[Air-L] self- and AoIR-promotion + requests

[Charles Ess]

Dear AoIRists,

(Shameless self-promotion): As some of you know, I've been working on a
textbook titled _Digital Media Ethics_.
(Happy AoIR promostion): The book features the work of many AoIR colleagues,
including Elizabeth Buchanan, Dan Burk, Mia Consalvo, Bernhard Debatin,
Marie-Christine Deyrich, Niels Øle Finnemann, Lorna Heaton, Chris Helland,
Susan Herring, Connie Kampf, Leah Macfadyen, Susanna Paasonen, Daniel
Pimienta, Miguel Sicart, Fay Sudweeks, and Maya van der Velden. I'm also
very happy to acknowledge (as I do in the book) the generous assistance of
Mia Consalvo, Susanna Paasonen, and Miguel Sicart particularly with regard
to the chapter on games and pornograpy.
Best of all, I'm happy to say that the volume is now scheduled to be
published by Polity Press in late February, 2009.

Here's the blurb:
==
This is the first textbook on the central ethical issues of digital media,
ranging from computers and games to the Internet and mobile phones. It is
also the first book of its kind to consider these issues from a global
perspective, introducing ethical theories from multiple cultures. It further
utilizes examples from around the world, such as the publication of ³the
Mohammed Cartoons²; diverse understandings what ³privacy² means in Facebook
or MySpace; why pirating CDs and DVDs may be justified in developing
countries; and culturally-variable perspectives on sexuality and what counts
as ³pornography.² Readers and students thus acquire a global perspective on
the central ethical issues of digital media, including privacy, copyright,
pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross-cultural communication
online.  
The book is designed for use across disciplines ­ media and communication
studies, computer science and informatics, as well as philosophy. It is
up-to-date, accessible and student- and classroom-friendly: each topic and
theory is interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions
that foster careful reflection, writing, and discussion into these issues
and their possible resolutions. Each chapter further includes additional
resources and suggestions for further research and writing.
==

There will also be a website affiliated with the text where faculty and
students will be able to contribute examples, additional exercises, etc. -
and I'm also looking forward to 2.0, with expanded material on mobile phones
(working on that now -suggestions, comments, resources, etc. much
appreciated!).

Two things:
1) I'm happy to share a pre-publication version of the book (with the usual
caveats re. no copying, citation, or distribution without permission) with
colleagues who may be interested in having a look at the text - ideally,
with a view towards "road-testing" one or two of the chapters and its
exercises in their own teaching.  If you would like to see this version of
the book, please let me know offlist and I'll happily send the PDF your way.

2) I've also been asked by the publisher to develop a list of colleagues who
might be interested in adopting the book in their teaching.  Again, if
anyone on this list is interested in reviewing the pre-publication version
with this possibility in mind, I'd be happy to send the PDF along.

Of course, if you can think of anyone else who might be interested in
reviewing and possibly adopting the text, please let me know.

Again, my thanks to so many colleagues in AoIR who helped with this book one
way or another - and for AoIR's larger environment of interdisciplinary
discussion, including ethics, beginning with the AoIR ethics working
committee and extending to conference panels and threads on this list, that
has been so helpful, fruitful, and enjoyable.

All best wishes in the meantime,

- charles ess