Hi all, I thought some AoIR members might be working on projects that fit the brief of this forthcoming special issue. If you have questions, free to get in touch via my Swinburne Univerity email: kalbury@swin.edu.au Call For Papers Media International Australia no. 171 (May 2019) The Will to App: Digitising Public Health Theme Editors: Kath Albury, Paul Byron and Frances Shaw Overview This themed issue of MIA proposes to engage with the digitisation and mediatisation of health promotion and health communication, particularly the development and delivery of mobile apps, websites and associated platforms by government and non-government health organisations. We offer the term ‘the will to app’ as a play on Foucault’s (1978: 140-144) concept of ‘bio-power’, that is, the process through which external regimes of power and discipline are internalised and normalised, both collectively and individually. This collection will focus on work that engages with critical data studies and critical media studies literature to examine the dynamics at play in digital health policy and practice. Consequently, we seek contributions that examine apps (and associated platforms) as media objects, whose modes of production, circulation and consumption are open to analysis as forms of situated knowledge. We are particularly interested in the ways that apps can be seen to mediate relationships, including between users and institutions, and between institutions and funding bodies. Topics that might be considered include: The datafication and appification of health promotion and health communication services: How does digitisation assist (or undermine) health service organisations and consumer advocacy groups that seek to promote cultures of community care, engagement and participation? Why might an organisation (or funding body) prioritise stand-alone apps over engagement with health consumers via social media platforms? What counts as meaningful engagement, and how might it be measured? Data ethics: How are health organisations engaging with the ethical issues raised by data collection and data retention? The use of mobile sensor data can undermine confidentiality, raising potentials for user-identification and locational awareness. How are practices such as ‘informed consent’ translated in this space? How are health organisations and app developers engaging with data management, and the decision whether or not to act on information provided by app users? Where apps are intended to help users contact healthcare providers, how are responses resourced? User-centred accounts of health apps, platforms and services: How are app designers and developers engaging with government, non-government and grassroots health organisations? How are health consumers, public health workers and healthcare providers using apps? How does might this usage differ from official discourses regarding the apps’ stated purpose? What workarounds (or vernacular health data cultures) are emerging in this space? We also welcome submissions that engage with health data imaginaries, that is, critical reflections and speculations as to what health data, algorithmic calculations and data analytics can or should do in the fields of health communication and health promotion. Please submit full articles (5,000-8,000 inclusive of notes and references) by 28 February 2018 via the MIA website submission system: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mia MIA Homepage: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/mia Queries should be sent to Kath Albury at kalbury@swin.edu.au.