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CFP: Media-N, "As the World Burns: On Media and Climate"
by Rebecca Uliasz 07 Jun '23

07 Jun '23

Hello all, I wanted to share the call for abstracts for the next issue of Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus Current Open Call Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus invites submissions for a special themed issue: [A cartoon dog in a small hat sits calmly in a wooden chair at a dining table while flames and smoke consume the room.] Image: KC Green. Alt text: A cartoon dog in a small hat sits calmly in a wooden chair at a dining table while flames and smoke consume the room. As the World Burns: On Media and Climate Guest Editors: Corinna Kirsch, PhD (Pratt Institute) and Rebecca Uliasz (Duke University) Deadline for abstracts: Monday, July 31, 2023 For this special issue of Media-N, the editors invite abstracts on topics related to the history, theory, and aesthetics of digital media and climate. We hope to shed light on the long history of digital art and media’s participation in planetary processes connected to climate change, including the challenges posed by new media art’s ongoing culpability and participation in its advancement, and the overarching effects of these actions on social, perceptual, and cognitive registers, both globally and individually. Through this form of eco-criticism, we approach two acute developments faced today, each bearing enormous and unevenly distributed threats to a globalized world: climate change and the proliferation of data-driven technology across nearly every social sphere. We also seek alternatives to climate discourse’s hyper-focus on present-day structures by appealing to deep histories and non-western approaches to the ambiguous interconnection of media and “nature.” In so doing, we see that the relationship between media and climate is not a new situation by any means, nor is it a universal one: the Anthropocene began prior to this century, with geological shifts recorded at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and, even further back, to the European colonization of the Americas. As Andreas Malm has put it, “We can never be in the heat of the moment, only in the heat of this ongoing past.” Questions informing the special issue include: In what ways are new media scholars, activists, and artists engaging with the Earth-altering processes of technology? How have practitioners, scholars, and activists working with digital media illuminated the way agency, subjectivity, and environment is defined and operationalized in diverse geo- and socio-political contexts? What alternatives might be sought through appealing to indigenous and other forms of climate knowledge, cultivated by communities that have long found themselves subjected to colonially-induced climate change? As a method of promoting cross-disciplinary conversation among the new media community, we are seeking project reports, exhibition and event reviews, interviews, and manifestos in addition to formal research papers. Topics of potential interest to the editors include, but are not limited to: * Questions related to weather, climate, and digital infrastructures * Weather and meteorology in media and systems-based practices, e.g., climate control in museums, solar powered art, and media projects with natural radio * Relation between media aesthetics and environmental “injustices,” e.g., eco-fascism and climate-change denialism * Elemental, thermal, atmospheric, infrastructural and other forms of media that aren’t exclusively digital * Non-western and indigenous histories and theories of art, digital media, and the environment * Environmental media and digital or financial capitalism, e.g., blockchain, algorithmic forecasting, and predictive simulations * Climate fiction, futurities, and imaginaries, including multi-species assemblages * Environmental media and digital colonialism and neocolonialism * Labor, subjectivity, and psychic dimensions of environmental media To submit an abstract for consideration, please send 200-300 word abstracts and a condensed (under 5 pg.) CV to the following individuals by Monday, July 31, 2023: * Guest Editor, Corinna Kirsch: corinna.kirsch(a)gmail.com * Guest Editor, Rebecca Uliasz: rebecca.uliasz(a)gmail.com * Interim Executive Editor, Chelsea Thompto: chelsea.l.thompto(a)gmail.com * Executive Editor, Johanna Gosse: johannagosse(a)gmail.com Final Submission Length Guidelines: * Articles: 6,000-8,000 word range * Artist's projects: 4,000-6,000 word range * Interviews and Reviews: 1,000-3,000 word range https://iopn.library.illinois.edu/journals/median/information/authors Please do share with anyone that may be interested in submitting! Sincerely, Becca Rebecca Uliasz/ MFA PhD candidate/ Computational Media, Arts, and Cultures/ Duke University/ rebeccauliasz.com

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CFP: Special issue on (un)Stable Diffusions
by Fenwick Mckelvey 07 Jun '23

