[Air-L] CFP MMC special issue "Mobile Methods: Explorations, Innovations, and Reflections"

[Steve Jones]

Please find below a call for papers for a special issue of Mobile Media & Communication on the topic of “Mobile Methods: Explorations, Innovations, and Reflections.” Guest Editors are Jeffrey Boase and Lee Humphreys. Please consider making a submission and circulate the call among colleagues. A pdf version of the call is available at this link:
http://mmc.sagepub.com/site/includefiles/2018CFPMobileMethods.pdf

Thank you,

Steve Jones (on behalf of the MMC editorial team)
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MOBILE MEDIA & COMMUNICATION 
Mobile Methods: Explorations, Innovations, and Reflections

Call for papers for a special section of Mobile Media & Communication titled “Mobile Methods: Explorations, Innovations, and Reflections”, to be published in volume 6:1, 2018 (http://mmc.sagepub.com)

GUEST EDITORS
Jeffrey Boase, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Canada, j.boase at utoronto.ca
Lee Humphreys, PhD, Associate Professor, Cornell University, USA, lmh13 at cornell.edu

OVERVIEW
Mobile devices have become a primary medium of everyday life. They are a means by which close relationships are maintained, new relationships are formed, information is acquired, entertainment is delivered, and work gets done. As such, mobile devices have become an important new site for social science research, and they have simultaneously inserted themselves into traditional research sites in which quantitative and qualitative data are collected. The implications for how data are collected and analyzed are vast and affect researchers working in a variety of traditions. For those working in behavioural science traditions, the large caches of detailed and highly personal behavioural log data contained on mobile devices raise new opportunities along with weighty ethical and methodological challenges. For those working in interpretive traditions, the role of mobile devices in many aspects of social life requires a rethinking of research contexts and modes. Mobile devices can also act as new tools for data collection, allowing participants to share and create social meaning, and researchers to conduct on-screen surveying, experience sampling, field experiments, technology probes, and so forth.

We seek out scholars who are methodologically reflective about the use of mobile methods in their research, whether it be to better understand the mobile and mediated environment or to use the mobile devices as a lens into broader social, political or health issues, questions, and interventions. We seek diverse mobile methods scholarship that is innovative, rigorous, creative, and/or exploratory. Submissions that develop or advance new mobile methodological approaches are encouraged, as are articles that explore epistemological issues related to mobile methods.

The articles in the special section may include, but are not limited to, the following themes in the study of mobile methods: 
• Ethical issues in mobile data collection 
• Multi-method approaches to mobile data collection
• Integrating mobile devices into interviews
• Mobile data collection in field experiments 
• Mobile ethnography
• Mobile methods beyond the smartphone and tablet
• Ethically tracking behaviour using mobile devices 
• Implications of mobile methods for social science
• Experiential sampling using mobile devices
• Opportunities and constraints with on-screen mobile surveys 
• Analyzing large and complex behavioural data collected from mobile devices
• Methods that place mobile use into broader social and situational contexts
• Location tracking in mobile research
• Mobile photo elicitation
• Ethical and methodological issues surrounding the development of data collection apps
• Mobile systems/infrastructure analysis
• Critical methods to mobile data collection

JOURNAL REVIEW PROCESS AND SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
For guidelines on preparation of manuscripts and criteria for acceptance, please follow Mobile Media & Communication Submission Guidelines (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/mobile-media- communication/journal202140#submission-guidelines).

Please submit an abstract of 700-800 words that clearly states the main argument and evidence of the paper and the primary literatures it is building upon. The abstract should also clearly articulate the submission’s contribution to mobile methods. For empirical studies still in progress, please outline the current state and the timeline. Also include the names, titles, and contact information for 2-3 suggested reviewers. Abstracts are due October 1st, 2016, to j.boase at utoronto.ca (with “Mobile Methods MMC Special Issue” in the subject line), and should be accompanied by an abbreviated biography (approx. 200-300 words).

Positively reviewed abstracts (notification by November, 2017) will be invited to submit full articles by April 1st, 2017, through http://mmc.sagepub.com. These full articles will be peer-reviewed by two to three reviewers and considered for acceptance. The special section will be published in Volume 6, issue 1, January 2018. Please note that manuscripts must conform to the guidelines for Mobile Media & Communication. Final papers should be no longer than 7,000 words, including abstract, references, figures and tables. In case of further questions, please contact the guest editors.

TENTATIVE TIMELINE
We are targeting the Special Section publication for January 1st, 2018. The tentative timeline is: 
Announce CfP: August 1st, 2016
Extended abstract submission due (700-800 words): October 1st, 2016
Notification of abstract acceptance: November, 2016
Submission of full article: April 1st, 2017
Final version due for production: September 15th, 2017