Mobile Media (2-4 July, 2007)

an international conference on social and cultural aspects of mobile phones, convergent media, and wireless technologies 2-4 July 2007 The University of Sydney, Australia

Barely twenty-five years since their commercial introduction, mobile cellular phones are widely used around the world. Having become an important technology for voice and text communication in the daily lives of billions of people, mobiles are now recognised as central for contemporary transformations in cultural and social practices, and in new developments in computing, media, telecommunications, Internet, and entertainment.

Equipment manufacturers, cultural and content producers, and user groups and creative communities are focussing on the possibilities of mobile media - with mobiles and wireless technologies, platforms, services, applications, and cultural forms being designed, manufactured, and reconfigured as convergent media.

Various forms of mobile media have been imagined for sometime, and are now a reality: mobile Internet, new forms of mobile text, mobile music, mobile film and video, mobile games, mobile learning, mobile media for the workplace, videotelephony, and mobile television. This relatively short history of mobile telephony is concurrently marked by the shift of the role of users from consumers to active producers - and mobile media is being heralded as a new site for consumption, democratic expression, individualism, citizenship, and creativity.

In this international conference, held at the University of Sydney, Australia, 2-4 July 2007, we aim to comprehensively analyse and debate mobile media - exploring its emerging structures, features, practices, value chains, producers and audiences, delving into its social, cultural, aesthetic and commercial implications, and debating its futures.

The conference will feature leading scholars including Genevieve Bell (Intel), Stuart Cunningham (Queensland University of Technology), Shin Dong Kim (Hallym University), Leopoldina Fortunati (University of Undine), Leslie Haddon (LSE), Angel Lin (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Dong Hoo Lee (Incheon University), Rich Ling (Telenor), Shin Mizukoshi (University of Tokyo), Raul Pertierra (Ateneo de Manila and University of Philippines), Misa Matsuda (Chuo University) and Judy Wajcman (Australian National University).

We also invite papers on all aspects of mobile media, including, but certainly not restricted to:

* what does it mean to talk about mobiles as media? * how do we map and theorise the transformations underway with mobile platforms, applications, and networks? * mobile art * mobiles and photography * emerging cultural and narrative forms for mobiles (such as mobile films and videos) * intersections between mobiles and Internet technologies * wireless technologies and cultures * mobile television, radio, and other kinds of broadcasting * video calling and communications * sexuality, intimacy, and mobile media * mobile media and national or regional cultures * subcultures, minority cultures, majoritarian cultures, and mobile media * how do gender, sexuality, disability, socio-economics, cultural and linguistic contexts inflect cultural practices in the far-from-even-and-even terrain of mobiles? * mobile media and political economy * mobile gaming * what are the implications of mobile media for our concepts of culture, communication, and media * mobiles, community, and public sphere * mobile media, place and space * ramifications of mobile media for creative, cultural and media industries * challenges of mobile media for policy, regulation, and legislation.

Abstracts of 300 words are due by 10 September 2006 (please send copy of abstract to both organizers).

Acceptance advised by 20 September 2006, with full papers due by 15 January 2007.

All papers will be subject to masked peer review and published in the conference proceedings.

For further information, contact: Gerard Goggin, Media & Communications, University of Sydney,  (gerard.goggin@arts.usyd.edu.au); Larissa Hjorth, Games programs, RMIT University (larissa.hjorth@rmit.edu.au).

Conference website (from August 2006): www.mobilemedia2007.net

Digital Feminisms: Gender and New Technologies

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - Volume 32.2Digital Feminisms:  Gender and New Technologies

The complexity of new technologies has altered the way we think about time, space and ourselves in the digital age. Whether it is business, media, entertainment, advocacy, art, education, social action, politics, paid and unpaid work, or a myriad of other sites of contention, the ability of new technology to converge with and transform past, present and future ways of interacting with the world in which we live has immense and wide-ranging implications.

Given this context, we are seeking contributions to a special issue of Atlantis focused on Gender and New Technologies. We invite submissions that contribute to an inquiry on how new technologies have informed gender's self expression and histories; affected gender, race and culture; influenced the representation of gender; and changed the way in which gender issues are viewed or pursued. In pursuit of a diverse and wide-ranging debate, the issue seeks contributions from a broad range of areas, including Women's Studies, Gender Studies, New Media, Cultural, Film and Communications Studies, History, Visual Arts, Computer Science and any other area relevant to the discussion. Given the complexities of new technologies, we wish to encourage submissions that think across geographical divides, histories and media, including (but not limited to) the Internet, digital arts, locative media, WiFi, aesthetic and narrative analysis, film, video, television, educational software/delivery, medical technologies, and visual and digital art.

