[Air-L] CfP: Digital Sustainability

Tue Jun 30 00:35:26 PDT 2020

CALL FOR PAPERS, Special Thematic Issue on Digital Sustainability, *Digital
Policy, Regulation and Governance Emerald*

Scholars are invited to submit abstracts for a special issue on the theme
Digital Sustainability, guest edited by Dr. Massimo Ragnedda (Northumbria
University, UK) and Prof. Dr. Glenn Muschert (Khalifa University of Science
& Technology, UAE). Submissions will be peer reviewed and considered for
publication in a special issue on the theme commissioned by Emerald
Publishing’s peer-reviewed journal *Digital Policy, Regulation and
Governance*.

SPECIAL ISSUE THEME: The special issue theme is “Digital Sustainability.”
The decade of the 2020s is simultaneously the age of digital transformation
and the time in which humanity has established a coherent set of
sustainability goals to be achieved by 2030, namely the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). What is less commonly discussed is
the role that digital technologies, digital skills, and digital social life
will play in the pursuit and maintenance of a sustainable future. This
special issue offers a forum for that conversation to develop, as a venue
in which social scientists, STS scholars, and other digital scholars can
explore the concept of digital sustainability with an eye toward
establishing a conceptual framework for defining and theorizing digital
sustainability, for studying and assessing digital sustainability, and for
plotting out applied methodologies for implementing principles of
digital sustainability
in real, augmented, and virtual spheres. Thus, this special issue on
digital sustainability will open up new scholarly and applied conversations
regarding precisely the intersection between digital aspects of human life
and wider sustainability concerns for humanity and the planet.

The aims of the project are to connect contemporary scholarship in digital
sociology with scholarship concerning sustainability, and thereby to carve
out a new sub-field for digital sustainability. These goals will be met via
the academic investigations assembled in the special issue, as follows:

   - Establish a concept of digital sustainability, and to define the
   theoretical and conceptual parameters of the idea.
   - Map out methodological approaches for the study and assessment of
   digital sustainability.
   - Conceptualize how digital sustainability can be enhanced in applied
   settings.

COVERAGE:  The special issue on “Digital Sustainability” will include six
or seven articles of 5.000 to 7.000 words examining conceptual issues
related to digital sustainability. The primary criterion for acceptance is
established as scholarly quality and relevance of topic to the special
issue theme. Each chapter must engage digital sustainability on a
conceptual level, while at the same time advancing issues related to
methodologies for study/assessment of digital sustainability and/or
practical strategies to enhance digital sustainability. Each article should
include some empirical evidence, but must also be linked theoretically to
wider debates current in digital sociology, sustainability studies,
communications, or related fields. Contributors are encouraged to offer
forward-looking perspectives in the form of suggestions for digital
sustainability, including how the concepts, associated methodologies,
applications, and principles of digital sustainability can be useful in
pursuit to sustainability goals.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

- Theorizing digital sustainability

- Measuring digital sustainability

- Methodologies for assessment of digital sustainability

- Mapping plans to achieve digital sustainability

- Exploration of the role of advanced computing in digital sustainability,
such as AI, big data, quantum computing, blockchain, cryptocurrency

- Exploration of various forms of social reality as aspects of digital
sustainability, such as RL, VR, AR, and XR

- Exploration of digital sustainability and the human-computer interface(s)

- The relevance of digital skills in digital sustainability

- The role of digital infrastructure in digital sustainability

- E-waste, energy usage, and other ecological concerns

- The role(s) of infrastructure, hardware, or software in digital
sustainability

- The role of formal social institutions (public, private, or NGO) in
digital sustainability

IMPORTANT DATES:

-          Abstracts Due                *1. August 2020*

-          Decisions Issued           15. August 2020

-          Articles Due                    31. October 2020

-          Reviews Returned        1. January 2021

-          Revisions Due                31. March 2021

-          Submit to Publisher     7. May 2021

-       Online Publication       30. July 2021

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The special issue editors invite colleagues worldwide to prepare extended
abstracts for a proposed article contribution. Please submit a one-page
proposal to the editorial team via email by 1 August 2020, and kindly
contact the editors with questions or for additional information. First
drafts of invited articles will be due will be due 1 November 2020, and
final manuscripts will be due 1 May 2021. Manuscripts will be limited to 20
manuscript pages (c. 5.000 words), including abstract, references,
two-dimensional tables, and figures.

SPECIAL EDITORS

Dr. Massimo Ragnedda (Senior Lecturer in Mass Communications, Northumbria
University, UK). Email: massimo.ragnedda at northumbria.ac.uk

Prof. Dr. Glenn W. Muschert (Professor of Sociology, Khalifa University,
UAE).

Email: glenn.muschert at ku.ac.ae

______________

*Massimo Ragnedda* <http://northumbria.academia.edu/MassimoRagnedda>

Senior Lecturer in Mass Communication

Squires Building 306f, Northumbria University, NE8 1ST  Newcastle (UK)

Tel: 01912437444

Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State
University <http://www.journ.msu.ru/eng/news/27610/>

*Most recent books*:

Massimo Ragnedda (2020). Enhancing Digital Equity. Connecting the Digital
Underclass <https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030490782#aboutBook>,
Palgrave (in press).

Massimo Ragnedda and Maria Laura Ruiu (2020). Digital Capital. A
Bourdieusian Perspective on the Digital Divide
<https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Digital-Capital/?k=9781839095535>,
Emerald.

Massimo Ragnedda (2017) *The Third Digital Divide: A Weberian approach to
digital inequalities* <http://bit.ly/2f8FObg>, Routledge.

*Most recent edited books*:

Massimo Ragnedda and Anna Gladkova eds (2020). Digital Inequalities in the
Global South <https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030327057>. Palgrave.

Bruce Mutsvairo and Massimo Ragnedda eds (2019) Mapping the Digital Divide
in Africa. A Mediated Analysis.
<https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789462986855/mapping-the-digital-divide-in-africa>
Amsterdam University Press

Massimo Ragnedda and Glenn Muschert, eds (2018) *Theorizing Digital Divide*
<http://bit.ly/2y9WSLm>, Routledge