07 Jun '23

Please circulate widely and consider applying. CFP: (un)Stable Diffusions: General-purpose artificial intelligence’s publicities, publics, and publicizations Edited by Fenwick McKelvey, Joanna Redden, Jonathan Roberge, and Luke Stark (names in alphabetical order) To be published in the open access Journal of Digital Social Research <https://www.jdsr.io/>. Please submit your abstracts here: https://forms.gle/hWQxvuRTWoFhVs3W6 The recent release of so-called “general-purpose artificial intelligence” (GPAI) systems have prompted a public panic that AI-generated fiction is now indistinguishable from fact. General-purpose AI refers to systems “intended by the provider to perform generally applicable functions such as image and speech recognition, audio and video generation, pattern detection, question answering, translation and others” (Artificial Intelligence Act, Council of the European Union, Procedure File: 2021/0106(COD), Title 1, Article 3(1b)). Contemporary technologies referred to as GPAI include OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as numerous text-to-image generation software such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. GPAI systems are already being deployed to support and entrench existing asymmetries of power and wealth. For instance, the online news outlet CNET recently disclosed that it has been publishing stories written by an AI and edited by humans for months (Main, 2023). The current concern over ChatGPT is an important moment in AI’s publicity and publicization (Hansen, 2021), or what Noortje Marres refers to as “material things” acting as “crucial tools or props for the performance of public involvement in an issue” (Marres, 2010, p. 179). Amidst countless opinion pieces and hot takes discussing GPAI, this special issue details how scandal, silence, and hype operate to promote and publicize AI. We seek interventions that question AI’s publicity and promotion as well as new strategies of engagement with AI’s powerful social and political influence. Concern over Generative AI, we argue, is limited by publicity around these systems that has been framed by hype, silence, or scandal (Brennen, 2018, 2018; Sun et al., 2020). Publicity refers to the relations between affected peoples and matters of shared concerns (Barney, 2014; Marres, 2015, 2018). Historically, these relations have been mediated by the press (Schudson, 2008), but GPAI’s coincides with uncertainty about journalism’s status and a rise of direct, one-step flow like effects of either citizen-to-citizen or, in the case of ChatGPT, a direct link (Bennett & Manheim, 2006). Scholars have observed that publicity around AI follows several distinct patterns: 1. Hype (Ananny & Finn, 2020; Broussard et al., 2019; Mosco, 2004). This discourse is prominent. Concepts like the fourth industrial revolution and disruption function as self-fulfilling, with the consequence that technology arrives always as good news. The launch of ChatGPT is a hallmark of this hyped mode, fitting into a well-worn mode of a “normative framework of publicity [that is] drained of its critical value, and convert[ed] from a democratic asset to a democratic liability” (Barney, 2008, p. 92). Opening AI to the public, no matter the consequences for society, as in the case of ChatGPT, is portrayed as a good even as this publicization shifts focus to acceptance and inevitability. 2. Silence. If not positive, AI coverage is marked by gaps and aporias, or in effect, closures when aspects of AI remain too uncontroversial to report as well as larger work into the logics of AI imaginaries (Bareis & Katzenbach, 2021). The result is that AI-related issues seldom make the political information cycle, as in the case of ChatGPT’s potential violations of privacy and copyright law, discussed below (Chadwick, 2013). 3. Scandals – or what we refer to as proofs of social transgressions – are a pronounced feature of contemporary technological coverage and governance (Bosetta, 2020; Lull & Hinerman, 1998; McKelvey et al., 2018; Trottier, 2017). Scandals, which we stress do not necessity involve opportunities for public engagement nor democratic praxis, result from a mutually reinforcing relationship between newsrooms looking for easy, high-engagement stories (Blanchett et al., 2022; Cohen, 2015; Dodds et al., 2023) and the affordances of social media, largely functioning as a distraction from other tasks (Hall et al., 2018). 4. Inevitability. AI discourses are dominated by technology firms, government representatives, AI investors, global management consultancies, and think tanks. These voices present a faith in data driven systems to address social problems while also increasing efficiency and productivity (Bourne 2019, Beer 2019). Such discourses are used to reinforce the idea that the increasing use of AI applications across all spheres of life is inevitable, while sidelining or ignoring meaningful engagement with the ways these applications cause harm (Walker 2022). Our special issue seeks interventions focused on: 1. Critical and comparative studies of AI’s publicities with regards to the launch and hype of AI. We particularly welcome papers that focus on cases outside the Global North; 2. Ethnographic, discursive, or engaged research with AI’s public such as AutoGPT, HustleGPT, or other publics forming around the use, misuse or resistance to GPAI; 3. Interventions or reflections on critical practices, such as community engagement and mobilization, futures literacy, or capacity building, for better publicizations of AI de-centering the strategic futuring employed by large technology firms. Please submit an extended abstract (1000 words) by 1 August 2023. Accepted full papers due 1 December 2023. Planned publication Spring 2024. https://forms.gle/hWQxvuRTWoFhVs3W6

