[Air-L] REMINDER: Deadline Approaching Convergence SPECIAL ISSUE Mobility and mobile media in Brazil

[Isabel Froes]

**** Apologies for multiple copies due to cross-posting ****
**** Please forward to anyone who might be interested ****

Convergence: The international journal of research into new media
technologies

SPECIAL ISSUE *Mobility and mobile media in Brazil*

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*Edited by:*

Adriana de Souza e Silva (North Carolina State University)

Isabel Froes (IT University of Copenhagen)

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*REMINDER:*  One month left until the full paper deadline!

Full papers:* June 15th, 2012.*


Kind regards,

Isabel Fróes and Adriana de Souza e Silva



*Important dates:*

Full papers:* June 15th, 2012* (8000/9000 words, including references) *in
English.*



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   Full papers will undergo a double blind-review process;
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   Submissions may be in the form of empirical research studies or
   theory-building papers;
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   For formatting guidelines, please see: *
   http://www.uk.sagepub.com/msg/conv.htm#HOWTOSUBMITYOURMANUSCRIPT*

   **
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   Papers must also include:
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      a brief biography of the author(s),
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      250-word abstract, and
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      6 keywords.


*Proposals and inquiries should be sent electronically to Isabel Froes (**
icgf at itu.dk* <icgf at itu.dk>*).*

*Early submissions are greatly appreciated!*


By the second decade of the 21st century, mobile phones have
reached saturation levels in many countries in the world, surpassing the
number of landlines and personal computers. Although initial scholarly
interest on the social use of mobile phones focused on Europe, Asia, and
the United States, the impact of mobile phone on the developing world (or
Global South) is increasingly evident and perhaps much more profound. For
many, the mobile device is the first phone, the first internet connection,
the first TV set, and the first global positioning system.

Among developing nations, Brazil is a key site for studying the social
dimension of mobile technologies. The country is part of the so-called BRIC
(Brazil, Russia, India and China), an acronym that refers to
fast-growing developing economies. Brazil is the fastest growing economy in
Latin America, and has over 217 million mobile phones, which represents an
average of 111 working devices per 100 inhabitants. The country has also
experienced one of the fastest mobile phone growth rates in the world since
2005 (averaging 16.6% annually); is the largest mobile phone market in
Latin America; and is the fifth-largest mobile market in the world in
absolute numbers, with roughly 217 million subscriptions as of
September 2011. However, numbers alone reveal little if not analyzed within
a broader social, cultural, and economic framework. The focus on a
homogeneous large-scale market leads to overly sanguine perspectives that
often obscure how socioeconomic diversity causes and reflects mobile phone
use. As in many developing countries, Brazil has astounding income gaps
among different sectors of the population, which influence and
are influenced by technology development and use. For example, the use of
high-end services such as mobile banking, and location-based services like *
Foursquare *and *Yelp *is an intrinsic part of the daily mobile practices
of the high-income population in the country. Conversely, the lower-income
population in Rio de Janeiro is familiar with the *diretão*—a mobile phone
that allows users to make clandestine calls to anywhere in the world with
the use of an illegal sim card. However, Brazil has also been at the
forefront of an experimental and innovative approach towards new
technologies, forecasted in cultural events that focus on art, music and
film festivals dedicated to new and creative uses of mobile technologies,
such as the Mobilefest and Arte.mov.

Despite this cultural and socio-economic diversity, and the relevance of
its marketing, the social use and development of mobile phones in Brazil is
largely under theorized and poorly studied. With the goal of
contributing to bridge this gap, this special edition invites essays that
critically investigate the inter-relations among mobile technologies,
culture, and social development within the Brazilian society.


*Submitted manuscripts are encouraged (but not limited) to focus on:*

(1) History of mobile phones in Brazil. Essays are encouraged to explore
the development of mobile phones in Brazil, comparing them to the landline
infrastructure and internet growth within the Latin America socio-economic
and political framework. Authors may explore the development and use of new
mobile services, such as the mobile internet, text messaging, mobile apps,
etc.

(2) Social uses and appropriation of mobile phones. We welcome essays as
empirical or theoretical studies dealing with the use and appropriation of
technology by low-income communities. Of special interest are essays that
explore how mobile and wireless technologies reconfigure the life of
community dwellers and how people find new and unexpected uses for existing
technologies.

(3) Mobile art and games. We invite essays that investigate mobile phones
as artistic and gaming interfaces, including essays that explore uses of
hybrid reality, location-aware and pervasive activities in
educational contexts, media arts, and gaming.

(4) Location-based services. Submitted essays should investigate the uses
and development of location-based services in Brazil, such as mobile
annotation, location-based social networks, and mobile mapping.

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*About the editors:*

Adriana de Souza e Silva is Associate Professor at the Department of
Communication at North Carolina State University (NCSU), affiliated faculty
at the Digital Games Research Center, and Interim Associate Director of the
Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) program at NCSU.Dr. de
Souza e Silva's research focuses on how mobile and locative interfaces
shape people's interactions with public spaces and create new forms of
sociability. She teaches classes on mobile technologies, location-based
games and internet studies. Dr. de Souza e Silva is the co-editor (with
Daniel M. Sutko) of Digital Cityscapes—Merging digital and urban
playspaces (Peter Lang, 2009), the co-author (with Eric Gordon) of the
book Net-Locality: Why location matters in a networked
world (Blackwell, 2011), and the co-author (with Jordan Frith) of Mobile
interfaces in public spaces: Control, privacy, and
urban sociability (Routledge, 2012).

Isabel Fróes has received her Masters degree from the
Interactive Telecommunications Programme at New York University (NYU) and a
Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Rio
de Janeiro, PUC-RJ in Brazil. She is a lecturer at the IT University of
Copenhagen (Denmark), where she works both as a practitioner and scholar in
the fields of communication, mobility, art and design. With a focus towards
valuable interactions between people and technology, her research analyzes
the future implications and current uses of digital media. In her courses
she taps into the value of interactive elements in every arena and explores
how they could affect the ways new concepts and activities are developed in
distinct fields. She has presented some of these thoughts at various
events such as the AAM conference (2009), and the IXDA South America
(2010,2011). She has taught various courses at Danish institutions such as
IT University of Copenhagen, University of Copenhagen and Kolding School of
Design as well as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro in Mexico.


*Proposals and inquiries should be sent electronically to Isabel Froes (**
icgf at itu.dk* <icgf at itu.dk>*).*


-- 

Isabel Froes

Adjunkt Professor/Ekstern Lektor
Masters i Interaktionsdesign (MIND)
IT University of Copenhagen
Rued Langgaards Vej 7
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark

http://www.itu.dk/