[Air-L] JASIST Special Issue on “Information Privacy in the Digital Age”

[Michael T Zimmer]

Please share this CFP widely - thanks!


** JASIST Special Issue on “Information Privacy in the Digital Age” **

Human interactions at all levels (individual, group, organizational, and societal) are increasingly supported and organized by digital and networked technologies. Individuals’ personal information is transmitted and transacted across all sorts of networks, often beyond the individual’s control. Problematic practices in how companies handle personal information—as spotlighted by the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and Equifax security breach—raise wide concerns for information privacy. Indeed, many would concur with Acquisti, Brandimarte, and Loewenstein’s (2015) statement: “If this is the age of information, then privacy is the issue of our times” (p. 509).

While few would argue against the significance and urgency of privacy research, there are considerable gaps in the literature, particularly on how to re-conceptualize privacy in the digital age and how to improve industry practices to better protect the personal information of individuals and groups (Wu, Vitak, & Zimmer 2019). This special issue of the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) is intended to push the boundaries of privacy research and challenge academics and practitioners to come up with innovative ideas in theorizing and resolving privacy-related issues within diverse contexts. We invite potential authors to ask:

What are the important characteristics of privacy in the digital age, and how can we best address privacy challenges through academic research, system design, and policy intervention?

The topics of this special issue include, but are not limited to, theory development and empirical investigation in the areas of:

Theorization of privacy in the digital age
-  Critically appraising traditional paradigms of privacy and conceptualizing information privacy in digital and networked environments
-  Theorizing implications of new technologies for privacy management (e.g., big data, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things)
-  Extending existing theories of privacy in digital contexts (e.g., communication privacy management, privacy calculus, contextual integrity)

Psychology and behavioral economics of information privacy
-  Individual and collective privacy perceptions and behaviors online
-  Cognitive biases and bounded rationality in online privacy decision making
-  Motivations (or lack thereof) for information privacy protection
-  Socio-psychological mechanisms underneath the privacy paradox

Socioeconomic, cultural, and ethical issues in privacy research
-  Privacy challenges and policy implications for marginalized populations (e.g., minorities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ communities, and other disadvantaged individuals in the digital age)
-  Cultural differences in information privacy perceptions and practices
-  Ethical considerations in conducting empirical research using privacy-sensitive, digital data

Design for privacy protection
-  Innovative ideas that advance “privacy by design”
-  Novel, privacy-sensitive and privacy-enhancing system designs based on rigorous experimental or ethnographic research
-  Challenges and solutions of system design in the context of evolving privacy laws and regulations (e.g., GDPR).

Submission Guidelines

Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have carefully read the JASIST Submission Guidelines (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2330-1643/homepage/ForAuthors.html).
The complete manuscript should be submitted through JASIST’s Submission System (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jasist). To ensure that your submission is routed properly, please select “Yes” in response to the question, “Is this submission for a special issue?” and specify “Special Issue on Information Privacy in the Digital Age” when prompted later.

Initial submission due: August 31, 2019

Guest Editors

Philip Fei Wu, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK (philip.wu at rhul.ac.uk)
Jessica Vitak, University of Maryland, College Park, USA (jvitak at umd.edu)
Michael T Zimmer, Marquette University, USA (michael.zimmer at marquette.edu)

Reference Cited

Acquisti, A., Brandimarte, L., & Loewenstein, G. (2015). Privacy and human behavior in the age of information. Science, 347(6221), 509–514.
Wu, P. F., Vitak, J., & Zimmer, M. T. (2019). A contextual approach to information privacy research. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.


------

** UPDATE: Effective August 2019 I will be joining the Department of Computer Science at Marquette University. My new email will be: michael.zimmer at marquette.edu<mailto:michael.zimmer at marquette.edu>

Michael Zimmer, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies
Director, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

t: @michaelzimmer
w: www.michaelzimmer.org<http://www.michaelzimmer.org>