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Wikihistories 2023
by Heather Ford 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

For anyone who is interested, our wikihistories symposium will be taking place online tomorrow and Friday (depending on where you are in the world). The event is planned in 3 hour slots across two days at different times to be friendly to different timezones. https://wikihistories.net/2023-conference/ We have an excellent line-up of scholars – some of whom have been studying Wikipedia as a history-maker since its earliest beginnings, and others who are new to Wikipedia Studies. Our two keynote speakers are historians – one of memory studies, and another a historian of Jewish history and the Holocaust who recently published an explosive paper about Wikipedia’s skewed coverage of Polish-Jewish history. Please consider joining us online for the conference by registering on the URL above or joining the project mailing list<https://groups.google.com/g/wikihistories?pli=1>. Conference talks will be available shortly after the conference for those who aren’t able to join us this week. All the very best, Heather --------------------------- Dr Heather Ford Associate Professor and Head of Discipline, Digital and Social Media<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> School of Communication<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…>, University of Technology, Sydney<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> (UTS) Chief Investigator: http://wikihistories.net | Project Lead: www.questionmachines.net<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.questi…> Affiliate: UTS Data Science Institute<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> | Associate: UTS Centre for Media Transition<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> | Acting Co-Director: UTS Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uts.e…> w: hblog.org<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhblog.org%…> / t: @hfordsa<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitte…> / pronouns: she/her Latest journal article: Heather Ford and Michael Richardson. "Framing data witnessing: Airwars and the production of authority in conflict monitoring.<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/01634437221147631>" Media, Culture & Society (2023): 01634437221147631. Latest book: “Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmitpress.…>” MIT Press Latest media: “Friday essay: shaping history – why I spent ten years studying one Wikipedia article<https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-shaping-history-why-i-spent-ten-ye…>” The Conversation University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences PO Box 123. Broadway NSW 2007 Australia I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and the Boorooberongal People of the Dharug Nation upon whose ancestral lands our campuses now stand. I pay my respect to Elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for this place. UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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CfP: Social media in Higher Education - What’s happening?
by Mark Carrigan 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

