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13 February Book Launch "Twitter Activism and the Current Uprising in Iran"
by Ülker Sözen 10 Feb '26

10 Feb '26

ECPR Research Network on Digital Authoritarianism <https://ecpr.eu/group/digital-authoritarianism> kindly invites you to the book launch and discussion: * “Twitter Activism and the Current Uprising in Iran” * *Author: Dr. Hossein Kermani (University of Vienna)* *Discussant: Dr. Gi Yeon Koo (Seoul National University Asia Center) * *Date: 13 February 2026, Friday, 10:00 CET* You can register here <https://ecpr.eu/Events/337>. Please find the details below. Kind regards, Steering Committee ---------------- Twitter Activism in Iran: Social Media and Democracy in Authoritarian Regimes <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-81538-6> by Hossein Kermani investigates Twitter activism in authoritarian regimes, with particular attention to Iran. The platform has been blocked in Iran since the 2009 presidential election and its subsequent protests, the Green Movement. Nevertheless, Iranians have been continually using it to date. Recently, another significant hashtag movement unfolded in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini. But it is only an instance of how Iranians employ Twitter to fight a dictatorship. Given the unique context of Iran as a non-democratic society with a high number of Twitter users, this book tries to explore how Iranian users participate in politics, challenge the regime, mobilize their protests, and shape anti-regime discourses. It also examines the strategies that the Iranian regime takes to dismantle Twitter activism. Moving from the book, the lecture will further discuss the dynamics of the current uprising and brutal state repression in Iran. *Hossein Kermani* is a senior researcher at the Political Communication Research Group of the University of Vienna, Austria. He studies social media, digital repression, computational propaganda and political activism in restrictive contexts, with particular attention to Iran. He is the principal investigator of the BeyondCBA project, which is funded by WWTF. *Gi Yeon Koo* is a HK professor at Seoul National University Asia Center, South Korea. Gi Yeon Koo’s current interest focuses on Islamophobia in Korea, Muslim migration and refugee in Korea, Media and Social Movements in Iran, Young Generation’s Popular Culture, and Iranian Women. ----------------- Dr. Ülker Sözen Postdoctoral research fellow (DFG 2022-2026, Gerda Henkel Foundation 2024-2027) Chair of Development Politics, University of Passau Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University

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Internet Histories Seeking Book Reviewers
by Maemura, Emily 10 Feb '26

10 Feb '26

Dear AoIR community, I'm the Reviews Editor for the journal Internet Histories (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rint20) and we are seeking book reviewers. Our book reviews are generally between 1500 and 2000 words, focused on titles related to the cultural, social, political and technological histories of the internet and associated digital cultures. For instance, we are currently looking for reviewers for the following titles: * Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms by Amelia Acker https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553247/archiving-machines/ * Digital Authoritarianism in the Making: Repression and Resistance on the Russian Internet Edited by Françoise Daucé, Benjamin Loveluck and Francesca Musiani https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553674/digital-authoritarianism-in-the-maki… * Healthy Users: The Governance of Well-Being on Social Media by Niall Docherty https://www.ucpress.edu/books/healthy-users/paper * Influencer Creep: How Optimization, Authenticity and Self-Branding Transform Creative Culture by Sophie Bishop https://www.ucpress.edu/books/influencer-creep/paper * Mourning on Mobile Media: Everyday Affective Witnessing by Larissa Hjorth https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553551/mourning-on-mobile-media/ * The Internet Stack by Amrit Tiwana https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553629/the-internet-stack/ * The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet By Lisa Nakamura https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816699063/the-inattention-economy/ * The Routledge Companion to Transnational Web Archive Studies Edited By Susan Aasman, Anat Ben-David, Niels Brügger https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Transnational-Web-Arch… If you're interested in being added to the list of potential reviewers for these or other books in the future, please get in touch with me at emaemura(a)illinois.edu . Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited reviews, so please reach out to me first -- we may decline a reviewer or book title if determined to not be a good fit for our journal. Best, Emily Maemura Reviews Editor, Internet Histories

