[Air-L] Panel on Representations of the Internet in Popular Culture

[Delia Dumitrica]

Looking for panelists for a CSA Panel on Representations of the Internet
in Popular Culture. If interested, please email me off list.

Representations of the Internet in Popular Culture, Canadian Sociological
Association Annual Conference 2012, Wilfrid Laurier University /
University of Waterloo, May 29, 2012 – June 2, 2012

Topic Area: Sociology of Technology

Session Description: This session seeks to explore the different
discourses through which the internet is being constructed as a space of
possibilities, creativity, as well as danger in popular culture. The
internet is approached here as a socio-technical assemblage where
different actors are involved in a struggle over its meaning, future
articulations and social functions. Stepping away from an interest in
simply defining the internet in terms of its technical aspects, this
session is interested in recuperating the internet as both a social space
and a tool for social action. From showcasing the 'World of Warcraft' on
the TV series The Big Bang Theory to personifying 'the Net' as a conscious
being in Robert Sawyer's Wake trilogy, popular constructions of the
internet as a space for social action or as an actor pushing for a
particular future for human beings should be understood as sites where
contemporary ideologies, social forces and material capabilities become
articulated together. This session invites papers dealing with the
discourses through which the internet is being understood, discussed and
popularized in movies, novels, TV shows, music videoclips, commercials,
biographies, exhibitions etc.

Abstracts (100 – 200 words) must be submitted using the CSA online
conference system http://www.csa-scs.ca/submissions by January 30, 2012.
Presentations will be confirmed by February 15, 2012

For further inquiries about the panel, please contact Dr. Delia Dumitrica,
University of Calgary, dddumitr at ucalgary.ca


Delia Dumitrica, PhD
Instructor
Department of Communication and Culture
University of Calgary