*Journal of Interactive Media in Education special collection – call for papers* The Twitter interface famously prompts users to submit content by asking the question, ‘What’s happening?’. Given the recent turmoil surrounding the platform, it is a timely question to reflect back on itself, and social media more broadly. While the relationship between social media and higher education is far from new, the uncertainty around Twitter’s future, and migration to other platforms such as Mastodon, highlights the precarity of relying on corporate infrastructure to support public scholarship. It is against this background of uncertainty and movement between platforms and infrastructures that we launch a call for submissions to a special collection of the the Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME) on the topic of social media in higher education. Within this topic, the scope of the call is broad. We welcome papers, particularly empirical submissions, addressing any current issues in relation to the use of social media in Higher Education or other critical aspects of the relationship between social media and the academy. Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: - The academic social media ecosystem – post-Twitter - The role of algorithms in mediating scholarly communication - Professional practice by academics in the post-Twitter era - Social media and research impact - AI and academic social media - New and under-studied social media platforms in the context of higher education, e.g. Mastodon, TikTok - The use of social media in teaching and learning in higher education - Training and supporting academics for social media beyond Twitter If you have an idea for a paper and would like informal feedback or to verify whether it would be in scope, please do feel free to get in touch with the authors by email at klj33(a)cam.ac.uk (Katy). Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the JIME guidelines for submissions. Note that submissions should be no more than 7,500 words in length, including all referencing and citations. To be considered for the special collection, full papers must be submitted by 4th September 2023.Submissions can be made through the JIME website at https://account.jime.open.ac.uk/index.php/up-j-jime/login . Please indicate that your paper is to be considered for the Special Collection when submitting. Please note that we may also ask submitting authors to act as a reviewer for one other submission. Special collection editors: Dr Katy Jordan, University of Cambridge Dr Mark Carrigan, University of Manchester Deadline for submissions: 4th September 2023 (full papers) Provisional publication date: January 2024 markcarrigan.net <http://www.markcarrigan.net/> | @theplatformuni <http://www.twitter.com/theplatformuni/> LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-c-516017123/> | Soundcloud <https://soundcloud.com/mark-carrigan> | Youtube <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCflmX41wlvtXPIhy51Wfonw/videos> | Recent publications <https://manchester.padlet.org/j04936mc/jbob1uin0weo43dh> *I occasionally send e-mail outside of normal hours as my preferred way of balancing multiple commitments. Please don't feel obligated to respond to this e-mail until your own working hours have resumed. *

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mediastudies.press submission window for book manuscripts from 1 June-30 July, 2023
by Park, David 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

We at mediastudies.press are happy to announce the opening of our annual proposal window from 1 June to 30 July, 2023. During this date window, authors are encouraged to submit a proposal for review. mediastudies.press welcomes submissions from scholars across media, communication, and film studies. We currently publish in four series: * Media Manifold series — monographs and other book-length works of contemporary media scholarship https://www.mediastudies.press/media-manifold-series * Public Domain series — reprints of neglected classics, in new critical editions anchored by framing introductions https://www.mediastudies.press/public-domain-series * Open Reader series — themed collections of openly licensed, public domain, and linked materials curated and introduced by leading experts https://www.mediastudies.press/open-reader-series * History of Media Studies series — monographs and other original scholarly works centered on history of media, communication, and film studies https://www.mediastudies.press/history-of-media-studies We are small and artisanal by mission, and aim to publish just five books a year. Given the volume of proposals that we receive—and with our production schedule in mind—we maintain an annual proposal window (1 June to 30 July), for the review of manuscripts slated for publication in the following calendar year. You are welcome to send informal queries outside these dates, but our general practice is to only consider proposals within the annual window. Each year, we review proposals with an initial reply by August 15, with the aim to conduct peer review of proposals of expressed interest by the end of September. mediastudies.press is an open-access publisher for the media and communication studies fields. The press is nonprofit and scholar-led. We publish living works, with iterative updates stitched into our process. And we encourage multi-modal submissions that reflect the mediated environments our authors study. Publishing with mediastudies.press is free on principle. Our aim is to demonstrate, on a small scale, an open-access publishing model supported by libraries rather than author fees. Open access for readers, we believe, should not be traded for new barriers to authorship. All our published works are rigorously peer-reviewed, and receive unusual editorial attention. We prioritize discoverability through careful metadata, library records, and directory listings. As a scholar-run operation, our publicity outreach is uncommonly informed by the fields’ intellectual contours. We kindly ask that proposals be submitted as a single PDF, via this URL: https://www.mediastudies.press/proposal-form Proposals should included the following elements, in addition to at least one draft chapter: 1. Proposed title and subtitle 2. A 500- to 1000-word narrative description of the book 3. Short bios of author(s) and/or editor(s) 4. Proposed series (see above) 5. Tentative table of contents, preferably annotated 6. Estimated word-length 7. Multi-modal components, if any 8. Status of the book (i.e., expectation of completion date, the portion now complete) 9. At least one draft chapter If you have any questions at all about the proposal process for books, please contact us at press(a)mediastudies.press<mailto:press@mediastudies.press> Jeff Pooley, director of mediastudies.press Dave Park, associate director of mediastudies.press

