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2021 Nancy Baym Book Award Submissions Deadline - 15 May 2021
by Michelle, Association of Internet Researchers 10 May '21

10 May '21

Hello AoIR-istas, The deadline for the 2021 Nancy Baym Book award is fast approaching! Please send your nomination to bookaward(a)aoir.org by 15 May 2021. This award recognizes the best scholarship of the Association of Internet Researchers, and highlights the breadth of work relating to the social and cultural dimensions of networked media. To be eligible for the award: - The book must be authored or co-authored as a monograph and must explore a single topic (edited collections are not eligible). - All of the book’s authors must be current members of AoIR at the time of submission (May 15, 2021). Memberships may be purchased here <https://members.aoir.org/> https://members.aoir.org/. - The book must have been published between January 1 and December 31, 2020. The books will be reviewed by a committee of Nicholas John-The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Chair), Nancy Baym-Microsoft Research, Niki Cheong-Coventry University, Robert W. Gehl-Louisiana Tech University, Heidi McKee-Miami University, Panayiota Tsatsou-University of Leicester, and Robert Tynes-Bard College. Each book should be accompanied by an emailed letter of nomination. Self nominations from AoIR members are welcome. The letter of nomination, *whichmust be written by a current member of AoIR*, should outline: - How the book contributes to AoIR’s intellectual community. - The book’s unique contributions and overall strengths. - If not a self-nomination, the letter should also include a statement that the nominated author has been contacted prior to its submission and accepts the nomination. Books submitted without a meaningful nomination letter outlining both the strengths of the book and the book’s contribution to the AoIR community to AoIR will not be eligible. We are happy to accept books in either digital or hard copy. If digital, please send pdf to bookaward(a)aoir.org or contact for individual email addresses. If you have any questions, please reach out bookaward(a)aoir.org. Thank you, Michelle AoIR Association Coordinator Additional AoIR Deadlines 15 June 2021 Deadline for AoIR2021 DOCTORAL COLLOQUIUM submissions

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Online Seminar "The proposed EU Digital Services Act and extreme speech: What should be the role of online platforms?"
by Eskens, S.J. 10 May '21

10 May '21

The Meijers Committee is organizing an online seminar: "The proposed EU Digital Services Act and extreme speech: What should be the role of online platforms?" Online platforms, such as social media companies, enable more speech, but people also use platforms for extreme speech. Extreme speech covers hate speech but also expressions such as incitement/glorification of terrorism, blasphemy, and denial/minimisation of gross human rights violations. While there is a relatively wide consensus on the prohibition of some forms of extreme speech, the exact boundaries between unlawful speech and speech falling within the right to freedom of expression is a matter of continuous discussion (e.g. with regard to blasphemy/defamation of religions). There is thus not a simple binary between lawful and unlawful speech. Under the current EU e-Commerce Directive, online platforms are not liable for extreme speech on their platforms unless they have knowledge of the information and do not expeditiously remove it. However, European policymakers are moving towards creating more responsibilities for online platforms to combat extreme speech. For example, the Digital Services Act as proposed by the European Commission introduces new rules for online platforms regarding online content moderation, such as rules regarding voluntary own-initiative investigations by online platforms, due diligence obligations, and legal conditions for notice and action mechanisms. This move to further regulate the role of online platforms in combating extreme speech raises critical questions. For instance, when are online platforms doing enough against extreme speech? And, are these companies in the right position to engage in the delicate balancing act between different rights and interests and between legal and illegal speech, which is normally the realm of courts? How much freedom should online platforms have in setting and enforcing their own rules on extreme speech? Should there be more legal regulation of the way their recommender systems act - which are often thought to promote extreme forms of speech? How should online platforms deal with content moderation in countries with less liberal or democratic governments (outside, but to a certain extent also inside, the EU)? This seminar looks into the approach by the Digital Services Act towards such questions and evaluates the proposal in light of the fundamental right to freedom of expression. You can register for free by sending a mail to w.hutten(a)commissie-meijers.nl<mailto:w.hutten@commissie-meijers.nl>. We will send you a link for the seminar in the week of the event. Speakers: · Gabrielle Guillemin, Senior Legal Officer at ARTICLE 19. · Aleksandra Kuczerawy, postdoctoral researcher at the KU LEUVEN. · René van Eijk, Senior Policy Advisor Digital Economy at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. Details: · 4 June 2021 · 12:30 - 14:00 CET · Online Program: · 12:30 - 12:40 Opening remarks by Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius (moderator). · 12:40 - 13:10 Opening remarks by speakers. · 13:00 - 13:20 Questions from moderator. · 13:30 - 13:50 Questions from audience. · 13:50 - 14:00 Closing remarks More information can be found on the website<https://www.commissie-meijers.nl/en/seminar-eu-digital-services-act-extreme…>. Sarah Eskens Assistant Professor in Law and Technology Coordinator International Technology Law program Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Transnational Legal Studies, Faculty of Law s.j.eskens(a)vu.nl<mailto:s.j.eskens@vu.nl> | www.saraheskens.eu<http://www.saraheskens.eu/> | @SarahEskens<https://twitter.com/SarahEskens>

