[Air-l] FW: Network Media Symposium September 2004 (Mark Poster)

[Matthew Allen]

Network Media:  Code, Culture and Convention
A cross-disciplinary symposium at the University of Western Australia
9-10-11 September 2004
 
How can we make sense of the rapid development of such intersecting and yet
diverse technological features as digital and satellite television; the
Internet; mobile telephony; computer games; global media empires; the
database; instant communication; and digital creativity?  We propose that
the array of information and communications technologies, practices and
concepts can be approached under the broad heading of Network Media because,
in doing so, we become aware of the tensions and possibilities inherent in
juxtaposing the established realm of 'the media'; and the emerging world of
'the network'.
 
Network Media is convergence for the twenty-first century. It recognizes
that the old and the new are coming together, but suggests a more subtle,
more nuanced appreciation of the changes and continuities that attend the
dramatic interpellation into everyday life of computing and communication
technologies, and the discourses which make them meaningful. Not only does
'the network' (pragmatically, the Internet but, in a more analytical frame,
decentred interactivity and virtual-world mediation) now come to operate
with, and through, and as if it was 'the media'; but 'the media'
(paradigmatically centralized and institutionalized) now exhibits many signs
that it is, itself, an interactive network. But Network Media does not imply
any necessary 'coming together' - each term stands in partial opposition to
the other, even as they are joined in the title of this symposium.
 
Network Media poses new questions about the interrelationship of explicit
governing codes (both legal and "software codes"); implicit regulatory
conventions through which people operate collectively; and the expressive
practices through which cultural meanings emerge. Code, Culture and
Convention provide just three openings through which we might begin to
explore Network Media. We invite you, in this symposium, to introduce new
ways of thinking about the conflict and intersection of the paradigms of
'network' and 'media'.
 
Participants:
Professor Mark Poster, University of California, Irvine
Associate Professor Matthew Allen, Curtin University
Professor Mark Armstrong, Law, RMIT
Dr Terry Flew, Queensland University of Technology
Professor Ross Gibson, University of Technology, Sydney
Dr Marjorie Kibby, University of Newcastle
Ms Carolyn Penfold, Media Law, University of NSW
Professor Trevor Barr, Swinburne Institute of Technology

Abstracts and registration form available at:

http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/activities_and_programs/other_activities_and_event
s/network_media_code,_culture_and_convention


<http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/activities_and_programs/other_activities_and_even
ts/network_media_code,_culture_and_convention> 

Terri-ann White
Associate Professor
Director, Institute of Advanced Studies
University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway Nedlands  6009
Western Australia
Telephone: +61 8 6488 2114
Fax:              +61 8  6488 1711
tawhite at cyllene.uwa.edu.au
http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/
<http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/> Please note the new telephone and fax prefixes