 1st at the latest. ---------------------------------------------- Works cited : Bolter, Jay David, Knoespel, Kenneth J. Word and Image in Multimedia, in Josè Encarnçao and Jim Foley (eds.), Multimedia: System Architectures and Applications, Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1994, p. 237-253. Gervereau, Laurent. Propagande et images : le gouvernement des icônes. Table-ronde, ENS, 31 hanvier 2006. http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/index.php?res=conf&idconf=659# Montel, Nathalie. « Etablir la vérité scientifique au XIXe siècle. La controverse sur la différence de niveau des deux mers (1799-1869). Génèses. Sciences sociales et histoire, 32 (1998) 86-109. ___________________________________________________________________________ Découvrez une nouvelle façon d'obtenir des réponses à toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des expériences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/Réponses http://fr.answers.yahoo.com

1 0

CFP- Colloquium
by Viviane Serfaty 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

>From Viviane Serfaty Showing, Demonstrating Université de Marne la Vallée, France Research group: UMLV-Paris 12 : IMAGER June 15-16, 2007 Because the colloquium aims at cross-disciplinarity, its theme - Showing, Demonstrating - is meant to give rise to plural interpretations and encourage methodological hybridization. Showing and demonstrating are the basis of complex sets of relationships in a large array of fields, some of which include, but are not limited to, the areas of research exemplified below : · information: in many countries, the way the media stage-manage information is moving newsreports towards a degree of uniformity. The Internet is a prime vehicle for the globalization and uniformization of information flows and shows. Can these information flows be regulated ? With what technology? What presides over the choice of what the media show ? How does the Internet interact with traditional media ? · TV images, print media pictures, political cartoons : pictures, images or drawings are inserted in electronic or print media. What is the relationship between text and image, commentary and image ? How can the same images be made to demonstrate contradictory views ? How do pictures in TV news reports or newspaper pictures relate to reality ? How do images move from the status of witness to that of actor of history (Gervereau, 2006) ? What metaphors or other figures of speech are used to show and convince ? Are figures of speech used to show or point to the unsayable or even the unthinkable ? · Political activism: mobilizing supporters, staging a demonstration, and getting media attention are defining moments in the life of any militant or advocacy group. How do these groups construct their public image ? What do they strive to show ? Conversely, what do they carefully hide ? What tools do they use for their purposes ? What do these groups show when they build an Internet site ? · the production of private images : the widespread use of traditional and later on of digital cameras has led to the production and the preservation of often poor quality images. What do such images show when they are posted on sites such as youtube or dailymotion ? Do they transform our notions of privacy ? Do they show what ought to have remained hidden ? How can the large scale preservation of amateur pictures be analyzed ? · gaming: what is being played out in networked games ? does gaming demonstrate a new trend in sociality ? do the virtual worlds of networked games show anything about the underlying structures of contemporary sociality ? Can gaming be seen as a vector of acculturation for new technologies ? · the text image hypertext relationship : how can the iconic dimension of printed texts be thought through ? how are images mediated by texts ? can the frontier between text and images be described as porous ? the joint presentation of texts, images, videos or sounds paves the way for experiments in hypertextuality, ephemeral art or installations. Do these forms converge towards a rhetoric of multimedia (Bolter, Knoespel, 1994) ? Do they amount to new forms of visual writing ? --------------------------------------------- Please send 300-400 words-long anonymous proposals in English or French with a brief biographical sketch in a separate document to : vivianeserfaty(a)yahoo.fr or serfaty(a)mlv-univ.fr Deadline : January 31st, 2007. The scientific committee will examine the proposals by March 1st at the latest. ---------------------------------------------- Works cited : Bolter, Jay David, Knoespel, Kenneth J. Word and Image in Multimedia, in Josè Encarnçao and Jim Foley (eds.), Multimedia: System Architectures and Applications, Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1994, p. 237-253. Gervereau, Laurent. Propagande et images : le gouvernement des icônes. Table-ronde, ENS, 31 hanvier 2006. http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/index.php?res=conf&idconf=659# Montel, Nathalie. « Etablir la vérité scientifique au XIXe siècle. La controverse sur la différence de niveau des deux mers (1799-1869). Génèses. Sciences sociales et histoire, 32 (1998) 86-109. ___________________________________________________________________________ Découvrez une nouvelle façon d'obtenir des réponses à toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des expériences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/Réponses http://fr.answers.yahoo.com

