In my memory... there has been at least 3 proposals for streaming type talks at the conference and at least 1 committee established to try to make it happen. I think that the answer is less of 'stream talks' because if that was going to happen, it would have achieved critical mass to make it happen by now as we have the people with technical understanding and capacity in our membership to make it happen. I suspect that people don't really want streaming, but what they do want, as I indicated in my nomination information is more opportunity to participate. I think that is really about more opportunities to network and share research in face to face environments. This is why i suggested that we should 'distribute the association activities', or in other words, we should sponsor or co-sponsor small events at other conferences in places away from the other conference. For instance if the International Studies Association is in Budapest and we have members there, we could sponsor a small event there, or similar activities with any scholarly association. The idea is to put AoIR members in closer contact with each other by using their other disciplinary and interdisciplinary associations as venues for AoIR. In conjunction with those activities, I suggest we start activities that bond our association together better, such as Mentoring, restarting the Birds of Feather lunches, and making our 'web and email space' more actively available to member interaction, which it is now somewhat, but we only have 2 or 3 other email groups existing and I think that mostly those groups are non-functioning, such as the graduate student list, the political economy and policy list, etc. Advertising those more and providing more of those, will I think allow us to grow both deeper and broader in our membership. If the goal is to get people involved in novel and interesting ways, I think we should be providing the infrastructure for that involvement. Jeremy Hunsinger Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso

That should read 'put forward' btw. Not sure what 'out forwarding' is although I bet it's used in some BZNS SPK somewhere! -----Original Message----- From: Deller, Ruth A Sent: 24 May 2013 15:14 To: 'jeremy hunsinger'; air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: RE: [Air-L] Voting Open & A Question for Candidates I think the idea of multiple events has some merit - in addition to your sponsorship suggestions, perhaps we can even out forward AOIR-affiliated panels at other large conferences? Re: streaming - I've seen a lot of people asking for streaming on the Twitter feeds the past couple of IR conferences, although they may be a minority - there are probably other ways of interactive participation for those not physically present that we can look at - Twitter's obviously one, but it often ends up being reportage and comment from the people there and maybe we could look at ways of having more dialogue/interaction with those not there. And we should bring back Terri's kissing booth ;) I do think that as an internet-research organisation, we could be using the internet a lot more than we are... I think we both agree - and so do pretty much all the candidates from their statements - that widening participation is really key to the future of AOIR. I'm sure we're all open to suggestions from members about how that can happen though, especially those who have felt distanced from things so far or have struggled to get to conferences. Ruth -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of jeremy hunsinger Sent: 24 May 2013 15:08 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Voting Open & A Question for Candidates In my memory... there has been at least 3 proposals for streaming type talks at the conference and at least 1 committee established to try to make it happen. I think that the answer is less of 'stream talks' because if that was going to happen, it would have achieved critical mass to make it happen by now as we have the people with technical understanding and capacity in our membership to make it happen. I suspect that people don't really want streaming, but what they do want, as I indicated in my nomination information is more opportunity to participate. I think that is really about more opportunities to network and share research in face to face environments. This is why i suggested that we should 'distribute the association activities', or in other words, we should sponsor or co-sponsor small events at other conferences in places away from the other conference. For instance if the International Studies Association is in Budapest and we have members there, we could sponsor a small event there, or similar activities with any scholarly association. The idea is to put AoIR members in closer contact with each other by using t heir other disciplinary and interdisciplinary associations as venues for AoIR. In conjunction with those activities, I suggest we start activities that bond our association together better, such as Mentoring, restarting the Birds of Feather lunches, and making our 'web and email space' more actively available to member interaction, which it is now somewhat, but we only have 2 or 3 other email groups existing and I think that mostly those groups are non-functioning, such as the graduate student list, the political economy and policy list, etc. Advertising those more and providing more of those, will I think allow us to grow both deeper and broader in our membership. If the goal is to get people involved in novel and interesting ways, I think we should be providing the infrastructure for that involvement. Jeremy Hunsinger Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

