[Air-L] Call for Papers in New Media & Society: Search! Navigating the World’s Information

[Mark Graham]

 Call for Papers: Search! Navigating the World’s Information
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*Special issue edited by:*

Mark Graham (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford)
Ralph Schroeder (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford)
Greg Taylor (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford)

We invite submission of original, unpublished articles for a proposed
special themed issue of New Media & Society on the topic of Internet search.
Abstracts of 500 words length are invited in the first instance. Selected
authors will then be included in a full proposal to be submitted to the
editors of New Media & Society. Final papers should be around 8000 words
(inclusive of abstract and references) and will be subject to the full New
Media & Society review process.

*About the Special Issue’s Theme:*

Never before have so many people engaged in practices of information search.
Hundreds of millions of searches are performed every day through the
Internet. Searches connect us to information that helps us find the best
route through a city, allows us to learn about a debilitating illness, and
links us to videos of cats playing pianos. We can now search for words,
numbers, images, videos, pictures, sounds, places, maps, directions, people,
stories and products.

Search is a process of separating the visible from the invisible, the
relevant from the irrelevant, and the knowable from the unknowable. Search
also entails power: the power to access and shape information.  Digital
searches mediate our interactions with both an enormous, networked store of
knowledge, and with the material places that we inhabit. Practices,
algorithms, and rules of search govern the content, ideas, places, and
opportunities to which users are exposed.

In order to begin a more inter-disciplinary discussion on the role of
Internet search in contemporary society, this special issue aims to bring
together a range of contributors that analyze how search works from various
social science perspectives, including law, geography, political science,
sociology of science, and economics. It will bring these to bear on
understanding the most significant social, economic, political, geographic
and ethical transformations that have been brought about by  widespread
practices of search. This special issue seeks qualitative and quantitative
studies as well as discourse and policy analyses of information and Internet
search in the broadest sense. Examples of topical issues in this area
include, but are not limited to:

· How is indexing, optimizing, sorting, coding and ranking altering the ways
in which we access information?
· How do people, places and groups benefit from a world in which search is a
central means of information access, and who is left out of those benefits?
· How does search influence offline interactions?
· Are widespread practices of search facilitating shifts in political,
economic and social power?
· How does search shape consumer and producer product market outcomes?
· How does the nature of search shape the competitive landscape of the
Internet search industry?
· What are the social implications of the organisation of sponsored search
markets?
· Are search engines a force for democratisation?
· What are the subversive potentials and possibilities of search?
· What are the politics of search engine censorship?
· What are the distinct cultural practices and geographic biases of search?

Deadline for abstracts: Jul 20, 2011
Deadline for submission of full papers: Jan 15, 2012

For more information, or to submit an abstract, please contact:

Mark Graham – mark.graham at oii.ox.ac.uk
Ralph Schroeder – ralph.schroeder at oii.ox.ac.uk
Greg Taylor – greg.taylor at oii.ox.ac.uk



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Mark Graham, Ph.D.
Research Fellow

Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
1 St Giles
Oxford OX1 3JS
United Kingdom

Telephone +44 (0) 1865 287 203
Fax +44 (0) 1865 287 211
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/graham
www.geospace.co.uk
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