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June 15 deadline for DIGITAL & SOCIAL MEDIA: CULTURE, IDENTITY, AND INCLUSION MINITRACK
by Nanette Levinson 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

Colleagues- A reminder that the deadline for paper submissions to the January 3-6,2024 Honolulu, Hawaii HICSS annual meeting is June 15, 2023. We especially encourage submissions to our minitrack: DIGITAL & SOCIAL MEDIA: CULTURE, IDENTITY, AND INCLUSION MINITRACK<https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-57/digital-and-social-media/#culture-identi…> Issues related to digital and social media are taking center stage today whether in politics or policy, or in private, not-for-profit or public forums, implicitly and explicitly with an array of complex challenges related to culture, identity and inclusion. As the world seeks to move past the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, digital inequalities persist and new technologies risk creating new types of divides. Recognizing intersection of technology, culture, and identity, this minitrack presents innovative research across a wide range of methods and subjects. Exploring how social media technologies become interconnected with and embedded in existing socio-cultural contexts is essential to assess how these platforms affect key power dynamics in society. This minitrack sets the scene for analyzing better how digital and social media can foster – or hinder – diversity and inclusion in multiple settings, especially in a world coping with renewed calls for social justice, peace, and a post-pandemic period, increasingly indicating long-term impacts. Technology-facilitated social media thus present opportunities for new frontiers of research as they interact with cultures, identities, and diversity. In sum, this minitrack highlights multi-disciplinary and multi-method research centered on the three I’s of: internet; identity; and inclusion. This minitrack welcomes research on the intersection of digital media, different inequalities, and justice, including but not limited to work that focuses on race, culture, identity, and disability, recognizing that these often intersect with one another. Emerging technologies themselves connect with existing platforms and provide opportunities for incipient research on, for example, augmented reality, social media, and inclusion or, for another example, artificial intelligence, mobile apps, social media, and exclusion. We look forward to your submission, Nanette Levinson, Derrick Cogburn, & Filippo Trevisan, Mini-track Chairs HICSS Conference Office Department of IT Management, Shidler College of Business University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2404 Maile Way D307, Honolulu HI 96822 hicss(a)hawaii.edu<mailto:hicss@hawaii.edu?Subject=HICSS%20Website%20Contact> Nanette S. Levinson Professor Director, Internet Governance Lab Director, SIS-Sciences-Po Academic Exchange School of International Service www.nanettelevinson.com<http://www.nanettelevinson.com> @nanettelevinson 202-885-1480

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Real-Time Intelligent Systems RTIS 2023
by ijwa dline.info 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