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CFP: Global Internet Governance Annual Symposium
by Nanette Levinson 10 May '21

10 May '21

Apologies for any cross-postings. Please consider submitting an extended abstract for our annual symposium. More details are available below. https://www.giga-net.org/cfp-giganet-annual-symposium-2021/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.giga-net.org/cfp-giganet-annual-sym…> GigaNet Annual Symposium 2021 (Katowice, Poland) GigaNet – the Global Internet Governance Academic Network – is now accepting extended abstracts for papers to be presented at its annual symposium. As of now, GigaNet 2021 is planned to be held alongside the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in a hybrid format in Katowice, Poland, but may turn into a fully virtual conference depending on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. Papers on any Internet/digital governance-related topic are welcome. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. There will be the possibility of a focused subset of accepted papers to be fast-tracked for publication in a relevant journal. Last year, a collection of papers presented at the conference were invited for a special issue<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/telecommu…> of Telecommunications Policy. Welcome topics for this year’s symposium include, but are not limited to: Internet Governance as a field of study * Narratives, myths and frictions in the construction of the Internet governance field * Internet governance cultures and power dynamics * Theoretical innovations and new methods applicable to Internet governance research The evolution of Internet governance, institutions, and norms in the areas of: * Internet standards and protocols * Internet infrastructure * Platform governance * Cybersecurity * Governance of data streams * Digital rights online Future-oriented Internet research agenda * Emerging topics in Internet governance (e.g. environment) * Digital sovereignty * Interdisciplinary perspectives on the governance of new technologies (Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, virtual currencies), etc. Internet Governance in time of pandemics * New challenges and opportunities of digitalization * Health governance & COVID-tracing apps * Freedoms, rights and limitations * Internet governance and emergency preparedness GigaNet is oriented around the presentation of research papers. The proposed extended abstract should be 800-1000 words long (excluding bibliography) and must describe: 1. Research question(s), 2. Data used, 3. Methodology, and 4. Main (expected) findings of the paper, 5. Contributions to literature and/or ongoing policy debates. Theoretical papers need not specify the data used but must have a clear research question and statement of the specific theories used and literature in which the analysis is situated. The extended abstract must be uploaded to the Easychair website<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=gigane…> by 10 June 2021, 23.59h (in the submitter’s timezone). Reviews of individual abstracts will be double blinded. Please do not include names or any other personally identifiable information on the uploaded file or in the text of the submission itself on the EasyChair platform. (The platform records the author name(s) and contact information: the program committee chair will be able to see that information.) Full papers should only be submitted upon invitation, following the selection of abstracts. GigaNet encourages emerging scholars and researchers working with diverse methodologies to submit their work to the symposium. Proposals should be submitted in English. Participation in the GigaNet symposium is free of charge. Important dates: Extended abstracts submission: 10 June Notification to authors of acceptances/rejections: 15 July Accepted authors confirm attendance: 25 July Full papers due: 15 October GigaNet Symposium: early December (tentatively planned for 6 December) We look forward to receiving your submissions. Nanette S. Levinson Faculty Co-Director, Internet Governance Lab Academic Director, SIS/Sciences-Po Exchange Program School of International Service American University Washington, DC 20016-8071 202-885-1480

