[Air-L] CFP: Optimization: Towards a Critical Concept for special issue of REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION

[Fenwick Mckelvey]

Please share widely and contact me with any questions.



*REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION *

Themed Issue Call for Papers



Optimization: Towards a Critical Concept


Guest Editors: Fenwick McKelvey and Joshua Neves

https://www.amo-oma.ca/en/2019/09/13/optimization-cfp/



Optimization has emerged as a quiet “buzzword.” It is seemingly everywhere
and yet elusive.  Our bodies, tools, and institutions are now understood as
resilient and perpetually updatable. New diets and fitness apps promise to
optimize our caloric intake just as an optimal information diet promises to
make many informed citizens. So informed that what to watch next or who to
vote for becomes one of many effortless choices made possible by the
recommendations of algorithms, smartphones, and other optimizing systems.
But what does optimization mean anyway? Or more crucially, what does it do?
Who or what is optimized? What relationships or platforms are generated?
And who or what or where falls away—is dis-optimized?



Optimization intervenes in the growing formulation of algorithmic
governance, regulation or algocracy, drawing on theories of communication
and control. Optimization refers to specific technical architectures (e.g.,
centralized, decentralized or distributed) as well as applications of
mathematical theory to social life—including Pareto optimalities, linear
programming and stochastic theory. Taken together, optimization provides a
way to understand the iterative projects of algorithmic governance as
iterations of operations research, systems-cybernetic theory, or
computational management.



But optimization is also deeply cultural and situated—even if its claims
are often general or biopolitical. As such, its technical logics and
architectures should be considered alongside real social practices,
geopolitical networks, and the forms of organization (and violence) shored
up by the desire for optimum performance.



This themed issue calls for the interdisciplinary scrutiny of optimization
as a critical concept and a form of management crucial to the rhythm of
networks. We invite historical and theoretical interventions around
optimization and seek a wide range of approaches and analyses of the
sociotechnical assemblages made possible by autonomous software and
ubiquitous hardware. The goal is to provide a clear, multi-faceted
introduction; help situate contemporary concerns around platforms and
social engineering within the development of management, cybernetics,
social and political theory; and turn attention to global specificities
beyond North Atlantic examples, as well as the many forms of difference
elided by optimization itself.



How do these systems intervene in economic, social, and political life? And
how do they transform or diminish the political imagination—now tied to
industrial research and development and the calculations of a control
society?



Some topics this issue hopes to consider include, but are not limited to:



   - Considerations of how optimization systems intervene in economic,
   social, and political life. How do they transform or diminish the political
   imagination—now tied to industrial research and development and the
   calculations of a control society?
   - Case studies of optimization of the human/body (e.g., health,
   self-harm, mindfulness, biohacking) or systemic optimization (e.g., smart
   cities, ecosystems, platforms, networks)
   - Genealogies of optimization techniques with particular attention to
   operations research, Pareto optimalities, linear programming, game theory,
   chaos theory, and multi-agent emergent systems
   - Metaphors and practices of optimization in popular or political
   cultures (e.g., self-tracking, speculative fiction, acceleration, activism)
   - Optimization from or in relation to the margins (e.g., questions of
   scale, geopolitics, and frameworks beyond the biopolitical or cybernetic)
   or attention to problems of difference (e.g., race, ethnicity, indigeneity,
   religion, disability, sexuality, gender)
   - Regulatory consequences of myths or discourses of optimization in
   social, media, or technology policy
   - Speculations around the possibility of dark optimizations or radical
   futures through optimization (e.g., fully automated luxury communism, post
   scarcity, posthuman, post-Earth, dis-optimization)



*Submission Deadline and Guidelines*



December 1, 2019      Submit a 500-word abstract for Guest Editors’ review

Spring 2020                 Submit full manuscript for Guest Editors’ review

July 1, 2020                 Submit full manuscript for peer review



Abstracts should be sent to both guest editors in Word or PDF with the
subject line: Optimization CFP.


Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through the ScholarOne
Manuscripts site for *Review of Communication*:
*https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rroc*
<https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rroc>



Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word using a 12-point common
font, double-spaced, and between 6,000 to 8,000 words (including endnotes).



Please refer to and follow the journal’s manuscript preparations
instruction for authors:
*https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rroc20*
<https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rroc20>



Authors should identify which themed call their paper is responding to by
selecting the relevant drop-down option in ScholarOne.



*Review Process*

In keeping with the journal’s current practice, submissions will undergo
rigorous peer review, including screening by the guest editors and review
by at least two anonymous referees.



Please direct inquiries about the Optimization: Towards a Critical Concept
themed issue to:



Fenwick Mckelvey, PhD

Associate Professor

Department of Communication Studies

Concordia University

*fenwick.mckelvey at concordia.ca*
<fenwick.mckelvey at concordia.ca?subject=Optimization%20Themed%20Issue%20for%20ROC>



Joshua Neves, PhD
Assistant Professor

Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema

Concordia University

*joshua.neves at concordia.ca*
<joshua.neves at concordia.ca?subject=Optimization%20Themed%20Issue%20for%20ROC>



Be good,

Fenwick McKelvey

https://fenwickmckelvey.com

Associate Professor, Communication Studies, Concordia University

Director, Algorithmic Media Observatory

https://amo-oma.ca

New book: Internet Daemons out now

https://internetdaemons.com