[Air-l] Can there be a social movement informatics?

[Walker, Steve [IES]]

Call for Papers

One day Workshop: Can there be a Social Movement Informatics?

Over the last two decades, the rapid spread of low cost ICT, and most particularly of the Internet, has opened up a range of opportunities for a range of socially-oriented movements and organisations. For example, women's, human rights, community, labour and more recently anti-globalisation and global justice groups are all developing ways of using ICT to further social ends, as have others with less desirable ends such as US hate groups and a variety of cults. Over a similar period, research into the use of information and information systems has highlighted the importance of social and organisational context in influencing patterns of technology use and development. 

The purpose of this workshop is to examine the idea of a 'social movement informatics', and explore whether it constitutes a distinct area of study analogous with, for example, health informatics, community informatics or environmental informatics. We seek to address questions such as: Do the various contexts, values and ways of working of social movements have enough in common with each other, and distinctiveness from the business-oriented mainstream of much informatics research, to warrant specific study? What are the distinguishing features of a social movement informatics? What are the main current topics of interest in such a social movement informatics?

We are inviting authors to submit papers or presentations for discussion. Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to:
-	Informatics and organisation of social movements 
-	Social conflict and the net
-	Developing and evaluating informatics systems in social movement settings
-	Information systems ethics
-	Social movements and Internet governance
-	Transnational CMC in social movements
-	Informatics and learning in social movements
-	Digital divide and social movements
-	Case studies

Abstracts of no more than 500 words for papers or presentations should be emailed to the organisers by 31st  January 2003. Participants will be notified by Friday 14th Feb 2003. Completed presentations and/or papers should be emailed by 11th April, to allow for distribution at the event.

The workshop is being organised by Steve Walker (s.walker at lmu.ac.uk) and Eddie Halpin (e.halpin at lmu.ac.uk) of the Social Movement Informatics Research Group - a nascent group of researchers, from the School of Information Management, Leeds Metropolitan University. 
Date: 10-4:30 April 29th 2003

Location: School of Information Management, Priestley Hall, Beckett Park Campus, LEEDS, UK
Costs: £30 - please contact organisers for concessions.