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Chinese Internet Research e-Conference 25-27 June 2021
by H Yu 10 May '21

10 May '21

Hello all, You are welcome to join the 10th Chinese Internet Research Conference (25-27 June 2021, via Zoom), any session or all sessions. It's free to all. 18th CIRC virtual conference, 25-27 June 2021 “The Internationalization of China’s Digital and Communication Industries” Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 18th CIRC has been postponed to June 2021 as a virtual conference via Zoom. It focuses on the prospects for, and critiques of, the internationalization strategies of China’s digital and communication industries. It has invited papers and panels that examine the internationalization mission and geopolitical implication of China’s global digital strategies, their successes and challenges that are centered on and beyond the Internet. It has papers that examine new dynamics and emerging trends related to Chinese Internet and digital culture /economy /politics from a comparative perspective—both historically and horizontally (with other countries). The conference features 12 panels, 2 keynotes (Yu Hong <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcirc2021.…> and Rogier Creemers <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcirc2021.…>), 2 workshops, and special events. It will be an innovative and interactive conference for presenters, participants, and audience alike. Zoom links will be added to sessions in June. The conference features a graduate student paper contest <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcirc2021.…>, which highlights the best works by new and emerging scholars in Chinese internet research. The deadline for full-paper submission to the contest is 30 May 2021, to be sent to: submission(a)circ2021.net For more information about the 18th CIRC, please visit: https://circ2021.net/ <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcirc2021.…> There will be two special issues arising from the conference--open to all; not limited to conference participants: one on internet governance (with *Media International Australia*); the other on digital entrepreneurial labour (with *Global Media and China*); for more information, visit: https://circ2021.net/publishing-opportunities/ Regards, Haiqing, on behalf of the 18th CIRC Organising Committee ---------------------------------------------------------------- Professor Haiqing Yu, Vice-Chancellor's Principal Research Fellow ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S); Digital Ethnography Research Centre | School of Media and Communication RMIT University, PO Box 2476, Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia Web: http://yuhaiqing1.wordpress.com <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fyuhaiqing1…> For a full list of my publications see: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8368-4214 <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Forcid.org…>

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Call for Participation: ICWSM-Workshop on ‘Participatory Development of Quality Guidelines for Social Media Research’ (June 7)
by Weller, Katrin 08 May '21

08 May '21

ICWSM-Workshop on ‘Participatory Development of Quality Guidelines for Social Media Research’ (June 7) -------------------------- DATE: June 7, 2021 WEBSITE: https://indiiigo.github.io/participatory-compsocsci-documentation/ ORGANIZERS: Indira Sen, Fabian Flöck, Katrin Weller (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) ------------------------- WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES: Do you work with or are interested in social media data? Are you interested in increasing the transparency of research which uses social media data? Look no further, because this workshop is for you. In this full-day and fully virtual workshop co-located with the International Conference for Web and Social Media (ICWSM)<https://icwsm.org/2021/index.html>, we want to bring together researchers across academic disciplines who are interested in social media research. We adopt a collaborative perspective in developing guidelines for critically reflecting on study design in social media research. Drawing on principles of participatory design, we hope to include several stakeholders involved through collaborative brainstorming and the design of research documentation. We envision that the end goal of this workshop entails shared documentation that establishes best practices for research with web and social media data. Planned as the first in a series of workshops, we invite participants for a hands-on, structured, and collaborative workshop on designing documentation, guidelines, and best practices for research with social media. PARTICIPATION: Conference registration is open until May 28 (see details at: https://icwsm.org/2021/index.html#registration) Thanks to the generosity of the ICWSM organizers, we can offer registration waivers for two participants, preferably from communities under-represented at the conference. If you’re interested in applying for a fee waiver, send us a short (maximum 200 word) summary of why you’d like to attend with your name and email to participatorycssdoc(a)gmail.com<mailto:participatorycssdoc@gmail.com> until May 20. We are still exploring more potential fee waiver options, so you may want to watch out for updates on our website<https://indiiigo.github.io/participatory-compsocsci-documentation/>!

