CALL FOR PAPERS
International Conference on CULTURAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION (CATaC'02) 12-15 July 2002 University of MontrÈal, Quebec, Canada http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/
Conference theme: The Net(s) of Power: Language, Culture and Technology
The powers of the Nets can be construed in many ways - political, economic, and social. Power can also be construed in terms of Foucault's "positive power" and Bourdieu's notion of "cultural capital" - decentered forms of power that encourage "voluntary" submission, such as English as a _lingua franca_ on the Net. Similarly, Hofstede's category of "power distance" points to the role of status in encouraging technology diffusion, as low-status persons seek to emulate high-status persons. Through these diverse forms of power, the language(s) and media of the Net may reshape the cultural assumptions of its globally-distributed users - thus raising the dangers of "computer-mediated colonisation" ("Disneyfication" - a la Cees Hamelink).
This biennial conference series aims to provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research on how diverse cultural attitudes shape the implementation and use of information and communication technologies (ICT). "Cultural attitudes" here includes cultural values and communicative preferences that may be embedded in both the content and form of ICT - thus threatening to make ICT less the agent of a promised democratic global village and more an agent of cultural homogenisation and imperialism. The conference series brings together scholars from around the globe who provide diverse perspectives, both in terms of the specific culture(s) they highlight in their presentations and discussions, and in terms of the discipline(s) through which they approach the conference theme.
The first conference in the series was held in London in 1998 (http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac98/). For an overview of the themes and presentations of CATaC'98, see http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac98/01_ess.html. The second conference in the series was held in Perth in 2000 (http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac00/).
Original full papers (especially those which connect theoretical frameworks with specific examples of cultural values, practices, etc.) and short papers (e.g. describing current research projects and preliminary results) are invited. Papers should articulate the connections between specific cultural values as well as current and/or possible future communicative practices involving information and communication technologies. We seek papers which, taken together, will help readers, researchers, and practitioners of computer-mediated communication - especially in the service of "electronic democracy" - better understand the role of diverse cultural attitudes as hindering and/or furthering the implementation of global computer communications systems.
Topics of particular interested include but are not limited to:
- Impact of information and communication technologies on local and indigenous languages and cultures. - Politics of the electronic global village in democratising or preserving hierarchy. - Communicative attitudes and practices in industrialised and industrialising countries. - Role of gender in cultural expectations regarding appropriate communicative behaviours. - Ethical issues related to information and communication technologies, and the impact on culture and communication behaviours. - Issues of social justice raised by the dual problems of "the digital divide" and "computer-mediated colonisation," including theoretical and practical ways of overcoming these problems.
SUBMISSIONS
All submissions will be peer reviewed by an international panel of scholars and researchers. There will be the opportunity for selected papers to appear in special issues of journals and a book. Papers in previous conferences have appeared in special issues of a number of journals (Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication, AI and Society Journal, Javnost- The Public, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, and New Media and Society) and a book, "Culture, Technology, Communication: towards an Intercultural Global Village", edited by Charles Ess with Fay Sudweeks, SUNY Press, New York, 2001.
Initial submissions are to be emailed to catac@it.murdoch.edu.au as an attachment (Word, HTML, PDF). Guidelines for submission, including templates, are on the web site. Submission of a paper implies that it has not been submitted or published elsewhere. At least one author of each accepted paper is expected to present the paper at the conference.
Important Dates
Full papers: 15 March 2002 Short papers: 29 March 2002 Notification of acceptance: 5 April 2002 Final formatted papers: 26 April 2002
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Susan Herring (Associate Professor of Information Science, Adjunct Associate Professor of Linguistics, Indiana University): "The language of the Internet: English dominance or heteroglossia"
COMMITTEE CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS Charles Ess, Drury University, USA, ejcrec@lib.drury.edu Fay Sudweeks, Murdoch University, Australia, catac@it.murdoch.edu.au CONFERENCE VICE-CHAIR Lorna Heaton, University of Montreal, Canada, lheaton@videotron.ca PROGRAM COMMITTEE Jose Abdelnour-Nocera, Open University, UK Tom Addison, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Phil Agre, University of California San Diego, USA Poline Bala, University Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia Steve Benson, Edith Cowan University, Australia Gunilla Bradley, Mid Sweden University/Ume University, Sweden Hans-J¸rgen Bucher, Universitt Trier, Germany Michael Dahan, Israel Dineh Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA Gretchen Ferris Schl, College of William and Mary, USA John Gammack, Murdoch University, Australia Satinder Gill, Centre for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Finland and Stanford University, USA Sara Gwynn, University of the West of England, UK Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand Herbert Hrachovec, University of Vienna, Austria Jeremy Hunsinger, Virginia Tech, USA Lawrie Hunter, Kochi University of Technology, Japan Steve Jones, University of Illinois Chicago, USA Helen Nissenbaum, Princeton University, USA Leslie Regan Shade, University of Ottawa, Canada Gill Sellar, Edith Cowan University, Australia David Silver, University of Washington, USA Malin Sveningsson, Linkping University, Sweden Peter Sy, University of the Philippines, Philippines Wal Taylor, University of Central Queensland, Australia Richard Thomas, University of Western Australia, Australia Leslie Tkach, University of Tsukuba, Japan Arun-Kumar Tripathi, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany Alexander Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia Andrew Turk, Murdoch University, Australia Yvonne Waern, Linkping University, Sweden Ann Willis, Edith Cowan University, Australia