Interdisciplinary approaches combining target areas are also welcomed.  Possible topics for this issue include, but are not limited to: * New technologies, gender and self * Gender and digital art * New technologies, gender and race * Gender and convergent technologies * New technologies, gender and media * Gender and the digital body * New technologies, gender and history * Gender and digital networking * New technologies, gender and environmentalism * Gender and discourses in computer science * New technologies, gender and social action * Gender and digital identities * Gender and issues of access to new technologies

All contributions should be accessible to an audience from many different backgrounds interested in participating in the creation and sharing of feminist knowledge. Atlantis articles are peer reviewed. They contribute to a publication that strives to meet the most significant academic and feminist expectations of our colleagues. Articles submitted for consideration must be no longer than 6000 words (including notes, references, appendices, etc.) and must be typed double-spaced. Please send submissions, in sextuplicate, addressed to Cecily Barrie at the Atlantis address below.

Information regarding the contributors' guidelines may be found at the web site (www.msvu.ca/atlantis), or by contacting the Atlantis office.

Please note: When an article is accepted for publication in Atlantis, we ask that the contributor subscribe to the journal for one year. Like many other journals, our fiscal base is vulnerable. Subscribers to Atlantis create the possibility for the dissemination of feminist knowledge in the form of peer reviewed articles, community voices, curriculum reflections and book reviews. As contributors of peer reviewed articles, their subscriptions will assist in keeping the journal in print and available to the larger community of feminist thinkers and doers. In exchange, they will receive both the spring and fall editions plus an extra copy of the edition carrying their article.

GUEST EDITORS:      Sheila Petty and Barbara Crow SUBMISSION DEADLINE:  February 1, 2007

Institute for the Study of Women / Mount Saint Vincent University Halifax NS Canada B3M 2J6 / tel: 902-457-6319 fax: 902-443-1352

IEET meeting in Second Life

IEET meeting in Second Life

Originally uploaded by andymiah.

Well, after days of planning, I just caught the tail end of the first IEET seminar in Second Life. Just in time to take a couple of shots, while I was there. I'm pretty new to this environment and discovering new aspects of geekdom, which are pretty interesting. New research themes are 'built' very quickly.

Fred Turner

After spending some time with Jeremy today, he introduced me to Fred. We spent around 45minutes just talking about our respective takes on the development of cyberculture as a mode of inquiry. The programme here at Stanford seems excellent; my kind of digital culture. It's so nice to meet a fellow cyber theorist, I don't seem to have encountered many in my recent travels, which just reminds me of how much bioethics I am doing at the moment.

surveillance camera players

Some of my work at the moment has moved into issues of exploring mobile communications and the city. The inspiration for these ideas are the works of Guy Debord, Henri Lefebvre and our contemporary William Mitchell. Also, trawling through back issues of the Journal of Urban Technology makes for interesting reading.  So, it was interesting to see an email about the Players arrive in my inbox. I had not heard of them (ashamed) but they seem to have made an interesting contribution.

Playing with Convergence

Call for Papers:  Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies Vol 13 no 4   Special Issue: Playing with convergence – digital games   The field of Game Studies is maturing beyond the boisterous binary positioning that characterised its early development, with even those in attendance during the early ‘theory wars’ attempting rapprochements of one kind or another (e.g. Juul 2005, Jenkins 2003).  The process of disciplinary development has shown that the most vociferously held early positions are simply inadequate to the task of accounting for the complex and diverse pleasures of gameplay, and the jostling to define games in general may even have distracted from  a proper critical focus on the games themselves.   We no longer need to describe our object of study as though to the uninitiated, nor do we need to persuade a resistant audience that games are cultural objects worthy of detailed critical analysis.  This special issue is particularly interested in work which demonstrates a familiarity with the debates that have shaped the emergent field but which show the confidence to develop those earlier debates through detailed, sustained analysis of individual games.   For this special issue of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies we are seeking original Research into videogames, and we are particularly interested in the following areas: consideration of the work of particular designers or design teams, reflections on the status of authorship in games, and reflections on the relationship between visual design and gameplay in particular games and considerations of the relationship between particular games and broader visual traditions.   We seek a variety of approaches that represent the diversity of work in game studies, from textual analysis through to ethnographic studies of players and historical investigations.   Authors should submit expressions of interest or papers to helen.kennedy@uwe.ac.uk <mailto:helen.kennedy@uwe.ac.uk>  or jason.wilson@luton.ac.uk <mailto:jason.wilson@luton.ac.uk> Deadline: 30th November 2006   www.luton.ac.uk/convergence <http://www.luton.ac.uk/convergence> http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsProdDesc.nav?prodId=Journal201774