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First International Conference on ICT for Health, Accessibility and Wellbeing (IHAW 2021): Fourth Call for Papers
by Announce Announcements 08 May '21

08 May '21

*** Fourth Call for Papers *** First International Conference on ICT for Health, Accessibility and Wellbeing (IHAW 2021) November 8-10, 2021, Golden Bay Hotel 5*, Larnaca, Cyprus http://cyprusconferences.org/ihaw2021/ (Proceedings to be published by Springer; Special Journal Issue with SN Computer Science) ICT for Health, Accessibility and Wellbeing (IHAW 2021) is the first of the series of International Conferences on "ICT for Societal Challenges". It is a showcase for high quality oral and poster presentations and demonstrations sessions. This conference aims to be a platform for multi and interdisciplinary research at the interplay between Information and Communication Technologies, Biomedical, Neuro-cognitive, and Experimental research. This research includes the design, experimental evaluation and standardization of new ICT scalable systems and in-silico systems for new and future inclusive and sustainable technologies that benefit all: healthy people, people with disabilities or other impairments, people having chronic diseases, etc. User-centered design and innovation, new intuitive ways of human -computer interaction, and user acceptance are the topics of particular interest. Conference Topics Relevant topics include (but are not limited to) the following: • AI and Cognition, Cognitive Mechatronics, Human-Machine Interaction, Cobotics, Model-based design and configuration tools for healthcare and well-being, AI methods for medical device testing • Systems for management of health and care (mental health, pain, neurological disorders, sight, hearing, balance, space awareness; sensory based physiological and psychological non-invasive measurements, preventive healthcare, m-healthcare, e-healthcare, integrated care, serious games, electronic health record, self-management, patient-centered systems for survivorship, palliation and/or end-of-life care) • Precision medicine • ICT for in-silico trials • Implantable medical devices • Computational methods for medical device • Models for human-device interaction for medicine • Systems promoting access to the socio-economical and cultural environment • Age-friendly systems for active and healthy aging (telepresence, robotics solutions, innovative solutions for independent living, innovative elderly care, integrated care, age-related risks prevention/detection) • Multimodal assistive ICT devices to empower people with sensory, cognitive, motor, balance and spatial impairments • ICT systems to improve the quality of life and for daily life activities assistance (education, recreation, and nutrition) • Smart living homes and wearables (Intelligent and personalized digital solutions for sustaining and extending healthy and independent living; personalized early risk detection and intervention) • New experimental validation methods with end-users • Standardization, certification, labeling, privacy, security and communication issues (related to aging well, to sensory impairment) High-quality original submissions that address such future issues, show the design and evaluation in (near-) real scenarios, explain how to benchmark systems, and outline the education and training procedures for acquiring new perceptual skills while using such systems are welcome. Research and technical papers are expected to present significant and original contributions validated with the targeted end-users. Early works and works- in-progress are invited to submit a short or demo paper. Submissions should clearly state the progress beyond the existing state-of- the-art and the expected societal benefits of the developed technology. When possible, validate scenarios with the target user groups and well-identified technology readiness levels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level) should be at least outlined. Submissions We invite three types of paper submissions: 1. Research and Technical papers, up to 15 pages, describing original unpublished research, making a substantial contribution to the research field 2. Short papers, up to 6 pages, describing original unpublished research, making a small but solid contribution to the field 3. Demos, up to 4 pages, describing innovative tools that address topics relevant to the conference All submissions will be reviewed by the Program Committee. Accepted contributions will appear in the archival proceedings of IHAW 2021, published by Springer in the Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) series (https://www.springer.com/series/7899) and will be presented in plenary sessions of the conference. The authors of the best papers accepted for IHAW2021 will be invited to submit extended versions for a special issue with SN Computer Science (https://www.springer.com/journal/42979) Submissions of all types should be carefully formatted according to the Springer format for conference proceedings: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu… and should specify on the first page the type of submission ("R&T", "Short", "Demo"). The submission process will be handled through Easy Chair and the submission link is: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icihaw2021 . Important Dates • Submission Deadline: June 7, 2021 (AoE) • Notification: August 23, 2021 • Camera-Ready Submission Deadline: September 6, 2021 • Author Registration Deadline: September 6, 2021 Organizers Honorary General Chair • Edwige Pissaloux, University of Rouen Normandy, France General Chair • George A. Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Scientific Chair • Salim Bouhlel, University of Sfax, Tunisia Scientific Vice-Chair • Achilleas Achilleos, Frederick University, Cyprus Publicity Chair • Ramiro Velazquez, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico Finance Chair • Petros Stratis, Easy Conferences LTD., Cyprus

