[Air-l] FWD: Next CATAC Conference in Montreal - CFP

[jhuns]

CALL FOR PAPERS

International Conference on
CULTURAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION
(CATaC'02)
12-15 July 2002
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/

Conference theme:
The Net(s) of Power: Language, Culture and Technology

The powers of the Nets can be construed in many ways - political,
economic, and social. Power can also be construed in terms of
Foucault's "positive power" and Bourdieu's notion of "cultural
capital" - decentered  forms of power that encourage "voluntary"
submission, such as English as a _lingua franca_ on the Net.
Similarly, Hofstede's category of "power distance" points to the role
of status in encouraging technology diffusion, as low-status persons
seek to emulate high-status persons.  Through these diverse forms of
power, the language(s) and media of the Net may reshape the cultural
assumptions of its globally-distributed users - thus raising the
dangers of "computer-mediated colonisation"  ("Disneyfication" - a la
Cees Hamelink).

This biennial conference series aims to provide an international forum
for the  presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research on how
diverse cultural attitudes shape the implementation and use of
information and communication technologies (ICT).  "Cultural
attitudes" here includes cultural values and communicative preferences
that may be embedded in both the content and form of ICT - thus
threatening to make ICT less the agent of a promised democratic global
village and more an agent of cultural homogenisation and imperialism.
The conference series brings together scholars from around the globe
who provide diverse perspectives, both in terms of the specific
culture(s) they highlight in their presentations and discussions, and
in terms of the discipline(s) through which they approach the
conference theme. The first conference in the series was held in
London in 1998 (http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac98/). For
an overview of the themes and presentations of CATaC'98, see
http://wwwit.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac98/01_ess.html. The second
conference in the series was held in Perth in 2000
(http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac00/).

Original full papers (especially those which connect theoretical
frameworks with specific examples of cultural values, practices, etc.)
and short papers (e.g. describing current research projects and
preliminary results) are invited. Papers should articulate the
connections between specific cultural values as well as current and/or
possible future communicative practices involving information and
communication technologies. We seek papers which, taken together, will
help readers, researchers, and practitioners of computer-mediated
communication - especially in the service of "electronic democracy" -
better understand the role of diverse cultural attitudes as hindering
and/or furthering the implementation of global computer communications
systems.

Topics of particular interested include but are not limited to:

- Impact of information and communication technologies on local and
indigenous languages and cultures.
- Politics of the electronic global village in democratising or
preserving hierarchy.
- Communicative attitudes and practices in industrialised and
industrialising countries.
- Role of gender in cultural expectations regarding appropriate
communicative behaviours.
- Ethical issues related to information and communication
technologies, and the impact on culture and communication behaviours.
- Issues of social justice raised by the dual problems of "the digital
divide" and "computer-mediated colonisation," including theoretical
and practical ways of overcoming these problems.

SUBMISSIONS

All submissions will be peer reviewed by an international panel of
scholars and researchers. There will be the opportunity for selected
papers to appear in special issues of journals and a book. Papers in
previous conferences have appeared in, for example, the Electronic
Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication, AI
and Society Journal, Javnost- The Public, and New Media and Society. A
book, Culture, Technology, Communication: towards an Intercultural
Global Village, edited by Charles Ess with Fay Sudweeks, SUNY Press,
New York, is due for release in July 2001.

Initial submissions are to be emailed to catac at it.murdoch.edu.au as an
attachment (Word, HTML, PDF). Submission of a paper implies that it
has not been submitted or published elsewhere. At least one author of
each accepted paper is expected to present the paper at the
conference.

Important Dates

Full papers:  15 March 2002
Short papers: 29 March 2002
Notification of acceptance: 5 April 2002
Final formatted papers: 26 April 2002

VENUE

The venue is Montreal, Quebec.

COMMITTEE
CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS
  Charles Ess, Drury University, USA, ejcrec at lib.drury.edu
  Fay Sudweeks, Murdoch University, Australia, catac at it.murdoch.edu.au
CONFERENCE VICE-CHAIR
  Lorna Heaton, University of Montreal, Canada, lheaton at videotron.ca
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
  Jose Abdelnour-Nocera, Open University, UK
  Tom Addison, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  Phil Agre, University of California San Diego, USA
  Michael Dahan, Israel
  Dineh Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
  Gretchen Ferris Schöl, College of William and Mary, USA
  John Gammack, Murdoch University, Australia
  Satinder Gill, Stanford University, USA
  Sara Gwynn, University of the West of England, UK
  Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
  Lawrie Hunter, Kochi University of Technology, Japan
  Steve Jones, University of Illinois Chicago, USA
  Helen Nissenbaum, Princeton University, USA
  Gill Sellar, Edith Cowan University, Australia
  David Silver, University of Washington, USA
  Malin Sveningsson, Linköping University, Sweden
  Peter Sy, University of the Philippines, Philippines
  Wal Taylor, University of Central Queensland, Australia
  Leslie Tkach, University of Tsukuba, Japan
  Alexander Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia
  Yvonne Waern, Linköping University, Sweden
  Ann Willis, Edith Cowan University, Australia

Jeremy Hunsinger
far away from the office