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Registration Open for The Digital Conference 2026 at KCL, 23-26 June 2026
by g. tavmen 10 Feb '26

10 Feb '26

Dear colleagues, We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for The Digital Conference 2026, which will take place from 23 to 26 June 2026 at Bush House, King’s College London. Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Centre for Computing in the Humanities officially becoming a department at King’s College London, and the 15th anniversary of its renaming as the Department of Digital Humanities in 2011, the conference invites scholars from around the world to critically reflect on what the “digital” entails today. The conference theme, Digital Humanities Today: Critical Inquiry With and About the Digital, foregrounds discussion, debate, and exchange across disciplines. Please note that there will be no keynote lectures; instead, the programme is designed to centre collective inquiry through panels, presentations, and conversations. 📍 Dates: 23–26 June 2026📍 Location: Bush House, King’s College London 📝 Registration:Please click here or use this link to register for the conference: (https://estore.kcl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/academic-faculties/faculty-…) Please click on the “More Info” tab on the registration page for additional details, including the refund policy. ℹ️ Further information:Further information about the event can be found here or through this link: (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/digital-humanities-today-critical-inquiry-with…) ➡️Fee categories and other details: - Fee categories are determined geographically, based on where you reside and/or the location of the institution you are affiliated with (i.e., not your nationality).- Please refer to your acceptance email, the conference website, or the programme for the appropriate category.- If you are unsure which fee category applies to you, please contact us at thedigitalconference(a)kcl.ac.uk- The conference fee includes lunch and coffee during the conference as well as drinks during the conference reception.- All the attendees need to register for the conference; e.g, if you have co-authored your paper and want to invite all the authors to the conference, each of these attendants need to register.- The conference does not offer day passes and all registrations include access to 4 days of the conference.- Panel organizers are responsible from making sure that their panel members receive the registration link and have their registration completed on time.- The conference team is unable to provide you with advice on accommodation and travel. The conference venue is in central London. 🗓️Important deadlines: - Category A–C and Abstract Reviewer categories: available until 8 March 2026- King’s Staff and Students and Conference Attendees categories: available until 5 April 2026- King’s Staff and Students rates must be used with a KCL email address. A dedicated conference webpage will go live in the coming weeks. A preliminary programme will be published at the end of March 2026, with the full programme announced at the end of April 2026. For any questions, please get in touch with us at thedigitalconference(a)kcl.ac.uk. We are delighted to welcome you to London this June for four days of critical reflection and exchange. With best wishes,The Digital Conference 2026 Organising Committee(Chloe, Güneş, Jamie and Orçun)Department of Digital HumanitiesKing’s College London

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AoIR 2026 panel on Global fediverse experiences
by Leonardo Foletto 10 Feb '26

10 Feb '26

Hi everyone We're organizing a panel for AoIR 2026 in Mexico City (October 2026) provisionally titled "Beyond corporate platforms: Navigating challenges of decentralized social media across the Global South and North" and looking for colleagues who would like to participate - and are planning to attend the conference in person as well. We'd especially welcome perspectives from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania (there are already participants from both South and North America) examining how federated networks are being implemented, adapted, or resisted in different contexts. We're interested in diverse experiences, from institutional implementations to grassroots initiatives, from technical infrastructure challenges to cultural and governance questions. If you're interested or have questions, please reply to this email or contact me directly at leonardo.foletto(a)usp.br. The submission deadline is March 1st, so we'd need to coordinate abstracts by mid-February, or after carnival. Best, -- Leonardo Foletto BaixaCultura <http://baixacultura.org> - Cultura Livre & Contracultura Digital desde 2008 <https://br.creativecommons.org/> *leofoletto.info <http://leofoletto.info> - @leofoletto <https://www.instagram.com/leofoletto/> - Linkedin <https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardo-foletto-9187447/>Professor e pesquisador - ECA-USP <https://www.eca.usp.br/>*