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REFRESH 2021 - 2nd International Workshop on Real-life modeling in 5G networks and beyond – Submission: May 21, 2021
by Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou 08 May '21

08 May '21

2nd International Workshop on Real-life modeling in 5G networks and beyond – REFRESH 2021 https://refresh2021.github.io/#/ Co-located with The 17th Annual International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS 2021)* Coral Bay, Pafos, Cyprus June 7 - 9, 2021 www.dcoss.org<http://www.dcoss.org/> DCOSS is technically co-sponsored by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Technical Committee on Parallel Processing – TCPP Scope and Overview The economic and societal potential of emerging 5G and cyber-physical social systems is vastly greater than what has been realized so far, and major investments are being made worldwide to develop the corresponding science and technology. The Future Internet paradigm, the proliferation of emerging networks and architectures, wireless access technologies and multi-homing smart devices are evolving towards a competitive environment, where users and devices have access to various resources, while their behaviors become strongly interdependent. This fact demands and motivates the development of user-centric resource management and optimization frameworks, which enable user’s self-optimization and autonomy. This vision is further motivated and supported by the convergence of various emerging technologies enabling Cyber-Physical Systems operation, including 5G/B5G technologies, Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Edge Computing and Software Defined Networking, all targeting flexibility and efficiency. To deal with the involved complexity, and driven by the requirements of autonomy and scalability, distributed resource orchestration approaches appear as a necessity rather than a desire. The REFRESH Workshop aims at to stimulate research on the most novel topics of real-life modeling in 5G networks and beyond. This year’s edition encourages submission of theoretical and experimental work (including studies of real deployment), with a primary interest in new directions of wireless networking in concrete application scenarios and demonstrators in areas such as, but not limited to: mobile edge computing, Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, public safety networks, dynamic spectrum utilization, smart grid communications, wireless power communication, green wireless networks, information-centric wireless networks. The workshop seeks original work presented in the form of research papers describing new research and development approaches and results, as well as work-in-progress papers. Highly disruptive work-in-progress and position papers are also welcome, provided they focus on particularly innovative solutions or applications for 5G networks and beyond. All papers shall be forward-looking, describe their relationship to existing work, and shall argue their impact and implications for ongoing or future research. Selected workshop papers will also be considered for publication in a Special Issue and/or Special Sections of international peer-reviewed journals. