[Air-L] CfP: Digital Citizens. Engaging with Information Politics, Transparency and Surveillance

Thu Feb 22 12:54:55 PST 2018

Dear AoIR/AoIR-Grad list members,

enclosed please find our call for proposals for:

CfP: Digital Citizens
Engaging with Information Politics, Transparency and Surveillance

Abstract deadline: March 21, 2018
Contact: Ramón Reichert, Karin Wenz (Eds.)

This issue of the Digital Culture & Society journal invites theoretical 
and artistic contributions on citizen engagement, digital citizenship 
and grassroots information politics.

Today, engagement and participation are considered key when we 
investigate media and user practices. Participation has become a popular 
imperative of digital societies: “Calls for greater transparency and 
participation are heard not just by elected officials, but also in 
corporate headquarters” (Geiselhart, 2004). A number of theoretical 
reflections on digital societies assume that social media are becoming a 
dominant media channel for participatory engagement.

Practices of participation and engagement are an indispensible part of 
our digital everyday lives: from chat rooms to community forums, from 
social media platforms to image boards, and from rating platforms to 
whistle-blowing websites. The Internet is used for a wide variety of 
forms of participation in culture, education, health, business and 
politics. On the one hand these ‘digital collectives’ are deemed the 
torchbearers of the coming social and political transformation or hailed 
as self-organized collective intelligence. On the other hand state 
apparatuses are asking for participative activities to increase 
efficiency and to avoid friction. It is argued that the use of 
technology fosters participation and processes of consensus-building.

This discourse almost implies that these processes can be hardwired into 
digital technologies. The terms “cultural citizenship” and “digital 
citizenship” are expected to provide a broader but also a more critical 
approach to citizen engagement.

In the meantime, there are numerous studies that examine the different 
forms and effects of participation on the Internet and its limitations 
(e.g. Fuchs, 2014; Trottier/Fuchs, 2015). Critical voices show that 
participation has long become a buzz word, often related to one-sided, 
positive perspectives: applauding the possibilities of user engagement 
and ignoring issues such as information politics and a digital divide, 
not only based on technological access but also on a lack of digital 
literacy (e.g. Jordan, 2015; van Dijck et al., 2017). We observe not 
only liberation of users based on participatory practices but 
exploitation at the same time. The information politics behind design 
decisions are a relevant topic for a deeper understanding of the 
interrelation of technological developments and user practices.

Participation and sharing data by users also led to critical debates 
about surveillance (Albrechtslund, 2013; Lyon, 2017) and whether privacy 
matters any longer if we “have nothing to hide” . Under which 
circumstances do we have to consider privacy a commodity and how can we 
reestablish mechanisms of forgetfulness? Surveillance as observation and 
control from those in power has been accompanied by a discussion about 
“sousveillance”, a term coined by Mann, Nolan, and Wellman (2003) to 
describe instances in which people watch and control those in power. 
What tools have been developed both for collecting private data and for 
protecting our privacy and in how far do they challenge our platform 
society?

In our special issue we aim at including approaches from fields such as: 
(digital) sociology, STS, (digital) media studies, cultural studies, 
political sciences and philosophy reflecting on the role of the digital 
citizen. We ask for the role and value of a digital sociology exploring 
the practices of digital citizens. We particularly welcome contributions 
that are critically reflective about online practices in relation to new 
concepts of surveillance and control society.

Paper proposals may relate to, but are not limited to, the following 
topics: Digital citizenship, networked publics, information politics, 
engagement, participation and sharing, transparency, surveillance, urban 
informatics, citizen score, democracy as a service, participatory 
engineering, data commons, large scale protests and trending topics, 
slacktivism and clicktivism, participation divide.

Deadlines and contact information

Abstracts (max. 300 words) and short biographical note (max. 100 words) 
are due on: March 21, 2018.
Authors will be notified by March 25, 2018, whether they are invited to 
submit a full paper.
Full papers are due on: May 25, 2018.
Notifications to authors of referee decisions: June 30, 2018.
Final versions due: July 30, 2018.
Please send your abstract and short biographical note to Ramón Reichert 
and Karin ramon.reichert at univie.ac.at; 
Wenz.k.wenz at maastrichtuniversity.nl

About the Journal:
Digital Culture & Society seeks contributions that display a clear, 
inspiring engagement with media theory and/or methodological issues. 
Emphasising the relevance of new practices and technology appropriation 
for theory as well as methodology debates, the journal also encourages 
empirical investigations.

For more information, see the official journal website:

http://digicults.org/callforpapers/cfp-digital-citizens/

With best wishes,

Ramón Reichert

-- 
Ramón Reichert

Head of the post-graduate master’s course Data Studies at the Danube 
University Krems:
http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/studium/data-studies/index.php

European Project Researcher "Visual/video literacies", Erasmus+:
http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details-page/?nodeRef=workspace://SpacesStore/ad93c65c-662e-4375-85b4-279b976be6ec

Lecteur
Département des sciences de la communication et des médias
Université de Fribourg, Suisse, http://www.unifr.ch/dcm/?page=accueil

Lecturer in Contextual Studies
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, St. Gallen, Switzerland 
http://www.unisg.ch/de/universitaet/schools/humanities+and+social+sciences

Lecturer IXDM
Academy of Art and Design FHNW
Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures, Basel
https://www.ixdm.ch/idk-turns-ixdm/

Current publications:
http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-2592-9/big-data
http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-3665-9/selfies-selbstthematisierung-in-der-digitalen-bildkultur?c=7