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Cfp New paths and future trajectories in digital (dis)connection studies
by Ana Jorge 09 Feb '26

09 Feb '26

New paths and future trajectories in digital (dis)connection studies: unpacking the post-digital Date: Monday, 7th of September 2026, 09:00 to 17:00 Venue: Masaryk University, Brno. Deadline for Abstracts: April 1st, 2026 The full call is available as a PDF at: https://ecrea2026brno.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/6.-CFA_ECREA26_Preconfe… *Rationale* The fifth pre-conference on digital disconnection is an important opportunity for scholars at all career stages to reflect on how the individual and societal significance of digital disconnection is changing; what new discourses on disconnection are emerging in the public debate, and how the grounds of digital disconnection studies are shifting. The prescriptive approach adopted by several countries, through smartphone bans in schools and age restrictions on social media use, is reshaping research in this field, especially on how younger people experience and make sense of a form of forced disconnection. The pre-conference has three main objectives: 1. To encourage empirical and theoretical discussions among scholars on how varying contexts, situations, actors, and agencies shape emerging pathways of digital disconnection in response to socio-cultural changes that increasingly challenge the normalization of digitalization as a dominant paradigm. 2. To foster networking to facilitate contact and career development for scholars from different cultural, geographical, and disciplinary backgrounds, ensuring ongoing continuity in nurturing exchanges of perspectives among researchers. 3. To promote partnerships and collaborations that compare and interweave knowledge, perspectives, methods, and future trajectories on disconnection studies. The emergence of new crises and systemic challenges has unsettled the long-standing assumptions that have positioned ubiquitous digital connectivity as a default lifestyle and an organizing discourse. The backlashes of digitalization have led individuals to rethink their relationship with the online pervasiveness, reassessing the importance of personal well-being, social justice, and equity over the efficiency-driven logics often associated with limitless connectivity. There is growing recognition that digitalization’s logics and affordances have fostered ambivalent experiences with social ties, societal issues, inequalities, and contexts marked by cultural differences and conflicts. In this scenario, digital disconnection has emerged both as a form of resistance and as a cultural response to the pressures exerted by digitalization - creating, paradoxically, new consumeristic demands, as labels like “digital wellbeing” and “digital detox” become increasingly commoditized. Through diverse practices, tools, and strategies, individuals exercise agency by negotiating a balance between connection and disconnection, conflicting emotions, and renewed expectations toward digitally mediated life. However, questions of power, responsibility, and limits of individual agency remain on how to cultivate more ethical and sustainable relationships with technology. Starting from these premises, the pre-conference invites participants to reflect on: a) how different socio-cultural, political, and economic contexts shape the agency of users and social groups, incentivizing or constraining disconnection experiences and habits; b) the prominent role of institutional and socio-technical actors (such as generative AI platforms and algorithmic systems) in countering or fostering the decisions, motivations, and practices related to digital platforms and their affordances disengagement; c) critical perspectives on how the grounds of disconnection studies are shifting due to institutional, market-oriented, and political interferences that are reframing disconnection discourses and further popularizing and commodifying disconnection practices and experiences. We welcome abstracts emphasizing the following dimensions, while noting that contributions are not limited to these themes: • Theoretical advances, methodological and empirical challenges in digital disconnection studies. • Cross-cultural, cross-platform, and historical perspectives on disconnection. • Social, cultural, environmental, and professional motivations and consequences of disconnection practices, especially for understudied social groups. • Contextual, economic, organizational, political, and institutional interferences on digital disconnection studies and practices. • Emotional, affective, and psychological implications of disconnection experiences. • Social and collective dimensions of digital disconnection. • Critical perspectives on the role that public and private actors have on promoting/countering digital disconnection and on how this shifts the grounds of digital disconnection studies. • Intersectional approaches to digital disconnection practices (e.g., ethnicity, gender, class, age, neurodivergence…). *ABSTRACT SUBMISSION*The conference is based on non-anonymous abstracts of no more than 350 words. Submit abstracts to https://forms.gle/kRKQ1fBR125s59kH8 by April 1st, 2026. Contact person: francesca.ieracitano(a)uniroma1.it Abstracts will undergo a review process by the organising committee. Decisions on acceptance will be communicated by April 23rd, 2026. *Organizing committee members:* Marie Colombe Afota (University of Montreal) Piermarco Aroldi, Barbara Scifo (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan) Alex Beattie (Victoria University of Wellington) Arianna Bussoletti, Francesca Comunello, Francesca Ieracitano (Sapienza University of Rome) Ana Jorge (Lusófona University) Monica Marra (INAF- Italian National Institute of Astrophysics) Mora Matassi (Universidad de San Andrés) Minh Hao Nguyen (University of Amsterdam) Francesca Pasquali (University of Bergamo) Sara Van Bruyssel, Mariek Vanden Abeele (Ghent University) *The pre-conference is endorsed by the following ECREA sections and TWGs:*-Digital Culture and Communication; -Audience and Reception Studies; -Gender, Sexuality, and Communication section; -TWG on Aging and Communication Studies -TWG on Media & Intimacy. *Fees*: No fee is requested for participants