  Jason Wilson

Reviews Editor - Convergence

School of Media, Art and Design University of Luton Park Square Luton Bedfordshire LU1 3JU United Kingdom

T +44 (0)1582 489114 F +44 (0)1582 489212 M  07886508141 jason.wilson@luton.ac.uk

Playing with Mother Nature

I wonder what happened to this...  Call for Papers: Playing with Mother Nature: Video Games, Space, and Ecology Editors Sidney I. Dobrin, Cathlena Martin, and Laurie Taylor seek proposals for a new collection of original articles that address the useand place of space and ecology in video games. This collection willexamine video games in terms of the spaces they create and use, the metaphors of space on which they rely, and the ecologies that they createwithin those spaces. This collection will address the significantintersections in terms of how and why video games construct space and ecology as they do, and in terms of how those constructions shapeconceptions of both space and ecology. The editors seek proposals for innovative papers that explore theintersections between ecocriticism, theories of spatiality, and videogames. Ecocriticism of video games straddles studying ecology as the Earth (or alternate world setting), nature, and land, while adding physical representation and experimentation through video game spaces and other technological spaces. These video games spaces create their own spatial practice through their representation and through the players' lived interaction with the gaming environments as constructed worlds.Video game spatial analysis comprises the created representation of space in the games, the players' experiences with those spaces, and the nuances by which those spaces are constructed and conveyed, including theirportrayal of cultural norms for space and spatiality. In addition, the editors are looking for several papers that specifically address children's culture and education in terms of video games, space, andecology.

Editors seek contributions which explore and initiate conversations using the triple lens of ecology, space, and video games about areas that may, but will not necessarily, pertain to:

• Role of imaginary space in video games
• Implications of Soja's Thirdspace and other spatial theories on videogames
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life (AL) and the creationof artificial ecologies
• Games specifically designed for education about ecological concerns,places, or uses (Oregon Trail, free online games)
• Over-all ecological educational/conceptual effect of video games
• Environment in video games and how it is constructed spatially andrhetorically
• Relationship of the players to the game worlds arenas, landscapes,cities, and worlds
• Rhetorical effect of nostalgic and romantic representations of nature
• How video games effect eco literacies
• Rhetorical effect of architecture and the creation of game spaces
• Function of utopian and dystopian World Constructions
• Creation of communities within artificial lands (often in MMORPGs, likeEverquest homes and communities)
• Ecologies of play: evolutionary change and progression (powerups andenemy progression in relation to evolutionary models); cycle of life anddeath and the disruption of that cycle with re-play
• Game creatures / anthropomorphism; cyborgs / cloning
• Relationship of science and nature (control in games like Zoo Tycoon,science as a perversion of nature sci-fi games)
• Analysis of ecolological tropes: mastery or control of nature (SIMCITYand the natural disasters as the opponent; land as something to becontrolled and colonized in Civilization)
• Cultural construction of nature (prevalence of post apocalyptic worldsin Japanese games like Final Fantasy)
• Virtual zoos viewing and capturing 'nature' (photographs of alien creatures in Beyond Good and Evil, capturing creatures in Pokemon)
• Intersections of eco-theories and visual rhetoric as portrayed in video games
• Historical representations of physical spaces and its relationship to the cultural definitions of those spaces (Battlefield 1942, Medal ofHonor)

All articles should pertain specifically to game studies scholarship and/or pedagogy. Articles that lend to the theoretical and criticalscholarship of video game studies will be favored. The editors are lessinterested in submissions that simply offer readings of particular games in order to identify that a game might be 'read' as ecological.

Please send a proposal of 500-750 words and a contributor's bio by November 1, 2004 to (preferably) e-mail or snail mail address below.(Early inquiries and submissions are highly encouraged). Authors will benotified of acceptance by December 1, 2004. Final drafts of articles will be due: April 1, 2004.

