*Please distribute widely. Apologies for cross-posting* CALL FOR PAPERS: Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference Hosted by the New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London. http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/politics-web-2-0-conference/ April 17-18, 2008. Has there been a shift in political use of the Internet and digital new media - a new Web 2.0 politics based on participatory values? How do broader social, cultural, and economic shifts towards Web 2.0 impact, if at all, on the contexts, the organizational structures, and the communication of politics and policy? Does Web 2.0 hinder or help democratic citizenship? This conference provides an opportunity for researchers to share and debate perspectives. Potential themes could include (in no particular order): - Theorizing Web 2.0. - Changes in political journalism, news production, and consumption. - Social networking (MySpace, Facebook) and election campaigning. - Citizen activism from the local to the transnational. - Blogs, wikis, and user-generated content. - Changing social, cultural, and political identities. - Social software and social media: design, technologies, tools, and techniques. - Social network analysis. - Surveillance, privacy, and security. - Security, foreign policy and international communication. - Hacktivism. - Radical transparency. - The impact of online video. - E-government, web 2.0, and new models of public service delivery. - New models of social and political organization. - 'Little brother' phenomena. - Political life in virtual worlds. - Netroots versus the war room model of election campaigning. - New challenges for media regulation. - Collaborative production of political knowledge networks. - Changing party, interest group, and social movement strategies. - Web 2.0 and political marketing. - Collective intelligence, smart mobs, crowdsourcing. - Fragmenting audiences, the long tail, and the political economy of web 2.0 media. - Civil society, civic engagement, and mobilization. - Web 2.0, ICT4D and the changing digital divide. - The politics of intellectual property. - Hyperlocalism. - The political aesthetics of Web 2.0. Journal of Information Technology and Politics special issue Conference presenters will be invited to submit their papers to a peer review process for publication in a special issue of the new Journal of Information Technology and Politics. http://www.jitp.net. Submitting a paper or panel proposal Paper proposals should be submitted via the secure online form at: http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/web-2-0-conference-form/ Please include: 1. Name and title. 2. Institutional affiliation and mailing address. 3. Email address. 4. Title of proposed paper and abstract of up to 300 words. 5. Please state if you are a graduate research student. Full panel proposals are also welcome. If you would like to propose a panel of three papers on a common theme, with or without a discussant, please email the proposal to the Conference Convenor: Dr. Andrew Chadwick (Andrew.Chadwick@rhul.ac.uk). **Deadline for all proposals: November 2, 2007** Further information, including details of keynote speakers and plenary sessions will be released in early autumn. Details of accommodation packages will be released early in 2008. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the New Political Communication Unit ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Led by the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, the New Political Communication Unit was created in the Spring of 2007. Our research agenda consists of three strands: Comparative and international political communication: the Internet's impact on political mobilization, campaigning and identity; the relationship between media, war, new security challenges and conflict; audience reception studies in the context of the proliferation of media; the dynamic between citizens' changing uses of media and a transforming news environment; citizen journalism; technology and mobilities. Communication and comparative governance: e-government, e-democracy and the changing interface between representative institutions, public bureaucracies and citizens; changing organizational practices shaped by new patterns of communication. Comparative and international communication policy: Internet and new media governance and regulation; privacy, surveillance and security, the political economy of new media; cultural diversity policy; digital divide and development issues. We offer a taught Masters stream in New Political Communication and PhD supervision in our areas of expertise. The Unit's network inside Royal Holloway incorporates academic staff from the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Department of Media Arts, the School of Management, the UNESCO Centre for ICT4D in the Department of Geography, the Department of Psychology and the Department of Computer Science. Our external networks include scholars and practitioners in a wide variety of organisations and countries. For more information, please visit http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About Royal Holloway ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Royal Holloway is one of the major Colleges of the federal University of London and is among the elite group of ten university institutions whose departments all hold the top three ratings for research, with scores of 4, 5 and 5*. Our beautiful parkland campus is about 15 minutes by taxi from London Heathrow airport, and about 35 minutes from central London by train. For further information visit: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/