[Air-l] CFP: TIS issue on Internet Research

[Ben Anderson]

This got me thinking that maybe I should go and read Kuhn again. Or then
again maybe these issues are all just academics (and related others) doing
the usual territory marking?

"Is it a discipline? Is it not? What is it?"

At the end of the day, does it matter, and to whom? Who, apart from those
'in it', really cares?

Do you? If so, I'm curious to know why...

Ben
-- 
Dr Ben Anderson
+44 (0)7710 187 806
www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/people/ben_anderson.html

> From: Nancy Baym <nbaym at ku.edu>
> Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
> Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:08:58 -0500
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] CFP: TIS issue on Internet Research
> 
> Please distribute widely!
> 
> CALL FOR PAPERS
> 
> The Information Society (TIS) special issue on
> 
> ICT RESEARCH AND DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES: IS "INTERNET RESEARCH" A
> VIRTUAL FIELD, A PROTO-DISCIPLINE, OR SOMETHING ELSE?
> 
> Edited by Nancy Baym, University of Kansas
> 
> Issues raised by information and communications technologies (ICTs)
> transcend disciplinary boundaries.  Ever since the beginning of ICT
> research, scholars have sought to carve out spaces within the
> discipline-bound institutional structures where streams of thoughts
> of different hues co-mingle more freely.  The early efforts in the
> 1960s and 1970s focused on the creation of interdisciplinary research
> centers and programs and journals such as Telecommunications Policy
> and The Information Society.  In the 1980s and 1990s, we saw the rise
> of schools of information, information studies, and informatics on
> campuses where the conditions were ripe for entrepreneurial activity.
> The variation in the names and curricula of these schools suggests
> that we are still trying to get a sense of the new intellectual
> landscape.  Within this unsettled context, the growing number of
> researchers attracted towards the Association of Internet Researchers
> [AoIR] conference gives reason for pause.  One now often hears people
> talking about the "field" of "Internet Research" while its
> practitioners continue to be housed in departments and schools of
> library science, business, information science, communications, and
> others. Something clearly seems to be afoot.  But what is it? Is
> Internet Research a virtual field wherein we have resigned to the
> permanence of disciplinary boundaries and created an overlay or
> virtual network across them? Or, are we seeing the emergence of a
> proto-discipline whose growth will knock down disciplinary boundaries
> and create a new institutional space? Or, is Internet Research a
> forerunner of some other configuration we barely understand?  This
> special issue seeks to explore and chart out this evolving
> intellectual landscape.
> 
> Contributions in the form of full-length articles (6000 words), forum
> pieces (3000 words), and short position papers (1000 words) are
> invited.  The special issue intends to present a variety of
> perspectives and hence is open in terms of topics covered.  Among
> other things, contributors could address questions such as the
> following: 
> 
> To what extent is Internet Research an academic "field" or "discipline"?
> 
> What does it mean to label this field? Is "Internet Research" the
> right name? What are the other possibilities and what are their
> implications?
> 
> To the extent that it is a field, what is its emergent structure?
> 
> In what ways does the growth of this research area parallel or differ
> from other disciplines? What lessons for the present and the future
> might be learned from those histories?
> 
> Where do we stand now relative to where Film Studies, Women's
> Studies, and other new fields were a few years ago?
> 
> Manuscripts prepared according to the TIS guidelines
> (http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/contributors/authors.html) should be
> submitted by February 27, 2004.  Please send the manuscripts to Nancy
> Baym (nbaym at ku.edu).  Authors are encouraged to discuss their ideas
> with the guest editor.
> 
> -- 
> Nancy Baym    http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym
> Communication Studies, University of Kansas
> 102 Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
> Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org
> 
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