[Air-L] CfP IAMCR Communication Policy & Technology section Braga 2010

[Jo Pierson]

CALL FOR PAPERS
COMMUNICATION POLICY AND TECHNOLOGY (CP&T) Section
International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
28th Annual Conference, July 18-22, 2010, Braga (Portugal)
Communication and Citizenship: Rethinking Crisis and Change
http://www.iamcr2010portugal.com

The Communication Policy and Technology (CP&T) Section of the IAMCR  
invites the submission of abstracts bearing on the Conference theme as  
well as on the Section sub-theme: ‘Citizen Participation through  
Technology, Access and Policy’.

The media and technology landscape as well as relevant communication  
policies are changing fundamentally, with a shift from mass media and  
personal media to media for mass self-communication. The technological  
facilities for mediated communication are proliferating and becoming  
increasingly fragmented as a result of convergence and the emergence  
and rapid spread of new media and internet technologies like  
interactive digital broadcasting, mobile technologies, social  
computing, internet-of-things and - more recently - cloud computing.  
Within this transitional digital media ecosystem researchers  
increasingly aim to understand how participation by people and  
communities can (still) take a central position and to what end. How  
can citizens and/or consumers be empowered in participation through  
ICT design, usages and policy? Or what are the threats and constraints  
for people to become disempowered in a convergence culture? Three main  
areas of user (dis)empowerment are being identified as themes of  
special interest for CP&T section: (1) market and state  
‘feudalisation’, (2) privacy and surveillance, and (3) inclusion and  
media literacies.

The first area of concern relates to the ever increasing  
‘feudalisation’ of ICT applications and services by market forces and  
interests. Besides this, some states are also very active in  
controlling, monitoring and censoring the internet. This all has  
serious consequences for the opportunities and potentialities of ICT  
enabled participation and empowerment. In this regard the debate on  
net neutrality and its consequences for freedom of speech, access to  
information, etc. is highly relevant, but also issues of copyright in  
relation to ownership of user generated content or the posting of  
copyright protected material on blogs and web 2.0 sites, the share  
culture, etc.

The second focus area of privacy and surveillance is of course to some  
extent linked to the previous one. This refers to enhanced profiling  
and data mining practices by private and public organisations (e.g.  
behavioural advertising, digital footprint, deep-packet inspection  
technology, etc.), combined with the blurring of boundaries between  
public and private sphere in the co-creation and ‘produsage’ practices  
by different types of users (e.g. lead users, citizen journalists,...).

A third area of focus deals with inclusion and multiple media  
literacies. This perspective links in with notions of digital  
participation that go beyond access. In the changing media  
environment, new affordances of communication tools require a  
reconfiguration of digital exclusion-inclusion. We need to look at  
different levels of capabilities, but also how inclusion is (not)  
built into specific media and technologies from a human-centred design  
perspective. At the same time this also means increasing the reach,  
breadth and depth of digital media and technologies across all domains  
of society through multiliteracies. The question remains however to  
what extent inclusion is always empowering, or can inclusion also lead  
to disempowerment.

Empirical, theoretical and analytical work on these three and other  
related issues will form the central thrust of presentations in the  
CP&T section at the 2010 Braga conference.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION
The CP&T section welcomes abstracts (300 - 500 words) from scholars of  
any academic discipline bearing on aforementioned and related issues.  
Abstracts should state the title as well as the methods or approaches  
used and introduce the empirical and theoretical material on which the  
paper is based. Besides the abstract title and text, each submission  
includes author name(s), affiliation, institutional address and email  
address of (all) author(s). The abstracts can only be submitted via  
the official conference abstracts and registration site: http://www.lasics.uminho.pt/ocs/index.php/iamcr/2010portugal/schedConf/cfp

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is January 31, 2010. The  
papers will be assessed and provisionally accepted on the basis of the  
abstracts. You will be informed whether or not your abstract is  
accepted by March 15, 2010. The full papers (max. 7500 words) are due  
April 30, 2010, in order to ensure that the authors’ names and papers’  
titles are included in the final conference program.

Key submission guidelines:
- Deadline abstracts: January 31, 2010
- Announcement of acceptances: March 15, 2010
- Deadline full papers: April 30, 2010
- IAMCR accepts presentations in English, French and Spanish. However,  
it is requested that abstracts, if at all possible, be submitted in  
English
- Individual abstracts may only be submitted to a single section/ 
working group. Please do not submit the same abstract to two or more  
different IAMCR sections/working groups.
Additional questions (e.g. on panels) may be addressed to Maria  
Michalis (m.michalis[AT]westminster.ac.uk) or Jo Pierson  
(jo.pierson[AT]vub.ac.be).

Chairs:  Jo Pierson and Hopeton S. Dunn (on leave, serving as acting  
Secretary General, IAMCR)
Vice-chairs: Maria Michalis and Bart Cammaerts