An announcement of a conference that may be of interest to members of AOIR: Front stage/Back stage: Mobile communication and the renegotiation of the social sphere Announcing the fourth in a series of international conferences to examine the social and economic meanings of mobile communication. The conference will be held in Grimstad, Norway 22 - 24 June. Deadline for the submission of abstracts is 15 November 2002. A link to the conference web site is http://emarkets.grm.hia.no/semoc/ Purpose of the conference: Mobile communication in its various forms, has arrived on the scene in a dramatic fashion. SMS, voice telephony, mobile Internet, WLAN technology, Bluetooth, PDAs and many other technologies and services are being used by broader and broader sections of society. Their general social acceptance and the increasing economic accessibility of mobile technologies have meant that they have been adopted and used by ever more groups in society. The use of these technologies has altered the way we interact, the way we present ourselves in both public and mediated communication and how we use our telecomm budgets. Taking a page from Goffman, we wish to frame the conference around mobile communication's impact on our front stage facades, our back stage interactions - as well as the blurring of these two. Our goal is to provide a forum wherein social scientists, economists, policy makers and industry representatives can meet to examine the ways in which social practises and routines related to mobile communication have and will influence the way that we go about our everyday lives. A limit of approximately 20 papers will be accepted for the conference.