Dear colleagues, This new program may be of interest to researchers wishing to do interdisciplinary work related to technology but having difficult finding funding support. B. Lentz (UT-Austin) http://www.ssrc.org/programs/ccit/ Culture, Creativity and Information Technology This new program builds on the proposition that technological innovation is inseparable from the forms of social and cultural innovation that support it and develop around it. Information technologies -- not only computers but also new media and new forms of communication technology --are deeply embedded in culture. They shape and are shaped by the ways in which people give meaning to their lives together, develop specific identities, pass on local traditions and express themselves through art and other forms of cultural production. Institutions and government also play a prominent role in this process — as sources of innovation, as adapters of technology to existing structures and as regulators of how new technologies are used. The Culture Creativity and Information Technology Program focuses on the role of information technology in enabling new forms of cultural creation, new pathways of cultural dissemination, new opportunities for participation and new regimes of exclusion. We believe that there is much greater potential for social science to engage these questions than has been demonstrated so far, and that such engagement can lead to better understanding of the ways in which information technologies impact different groups, different societies and different forms of cultural production. This program is currently in the planning stages, and will likely support a fuller range of research activities in 2002. Funding is provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Planning Committee Howard Becker Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara Yochai Benkler Information Law Institute, New York University Law School Michael Century Center for Research on Canadian Cultural Industries and Institutions, McGill University Paul DiMaggio Sociology, Princeton University Terry Fisher Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School Nicholas Garnham Media Studies, School of Communication, Design and Media, University of Westminster Lev Manovich Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego Monroe Price Comparative Media Law and Policy, Oxford University Gustavo Lins Ribeiro Anthropology, University of Brazilia Roger Silverstone Media and Communications, London School of Economics Susan Leigh Star Communication, University of California, San Diego Ravi Sundaram Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India Sherry Turkle Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technologyair-l@aoir.org