[Air-L] iCS CfP: Geopolitics of Chinese internets

[Jack Qiu]

Dear AoIR colleagues,

Please consider submitting your work and help us spread the word.

Thank you!


****Call for Papers****



* The Geopolitics of Chinese Internets*



*A Special Issue of Information, Communication & Society (iCS)*



Guest Editors:

Jack Linchuan Qiu, National University of Singapore

Peter K. Yu, Texas A&M University

Elisa Oreglia, King’s College London





*Aim and Scope:*



Conceptions about The Internet, powerful and popular as they were, seem to
have ebbed away. The Great Firewall of China has more than withstood the
test of time. It has multiplied into countless fault lines within the
People's Republic, around it, and far beyond. The cosmopolitan cyberspace
has vanished due to Beijing's policies and practices, as well as forces
working against them. As a result, we now confront the complexity and
contradictions of many Chinese internets, in the plural.



This *iCS *special issue calls attention to the geopolitics of Chinese
internets, dissected through social, cultural, economic, discursive, and/or
historical approaches; using qualitative, quantitative, and/or
computational methods. By geopolitics we understand not only the role of
nation-states and classic international relations but also evolving
dynamics among private-sector and civil-society players as well as cultural
communities of all kinds. In the ruins of a single unified network, be it
Barlow's cyber-libertarian paradise or Beijing's "One World One Dream" à la
the 2008 Olympics, we need to first map out the lines of demarcation
between the Chinese and the others, and among the many Chinese Internets,
separated through sociopolitical, geo-linguistic, technocultural, as well
as ideological differences, which reinforce old divisions while producing
new ones.



Examining geostrategic fault lines that mark out the uneven landscape full
of disjunctures and tectonic clashes, we ask: What are the utility and
limits of key notions such as sovereignty and security?  How and why do we
get here? What's the balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces,
between top-down control and grassroots movements? How to prevent
discourses of conflict from being turned into actual wars between the
internets? Is it still important to pursue peace and unity? If so, how?



We welcome submissions addressing topics that include but are not limited
to:

-- the political economy of Chinese data and IT industries

-- information infrastructure buildup in the Belt and Road Initiative

-- Chinese tech giants facing pressure abroad or at home

-- the role of state in the formation of Chinese digital capitalism

-- comparative analysis of Internet law, regulation, and governance in
Chinese societies

-- market and non-market competition between Chinese and Western players in
different world-regions

-- technocultural and narrative communities based on gender, class, ethnic,
generational and other identities

-- digital borderlands surrounding China

-- informal digital economies within and outside the PRC

-- cyber attacks, cybercrime, and cyber risk

-- post-COVID information warfare and infodemics

-- spatial patterns of diaspora Chinese internets and geographies of
connectivity

-- patterns of use and appropriation of Chinese Internet services in
non-Chinese societies

-- colliding visions of Chinese internets, and their associated factions



*Logistics and Timeline:*



Interested authors should submit an 800-word abstract by 9 August 2021.
Please email your abstracts to Dr. Jack Qiu jacklqiu at nus.edu.sg while
copying his assistant Ms. Wang Ziyi wziyi27 at u.nus.edu Abstract screening
decisions will be made by 23 August 2021. Selected abstracts shall be
developed into full articles and submitted online through
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rics under the special issue title
"Geopolitics of Chinese internets" by 25 October 2021. All articles will
then go through the journal’s standard peer review process. Please follow
the Instructions for Authors
<https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rics20>
as published in *iCS* website. Our plan is to publish this special issue by
the end of 2022. For inquiries please contact Dr. Jack Qiu and Ms. Wang
Ziyi using the emails above.

-- 
Jack Linchuan Qiu, Ph.D.

Professor & Research Director <https://ap5.fas.nus.edu.sg/fass/cnmqlj/>, Dept
of Communications & New Media, <https://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cnm/> National U
of Singapore
President, CCA (Chinese Communication Association) <http://cca1.org>
New article, "Effects of digital media upon labor knowledge and attitudes
<https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1933565>", iCS (2021)
New special issue of *Comunicação e Sociedade,* "Digital Platforms in
Connected Economies
<https://revistacomsoc.pt/index.php/revistacomsoc/issue/view/175>" (2021)
New special issue of *China Perspectives,* "Agency beyond Precarity
<https://www.cefc.com.hk/issue/china-perspectives-2021-1/>" (2021)
Chapter, Toward a sustainable information society, in Routledge Handbook of
Digital Media and Comm
<https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Digital-Media-and-Communication/Lievrouw-Loader/p/book/9781138672093>
 (2020)
Special issue of *Contracampo: Brazilian J of Comm,* "Platform Labor
<https://periodicos.uff.br/contracampo/issue/view/2137/showToc>" (2020)


-- 
Jack Linchuan Qiu, Ph.D.

Professor & Research Director <https://ap5.fas.nus.edu.sg/fass/cnmqlj/>, Dept
of Communications & New Media, <https://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cnm/> National U
of Singapore
President, CCA (Chinese Communication Association) <http://cca1.org>
New article, "Effects of digital media upon labor knowledge and attitudes
<https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1933565>", iCS (2021)
New special issue of *Comunicação e Sociedade,* "Digital Platforms in
Connected Economies
<https://revistacomsoc.pt/index.php/revistacomsoc/issue/view/175>" (2021)
New special issue of *China Perspectives,* "Agency beyond Precarity
<https://www.cefc.com.hk/issue/china-perspectives-2021-1/>" (2021)
Chapter, Toward a sustainable information society, in Routledge Handbook of
Digital Media and Comm
<https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Digital-Media-and-Communication/Lievrouw-Loader/p/book/9781138672093>
 (2020)
Special issue of *Contracampo: Brazilian J of Comm,* "Platform Labor
<https://periodicos.uff.br/contracampo/issue/view/2137/showToc>" (2020)