[Air-L] CFP *OPEN LITERACY* (AoIR Satellite Event) Digital Games, Social Responsibility and Social Innovation Symposium, Perth, Western Australia, September 30 & Oct 1

[Tama Leaver]

Hi All,

Please find below and attached a call for proposals or papers for ‘OPEN
LITERACY’ Digital Games, Social Responsibility and Social Innovation
Symposium, held at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, September
30 & Oct 1. This is an AoIR satellite event, and we're hoping a number of
people will consider visiting Perth first on their way to Brisbane for
AoIR! :)
-Tama

*OPEN LITERACY*
Digital Games, Social Responsibility and Social Innovation
An international Research Symposium at Curtin University, Western Australia

Background

 “We cannot stress highly enough the importance of greater public
understanding of digital information—its use, scale, importance and
influence ...  Digital literacy should be a fourth pillar of education,
alongside reading, writing and maths.” [1]

Curtin University’s Centre for Culture & Technology (CCAT) and Tencent are
proud to launch the Curtin-Tencent Research Centre at this international
research symposium, focusing on digital media and the creative economy,
with a special emphasis on digital online games.

The event also marks the 20th anniversary of Internet Studies at Curtin
University. We invite you to join our researchers, including John Hartley,
Katie Ellis, Tama Leaver, Crystal Abidin and others, and share your work
with visitors from China and the world. Alternatively, save the date and
simply attend the event to participate on the day.

International Keynote Speakers:
• Henry Jenkins (University of Southern California);
• Zizi Papacharissi (Illinois-Chicago);
• Tencent games executive/developer VP (tba);
• Mathew Allen (Deakin University)––Matt launched Internet Studies at
Curtin in 1999.

Date: September 30-October 1, 2019, prior to the Annual Conference of the
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). We are offering this event as a
‘satellite conference’ of AoIR. Scholars will be able to break their
journey in Perth before heading to Brisbane in time for AoIR’s
pre-conference day.

With Tencent’s support, we can offer a limited number of bursaries to
international and Australian doctoral students and early career
researchers. Selected applicants will be offered $500 towards the PER-BNE
leg of their travel costs, and we will waive our Registration fee for
presenters.

We invite proposals for papers and presentations on what we are calling
‘Open Literacy’. ‘Open’ literacy links the domain of digital popular
culture and entertainment, including video and online games, with that of
formal knowledge. At a time when there is increasing tension between
large-scale, global connectivity on the one hand, and a population marked
by division, difference and asymmetries of access on the other, it is more
urgent than ever to extend participation in knowledge and social
responsibility––science and civics––beyond exclusive institutions and
restricted professions. Recent developments in ‘open access’ scholarship,
‘open science’ initiatives and ‘open source’ software offer new ways to
update Karl Popper’s vision of ‘the open society’ for the connected age.

Focusing on the extension of digital capabilities among a broad global
population via smart devices, apps and digital entertainment to smart
users, groups and enterprises, we want to explore how opening digital
knowledge systems to popular participation may boost innovation and social
inclusion and responsibility. Many media scholars are sceptical of the
‘mass media effects’ tradition of research, inherited from anxiety about
earlier forms of popular media, from print to broadcasting. At the same
time they are mindful that public debate about this topic still depends on
outmoded industrial and individualist theories. We want to go beyond that
paradigm, to understand the challenges of digital, online media and the
possibilities for renewing knowledge systems and social groups in times of
technological change and geopolitical uncertainty. In short, what do
entertainment systems and knowledge systems––and their users––have in
common?

In this context, ‘Open Literacy’ refers to the dynamic combination of (i)
individual skills, capabilities and creative imagination (developed through
‘purposeless’ play-practice) with (ii) the social networks, teamwork,
conflict management and difference needed in public/media environments, to
(iii) build new social groups––‘knowledge clubs’ and ‘knowledge
commons’––for social innovation under uncertainty. Open literacy is
user-centred and system-wide, producing unforeseen network effects that in
turn change the rules of the game. Navigating newness raises new questions:
• Of what does ‘open literacy’ comprise in the global-digital-connected
era?
• How do citizens in different contexts, places and opportunity-spaces
practice it?
• Open knowledge, open science, open access: what should policymakers,
educators, arts/literature agencies, sport/exercise bodies and commercial
entertainment/ leisure providers do about it?

To reflect on these developments and to report on cutting edge research
linking games, social innovation and social responsibility, the ‘Open
Literacy’ Research Symposium will be held over two days. Papers and
presentations––including work by postgraduate and early-career
researchers––may address (but is not confined to) the following themes.

In the context of pervasive computational and communicational literacy in
the digital age, presenters will think through the relationships among
games, social innovation and social responsibility:
‘Games’ include digital games and analogue play;
o main focus is on video games, internet and online games;
o but also branded play (Lego/Barbie);
o competitive games (sport/health);
o childhood games (indoor/outdoor play).
Responsibility includes corporate and individual.
o Corporate: what are the social responsibilities of games developers and
publishers? What are they doing right or wrong, according to whose
criteria?
o Individual: rights and duties of players and gamers themselves; how
parents and young people achieve and maintain social responsibility through
play.
Responsibility and control:
o how games work in the production of what Michele Willson calls “the ideal
child” (Media Culture Society, 2018);
o how can games and other online changes be historicised meaningfully;
o political, moral, religious, authoritarian crackdowns on games/popular
media.

The event will also consider a counter-narrative to the rhetoric of
responsibility and social innovation through games.
‘Serious Games’ in medical, health, teaching/learning and development
contexts.
Games and innovation:
o Expansion of the creative economy
o Games as a mass spectacle (e.g. Korea).
What does gaming teach the next generation?
o Lessons from China.

The event will include presentations from global thought-leaders, scholars
and practitioners from the USA, Australia, China and elsewhere. Selected
postgraduate students will be eligible for financial assistance (bursaries)
for travel and for the preparation of their papers and presentations. The
intention is to produce a published report from the proceedings of the day,
including selected keynote, specialist and early-career (HDR+ECR)
contributions. Potential presenters, please send your abstract, of between
250-500 words, to Dr Huan WU, by April 5, 2019 (huan.wu at curtin.edu.au), for
a report, paper, presentation or (PhD students only) a short paper
(1000-3000 words). We will confirm acceptance during May. Full papers will
be due by 1 September.

For those with institutional support for their research outreach, there
will be a registration fee to cover venue costs and catering. If you wish
to attend without presenting a paper, just let Huan know.

“See you in September!”

[1] Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (14 February 2019)
Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report. UK: House of Commons, pp. 85;
87 (
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
).

-- 
Associate Professor Tama Leaver
Discipline Lead, Internet Studies,
School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry (MCASI)
Curtin University
GPO Box U1987 Perth WA Australia 6845
Ph: (+61 8) 9266 1258
Email: t.leaver at curtin.edu.au
Web: www.tamaleaver.net
Twitter: @tamaleaver <https://twitter.com/tamaleaver>
CRICOS Provider Code: 00301J (WA)