Not sure if Alex meant for candidates for open seats to respond to his questions, too, or if it was just for the VP candidates...but here it goes... I think the conferences work well as-is, really. The only parts that need improvement, perhaps, is that some panels struggle to sustain a coherent theme (i.e., a video game theory panel might have a paper or two that really are about video game theories, but the other couple of papers are about other things/theories and use an analysis of a video game to make their point). It is extremely difficult to somehow group ad hoc papers together into coherent panels, though, so I'm sure previous program planners have truly done their best. I don't have an answer for how to make this kind of thing better, except maybe to encourage whole thematic panels more...or to consider poster sessions or lightning talk formats for some of the ill-fitting ad hoc papers...or to maybe just call all of the ad hoc panels potpourri panels and just include more papers on each of them (5 or 6 per panel?). We are all Internet scholars, and we are all able to find full papers later (SSRN, emailing presenters personally, or whatever). The value for this conference, for me, is exposure to many ideas in short formats, and then good discussion that follows. The other value of the conference is the social hour. Informal cocktail time with colleagues is the best way to find mentors, extend scholarly conversation, and find allies in the field. I would actually oppose any more efforts to add new grad student mentoring programming to the conference. We have the doctoral colloquium, which is great. But really beyond that there need to be more mixers, more trading of business cards, more informal conversations between grad students and senior scholars. I know I would probably not want to be assigned a grad student to mentor throughout the year, but I would welcome any opportunity to have a beer with a grad student interested in the things I'm interested in. So, on the "mentoring grad students" front, I disagree with Jeremy and would like to see a less formal, more frequent social interaction across ranks than new panels and programs. That's really how the academy works, and the sooner the formal boundaries between ranks come down (and I think formal mentoring arrangements inherently keep these boundaries up), the better for grad students. db --- Daren C. Brabham, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication Editor, Case Studies in Strategic Communication | www.csscjournal.org University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Carroll Hall, CB 3365 Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (801) 633-4796 (mobile) daren.brabham@unc.edu | www.darenbrabham.com

Hi All, I really appreciate the ongoing conversation among the candidates, and I think Terri has just added another stack of interesting questions to the mix. I figured I better jump in before the conversations get too entangled. Tagging onto Daren's comments about the importance of informal structures, I'll add that I believe there's an important and natural difference between the official organizational structure and the informal organizational culture. While they're not unrelated or separate, I find it useful to make a distinction so that we can think about what we can do as members in addition to (versus) what we ask the Exec Committee to do for us as administrators/leaders. If we want the organization to grow in a certain way, we all have the opportunity to volunteer to help shape or shift it. I personally prefer the loose structure that AOIR has tried to maintain, which allows for a more organic evolution of the organizational culture. Build too much formality, and "good ideas for the moment" can, over time, become boxes we'll struggle to think outside of. I think AOIR has always been open to creative modes of interaction and efforts to socialize new members. I have never found the Executive Committee resistant to a good idea. It seems the system is working pretty well. The events at conferences have shifted quite a lot over the past ten years. This year, too. Based on creative input from members, we're doing at least two things differently at this year's conference that I think move us in the direction that many of the candidates have been talking about in terms of Alex's question. 1) The doctoral colloquium: This year (based on some feedback we've gotten in the past couple of years), I'm planning it somewhat differently: In addition to organizing participants in small groups to discuss their research projects, we'll also have much more time for informal discussion between students and the mentors of their choice. This way, students who really wanted to talk with particular senior scholars could have that opportunity built into the structure of the day. I anticipate it will feel a bit like speed dating..... (incidentally, I believe something like this was done previously, some years ago. Mentors were stationary while students moved around to talk with whomever they chose. Maybe someone who was in attendance could fill in some of the details of that event) The other thing we'll do somewhat differently this year is to connect former with current participants at a small reception at the end of the colloquium where we'll invite previous colloquium mentors and participants to meet and chat with the current group. This may not achieve the outcomes of a more formalized socialization into the organization, but it's certainly intended to add another informal event to the conference that might bring new members into the fold and help connect newer scholars with others in the organization. What I like about the doctoral colloquium is that it can be organized differently each year, depending on who organizes it, the region in which we're holding the conference (which attracts different participants), and so forth. This means it can be adjusted over time without fear of breaking some rule or norm. I appreciate this flexibility and this year will be yet another learning experience to see what seems to work and what doesn't. 2) The new post-conference event called #AOIRcamp: This idea was inspired by Terri's plenary talk at last year's AOIR conference, where she encouraged more expressive forms of writing, more risk taking, etc. The actual plan emerged from various conversations among David Phillips, Terri Senft, Kelly Quinn, Valerie Fazel, Meghan Dougherty, and myself. We want to create a space after the conference where people can brainstorm or network project ideas emerging from their conference experience, participate in writing workshops if desired, get some serious writing accomplished, or simply have some quiet time to gather their post-conference thoughts and write. All this in the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, with the opportunity for socializing, hiking, and soaking in natural hot springs. Basically, after the conference ends, whoever registers for #AOIRcamp will be transported a nearby national park and stay another two nights in park housing. More details will be forthcoming at http://ir14.aoir.org/preconference-workshops/ (and i should note that people will need to pay for their own lodging/food, since this is not a sponsored event). I mention #AOIRcamp here because it's a direct effort to accomplish what many of us are talking about: building the impetus for meeting outside the AOIR conference, creating opportunities for creative, out-of-the-box experiences, and strengthening the AOIR infrastructure to support this sort of activity. So...I guess, in answer to Alex's original question, where he asks what concrete thing we'd change and how, then, I'd say these are two concrete things I'm helping to change. As for how it happens, I think it involves many conversations, brainstorming, planning, listening, and being willing to help do the work of organizing, pitching it, and whatever else it takes to make it happen. ***************************************************** Annette N. Markham, Ph.D. Guest Professor, Department of Informatics, Umeå University, Sweden Affiliate Professor, School of Communication, Loyola University, Chicago amarkham@gmail.com http://markham.internetinquiry.org/ Twitter: annettemarkham On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 10:35 AM, Brabham, Daren C <dbrabham@email.unc.edu>wrote:

