Dear Colleagues, Christian Ritter and Koen Leurs are planning to organize a panel around Digital migration studies: theoretical innovations and methodological considerations? . Kindly submit your extended abstracts (1200 words) for consideration to K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl<mailto:K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl> and christian.ritter@ntnu.no<mailto:christian.ritter@ntnu.no> by February 19. This year’s Association of Internet Research annual conference theme is “Networked Publics”, the conference will be held at the University of Tartu, Estonia this year from 18-21 October 2017. Submission deadline for panels is March 1, 2017. Looking forward to your submission. Do get in touch if you have questions or would like to discuss joining the session. Christian and Koen. **** Digital migration studies: theoretical innovations and methodological considerations? This panel explores how contemporary migrants engage with networked publics evolving on digital platforms. The global availability of digital media content helps shape multiple and partially overlapping publics reaching specific transnational audiences. Despite the rising popularity of digital communication across the globe, the role of networked publics in the quotidian experiences of migrants has not been comprehensively analyzed. Facing stereotypes, anti-immigration sentiment and discrimination in local settings across Europe, the US, Australia and elsewhere, numerous members of diaspora communities, expatriates, and refugees increasingly make use of online platforms to find their voices and forge transnational ties. Digital media bolster transnational migration networks, digital diasporas and they transform family life, and enable connected migrants. Simultaneously, social media platforms are also replete with discriminatory fake-news and hateful trending topics targeting specific migrant groups. The rapid progress of digital platforms involves considerable epistemological challenges and prompts a need for new forms of internet research, including digital ethnography and digital data-driven methods. By bringing together internet researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds, we seek to gain a better understanding of the complex interrelations between corporal travel and digital mobilities. To stimulate interdisciplinary debates, we welcome ethnographic and digital data-driven investigations into digital media enhancing mobilities as much as theoretical interventions and methodological innovations in the emerging research area of digital migration studies. Submissions can deal with one of the following questions: -In what ways do digital media reinforce encapsulating and cosmopolitan discourses? -How do experiences of connected migrants differ across geographies and gendered/classed/racialized situations (internal migration, transnational migration, forced migration, voluntary migration, elite migration, expatriates)? -What self-presentations do migrants choose across digital platforms? -How is solidarity with migrants and refugees digitally mediated across social media? -How does the digital circulation of fake-news, trolling, discrimination, hate and violence affect migrants? -How does big data and datafication (i.e. surveillance and border control) change the experience of migration? -How can mixed-method approaches be designed to examine networked publics of migrants? -How can data-driven approaches be mobilized for a social justice oriented digital migration studies? Organizers: Christian Ritter Christian Ritter is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His latest research project Assembling places of expertise: communicative practices of energy consultants in Northern Europe examines the role of digital platforms in the circulation of energy knowledge and expertise. In 2013, Christian completed his PhD at Ulster University, UK. Prior to his appointment as postdoctoral fellow at NTNU, Christian worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Istanbul Studies Center, Kadir Has University, and was awarded a scholarship for international researchers by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Tübitak). His research interests include digital media, corporate cultures, contemporary mobilities, sustainability, cultures of expertise and urban development (www.ntnu.edu/employees/christian.ritter). Koen Leurs Koen Leurs is Assistant Professor in Gender and Postcolonial studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Lerus is a feminist internet researcher interested in multiculturalism, race, migration, diaspora and youth culture using mixed methods and ethnography. Leurs has published Digital Passages. Migrant Youth 2.0. Diaspora, Gender & Youth Cultural Intersections (Amsterdam University Press), Everyday Feminist Research Praxis (Cambridge Scholars Press). He is currently co-editing the Sage Handbook on Media and Migration, and journal special issues on ‘Forced Migration and Digital Connectivity’ for Social Media + Society and ‘Connected Migrants: Encapsulation and Cosmopolitanism’ for Popular Communication. He is the chair of the Diaspora, Migration and the Media Section for the European Communication Research and Education Association. See www.koenleurs.net. Koen Leurs, PhD Assistant professor Gender & Postcolonial Studies | Department of Media and Culture Studies | Utrecht University, the Netherlands | Muntstraat 2a, 3512 EV room 0.05 | T. + 31 30 253 7844| www.koenleurs.net<http://www.koenleurs.net/> Teaching: Coordinator minor Gender studies, minor Postcolonial studies, TCS hoofdrichting Gender and Postcolonial Studies. Research: NWO Veni Postdoc Young Connected Migrants (2016-2019) Network: Chair Diaspora, Migration and the Media Section, European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) Recent publications:
 -Digital Passages. Diaspora, Gender & Youth Cultural Intersections. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015. Open access Download link<http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=559550>. -Young connected migrants and non-normative European family life. International Journal of E-Politics, 2016, 7(3). Open access Download link<http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67930/>. -w/ Myria Georgiou Digital makings of the cosmopolitan city. Young people’s urban imaginaries of London. International Journal of Communication, 2016, 10, 3689-3709. Open access Download link<http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/4425/1736>. -w/ Tamara Shepherd. Datafication and discrimination. In. K. van Es & M. Schaefer (Eds.) The Datafied Society. In press. Open access Download link<https://www.academia.edu/29002676/Datafication_and_discrimination>. -Questioning Europe in 4D. Digitisation, datafication, discrimination & diversity. InterkulturRuhr. http://interkultur.einskommanull.com/node/184