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ACEPS|UJ|11 February| 16:00-17:30 SAST| Prof Étienne Brown
by Benton, Paige 09 Feb '26

09 Feb '26

Dear Colleagues, The African Institute for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (https://www.uj.ac.za/aceps) at the University of Johannesburg invites you to our first talk in our 2026 line-up: Safeguarding Democracy in the Age of AI – Workshop Speaker Series. Speaker: Prof Étienne Brown is a faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society and an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. Title: Speaking (Through) Algorithms: Free Speech and Artificial Intelligence See: Abstract and Bio <https://www.uj.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2026-02-11-aceps-speaking-t…> When: 11 February 16:00-17:30 SAST Where: online at: https://zoom.us/j/91990847612 Enquiries: Paige Benton pbenton(a)uj.a.cza<mailto:pbenton@uj.a.cza> We look forward to you joining us. Kindest regards, Paige Benton

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Symposium: Branding AI, Munich: March 2, 2026
by Laura Niebling 09 Feb '26

09 Feb '26

Dear AoIR colleagues, we would like to cordially invite you to join us in Munich or online (if you want to join the stream, just send me a short informal mail!): Symposium: Don’t Trust the Hype?! Branding AI from the Past to the Present Location: Deutsches Museum Time: Monday, 2 March 2026, 17:00-19:00 (and online!) Artificial Intelligence is currently surrounded by a narrative of unprecedented revolution—but how much of AI is its hype? And is this ‘hype’ truly a new phenomenon? What can we learn from the way AI has been branded before? The two-hour symposium, hosted at the Deutsches Museum on 02.03.2026, 5-7pm, investigates the historical and current cultural mechanisms behind the branding of AI and the idea of technological hypes and trends. By tracing the trajectory of AI marketing and public perception from its early mythical stages to the current era of Large Language Models, the event questions the cyclical nature of technological promise and disillusionment. Bringing together experts from the history of computing, digital art, and cultural anthropology, the panel will explore how Artificial Intelligence has been packaged as a brand to serve political, economic, and social agendas—but most importantly to sell itself and automated computing. Are we experiencing yet another ‘AI summer,’ or have we entered a fundamentally new era of technological imaginaries? The room for this event at the Deutsches Museum will be announced shortly. Please register via: https://anny.co/de-formal/book/hype-wo8pemrqyz?step=period - or if you want to join our online stream, just send an email to laura.niebling [@] ur.de <http://ur.de/>. Panelists Thomas Haigh Chair of History, U Wisconsin-Milwaukee, author of the forthcoming „The Brand That Wouldn’t Die: A History of Artificial Intelligence“ Tamiko Thiel Product designer of the CM-1/CM-2 AI supercomputers and acclaimed pioneering media artist in VR/AR Manuel Trummer Chair of Empirical Cultural Studies and European Ethnology at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, renowned scholar working on the cultural theory of popular culture and Hypes Talk is hosted by: Thomas Nyckel (Regensburg U) Organizers: Laura Niebling (Regensburg