For more information, please email the editors or see the longer CFP online: http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/~ltaylor/ecology.html

Sdobrin@english.ufl.edu, Cmartin@english.ufl.edu, or Ltaylor@english.ufl.edu

Sidney Dobrin, Cathlena Martin, and Laurie Taylor Department of English University of Florida PO Box 117310 Gainesville, Florida, 32611-7311

Ted Nelson

I'm here in FACT where tonight they have the first in a programme of lectures in honour of the late Roy Stringer (first FACT Chairman). Ted Nelson is the speaker and, rather ashamedly, I am unable to attend as we have tickets booked for the theatre! I have only just joined FACT so I attribute my lack of knowledge about this lecture to this small detail. I might try to sneak in to see some of it though and it would be great to meet this leader of digital culture.  PS: Join FACT.

 

Ethical Communications (4 July, 2006)

Ethical Communicators: inaugural conference of the Institute ofCommunication Ethics AU/NZ

1.30 - 6pm 4 July, 2006 Napier Building, University of Adelaide, Australia

Hosts: Institute of Communication Ethics (ICE), with help from the Australia New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA)

Contact: Donald Matheson, University of Canterbury, NZ - donald.matheson@canterbury.ac.nz

To launch the Australia-New Zealand branch of the Institute of Communication Ethics, a one-day conference will be held immediately before the 2006 ANZCA annual meeting with the theme, Ethical Communicators. Expressions of interest and abstracts are invited now from scholars and practitioners on the ethical dimensions of communication. Deadline: May 30, 2006.

Papers are particularly invited which explore the following areas in relation to communication practices and professions:

ethical best practice ethical codes ethical problems in practice discourse ethics public policy implications

As an interdisciplinary group, ICE invites contributions from a wide range of areas, including applied ethics, communication, computing, cultural studies, discourse studies, education, information technology, journalism, law, management communication, marketing, philosophy, psychology, public relations and sociology.

Keynote speakers are:

Prof Simon Rogerson, Director, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, UK

Dr Edward Spence, Senior Lecturer, School of Communication, Charles Sturt University

The format will be informal and will emphasise discussion. To that end, aside from the keynotes, presenters will be asked to talk briefly (10 minutes) to their papers. Papers will be made available.

Costs is still being finalised, but will be low. We hope to make attendance free or at a nominal cost for ICE members and those who join at the event. Lunch will be provided at a small cost.

Please email donald.matheson@canterbury.ac.nz for further information or to register your interest.

See you there,

Donald Matheson

-- Dr Donald Matheson Senior Lecturer Programme in Mass Communication School of Political Science and Communication University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha Private Bag 4800 Christchurch 8020 New Zealand tel: +63 3 366 7001 ext 7888 fax: +64 3 364 2414

check out - Media Discourses (Open UP 2005) <http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/033521469X.html>

Geek Entertainment TV

This feels a little like bandwagoning, but I guess it is the right kind. After all, my friend Sarah Pullman and 'Kris and the Gang' (much cooler than kool) have been visible there. Anyway, I will speak about Geek Entertainment TV my final lecture on my Cyberculture course tomorrow, so here's the link. Critical insights into that whole webby thing and pretty funny too.

Pervasive and Locative Arts Network (PLAN)

PLAN

an interesting new project which will:

"bring together practicing artists, technology developers and ethnographers with the aim of advancing interdisciplinary understanding and building consortia for future collaborative projects. It will be of relevance to people working in the arts, games, education, tourism, heritage, science and engineering.

The network will stage three major gatherings. Each gathering will have a distinct form and focus: an initial workshop to launch the network and assess the state of the art; a technology summer camp for artists and technologists, including hands-on prototyping sessions using the facilities at Nottingham's Mixed reality Laboratory; and a major public conference and participatory exhibition as a central component of the Futuresonic 2006 festival in Manchester; as well as a supporting web site and other resources."

Global Gaming Crackdown

Quoting from a Wired article. This raises a whole range of questions... "In the United States, virtual worlds could eventually have the same legal status as another lucrative recreation industry: pro sports. The NHL isn't exempt from federal legislation like labor, antitrust, and drug laws. But inside the "magic circle," on the field of play, sports leagues are given great latitude to make judgments, even though jobs, endorsement contracts, and the value of team franchises hang in the balance." Global Gaming Crackdown: How governments from Beijing to the Beltway could shackle your freedom By Chris Suellentrop

Recognition of blogging as legitimate writing form

An anonymous blogger has been nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. A great message for those new writers who are beginning to make their way into the writing world. 

