[Air-L] Let's talk about AoIR.

Thu May 30 10:45:38 PDT 2013

As a content analysis scholar :) I see different threads emerging here. 

One is about the changes in the submission format, which apparently both submitters and reviewers found unhelpful on some points. I think it's definitely worth thinking about -- and given the openness and commitment of the AoIR community I think that will be taken on board. 

I see two other, more fundamental questions. 

First, is the annual conference now over-capacity and is it time for the grass-roots to start to form regional groups? I, for one, would really welcome this. I think one of the problems of the conference is the huge interest in the field and how effectively AoIR has harnessed that energy. It just won't fit in one annual conference any more. I got rejected last year (there! it's out there!) but when I saw the program I could see how much was crammed into the conference. There are just so many scholars who can benefit from going to the conference -- people like me who started in the pre-internet era and are trying to study it as well as 'digital natives'. And I think there is a enormous amount of value in the interchange between those two groups. 

Second, here's the tougher questions. Academic conferences work in a particular way -- they tend to consolidate disciplines and their networks. This is a good thing, but it can also become a relatively narrow way of exchanging information in the internet era. So is the AoIR conference supposed to be a traditional academic conference, a hybrid of traditional academic conference proceedings and new ways of presenting information, or some altogether new way of sharing and expanding knowledge? Are we too wedded to 'traditional' ways of doing things? For example, why not put paper proposals up on line and have the list and/or some other constituency vote on them? OK, that may be freaking some people out but I think it might be time for a serious reflection on gatekeeping -- as well as the incredible amount of free labor that goes into reviewing proposals. 

All that being said, the AoIR list is the single most valuable resource in my internet research. So it's amazing even as it faces these new challenges. 

Sarah 

Sarah Oates
Professor and Senior Scholar
Philip Merrill College of Journalism
2100L  John S. and James L. Knight Hall
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7111
phone: +1 301 405 4510

Email: soates at umd.edu
________________________________________
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] on behalf of Luis Hestres [luishestres at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 1:27 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Let's talk about AoIR.

I agree with Feona regarding the proposal format. This year I submitted a paper proposal to AoIR for the first time, and I think the format forced me to make choices about my paper that made it seemed less theoretically nuanced than it actually is. I don't know exactly how it was done in the past, but I would feel much more comfortable submitting to AoIR in the future if I could submit full papers. Of course some reasonable standardization (font size, page limit, citation format, etc.) would be fine, but full paper submissions or something close to it would be ideal.

Luis

- - - - -
Luis E. Hestres
Ph.D. candidate | School of Communication | American University
More about me at luishestres.com (http://luishestres.com/) or LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/hestres) | Follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/luishestres/) | My SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1820222
"Theoretical critiques are like sociopaths: Their aggressive drives are rarely balanced by constructive instincts."
-- From "Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory" by Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, Sociological Forum 14(1), 1999

On Thursday, May 30, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Feona Attwood wrote:

> Thanks for bringing this up Terri. I know lots of people have had similar feelings and feel awkward about how to express it.
>
> My feeling is that the new format for submitting proposals seems to signal a real shift in style. I haven't come across anything like that before, not even for really dull conferences and I didn't put a proposal in this year because I couldn't work out a way to fit what I do into that kind of format. It seems designed to filter out anything imaginative, innovative, speculative or original. The papers I reviewed in that format were really difficult to read; the format had squashed all the life out of them. I had felt very enthused after last year's conference which seemed very lively and friendly - and then really deflated by the submission process this year. I'm hoping it was an experiment that won't be continued. I'm still planning to attend this year but I can't imagine submitting anything again if this is the new direction AoIR is taking.
> Feona
>
>
>
> On 30 May 2013, at 15:27, Terri Senft wrote:
>
> > Hi Pals,
> >
> > With the encouragement of Andrew and Alex, I wanted to approach the list
> > regarding some questions I have about culture of the Association of
> > Internet Researchers today.
> >
> > I'm asking because after this round of conference proposal reviews, I feel
> > personally and professionally a bit disconnected from this group these
> > days. This freaks me out a bit, because I've always thought of AoIR as my
> > intellectual home. I am wondering if this is just me (which would be
> > fine!), or if others are in struggle as well.
> >
> > Some Big Questions I Have:
> >
> > 1. Who are we, personally and professionally? What makes us the same as
> > organizations like ICA or ACM? What makes us different from these
> > organizations?
> >
> > 2. How do we perform our identity at our annual conference? How is it
> > reflected in the way we phrase our calls for submissions? How is it
> > reflected in submission procedures?
> >
> > 3. How do we want to define "rigorous scholarship" in our organization? How
> > do we want to deal with scholarship that strikes us as urgent, necessary or
> > fresh, but not sufficiently rigorous?
> >
> > 4. Is there even an "us" anymore? Can positivists, activists, and artists
> > really sit in the same room and discuss 'internet studies'? My answer used
> > to be affirmative, but that was before internet studies was as ubiquitous
> > as literature studies.
> >
> > 5. Should the desire for a conference that showcases professionalization
> > trump a desire for a conference that encourages its youngest scholars and
> > its most senior ones to take risks, make mistakes and push the boundaries
> > of the field?
> >
> > Okay, that's plenty to start. As they say in AA, take what you want and
> > leave the rest.
> >
> >
> > Fondly,
> > T
> >
> > --
> > <http://goog_689013053>
> >
> > <http://goog_689013053>
> >
> > Dr. Theresa M. Senft
> > Global Liberal Studies Program
> > School of Arts & Sciences
> > New York University
> > 726 Broadway NY NY 10003
> >
> > home: *www.terrisenft.net <http://goog_689013053>**
> > *(needs a serious updating)
> > facebook: www.facebook.com/theresa.senft (http://www.facebook.com/theresa.senft)
> > twitter: @terrisenft
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org (mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org) mailing list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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