U), Dinah Pfau (Deutsches Museum), Rudolf Seising (Deutsches Museum), Tamar Novick (TUM). Looking forward to hearing from you and seeing some of you there! Kind regards, Laura Dr. Laura Niebling DIMAS Managing Director University of Regensburg Bajuwarenstraße 4 93059 Regensburg laura.niebling(a)ur.de <mailto:laura.niebling@ur.de> *** UR ScienceBlog: Die Niere im Comic <https://blog.uni-regensburg.de/die-niere-im-comic>(2026, T. Wagensohn) Handbuch Digitale Medien und Methoden <https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-658-36629-2> (Springer, 2025; w. F. Raczkowski & S. Stollfuß) „Because you look like our favorite type of book boyfriend“ <https://mediastudies.hypotheses.org/7008> (Open Media Studies Blog 2025) Consent Capital <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/14614448251375107> (New Media & Society 2025, 1-18) Escape from the Glass Prison <https://dspace-backend.ub.uni-siegen.de/server/api/core/bitstreams/a716236c…> (Navigationen 25/1 2025, 117-127)

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Call for Proposals - AusSTS 2026 "Antipodean Interruptions", 9-11 November 2026
by Thao Phan 08 Feb '26

08 Feb '26

*AusSTS 2026 Call for Proposals now live!* *9-11 November 2026Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of WellingtonDeadline for proposals: Friday 3 April, 2026* *Full details:* *https://aussts.org/aussts2026 * <https://aussts.org/aussts2026> The Call for Proposals for the AusSTS 2026 conference is now open! This year’s theme is ‘Antipodean Interruptions’. We invite submissions for presentations, written workshop papers, meet-ups, and Making and Doing sessions. Please submit proposals via this form <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.goog…>. The CFP will be open until Friday 3 April (11:59pm NZST). *Antipodean Interruptions* The antipodean is both relational provocation and critical departure. Perpetually defined against metropolitan poles of theory-making and hegemony, here the antipodes are re-centred as a site for questioning dominant positionalities, cartographies, and categories. What critical resources can an STS from this sea of islands (Hau’ofa 1994) mobilise, and what interruptions might it make possible? An abiding concern in STS, interruptions materialise variously as infrastructural failures, lively disturbances, activist interventions, and noise within signal. Taken as an epistemic stance, interruption does not stand outside to critique or observe, nor does it seek to overthrow or abandon. Interruptions break the tide and flow, inserting other rhythms and movements, enabling new routes to be charted, and making audible what has been silenced. Following Teresia Teaiwa (2014), we invite contributors to critically appraise and recompose their intellectual genealogies, thinking about the thinking that is rooted, but by no means stuck, ‘here’. Bringing together the anti and the inter, AusSTS 2026 encourages voices and perspectives emerging from and in conversation with Australasia, Oceania, and neighbours, questioning how STS might enact its own antipodean interruptions. For more information about the conference and a fuller description of the theme please check out the AusSTS website <https://aussts.org/>. We will be announcing details of plenaries and field trips in coming weeks - stay tuned!

