apologies for cross-listing Call for Papers M-Democracy a Special Session at the Euro mGov 2005, 10-12 July 2005, Sussex University, Brighton, UK http://www.icmg.mgovernment.org/specialsessions.htm Session Chair: Associate Professor Mary Griffiths Department of Screen and Media University of Waikato Hamilton 1 N.Z. Email : maryg@waikato.ac.nz Ph. +64 7 856 2889 ext. 8604 Fax. +64 7 838 4767 Combining e-government and mobility, The First Euro Conference on Mobile Government (EURO mGOV 2005) aims to attract Representatives from the Public Sector, Academia, and IT and Telecom Companies, to establish a forum and networking platform for discussion and dissemination of knowledge on all aspects of Mobile Government including research, policy, implementation issues and impact on the government organizations and the society. More information can be found at http://www.icmg.mgovernment.org Session title: M-Democracy Converging new communication technologies and uses, and the associated new media trainings, are impacting on traditional democratic public spheres and polities globally. Mobile connectivity has been directly instrumental in altering political events in the Philippines, and elsewhere in, for example, the recent US election campaigns. Political representatives' websites and blogs are enhancing the building of community, participation, democratic transparency and accountability. By interacting online in 'horizontal' ways, mobilized citizen journalists are also making a democratic contribution by acting as watchdogs on government, and the mainstream media, through the free circulation of information. But the current priority uses of the internet (e-commerce and entertainment) and the hi-functionality mobile phone (intimate personal communication) have an initial tendency to make both technologies powerful individualizers and commodifiers. The regular conduct of print, online, television, radio, phone opinion polls; the customization of online news and other information sent to pcs and mobile phones; and the address of entertainment media audiences through quasi-democratic online ballots and competitions are all phenomena which are transforming mediated, mobile democracies. Can the approaches and mobile technologies used to build connectivity and consumerism be equally useful for mobilizing reflective democratic practice? What can governments and/or citizens successfully transfer from existing interactive media practices, in order to build stronger democracies? Is the trend to 'me media' rather than 'we media' militating against older forms of civic behavior and active citizenship? Both case studies and research papers are invited for this session. Submission Instructions: All interested authors should initially send a page-long paper proposal to the session chair at maryg@waikato.ac.nz to see the suitability of their paper for the session. All full paper submissions are subject to EURO mGOV submission and review procedures as outlined at http://www.icmg.mgovernment.org/submission.htm. Please send your full paper submissions to submissions@mgovernment.org *and* copy (Cc) ing to the session chair at maryg@waikato.ac.nz by the full paper submission deadline (January, 28, 2005) indicating "special session" on the subject line *and* the title of the session at the top of the first page of the paper. -- Sean Cubitt * Screen and Media Studies * University of Waikato * Private Bag 3105 * Hamilton * New Zealand * seanc@waikato.ac.nz * T: +64 (0)7 838 4543 * F: +64 (0)7 838 4767 http://www.waikato.ac.nz/film