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to * 5G Cellular systems and beyond * Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces * Integrated Access and Backhaul * Channel modeling and measurements * Cloud/CRAN-based networks5G/B5G/6G Networks * Millimeter-wave and THz communication technologies * Massive MIMO * Multi-modal sensing/sourcing * Cognitive radio networks, dynamic spectrum access and emerging applications and services * Wireless power transfer and energy harvesting for wireless networks * Delay tolerant networks * Wireless communications on different media * End-to-end protocols, flow and congestion control * Artificial intelligence and machine learning for wireless networks * Attack modelling, prevention, mitigation, and defense in wireless networks * Security, Reliability, Privacy and Trust in Wireless Networks * Green Wireless Networks * Heterogeneous, Small-Cell and Dense networks * Information-centric wireless networks * Internet of Things * Pervasive and wearable computing and networking * Public Safety Networks * Social wireless networks * Quality of Service provisioning and management in 5G networks and beyond * Quality of Experience and User Experience in 5G networks and beyond * Software-defined wireless networks * Vehicular wireless networks * Wireless mesh networks * Wireless multimedia networks * Wireless network virtualization * Multiple Access, Radio Resource Management, Interference Management and Scheduling * Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Networks * Hybrid communication systems (e.g., satellite/unmanned aerial vehicles/terrestrial/wireline hybrids) * Machine learning-based resource allocation for wireless networks * Reinforcement learning and deep learning for 5G networks and beyond * Architectures, models, security, and approaches for smart grid networks * Economics and pricing for 5G networks and beyond * Smart Cities supported by 5G networks and beyond * Scalability, Robustness and Resilience in 5G networks and beyond Submission Guidelines General Paper Format Authors are invited to submit original unpublished manuscripts that demonstrate current research on real-life modeling in 5G networks and beyond related to REFRESH workshop’s topics of interest. Please use the US letter size (8.5 X 11 in) standard IEEE conference LaTeX format or Microsoft Word template available on the link below: http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html All submissions should be written in English and submitted as a full or work-in-progress paper. Full papers should have a maximum of eight (8) printed pages including figures and references. Full papers are expected to describe fully developed ideas with a thorough evaluation. Work-in-progress papers should have a maximum of four (4) printed pages including figures and references. Work-in-progress papers are expected to describe new and interesting ideas that have not yet reached full maturity. Note that REFRESH does not follow the double-blind review policy. The names and affiliations of all the authors must be present in the submitted manuscript. Accepted and presented papers will be published in the DCOSS 2021 conference proceedings and submitted to IEEE Xplore as well as other Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases. Submission Site Please submit your papers in PDF format using the following paper submission website: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=refresh2021 Program Committee Chairs Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou (University of New Mexico, USA) Symeon Papavassiliou (National Technical University of Athens, Greece) Important Dates Submission: May 21, 2021 Notification: June 11, 2021 Camera Ready: June 18, 2021 Early Registration: July 5, 2021 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eirini Eleni Tsiropoulou Assistant Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM, 87131 Office: 326B Tel.: (505)-277-5501 Email: eirini(a)unm.edu<mailto:eirini@unm.edu> Website: PROTON Lab<http://ece-research.unm.edu/tsiropoulou/index.html> PROTON Lab’s News: @Tsiropoulou_EE<https://twitter.com/Tsiropoulou_EE> “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” ~ Aristotle