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News sites are locking out the Internet Archive to stop AI crawling. Is the ‘open web’ closing?
by Tai Neilson 08 Feb '26

08 Feb '26

Dear AoIR community, Apologies for cross‑posting, but I wanted to share a recent article of mine in The Conversation: News sites are locking out the Internet Archive to stop AI crawling. Is the ‘open web’ closing?<https://theconversation.com/news-sites-are-locking-out-the-internet-archive…> It addresses the further enclosure of the internet, commodification of publishers' archives as AI training data, and the resulting challenges for nonprofits and internet research. I hope you find it useful. Cheers, Tai Tai Neilson, PhD Senior Lecturer in Media Major Coordinator of Journalism and Nonfiction Writing MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY NSW 2109

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RIP Prof Dave Farber (Keio CCRC and the longrunning 'Interesting People' listserv)
by Richard Forno 08 Feb '26

08 Feb '26

Hi AoIRistas -- This just crossed my feeds today. I'm very sad to share that we lost an internet legend and critical technology thinker this weekend. https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/hyJBX_lXzJ8bXBpAyImNCXOW_no/ ----- Forwarded message from "Cherry, Hei Yui WONG" <cherry.heiyui(a)keio.jp> ----- > Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2026 11:06:40 +0900 > From: "Cherry, Hei Yui WONG" <cherry.heiyui(a)keio.jp> > Subject: Sad news: Dave Farber has passed away > > We are heartbroken to report that our colleague -- our mentor, friend, and > conscience -- David J. Farber passed away suddenly at his home in Roppongi, > Tokyo. He left us on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, at the too-young age of 91. > > To his son Manny, he was simply ???Dad???, his bedrock whom he will miss > immeasurably. They spoke almost daily by video throughout his time in > Japan, and shared special times on numerous visits. He is survived by son > Manny Farber and daughter-in-law Mei Xu, daughter-in-law Carol Hagan and > grandsons Nate Farber and Sam Farber. He was preceded in death by his wife > Gloria (G.G.) and son Joe Farber. > > Dave???s career began with his education at Stevens Institute of Technology, > which he loved deeply and served as a Trustee. He joined the legendary Bell > Labs during its heyday, and worked at the Rand Corporation. Along the way, > among countless other activities, he served as Chief Technologist of the > U.S. Federal Communications Commission; became a proficient > (instrument-rated) pilot; and was an active board member of the Electronic > Frontier Foundation, a digital civil-liberties organization. > > His professional accomplishments and impact are almost endless, but often > captured by one moniker: ???grandfather of the Internet,??? acknowledging the > foundational contributions made by his many students at the University of > California, Irvine; the University of Delaware; the University of > Pennsylvania; and Carnegie Mellon University > > In 2018, at the age of 83, Dave moved to Japan to become Distinguished > Professor at Keio University and Co-Director of the Keio Cyber Civilization > Research Center (CCRC). He loved teaching, and taught his final class on > January 22, 2026. > > At CCRC, one of his most enjoyable activities was co-hosting the IP-Asia > online gathering, which has met every Monday for more than five years and > has addressed many aspects of the impact of technology on civilization. > Dave thrived in Japan in every way. > > We, the IP-Asia community, will gather for an online remembrance of Dave at > the usual time and place, 2100 JST on Monday, February 9, 2026. > > It???s impossible to summarize a life and career as rich and long as Dave???s > in our few words here. And each of us, even those who knew him for decades, > represent just one facet of his life. But because we are here at its end, > we have the sad duty of sharing this news. Further information and a more > formal obituary are forthcoming. > > With condolences to Manny and the rest of the family, > > Jiro Kokuryo > Cherry Wong > Kaori Suzuki > Rodney Van Meter > Dan Gillmor > > Manny can be reached at manny.farber(a)gmail.com <mailto:manny.farber@gmail.com>. ----- End forwarded message ----- RIP, Dave. All of us Interesting People have been touched in one way or other by your work, thoughts, and thoughtfulness over the many years, and will miss you. -- rick -- Richard F. Forno, Ph.D. Teaching Professor, CSEE Director, Graduate Cybersecurity Programs Associate Director, UMBC Cybersecurity Institute Affiliate Scholar, Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society

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