CALL FOR PAPERS Fifth International Conference on Real-Time Intelligent Systems (RTIS 2023) October 09-11, 2023 University of Bedfordshire, Luton. UK (hybrid mode- Physical and virtual) www.socio.org.uk/rtis Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems by Springer https://www.springer.com/series/15179 Earlier conferences took place in Taipei, Taiwan (2018); Casablanca, Morocco (2017); Beijing, China (2016). The 5th RTIS will take place at the University of Bedfordshire, UK. Over the last few years, real-time intelligent computing has radically transformed the human lifestyle. Research on real-time intelligent systems is multi-disciplinary, exploiting concepts from diverse areas such as big data processing, computational intelligence, location-based services, recommendation systems, and multimedia processing. In today’s highly dynamic environment, analysing data in real-time is a must to understand how systems process data, reason the outputs, and anticipate trends in intelligent computing. To this end, this conference will serve as a platform to manifest the ongoing research in the field. Thus, RTIS welcomes theoretically grounded, methodologically sound papers that address aspects related to topics, such as: Artificial Intelligence Techniques Artificial Intelligence and Data mining Streaming data, streaming engines Trace-based intelligent real-time services Adaptive vision algorithms Location-based services Intelligent Robotic Systems Collaborative Intelligence Processing Intelligent Databases Data capture in real-time Data quality and cleansing Intelligent Data Analysis Intelligent Database Systems Big Data systems and applications for high-velocity data Intelligent Information Systems Privacy and Security in Intelligence Software Engineering Solutions Intelligent Soft Computing Real-time multiprocessor systems Internet of Things Architectures for Intelligence Real-time distributed coding Smart services and platforms Real-time modelling user information needs Wireless Communication Real-time intelligent communication Real-time intelligent network solutions Mobile Smart Systems Broadband Intelligence Cloud Computing and Intelligence Collaborative Intelligence Analysis in domains such as energy, sensors, Expert Systems Smart Life Systems Decision support systems in real time Multi-agent Intelligent Systems Multilingual information access Recommendation systems Real-time intelligent, alert systems Real-time remote access systems Intelligent Transportation Systems Critical Real-Time Applications Hybrid Intelligent Systems Real-time noise removal systems Event-driven analytics Intelligent Fuzzy Systems Machine translation in real time OLAP for real-time decision support Crowdsourcing and crowd intelligence Submission, proceedings Papers must be submitted online through OpenConf (https://www.socio.org.uk/rtis/paper-submission/) Author instructions and LaTex2e (preferred) and Word macro files are available on the submission page. Submitted papers should be within 14 pages (long papers) and eight pages (short ones), including figures, tables, and references. Authors of accepted papers are required to transfer their copyrights. For a paper to appear in the proceedings, at least one of the authors MUST register for the conference by the camera-ready submission deadline with full registration. The proceedings will be published in Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems by Springer. Extended versions of the conference papers will be considered for publication in the below journals. Journal of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (JCMSE) Future Internet https://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet Data https://www.mdpi.com/journal/data (For Data and Future Internet, the discounted APC is applicable, which is 50%) Journal of Digital Information Management Journal of Intelligent Computing Venue The venue is the University of Bedfordshire, UK. Important Dates Full Paper Submission: July 20, 2023 Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: August 15, 2023 Registration Due: September 15, 2023 Camera Ready Due: September 15, 2023 Workshops/Tutorials/Demos: October 08, 2023 Main conference: October 09-11, 2023 Post-conference proceedings: October 25, 2023 General Chairs Ricardo Rodriguez-Jorge, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University , Czech Republic Martín LÓPEZ-NORES, University of Vigo, Spain Program Chairs Yao-Liang Chung, National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan Pit Pichappan, Digital Information Research Labs, India Workshop/Special Issues Chair Ezendu Ariwa, University of Warwick, UK www.socio.org.uk/rtis Contact: stm(a)socio.org.uk

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CfA: Theorizing Platform Content Moderation: Power, Resistance, and Democratic Control
by J.C. Vieira Magalhaes 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

