CFP Roundup 11/27


CFP: Informed Experiences, Designing Consent

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 – 1:00am

Informed Experiences, Designing Consent is a symposium interrogating the intersections of consent and the design of interactive media and technologies. The symposium is hosted at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago by the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and the HASTAC Scholars fellowship program on April 6, 2019. It is organized by Michael Anthony DeAnda, Elisabeth Hildt, Kelly Laas, and Leilasadat Mirghaderi.

Informed Experiences, Designing Consent is a one-day event intended to bring together researchers, scholars, practitioners, and designers to consider the implications of theoretical, social, and material aspects of consent and design. Some examples of topics include: consent to participate in social media, user agreement, consent in gaming, informed consent to data collection and use, consent in digital humanities research. This workshop will consider ethical approaches to each of these respective fields of study and development. This event emphasizes theory and practice, structured on an iterative process of Learn, Make, Reflect. Here, participants will begin by listening to a panel on the topic of consent and design, then move to a group maker breakout session to design based off key concepts from the panel and return together to reflect on the process.

We invite researchers, scholars, practitioners, designers, makers, and ethicists to submit proposals for 10-15 minute presentations and to attend this event, particularly those interested in consent as it applies to:

  • Ethics and philosophy
  • Informed Consent
  • Design of experiences
  • Game design and gaming culture
  • Design and study of User Experience
  • Website development
  • Application design and mobile app design
  • User Interface Design
  • Data collection
  • Digital Humanities
  • Social Media Research
  • User agreements
  • Audience studies
  • Design Research
  • Research Methods and Practices
  • Research Design
  • Storytelling and digital storytelling
  • Maker spaces and crafting

Proposal submissions should include a title, a 400-500 word abstract, and a bio of 100-150 words in length by January 23, 2019 to this form.

Any further questions may be directed to Michael DeAnda at mdeanda@hawk.iit.edu

 


SSRC Workshop on Race, Gender and Toxicity online

OVERVIEW The parallel rise of Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the so-called alt-right suggests that in 2018, political realities still vary significantly by race and gender. As ever-greater shares of our time are spent online, it is important to ask whether these realities are mirrored in the digital public sphere or whether— and how—they differ. How do women and/or minorities experience political interactions online? What is the relationship between social media / technology, the representation of women and/or minorities in the public sphere, and democratic governance? How have digital media, once lauded as “liberation technologies,” become efficient tools to harass and silence already marginalized groups?

WORKSHOP THEME

The Media & Democracy program at the Social Science Research Council invites submission of abstracts for a research workshop to be held at the University of Texas at Austin on April 25–26, 2019. This workshop will convene social scientists and humanities scholars whose work explores the intersection of race, gender, and the digital public sphere. Substantive research themes may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Toxicity and incivility online:

  • Are women and minorities more frequent targets of toxicity and inflammatory speech online (compared to other internet users)? What role does anonymity play in explaining variation in the intensity and targets of online toxicity/incivility? To what extent have targeted groups been able to carve out “safe spaces” online?

Representation and the public sphere:

  • Online spaces can simultaneously enable speech by previously unheard voices and be hostile to underrepresented minorities. How has the overall representation of voices in the public sphere changed in the era of the internet and social media? What are the consequences for public discourse and democracy?

Coordinated harassment campaigns:

  • How does the prevalence and impact of targeted harassment compare to past efforts to silence minority groups from asserting themselves in the public sphere? How have online tools of harassment evolved and changed over time? How centrally coordinated/encouraged are social media harassment campaigns? What can be done to reduce their prevalence or impact?

TO APPLY

To apply, please send the following materials to mdapplications@ssrc.org by December 10. Please include “Application for Race, Gender, and Toxicity Online” in the subject line.

  • Current C.V.
  • An abstract of 250–500 words, describing your proposed paper submission

 


CFP: What is Technology?

WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY? CONFERENCE-EXPERIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON PORTLAND • APRIL 11–13, 2019

What is Technology? will examine interactions and transactions among (1) practical arts and tools, (2) techniques and processes, (3) moral knowledge and imagination, to navigate our everchanging media/life/universe. In a broad sense, technology can be understood as (4) methods of intelligent inquiry and problem-solving in all domains of human life. The conference-experience will enact a collaborative network of transdisciplinary research by cultivating communication as the heart of science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics, and environments.

