[Air-L] Call for contributors: May 2015 special issue of Kairos on social media

[Stephanie Vie]

Hi all,

Please consider submitting an abstract for a special issue of *Kairos: A
Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy* that my colleague, Douglas
Walls, and I are editing. The special issue will be published in May 2015
and will focus on social media and writing.

We're asking for initial abstracts by January 1, 2014, with notification of
acceptance in the special issue by January 8, 2014. If you'd like to chat
briefly about preliminary ideas, I'd be happy to email or Skype with you as
well.

The full call for webtexts can be found at
https://ucf.academia.edu/StephanieVie/Call-for-Webtexts and also I have
copied and pasted it below.

Thanks,

Stephanie

 -----

Dr. Stephanie Vie

Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric

Department of Writing and Rhetoric

University of Central Florida

Reviews Co-Editor, *Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy*


 *Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy *May 2015 special
issue

*Because Facebook: Digital Rhetoric/Social Media*



Guest Editors: Stephanie Vie and Douglas Walls (both of University of
Central Florida)



*Special Issue Theme*



This special issue focuses on the production and circulation of texts
within social media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
While the title, “Because Facebook: Digital Rhetoric/Social Media,” is a
play on the recent spread of “because” as a preposition in the English
language, we welcome webtexts, interviews, and book reviews that focus on
any aspect of digital rhetoric, writing, and social media. Beyond Facebook
and other current social networking spaces, we would also encourage
examinations of other social media like Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.,
along with theoretical approaches to literate practice such as the use of
hashtags as an organizational schema, the role of tagging in Facebook as a
means of communal affiliation, the curation of Pinterest categories as a
repository of research materials, and so on.



Writing in social media is both timely and exciting, and this special issue
as a call for additional scholarly attention to the intersections of
writing studies and social media tools. Indeed, in an age of nearly
ubiquitous social media use, it is important for us to pay academic
attention to these technologies with a specific eye toward the copious
amounts of writing that are composed, circulated, and read in social media.
Thus, this special issue will gather webtexts that attend to writing in
social media: its production, circulation, presentation, and pedagogical
applications. The special issue will be a curated series of webtexts that
examine how writing is both facilitated by social media and influenced by
the affordances and constraints of social media technologies.



*Call for Webtexts (CFW)*



We invite born-digital webtexts that explore the intersections of social
media and writing in higher education.  The guest editors imagine social
media broadly and encourage pieces that examine specific social media
technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., within
theoretical frameworks as well as pieces that look at writing within larger
social media categories, such as micro-blogging, social networking, etc.



We invite authors to organize their webtexts as appropriate for one of the
following four sections:



*Topoi*: *Kairos*’ Topoi section includes extended scholarly analyses of
large-scale issues relating to rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. We
encourage webtexts for the Topoi section of this special issue to examine
social media writing within specific theoretical frameworks. We see this
section as likely addressing specific large-scale implications (such as
gender, sexual identity, race and ethnicity, group affiliation, identity
politics, privacy and surveillance, and data mining) that emerge when
writing happens in these spheres.



*Praxis*: *Kairos*’ Praxis section publishes scholarly investigations into
the intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy with an emphasis on
what happens in the writing/rhetoric classroom and why. Webtexts should
showcase how writing is informed by emerging technologies foregrounding
practical aspects (i.e., how would one use the technique being described?
Who might benefit from following the author's approach and why?) while
providing a theoretical grounding. The editors see this section as focusing
overtly on social media and pedagogy: How are social media shaping and
being shaped by educational issues related to writing studies? We encourage
webtexts that concentrate on specific social media technologies (Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.) along with theoretical approaches to
literate practice such as the use of hashtags as an organizational schema,
the role of tagging in Facebook as a means of communal affiliation, the
curation of Pinterest categories as a repository of research materials, and
so on.



*Interviews*: We encourage interviews with authors who regularly write
about social media technologies, use social media in their classrooms,
and/or develop and maintain social media technologies. We also encourage
interviews that move beyond the borders of writing and rhetoric to seek out
interdisciplinary interviews with scholars from other fields who do
exciting work with social media. Finally, we see the Interviews section as
a place for more experimental approaches to “the interview,” such as an
interview with scholars on the creation of their personal profiles in
Facebook, the maintenance of their identities across multiple social media,
or an examination of their network of friends, for example. Informal
queries before a formal proposal are welcome.



*Book Reviews*: The guest editors seek reviews of the following books and
welcome queries for reviews of other recent books that focus on social
media and writing in higher education. Webtexts that engage with multiple
books as a review essay are welcomed.



*Facebook and Philosophy: What’s on Your Mind?* (Chicago, 2010)

*Intimacy and Friendship on Facebook* (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

*Social Communication in the Twitter Age* (Polity, 2013)

*Social Media: Usage and Impact *(Lexington, 2012)

*The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media *(Oxford,
2012)

*Twitter: Social Communication in the Digital Age *(Polity Press, 2013)

*Understanding Social Media* (Sage, 2013)

*Understanding Social Networks: Theories, Concepts, and Findings *(Oxford,
2012)



Contributors are encouraged to consider the following possible topics (this
list is not exhaustive):

   - Digital divide and technological access issues for faculty, students,
   and/or community stakeholders who use social media
   - End-User Licensing Agreements, Terms of Service, copyright law, and
   other legal frameworks affecting writing in social media
   - Faculty professionalization and program-building efforts using social
   media
   - Gender issues and group dynamics in pedagogical uses of social media
   - Issues of identity, anonymity, and pseudonymity when writing in social
   media
   - Literacy practices and communal norms about writing in social media
   spaces
   - Online monitoring and data-based metrics of students and instruction
   in social media spaces
   - Pedagogical possibilities for social media in the writing classroom
   - Pedagogical resistance to social media in the writing classroom
   - Privacy and surveillance within social media spaces
   - Professional writing and social media
   - Resistance and opting out of social media
   - Service-learning and community-based research efforts in the community
   facilitated by social media
   - Social media, writing, and the public sphere
   - Student writing produced outside of class in social media contexts
   - The challenges of citing and archiving social media in research
   projects
   - The rhetoric of listening and following in social media
   - The role of social media in changing citation practices
   - Writing About Writing (WAW) curricula and the impact of writing about
   socially mediated writing
   - Writing pedagogy in participatory social media spaces



Please send abstracts of 350-500 words to Stephanie Vie (
Stephanie.Vie at ucf.edu) and Douglas Walls (Douglas.Walls at ucf.edu) by January
1, 2014. Submissions should include all authors’ contact information and a
brief design statement (50-100 words) or design prototype for all proposed
authors. Your brief design statement should describe any previous
experience composing web-ready or born-digital pieces as well as initial
ideas for your webtext—its look and feel, technologies to be used in
composing, etc. Initial queries are welcome. Authors will be invited to
submit full webtext drafts by February 15, 2014.





*Timeline*:



   - Deadline for abstracts:
     January
   1, 2014
   - Notification of acceptance to authors:                        January
   8, 2014
   - Deadline for first draft of accepted webtexts:           February 15,
   2014
   - Editors’ feedback on first drafts:                               March
   15, 2014
   - Deadline for second draft of accepted webtexts:      May 1, 2014
   - Editors’ feedback on second drafts:                           July 15,
   2014
   - Deadline for final revised webtexts:                           December
   1, 2014
   - Special issue is released:                                             May
   2015