Not sure if Alex meant for candidates for open seats to respond to his questions, too, or if it was just for the VP candidates...but here it goes...

I think the conferences work well as-is, really. The only parts that need improvement, perhaps, is that some panels struggle to sustain a coherent theme (i.e., a video game theory panel might have a paper or two that really are about video game theories, but the other couple of papers are about other things/theories and use an analysis of a video game to make their point). It is extremely difficult to somehow group ad hoc papers together into coherent panels, though, so I'm sure previous program planners have truly done their best. I don't have an answer for how to make this kind of thing better, except maybe to encourage whole thematic panels more...or to consider poster sessions or lightning talk formats for some of the ill-fitting ad hoc papers...or to maybe just call all of the ad hoc panels potpourri panels and just include more papers on each of them (5 or 6 per panel?).

We are all Internet scholars, and we are all able to find full papers later (SSRN, emailing presenters personally, or whatever). The value for this conference, for me, is exposure to many ideas in short formats, and then good discussion that follows.

The other value of the conference is the social hour. Informal cocktail time with colleagues is the best way to find mentors, extend scholarly conversation, and find allies in the field. I would actually oppose any more efforts to add new grad student mentoring programming to the conference. We have the doctoral colloquium, which is great. But really beyond that there need to be more mixers, more trading of business cards, more informal conversations between grad students and senior scholars. I know I would probably not want to be assigned a grad student to mentor throughout the year, but I would welcome any opportunity to have a beer with a grad student interested in the things I'm interested in. So, on the "mentoring grad students" front, I disagree with Jeremy and would like to see a less formal, more frequent social interaction across ranks than new panels and programs. That's really how the academy works, and the sooner the formal boundaries between ranks come down (and I think formal mentoring arrangements inherently keep these boundaries up), the better for grad students.

db

--- Daren C. Brabham, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication Editor, Case Studies in Strategic Communication | www.csscjournal.org University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Carroll Hall, CB 3365 Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (801) 633-4796 (mobile) daren.brabham@unc.edu | www.darenbrabham.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