This year marks the ten-year anniversary and ninth annual What is…?, bringing together natural and social scientists, scholars, government officials, industry professionals, artists and designers, as well as alumni, students, community organizations, and the public. We invite proposals for scholarly papers, panels, and installations on a wide variety of issues and topics. Please see whatis.uoregon.edu for additional details.

Proposals may address the following questions (as well as others):
• What is technology? How are technologies & values related? What are velocities of technology (acceleration studies)?
• What are the forces of technology? Is there only one form of technology or different kinds?
• What are current approaches to the study of technologies? How is technology interpreted through various lenses (e.g. critical theory, cultural studies, eco-phenomenology, feminism, globalization, intersectionality, journalism, media studies, metamodernism, new materialism, political economy, posthumanism, rhetoric, semiotics, etc.)?
• What are philosophies of technology? Where do technology and ethics interface/interact?
• What is science and technology studies (STS)? What are the digital humanities (DH)? What is the relationship between science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and communication/media/film studies, or other disciplines in the humanities (e.g. anthropology, archaeology, comparative literature, curatorial studies, library studies, psychology, sociology)? What is STEM+C (computing), E-STEM (environmental), or STEMM (medicine)?
• How does technology relate to—or converge—music, architecture, design, craft, and/or art (e.g. STEAM)?
• How do technologies’ scale, pace, and pattern transform/limit their impact?
• What are immersive technologies (e.g. apps, Augmented/Virtual/Mixed Realities, IoT, gamification, etc.)?
• What are the implications of emerging technologies (e.g. AGI, creative coding, holography, information literacy, nano-bio-info-cogno, predictive analytics, regenerative medicine, risk analysis, robotics, 3D bio-printing, etc.)?
• How are the natural sciences and technology coming together (e.g. bioinspired design, biomimicry, data science, ecological system analysis, environmental analysis, synthetic biology, etc.)? Is biology itself technology?
• How do technologies obscure and/or highlight issues of gender, race, class, and/or indigeneity? What are indigenous knowledge and technologies? What is emerging research on equity, access, and learning?
• What are the positive/negative consequences of media technologies for the public interest?
• What relationships are there between technology and warfare, innovation and defense, etc.? What are emerging discourses of cyberinfrastructure, cyberlearning, cybertraining, or cyber security, etc.?
• How is technology related to disability studies, accessibility/alter-abled education, accessible/assistive technologies, and mobility? How does technology relate to birth/life/aging/death, and/or contemplation/well-being?
• What are technological determinism, technological realism, and technological humanism? technophilia versus technophobia, technological utopianism versus dystopianism, and/or technological singularity versus multiplicity?
• How is collective intelligence, and/or collective wisdom, engaging and/or changing our lives?
• How might technologies contribute to socio-technical community resilience and/or thriving communities?

Send 150–200 word abstracts for papers, panels, or installations by DECEMBER 21, 2018, to:
Janet Wasko • jwasko@uoregon.edu

University of Oregon • Eugene, Oregon • 97403-1275 • USA

 


Call for Papers: From Radical Science to STS

Deadline: January 15 2019

https://www.tandf.co.uk//journals/authors/style/reference/ref_CSAC.pdf

Updated: October 16 2018

A Forum section in the journal Science as Culture invites contributions that make sense of the autobiographical changes of radical scientists and critical commentators on technoscience, as well as of subsequent STS academics influenced by that earlier generation.

Many people who went on to become scholars and writers about technoscience in its social context were involved in or influenced by counter-cultural and radical activities from the 1970s. Sometimes called ‘radical science’, this political movement encompassed Science for the People in the USA and the Radical Science Journal in the UK, within the broader network of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science. Those experiences have informed many agendas, motivations and concepts in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Since the 1970s there has been a “proliferation of new institutions of deliberation, participation, activism, enterprise, and social movement mobilization” (Moore et al., 2011).

Questions to address:

How have your/their political activities informed your/their STS role and approach—or vice versa? What do you now see as worthwhile activities and outcomes? How has your view changed? What frameworks (STS and other) illuminate the relationship between the changing lives and the changing social contexts of such activities?

