[Air-L] The Future is Prologue: New Media, New Histories? - ICA Pre-conference announcement

[Steve Jones]

The Future is Prologue: New Media, New Histories?

New media encompass both new opportunities and new dilemmas for  
scholars.  This ICA pre-conference invites participants to reflect on  
ways to analyze, preserve , and understand new media in a manner that  
is both sensitive to the past and to future needs of historical  
research.  The history of new media is a burgeoning new subfield, but  
one aspect that often goes overlooked is how new media involve new  
ways of doing history.  The purpose of this pre-conference is to focus  
attention on the shifting needs of historical scholarship about new  
media.  It will include a demonstration of new technologies for  
collaboration and visualization under development at the Electronic  
Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago.

We welcome papers on a wide array of historically-grounded themes. The  
following illustrations of topics suggest – but are not intended to  
limit – topics suitable for paper submissions:
    * The idea of ‘storage’ as it relates to new media and  
historiography.
    * The contextualization of historical problems in a new media  
milieu.
    * The changing meanings and implications of inscription as the  
internet more fully embraces a range of audio-visual forms of  
communication.
    * Ideological implications of speculations regarding the future.
    * The changing place of ‘the virtual’ in new media studies.
    * Digital history.
    * The reputed move away from print media to new media.
    * Changing meanings of the ‘global’ in relation to new media.
    * Ubiquity, indexing, correlation and access.
    * New media and transformations in the scholarly enterprise.

Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted no later than November 1,  
2008.

Send abstracts to: David Park, Chair of the ICA Communication History  
Interest Group, at park at lakeforest.edu.

Authors will be informed whether abstracts have been accepted by 21  
November 2008. Papers will be due by May 1, 2009.  The program for  
this pre-conference will take place all day on May 21, 2009, the date  
established for ICA pre-conferences. The available time allows for  
three consecutive blocks of short presentations and roundtable-style  
discussions.

The pre-conference is a joint initiative by the Communication History  
Interest Group of the ICA, New Media & Society and the Electronic  
Visualization Laboratory and Department of Communication at the  
University of Illinois at Chicago. The pre-conference will be held at  
The University of Illinois at Chicago, and there will be  
transportation available for participants and attendees between the  
conference hotel and the UIC campus.

Organized by
    * Dave Park, Chair,  Communication History Interest Group, http://www.icahdq.org/sections/secdetinfo.asp?SecCode=DIV23
    * Nicholas Jankowski and Steve Jones, co-editors New Media &  
Society, http://newmediaandsociety.com

Click here for more information: http://www.icahdq.org/conferences/2009/future.asp