[Air-l] call for papers

[Adrian Miles]

hi

of interest to many here:

Call for Papers

Southern Review: Communication, Politics & Culture

Special Issue, 36.2, 2003.

The Geopolitics of Electronic Messaging

Editors:  Mary Griffiths and Susan Yell
mary.griffiths at arts.monash.edu.au
sue.yell at arts.monash.edu.au

Monash University, Gippsland Campus

"The Geopolitics of e-Messaging" invites theoretically informed 
discussions of the social and political outcomes of P2P electronic 
communications, and case studies of the dynamics of governing new 
publics and the spaces of private communication.

Email, webmail, voicemail, text messaging, ICQ, pxt, chat forums, 
digital television messaging, discussion boards, and now, wireless 
communications form distinctive protocols, and different capacities 
in users. New geographies of space and politics are made possible. 
But, not all that results from the increase in the kind and volume of 
communication is beneficial. The pressure on many users is to be 
always available and immediately responsive. Organisational 
communications may improve but increased surveillance is the 
corollary. At home and work, time is needed to manage "legitimate" 
electronic messages and users also deal with unsolicited spam, and 
with scams, and viruses. Many find themselves, either willingly or 
involuntarily, in new and compelling sets of relations with others. 
New etiquettes of interaction are emerging.

The "free" space of limitless communication shows signs of shrinking 
back to more private and customised domains. For example, online 
communities now use gating technologies to secure themselves from all 
but identifiable messages. Individuals are increasingly using 
filters, junk folders and different accounts for protection of 
privacy.

What is being gained or lost by these developments? Is an organised 
retreat from the exigencies of the most demanding and clamorous 
aspects of e-messaging starting? Can the new gated communities be 
thought of as publics? Do they provide evidence of undemocratic 
tendencies? What can be produced by the crossing of traditional 
communicative borders? What are the skills, capacities and literacies 
which are being formed by different messaging technologies? What 
counts as "nuisance mail" and how is it being dealt with? How are 
subjectivities being constructed and governed by compulsory 
participation in online work and educational communities? How are 
nations, communities, institutions, businesses and individuals 
managing the virtual spaces of electronic messaging across physical 
frontiers? Which technologies are being favoured to help sort and 
filter messages, and protect the privacy of the user? Conversely, why 
have weblogs, the privatised acts of publicity and broadcasting, 
become so popular?

Full articles due: April 30, 2003.

cheers
adrian miles
-- 

+  MelbourneDAC2003 digital arts and culture conference 
[http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/]
+  interactive desktop video developer  [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/]
+  hypertext rmit [http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au]
+ InterMedia:UiB. university of bergen [http://www.intermedia.uib.no]