SaC Forum articles have a flexible format and structure. For the citation style (only), refer to https://www.tandf.co.uk//journals/authors/style/reference/ref_CSAC.pdf

Length limit: 6000 words. Deadline: 15 January 2019

Send to: peter.taylor@umb.edu


AoIR2019 Call for Proposals

The overarching theme of AoIR2019 will be Trust in the System.

Data Security Breach” by Blogtrepreneur can be reused under the CC BY license.

Trust is one of the most critical issues of our time: trust in our fellow Internet users; trust in the information we encounter in our online environments; trust in the data we produce and in the data that are continuously produced about us; trust in the algorithms that process and evaluate these data; trust in those who create the digital content we consume; trust in platforms and intermediaries that maintain our online spaces and that manage and trade in these data; trust in our national and regional governments that engage citizens over the Internet; trust in grassroots, social welfare and non-government organisations; trust in the regulatory bodies and political systems that are in charge of governing these systems of exchange. At every level, and spurred on by a rise in extremism and increased suspicion of others, our trust in the system is being challenged, presenting challenges for existing institutions and the opportunity to imagine new ones. The 2019 conference of the Association of Internet Researchers addresses these questions of trust.

Trust is one of the techno-emotions that shape sociality online (Svedmark, 2016), and is part of the process that guides the choices we make on the Internet (deLaat, 2008). Consequently, the data about us and our interactions that are produced and processed across a variety of digital devices encapsulate deeply personal and intimate facets of our digital selves. For the most part, these data are managed by commercial third-party platforms and applications, where many users have proven unable to exercise appropriate control of their data. While governments and other regulatory bodies seek to find appropriate settings for governance of a transnational, datafied society, trust in the government is an option only for the privileged, and undermined by the rise of populist and partisan regimes. At the same time, developers and activists have proposed and introduced a number of alternative, supposedly more trustworthy systems of their own, from Tor to Blockchain and beyond, but these, too, frequently embed only the limited worldviews of their creators. But ‘we’ are many, diverse, complicated, and contradictory, and in Internet research as much as in its development, governance, and use it is crucial that the voices of the marginalised finally be heard.

As Internet researchers at the intersection of critical studies of technology, culture, and society, the present crisis of trust in the system presents us with opportunities to seek new insights into these issues and provide advice and guidance for individuals, communities, governing bodies, policy-makers, and platform providers. While emergent technologies attempt to bridge the gap between users, developers, and processes, there is still significant work to be undertaken on critical issues such as rebuilding trust for Internet users. The 2019 AoIR conference in Brisbane, Australia, invites contributions that explore the question of whether we can still have, or how we might regain, trust in the system: in a world of unscrupulous actors and dubious data, how can we know what and whom to trust? Indeed, how might we change the system itself – rethinking, redesigning, rebuilding, repurposing it – to provide a more trustworthy experience for a broader, more diverse, more inclusive community of Internet users?

The 2019 Association of Internet Researchers conference welcomes contributions that address these themes, including but not limited to the following questions:

  • Trust in technologies and platforms: how might users operate safely on commercially owned platforms? What role do emergent, decentralised, autonomous technologies play?
  • Trust after Cambridge Analytica: what is the impact of this highly mediatised data breach? Do users understand the data trails of their actions on the Internet?
  • Interpersonal trust: can we trust our friends on the Internet? Does authenticity become a central element of trust online?
  • Trust in governance: if national governments lack leverage over transnational tech giants, who do citizens trust to act in their interest? How do powerful actors in Internet governance justify their influence, and how can they be held to account?
  • Trust in information: as mis- and disinformation spread, how do we identify trustworthy sources of information?
  • Trust by design: how can design and development processes be reshaped to ensure greater inclusion of diverse and marginalised communities?
  • Trust in theory: what theories of trust are available to describe the present moment and provide pointers to possible futures?
  • Trust in black boxes: how can scholars, civil society, regulators, and users interrogate the workings of only partially visible communication systems? What ethical, methodological, and practical challenges must they confront in doing so?
  • Trust in translation: how do issues of trust play out in different national and cultural contexts? How might we de-westernise current debates about trust by recognising different international perspectives, especially perhaps from the Asia-Pacific region?
  • Distrust in the system: how might trust’s darker side be addressed? What are the alternatives to trust?

 

 

 

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