[Air-l] Fwd: Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication Conference

[Steve Jones]

>CALL FOR PAPERS
>
>International Conference on
>CULTURAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION
>(CATaC'02)
>12-15 July 2002
>University of MontrÈal, 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://www.it.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 special issues of a number of 
>journals (Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique 
>de Communication, AI and Society Journal, Javnost- The Public, 
>Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, and New Media and 
>Society) and a book, "Culture, Technology, Communication: towards an 
>Intercultural Global Village", edited by Charles Ess with Fay 
>Sudweeks, SUNY Press, New York, 2001.
>
>Initial submissions are to be emailed to catac at it.murdoch.edu.au as 
>an attachment (Word, HTML, PDF). Guidelines for submission, 
>including templates, are on the web site. 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
>
>KEYNOTE SPEAKER
>
>Susan Herring (Associate Professor of Information Science, Adjunct 
>Associate Professor of Linguistics, Indiana University): "The 
>language of the Internet: English dominance or heteroglossia"
>
>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
>   Poline Bala, University Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia
>   Steve Benson, Edith Cowan University, Australia
>   Gunilla Bradley, Mid Sweden University/Ume University, Sweden
>   Hans-J¸rgen Bucher, Universit”t Trier, Germany
>   Michael Dahan, Israel
>   Dineh Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
>   Gretchen Ferris Sch–l, College of William and Mary, USA
>   John Gammack, Murdoch University, Australia
>   Satinder Gill, Centre for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Finland
>     and Stanford University, USA
>   Sara Gwynn, University of the West of England, UK
>   Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
>   Herbert Hrachovec, University of Vienna, Austria
>   Jeremy Hunsinger, Virginia Tech, USA
>   Lawrie Hunter, Kochi University of Technology, Japan
>   Steve Jones, University of Illinois Chicago, USA
>   Helen Nissenbaum, Princeton University, USA
>   Leslie Regan Shade, University of Ottawa, Canada
>   Gill Sellar, Edith Cowan University, Australia
>   David Silver, University of Washington, USA
>   Malin Sveningsson, Link–ping University, Sweden
>   Peter Sy, University of the Philippines, Philippines
>   Wal Taylor, University of Central Queensland, Australia
>   Richard Thomas, University of Western Australia, Australia
>   Leslie Tkach, University of Tsukuba, Japan
>   Arun-Kumar Tripathi, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
>   Alexander Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia
>   Andrew Turk, Murdoch University, Australia
>   Yvonne Waern, Link–ping University, Sweden
>   Ann Willis, Edith Cowan University, Australia