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Send op-eds to DigiLabour
by Rafael Grohmann 07 May '21

07 May '21

Hello, DigiLabour, a research lab based in Brazil, is also publising op-eds on platform labor and other issues related to technology and work: https://digilabour.com.br Our website presents interviews and newsletter too. Please send your op-ed proposal in any format to hello(a)digilabour.com.br We are open to your proposals! All op-eds are published in English and, as soon as possible, we will translate into Portuguese. Best, Rafael Grohmann Assistant Professor in Communication, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Unisinos), Brazil Coordinator,[1] DigiLabour Research Lab Principal Investigator fo[2]r Fairwork Project in Brazil Researcher of [3]Histories of AI project, University of Cambridge, International Research and Collaboration Award Member, [4]Scholarly Council, Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2), UCLA Founding Board Member of the Labor Tech Research Network References 1. https://digilabour.com.br/ 2. https://fair.work/ 3. https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/histories-of-ai#:~:text=The%20U…. 4. https://www.c2i2.ucla.edu/scholarly-council/

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CFP: Information Overload? Music Studies in the Age of Abundance (8-10 Sept 2021)
by Christopher Haworth 07 May '21

07 May '21

Information Overload? Music Studies in the Age of Abundance 8-10 September 2021, University of Birmingham Keynote Speakers: Robin James (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) Nick Seaver (Tufts University) More speakers TBA For those investigating any musical activity after about 1994, the main sources of research data will not be print archives or discrete media—they will be World Wide Web media. The Internet Archive, the web’s library, today holds over 525 billion archived web pages, while API and post-API archiving initiatives make social web platforms accessible as research databases. At first glance, no other archive is more inclusive in terms of whose voices it represents, and none more comprehensive in terms of the insights it provides into the thoughts, desires and musical tastes of ordinary people. To paraphrase the web historian Ian Milligan, whose recent book provides the title and framing for this conference, we might suggest that in its scale, granularity and plurality, the web represents the music historian’s dream. Yet there is good cause to be sceptical of claims to a more ‘democratic’ archive in an age of surveillance capitalism. Contrary to early hopes that the internet would bring about greater egalitarianism, Shoshana Zuboff argues that the political economy of contemporary digital communications is characterised by ‘radical indifference’ in the service of maximising data flows. The harms that algorithms perpetuate through biased and incomplete training data suggest that visibility within the archive remains strongly patterned according to race, gender, prosperity, ability and geography. Intersecting with these concerns is a question of how the superficial ‘abundance’ of stories to be told about music in the last twenty-five years impacts on questions of historical theory. Is it possible that a surfeit of available paths through the data compensates for a lack of meaningful historicity over the same period? With this conference we seek to gather researchers who are interested in the epistemological, methodological, ethical, and disciplinary problems that arise when studying music in the age of abundance. The below questions are intended to be indicative rather than exhaustive: What skills and literacies are required to treat web media as primary sources? Does treating web media as music literature prompt a further call for musicology to reflect on its disciplinary and medial borders? How might music historians and other researchers work with one another towards the curation of shared datasets, mutually agreed best practices, and a culture of collaboration? What are the barriers to these ways of working in music studies? What ethical and epistemological questions are raised when ordinary (and often anonymous) people and everyday activities take centre stage in the writing of music history? How should music researchers navigate a ‘post-Cambridge Analytica’ world in which platform APIs are increasingly restrictive in terms of what data they make available? Is it necessary to work within the ‘Realpolitik’ of social media data access, or should scholars consider the active breach of platform rules in the public interest? Does the World Wide Web necessitate new thinking around matters of history and historiography? How helpful are recent attempts to periodise the last 30+ years in cultural-political terms (‘the long 1990s’, ‘the contemporary’, etc)? Do generational politics inflect our understanding of recent music history in new ways, or our perspectives on history as music researchers? Paper titles and abstracts of no more than 250 words, together with a 100-word bio, should be sent to muscon2021(a)contacts.bham.ac.uk by Friday 7th May 2021. Notification of acceptance will be sent via email by Monday 7th June. Full preparations are being made for an in-person conference, however online participation via Zoom will also be possible. Organising committee: Christopher Haworth Danielle Sofer Edward Spencer This conference is funded by the UKRI AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellowship, Music and the Internet: Towards a Digital Sociology of Music. Further updates will be posted to the conference website: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/lcahm/departments/music/events/2021/in…

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CFP Meme for InVisible Culture
by Gabriella Coleman, Dr. 06 May '21

