Hello all AoIR colleagues! For those of you planning to attend ICA in San Diego in May, you may be interested in this preconference on May 25, being organized by myself and /Information, Communication & Society/ editor Brian Loader (as you know, iCS publishes special issues for AoIR). See details below -- highlights include Delphi rounds ahead of the preconference for all registered participants, discussion sessions convened by contributors to the forthcoming /Routledge Handbook of Digital Media & Communication/ (Lievrouw & Loader, eds.), a closing session featuring as respondent Lee Rainie, Director of Internet, Science & Technology Research at the Pew Research Center, and a report on our results in a special section of /iCS/. We hope to see you there! Leah Lievrouw ======================== *Call for Open Registration: ICA 2017 Preconference* *Division Sponsor: Communication and Technology (CAT)* ** */Digital Media and Communication Research:/**/ A Venture in Forecasting and Intervention/* May 25, 2017, San Diego Hilton Bayfront Hotel *See also*http://www.icahdq.org/resource/resmgr/Conference/2017/PC19-schedule.pdf _Organizers_:*Leah A. Lievrouw*, Dept. of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, and *Brian Loader*, Dept. of Sociology, University of York _Registration Fee_:$100.00 USD; open registration (no CFP). Register at http://www.icahdq.org _Description_: In his landmark 1976 volume, /The Coming of Post-Industrial Society/, sociologist Daniel Bell advanced a sweeping vision of the impending economic, cultural, and social changes associated with the dramatic post-war growth in media networks and institutions, information technologies, knowledge work, and services in developed societies. His modest subtitle -- /A Venture in Social Forecasting /-- hardly suggested the controversies and debates his book, and his vision, would provoke among early new media scholars, researchers and critics. More than 40 years on, after decades of socio-technical change that Bell could scarcely have imagined, participants in this day-long intensive preconference will engage in a new “venture” in forecasting to identify fruitful ways ahead for digital communication/new media studies. Using themes from the forthcoming /Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication/ (Lievrouw & Loader, eds.) as points of departure, preconference participants and /Handbook /contributor-panelists will collaborate on a wide-ranging, prospective agenda for the next decade of theory, research and practice in communication and media studies under conditions of pervasively networked, digital mediation. *The preconference results/findings, highlights of the preconference discussions and participant contributions will be summarized and published in a special issue of the journal /Information, Communication & Society/, as part of celebrations marking iCS's twentieth year of publication. * In April 2017, the organizers will open an exclusive online forum where pre-publication selections from the /Handbook/ will be available to participants as background for discussion. Participants and panelists will be invited to engage in two to three brief Delphi-style rounds via the site ahead of the San Diego meeting, to focus their expert views on the most compelling, under-explored, or likely future issues, problem areas, and opportunities for intervention in digital/new media and communication research, scholarship and practice. On the preconference day, the /Handbook/ editors/conveners and contributor/panelists will lead all participants in a series of interactive plenary sessions which will explore the Delphi results and the book's main themes: the /artifacts/ (design, use and affordances of technology and devices, and the material conditions and embodiment of use), /practices/ (emerging and established forms of communicative action and engagement, cultural change and critique), and social/institutional /arrangements/ (macro-scale legal, economic or policy issues, social/political movements, industry trends, institutional and organizational formation and change) of digitally-mediated communication. Formats and activities of each session will depend on the topics being explored. The preconference will conclude with a general session, moderated by the organizers and *Lee Rainie, Director of Internet, Science and Technology Research of the Pew Research Center*, in which the main themes and issues identified throughout the day will be reviewed and summarized into a rough preliminary agenda for research and action. Following the ICA conference, the organizers will edit the preconference contributions into a collection for publication in /iCS/, circulating drafts and soliciting any further suggestions from participants via the preconference site. _Preconference Agenda_[TENTATIVE; session schedule and participants subject to change] 8:30-9:00 am***Coffee and Introductions, Preconference Goals * **Review of Preconference Activities & Schedule *Leah A. Lievrouw*, University of California, Los Angeles *Brian Loader*, University of York 9:00-10:45 am*Session I: Artifacts* Conveners (additional panelists TBA): *Finn Brunton*, New York University *Taina Bucher*, University of Copenhagen *Radhika Gajjala*, Bowling Green State University *Lee Humphreys*, Cornell University *Matt Ratto*, University of Toronto 10:45-11:00 am*Break (refreshments provided)* 11:00-12:45 pm*Session II: Arrangements* Conveners (additional panelists TBA): *Julie Cohen*, Georgetown University *Terry Flew*, Queensland University of Technology *Barry Wellman*, University of Toronto 12:45-1:45 pm*Lunch (participants on their own)* 1:45-3:30 pm*Session III: Practices* Conveners (additional panelists TBA): *Shiv Ganesh*, Massey University *Antero Garcia, *Stanford University *Nancy Jennings*, University of Cinncinnati *Gunnar Liestøl*, University of Oslo *Irina Shklovski*, IT University of Copenhagen *Cynthia Stohl*, University of California, Santa Barbara 3:30-4:00 pm*Break (refreshments provided) * 4:00-5:15 pm*Closing Session: Recap and Priorities* Moderators:Lievrouw & Loader Guest Respondent:*Lee Rainie*, Director, Pew Internet Project, Washington, D.C. -- Leah A. Lievrouw, Professor Department of Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles 216 GSE&IS Building | Box 951520 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520 Tel +1 310 825 1840 Fax +1 310 206 4460 Email llievrou@ucla.edu http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/llievrou/LeahLievrouw/Welcome.html