Hello all, Just a reminder that the deadline for this workshop on how to theorise content moderation is fast approaching. -- CfA: Theorizing Platform Content Moderation: Power, Resistance, and Democratic Control Key facts: -Conference: 2023 MANCEPT (Manchester Centre for Political Theory) Workshops(https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/mancept/mancept-workshops/mancept-workshops-2023/list-of-panels-a-z-2023/theorizing-platform-content-moderation/ <https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/mancept/mancept-workshops/mancept-workshops-…>). -Deadline for submission of abstracts (300 words): 11th of June (any time zone). -Dates/location of the workshop: 11th -13th of September 2023. The workshop will take place in Manchester (UK) but remote participation is also possible. Workshop description: Platform content moderation has emerged as a novel form of mass speech governance, able to influence billions of people globally. Much of the growing scholarship on it focuses on describing moderation’s functioning, ambiguities, and technologies, and on how to hold platforms to constitutional values. Yet, despite its obvious political nature, content moderation remains under-theorized as a political practice. This is puzzling as moderation rearticulates key concepts of political theory. Regardless of their unilateral ability to moderate, platforms often seek to appease some actors in the design and enforcement of their rules. These processes are hardly linear, though: not all voices, from all countries, at all times, are equally heard. While moderation has been used against authoritarian actors, it has also been shown to reinforce racist, sexist, and neo-colonial structures, often to foster companies’ political and economic interests globally. This evidences the need to understand how moderation relates to representation, recognition, and plurality, which are closely associated with matters of justice, equality, and dignity. Similarly, it is unclear what resistance to these systems’ patterns of in- and exclusion might (and ought to) mean. Two factors make platform content moderation challenging to address through usual normative frameworks, such as legal rights. Firstly, platforms are a peculiar kind of organization: globally operating corporations whose immense power is not anchored in processes of political legitimation (e.g., elections) or even a clear polity. Despite the legality of their moderation practices, which are often protected by so-called ‘safe harbour’ laws, these companies still owe us something morally – but what, exactly, and which ‘us’ is this? Further, much of moderation today is automated, commonly through machine learning algorithmic systems. As a consequence, the meaning of “objectionable” or “desirable”, or how to punish those who violate these definitions, may emerge not from direct human reasoning but from probabilistic calculations based on complexly constructed datasets. Whose voice is represented and silenced when thousands of data annotators, moderators, officers, and technologists play some role in the construction of the algorithms that identify and control, say, hate speech? How to account for the cascading layers of rules, institutions, and actors? Workshop aims: This workshop aims to address the urgent task of theorizing platform content moderation. We especially invite scholars working from the perspective of radical democratic theory, democratic resistance, decolonial theory, and political economy to consider three broad questions: (1) How should we conceptualize content moderation as a form of power, and in which ways does it differ from previous forms of speech control? (2) What does proper resistance to moderation mean, and how can it tackle the multiple dynamics of in- and exclusion? And (3) To what extent, and how, should democratic control over content moderation be organised? How to apply: Send a 300-word abstract to n.appelman(a)uva.nl <mailto:n.appelman@uva.nl>. The deadline is 11th of June (any time zone). Full papers are not required. When & where: Workshops will take place preferably in-person, between 11th-13th of September 2023, in Manchester (UK). Submissions to present online will be considered. Organizers: · Naomi Appelman, IViR (Institute for Information Law), University of Amsterdam (n.appelman(a)uva.nl <mailto:n.appelman@uva.nl>) · João C. Magalhães, Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen(j.c.vieira.magalhaes(a)rug.nl <mailto:j.c.vieira.magalhaes@rug.nl>) -- João C. Magalhães <https://jcmagalhaes.com/> Assistant Professor in Media, Politics and Democracy University of Groningen | Centre for Media and Journalism Studies Selected publications: A history of objectionability in Twitter’s moderation practices <http://mediarxiv.org/wvp8c>, 2023 (forthcoming Journal of Communication, w/ Emillie de Keulenaar, Bharath Ganesh) | Social media, social unfreedom <https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2022-0040/html>, 2022 (Communications, w/ Jun Yu) | Big Tech, data colonialism and the reconfiguration of social good <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/15995>, 2021(International Journal of Communication, w/ Nick Couldry) | Algorithmic visibility and bottom-up authoritarianism in the Brazilian crisis <http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/4042/>, 2019 (PhD, LSE) | Considering algorithmic ethical subjectivation <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305118768301>, 2018 (Social Media + Society)

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WEBCAST JUN 6-7 – 2023 European Connectivity Summit – Connecting the Unconnected: Europe & Beyond
by Joly MacFie 06 Jun '23