06 May '21

https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/cfp-issue-34-invisible-memes-for-cultural-tee… [https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/download.jpeg]<https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/cfp-issue-34-invisible-memes-for-cultural-tee…> For our 34th issue, Invisible Culture seeks scholarly articles and creative works that approach internet memes as aesthetic, cultural, and political objects of study. Memes have been discussed largely in their communicative and participatory capacities, particularly in the fields of communications, political science, and other social sciences. There are fewer examples of humanistic work approaching memes and memetics as world-building practices and as cultural objects that foreground meaningful sense-making. The last major journal issue devoted to the topic was a 2014 special issue of The Journal of Visual Culture.1<https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/cfp-issue-34-invisible-memes-for-cultural-tee…> Memes have since moved from diversion to discourse, from formally simplistic to kaleidoscopically complex, from niche to mainstream. Memes draw endlessly from the ever-growing dustbin of popular visual culture, returning modified images that are, in turn, instantly modifiable. Memes are as much, if not more, a part of most people’s daily cultural exposure as television, film, or radio. Savvy creators of “legacy” media anticipate memification (one need only think of Lil Nas X sliding down the stripper pole to Hell) and marketing professionals “in on the joke” leverage the authorless form for free advertising. The bulk of anglophone meme research since 2015 has focused on the role of memes in the spread of extremist ideologies as a means of “[weaponizing] irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic.”2<https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/cfp-issue-34-invisible-memes-for-cultural-tee…> This attention is both necessary and appropriate. However, we hope to address memetics more broadly and to emphasize areas that haven’t received the same attention. Memes are hardly unique to any one age group, race, class, or indeed any region of the world; nor are they exclusively in the domain of humor. Memes spread and develop online and can never be fully untethered from the exigencies of platform, algorithm, location, and law. Yet vernacular meme cultures are as varied as the panoply of human experience. Memes move across and within ethnic and national identifications, expressions of gender and sexuality, political ideology, and language family. In this issue we seek work that speaks to that capacious view of memes, from part to elusive whole; whether focusing on the deeply contextual particularities of a specific meme or community, the subversive or revolutionary potential of particular imagery, discussing the practice of meme artists or reckoning with memetics as a worldwide phenomenon. We hope for submissions of scholarly and creative work across disciplines, methodologies, communities, and positionalities. Contributions to this issue may address (but are by no means limited to) the following topics and themes: * Global platforms, networks, and communities: mainstream social media, photo and video sharing, social aggregation, image boards, live streaming, blogs, the “dark web” * Vernacular meme cultures, hyper-specific communities and identities in niche groups and networks * Far Right networks and platforms including Parler, Gab, 8chan, Voat, Clouthub, Pilled.net, Patriots.win, Greatawakening.win, Pilled.net * African American and Black meme cultures, queer meme imaginaries, diasporic meme publics and other online channels of identification and solidarity for people(s) whose identities have been marginalized * Meme Formats; Image Macros; Reaction GIFs; Shitposting; Copy Pasta and Creepy Pasta; Generational Memes (Gen Z, Boomers, etc.); Prank links such as Rickrolling and shock and gore links; Codewords and codified imagery; Deep Fried Memes, Meme Art * Tik Tok and other moving image memes and the role of sound, repetition, and performance therein * The transnational use of memes (e.g. the very different contexts surrounding the Joker, Pepe, and Guy Fawkes in different countries and cultures) * Non-US platforms such as Weibo, Tencent, Renren, WeChat, VK, and OK.ru * Authorship; “Meme lords”; “Blue checks”; licensed imagery * Commodification and Decommodification; Ownership and NFTs * Media archaeology; dead platforms; nostalgia Please send completed papers (with references following the guidelines from the Chicago Manual of Style) of between 4,000 and 10,000 words to invisible.culture(a)ur.rochester.edu<mailto:invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu> by June 30, 2021. Inquiries should be sent to the same address. Creative/Artistic Works In addition to written materials, InVisible Culture is accepting works in other media (video, photography, drawing, code) that reflect upon the theme as it is outlined above. Please submit creative or artistic works along with an artist statement of no more than two pages to invisible.culture(a)ur.rochester.edu<mailto:invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu>. For questions or more details concerning acceptable formats, go to http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/contribute or contact the same address. Reviews InVisible Culture is also currently seeking submissions for book, exhibition, and film reviews (600-1,000 words). For this issue we particularly encourage authors to submit reviews of games or other forms of interactive media. To submit a review proposal, go to http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/contribute or contact invisible.culture(a)ur.rochester.edu<mailto:invisible.culture@ur.rochester.edu>. -- Curious about hackers and hacking? Check out Hack_Curio. It's a video exhibit about hackers designed for the classroom: https://hackcur.io/

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