1 0

CfP COST 298: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNEXPECTED. The user and the future of information and communication technologies. Moscow 23 - 25 May 2007
by Frank Thomas 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

- Apologies for eventual cross postings - The European network COST 298 Participation in the Broadband Society invites you to actively participate in our research conference in Moscow, 23-25 May 2007. The main objective of the conference is to create new knowledge about users’ creativity and facilitate their empowerment in a broadband information society. This knowledge requires an examination of the factors that can both constrain and enhance users’ abilities to shape and use ICTs. >From our perspective, the ‘broadband society’ refers to a possible, but not inevitable, substantial transformation of our experience of telecommunications based on these technologies allowing information and communication technologies to be used everywhere, all the time and by everybody. Given the widespread aspirations of Governments and companies to achieve this goal, the extent to which any such transformation has occurred needs, of course, to be evaluated in a balanced manner. Broadband technologies have resulted mainly from technological and institutional imperatives. To what extent have potential users managed to find ways in which such technologies can be useful, worthwhile and attractive? We certainly know from previous research this can require those users to be creative in terms of fitting ICTs into their activities or using them to find solutions to the everyday problems that they already encounter. But how much is being demanded of those users, what considerations have a bearing upon whether these technologies actually find a place in their lives and what new issues, of indeed problems, can these ICTs themselves create, especially if they really are ‘disruptive technologies’? Ultimately, we also need to acknowledge that users may well decide that their existing solutions suffice, in which case these new technological options may find only a modest place in their lives. Indeed, they may even be resisted or ignored. Whatever strategies users employ for assessing and dealing with such innovations, we need to learn more about these social processes, including strategies for dealing with the up and coming generation of new information and communication products and services. Only by so doing can we hope to empower them further in their relationships to technology and through this hope to increase the quality of their lives. In this conference, the organisers - COST Action 298 <http://coference.cost298.org> - invite technology and product developers, designers, social scientists, policy makers, community representatives and others who are interested in the conference topics, to join our attempt to develop this discussion on a common, shared and transdisciplinary ground. We ask participants to 1) strive to present their topic from a human-centric point of view as opposed to a technology-, product- or business-centric one, and to 2) present their topic in a language that attempts to transcend disciplinary boundaries, a language that non-experts can also understand, and to 3) not only report on their work, but also to engage in the conference debate which aims to develop ways to understand the interests of people and society, to evaluate developments against such an evolving understanding, and to chart interesting and desirable future directions. The emphasis of this event will be on networking and promoting a dialogue with colleagues from around Europe and the rest of the world. We look forward to seeing you in Moscow for a conference designed to be exciting, thought-provoking and challenging. *Dates:* Deadline for submission: *10 January* *2007 *Notification of acceptance : 28 February 2007 For further details please visit http://conference.cost298.org/ Cheers F. Thomas -- .......................................... Dr. Frank Thomas FTR Internet Research 93110 Rosny-sous-Bois France

1 2

Sampling and Recruiting Participation from SecondLife.com
by Kevin Sherman 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

Does anyone have any practical suggestions on how to sample and recruit research participants from users of SecondLife.com? My research will likely employ qualitative methodology but may also involve quantitative surveys. Thank you Kevin Kevin Sherman PhD Candidate Centre for Communication Research Auckland University of Technology

2 1

extension of the deadline for the submission of abstracts
by kerstin.radde＠zegk.uni-heidelberg.de 10 Jan '07