06 Jun '23

This has kicked off. As mentioned, the first such event since 2019. Two things: 1) English & Armenian interpretation is available on Zoom. 2) The agenda linked below appears to be out of date, the Zoom events one <https://events.zoom.us/ev/ApTje67PqDIkC1bOEYWDHfDdynSvflkFHzRNZt5O2KX_gHdy5…> is better. The livestream is in English channel. Go to https://isoc.live/16606 for Real Time Text. [image: ISOC LIVE] <https://isoc.live/16606>On *Tuesday 6 June 2023 – Wednesday 7 June 2023* the *Internet Society <https://www.internetsociety.org/>* and the *Union of Operators of Armenia <http://www.operator.am/>* are organizing the *2023 European Connectivity Summit <https://www.internetsociety.org/events/connecting-the-unconnected-europe-be…>* in Yerevan, Armenia. Under the theme '*Connecting the Unconnected: Europe & Beyond*', community network practitioners are coming together for the first time since 2019 to exchange experiences and share discussions in three main areas: The technical issues surrounding community networks, considering local and regional success cases, challenges and opportunities. Enabling policy environments and innovative funding mechanism for these complementary access and networking solutions. Training and Learning opportunities to deploy complementary networks in the hardest to reach places. *AGENDA https://www.internetsociety.org/events/connecting-the-unconnected-europe-be… <https://www.internetsociety.org/events/connecting-the-unconnected-europe-be…>* *LIVESTREAM http://livestream.com/internetsociety/euconnectivity <http://livestream.com/internetsociety/euconnectivity>* *PARTICIPATE VIA ZOOM https://bit.ly/43lJhM0 <https://bit.ly/43lJhM0>* *REAL TIME TEXT* (see *ISOC.LIVE <https://isoc.live/16606>*) *TWITTER #EUconnectivity <https://bit.ly/euconnectivity> @InternetSociety @UnionOperatorAM #CommunityNetworks #InternetforEveryone * *MASTODON #EUconnectivity <https://mastodon.social/tags/euconnectivity>* *SIMULCASTS* *https://www.twitch.tv/isoclive <https://www.twitch.tv/isoclive>* *https://www.facebook.com/liveisoc/ <https://www.facebook.com/liveisoc/>* *ARCHIVE* *https://archive.org/details/euconnectivity <https://archive.org/details/euconnectivity>* Permalink https://isoc.live/16606 - -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

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ASCILITE Webinar: The Untapped Power of Wikis for Open Education and Information Literacy
by Mathieu.O'Neil 05 Jun '23

05 Jun '23

Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) The June webinar for the Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group (OEP SIG<https://oepoz.wordpress.com/>) is: “The Untapped Power of Wikis for Open Education and Information Literacy”, presented by: James Neill, Assistant Professor, Psychology, University of Canberra Mathieu O’Neil, Professor, Arts & Communication, University of Canberra Date: Tuesday 13th June 2023 Time: Melbourne 12:00 noon AEST Sydney 12:00 noon AEST Brisbane 12:00 noon AEST Adelaide 11:30 am ACST Perth 10:00 am AWST Hobart 12:00 noon AEST Details and registration<https://oepoz.wordpress.com/2023/05/31/webinar-4-the-untapped-power-of-wiki…> Mathieu O’Neil Professor of Communication | Convenor, Master of Communication News & Media Research Centre | Faculty of Arts and Design | University of Canberra Latest articles: O’Neil, M., Cai. X, Muselli, L., M. & Zacchiroli, S. (2022) Co-producing industrial public goods on GitHub: Selective firm cooperation, volunteer-employee labour and participation inequality. New Media and Society. doi.org/10.1177/14614448221090474<https://doi.org/10.1177%2F14614448221090474> O’Neil, M., Khan, I., Holland, K. & Cai. X. (2022) Mapping the connections of health professionals to rumour-based and factual COVID-19 hashtags in the Australian Twittersphere. Information, Communication & Society. doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2032260<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2032260> Latest edited volumes: O’Neil, M., Cunneen R., Carrigy, B., Cheater, R., Margetts, W., O’Brien, M. & Turner, K. (2022). Six Fact-Checking Lessons for Kids. DCPC/News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra. https://apo.org.au/node/319173 O’Neil M., Pentzold, C. & Toupin, S. (2021) The Handbook of Peer Production. Handbooks in Communication and Media, Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN: 9781119537090 [UC Logo]<http://www.canberra.edu.au> [Research Festival,5-8 June 2023]<https://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/events/research-festival/research-fest…> The Ngunnawal people are the Traditional Custodians of the ACT where UC's Bruce Campus is situated and are an integral and celebrated part of UC's culture. We also acknowledge other First Nations Peoples. Australian Government Higher Education Registered Provider (CRICOS) #00212K. TEQSA Provider ID: PRV12003 (Australian University) Email Disclaimer<https://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/disclaimer-copyright-privacy-accessibi…> [UC Facebook]<https://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfCanberra> [UC Twitter] <https://twitter.com/UniCanberra> [UC Instagram] <https://www.instagram.com/unicanberra/> [UC Linkedin] <https://au.linkedin.com/school/university-of-canberra/> [UC Youtube] <https://www.youtube.com/user/uniofcanberra> [University of Canberra] <http://www.canberra.edu.au>

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