Thanks Alex for your question. Just to chime in, I agree that streaming the conference may not be that essential as my personal experience is also not to avail of such services, and I have encountered few colleagues (none, in fact) who has. Instead, picking up on Jenny's point about building a richer digital presence, we may want to think about developing an online archive of videos of selected lectures, TED style perhaps. I reckon that if effectively presented, those are likely to attract more viewers than streaming. For the conference proper, the current format works, and is something academics/researchers are familiar with and can therefore make the most of. That said, I think we could also think of opening up pockets of time (say 90 mins) to try out alternative formats such as BarCamp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp or PechaKucha http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/challenging-the-presentation-paradigm-... where we have briefer and more "packed" exchanges of quick ideas centring around specific themes. These presentations would not have "conference paper status" per se but are really meant to ignite further discussion. The sessions should ideally segue into a reception/coffee break so that the discussion can continue informally amongst conference attendees. Sun Sun LIM, PhD Associate Professor & Deputy Head (on sabbatical leave from Oct '12 to June '13) Department of Communications & New Media National University of Singapore Website: http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/cnmlss/ -----Original Message----- From: Jennifer Stromer-Galley [mailto:jstromer@syr.edu] Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2013 12:51 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Voting Open & A Question for Candidates We definitely have seen members organize informal social gatherings and panels at other associations' conferences, and we should continue to encourage that. The issue of streaming the conference to those who cannot attend is so tricky. When I was pregnant and then had wee ones, I really cut back on my conference travel, so I did not attend AoIR. I would have loved to be present, but even if there had been some digital means for me to watch panels or attend virtually, I don't know if I would have. I do think we as an association about the Internet could and should put more energy over the next few years towards building a richer digital presence, and that might mean experimenting with avenues for digital participation with the conference. The how of that requires some thought. ~Jenny -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org> [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Deller, Ruth A Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 10:14 AM To: 'jeremy hunsinger'; air-l@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Voting Open & A Question for Candidates I think the idea of multiple events has some merit - in addition to your sponsorship suggestions, perhaps we can even out forward AOIR-affiliated panels at other large conferences? Re: streaming - I've seen a lot of people asking for streaming on the Twitter feeds the past couple of IR conferences, although they may be a minority - there are probably other ways of interactive participation for those not physically present that we can look at - Twitter's obviously one, but it often ends up being reportage and comment from the people there and maybe we could look at ways of having more dialogue/interaction with those not there. And we should bring back Terri's kissing booth ;) I do think that as an internet-research organisation, we could be using the internet a lot more than we are... I think we both agree - and so do pretty much all the candidates from their statements - that widening participation is really key to the future of AOIR. I'm sure we're all open to suggestions from members about how that can happen though, especially those who have felt distanced from things so far or have struggled to get to conferences. Ruth -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org> [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of jeremy hunsinger Sent: 24 May 2013 15:08 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Voting Open & A Question for Candidates In my memory... there has been at least 3 proposals for streaming type talks at the conference and at least 1 committee established to try to make it happen. I think that the answer is less of 'stream talks' because if that was going to happen, it would have achieved critical mass to make it happen by now as we have the people with technical understanding and capacity in our membership to make it happen. I suspect that people don't really want streaming, but what they do want, as I indicated in my nomination information is more opportunity to participate. I think that is really about more opportunities to network and share research in face to face environments. This is why i suggested that we should 'distribute the association activities', or in other words, we should sponsor or co-sponsor small events at other conferences in places away from the other conference. For instance if the International Studies Association is in Budapest and we have members there, we could sponsor a small event there, or similar activities with any scholarly association. The idea is to put AoIR members in closer contact with each other by using t heir other disciplinary and interdisciplinary associations as venues for AoIR. In conjunction with those activities, I suggest we start activities that bond our association together better, such as Mentoring, restarting the Birds of Feather lunches, and making our 'web and email space' more actively available to member interaction, which it is now somewhat, but we only have 2 or 3 other email groups existing and I think that mostly those groups are non-functioning, such as the graduate student list, the political economy and policy list, etc. Advertising those more and providing more of those, will I think allow us to grow both deeper and broader in our membership. If the goal is to get people involved in novel and interesting ways, I think we should be providing the infrastructure for that involvement. Jeremy Hunsinger Communication Studies Wilfrid Laurier University Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________