10 Jan '07

Dear list-members, due to editorial reasons we allow an extension for the submission of abstracts for the special issue of the "Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet" covering the topic "Virtual Worlds". New deadline is 31/1/2007. For further information see the attached Call for Papers below. Best regards and a Happy New Year from Heidelberg! Yours Kerstin Radde-Antweiler Dipl. Theol. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler SFB 619 Teilprojekt C 2 Institut für Religionswissenschaft der Universität Heidelberg Akademiestr. 4-8 69117 Heidelberg Tel.: +49-(0)6221-547482 Fax : +49-(0)6221-547424 Email: kerstin.radde(a)zegk.uni-heidelberg.de URL: http://www.rituals-online.uni-hd.de Call for Papers "Virtual Worlds" In the academic field of "Cultural Studies", like in other cultural and social disciplines, the relevance of the Internet as new media is constantly increasing. New areas of scholarly research are to be found on homepages, weblogs, in chat rooms, in newsgroups and in virtual 3D environments, where religious and spiritual topics are presented and incessantly negotiated. The Internet could be seen as a ?cultural context of its own right", as Christine Hine stated in her programmatic book "Virtual ethnography". In this respect it has become an important part of our cultural and scientific assets, heritage and memory. As such it also forms, modifies and creates new cultural structures. Therefore, the challenges of this media provide the scholar with materials in a still mainly unexplored field of research, demanding new scientific methods and methodologies in order to analyse the likewise new realm of religious beliefs and utterances in this virtual space. In the context of Internet Research, Virtual Worlds offer a new environment to meet, communicate and perform social and cultural activity in a virtual reality, irrespective of geographical and real-life body conditions. Examples for such Virtual Worlds - understood as digital spaces, occupied in large part by human controlled agents, known as avatars, participating in a collective virtual space? (Krausnick 2004) - are Active Worlds and The Palace - both in use since 1995 - and There since 1998. The most prominent and famous example is the privately-owned, subscription-based 3D application Second Life that went online for the public in 2003. An increasing number of residents use such environments not only as a kind of virtual playground but as an enlargement of their real-life possibilities. And this "virtual life" has to be taken seriously: The users are both socially and religiously very active and consequently transfer real-life activities into virtual space. For the next issue of the new Journal Online - Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet (http://online.uni-hd.de) we are planning to edit a special edition with the working title "Virtual Worlds". The essays we are inviting should deal with the notions of cultural and / or religious activities in Virtual Worlds like Second Life and MMOGs such as Everquest, World of Warcraft, etc. Possible topics or foci of the special issue: 1) Religion and Rituals 2) Methodology 3) Offline-Online Relations Other topics that correspond to the subject of the issue are equally welcome. We encourage abstracts from all areas of research. Please send title and abstract (no more than 350 words) of your proposed paper as well as some short biodata of the author/s as email-text to Kerstin Radde-Antweiler (kerstin.radde(a)zegk.uni-heidelberg.de) by January 31st, 2007. Later submissions will not be accepted. A decision on the contents of the volume will be made on the basis of anonymous reviews of the abstracts, and all authors of abstracts will be informed by February 28th, 2007. Authors will have to be prepared to submit their finished papers (no more than 8000 words) by April 31th, 2007. Then, these will be reviewed and possibly returned to the authors with suggestions from the editors. It is planned to publish the volume by Mid 2007. Dipl. Theol. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler Centre for European Historical and Cultural Studies Institute for Religious Studies Akademiestr. 4-8 D-69117 Heidelberg Germany

1 0

Subscribe FREE to Design Research News
by Ken Friedman 09 Jan '07

09 Jan '07

Dear Colleagues, Design Research News is a free monthly email letter that provides information on design and design research to 7,000 subscribers around the world. The Design Research Society publishes the newsletter as a professional and educational service. Prof. David Durling of Middlesex University edits DRN. Prof. Ken Friedman of the Norwegian School of Management and Denmark's Design School edits book reviews. It is distributed through the UK academic email facility, JISCMAIL. Design Research News publishes information on: * conferences, * publishing opportunities, * funding, * competitions, * articles, * exhibitions, and * books for an international audience of experts in design research, design practice, and design education. DRN covers all areas of design. Fields and subject areas include industrial design, graphic design, product design, design history, philosophy of design, design theory, art, engineering, anthropology, architecture, systems design, design management, CAD, ergonomics, psychology, computer science, information design, informatics, design for development and many other subjects. Design Research News is NOT a discussion list. Only the newsletter is sent. To subscribe simply go to this URL: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/design-research.html and click on the line Join or leave the list (or change settings) Yours, -- Ken Friedman Professor Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Oslo Center for Design Research Denmark's Design School Copenhagen +47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM +47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

1 0

IBM To Build Virtual Stores in Second Life
by alexandra boutros 09 Jan '07

09 Jan '07

thought this news article might be of interest to some on this list; IBM to Build Virtual Stores in Second Life AP http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/09/tech-ibm.html best, Alexandra Boutros Postdoctoral Fellow (FQRSC) Center for Religion and Media New York University 726 Broadway NY NY 10003 http://www.nyu.edu/fas/center/religionandmedia/ alexandra.boutros(a)nyu.edu

1 0