Video games tackle 'lazy eye'

University of Nottingham VIRAT lab demonstrate improvements to patients with 'amblyopia (lazy eye) by using computer games as an integral part of the therapy. More from the BBC.

More from the VIRAT 'I-BIT' project. 

Handsets get taken to the grave

The BBC reports this story, which just takes things way too far! My first thought was confirmed in this article, that many people want them just in case they wake up. It goes on to suggest that these gadgets are status symbols for some people, which reminds us of how different meanings are attached to the same technological artefacts. It's not just a mobile phone!

Information, Communication and New Media Studies: Good for What? (2 Feb, 2006)

Chairs:William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute; Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council.

Panelists to include: - Vera Franz, OSI, London - Alison Bernstein, Ford Foundation, New York - Sean O'Siochru, NEXUS, Dublin - Karen Banks, Association of Progressive Communication, London - Richard Allen, Cisco Systems

Date: 02 February 2006, 17:00 - 18:30 Location: Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JS

Attendance: This panel discussion is open to the public, but places are strictly limited. If you are interested in attending please email your name and affiliation, if any, to events@oii.ox.ac.uk. As places are so limited they will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

This event will be webcast and available to view on our website at http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/ from Friday 3rd February 2006.

Abstract New media, such as the Internet and other convergent information and communication technologies (ICTs), are now widely used in ways that are reshaping political, economic, cultural, legal, scientific, and other activities. The interrelated outcomes in the public sphere of these diverse uses of the Internet and new media by communities, individuals, and private and public organizations are leading to wide-ranging societal transformations, both locally and globally. The pervasive nature of this growing digital mediation and governance of social life has stimulated rethinking of research practices, institutional arrangements, and policies needed to provide better accounts and understandings of such transformations.

Over the past decade, digital convergence has been accompanied by a partial realignment of research around the technologies themselves, most notably in the form of efforts to build better-integrated, more-fluid models of engagement across social and technical disciplinary boundaries. No established field, dominant paradigm or appropriate institutional restructuring has emerged to take advantage of the new multidisciplinary research opportunities. However, distinctive approaches and themes for research on the social dimensions of new media and related ICTs-such as the relationship between ICTs, public life, media, and governance-have been created within communication and media fields, information studies, social informatics, computer science, law, the humanities, and the core social sciences. Some of these new configurations have acquired stability within or between fields; in other cases, they are characterized mostly by isolated experiments.

This is an open session designed to stimulate and inform an invited workshop to be held on 3-4 February. Panelists in policy, practice and advocacy fields will provide brief perspectives on the intersection between research and more applied agendas. It is an opportunity to reflect on what constituencies outside the research field expect from information, communication and media studies. Can it meet these expectations? Under what conditions?

For further information on all OII events, please refer to our website

Kind regards The Events Team

Oxford Internet Institute 1 St Giles University of Oxford Oxford OX1 3JS

Tel: +44 (0)1865 287209 Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211

Web Lecture from Torino

While in Torino for the Games, I gave a lecture via some new software we are piloting at the University. Thanks to Kris, Boris and Robert for making this happen. After the death of one laptop and impossible firewalls at the Media Center, British Columbia Canada Place was really the only option. Thanks also to Daniel who convinced the pc to play ball. Andy Miah gives a remote university lecture

Originally uploaded by bmann.

Glasgow School of Art

Here I am sitting with 3 students from the GSA talking about the merits of wordpress and how it can provide many more facilities compared with other blogs. Kris, you have convinced me that this is worthwhile and I even went pro with Flick and I even talked about your work in the lecture. How much more of a rock star does that make you feel?

Sony Reader - the end of paper?

The sony reader claims to be look just like paper and hopes to revitalise the digital book market. I use a palmpilot lifedrive and frequently read articles from my endnote database in this unit. It is not particularly easy, navigation is frustrating and the size of the text field small, but it's possible and reasonably enjoyable. I have never used a digital book reader but look forward to the prospect of integrating it with my work. This new technology reminds me of a piece I wrote a few years ago about the future of publishing. At the time, there were still no clear means through which to archive websites and urls really seemed to matter. Recently, I have noticed that films no longer have a unique url attached to the trailers. One reason for this is surely that urls are becoming much less relevant as a decriptor of some virtual place. With increasingly powerful search engines, I rarely bother to note down urls anymore, especially when they are attached to articles. All too often, the domain name of the articles changes and the easiest way to find the piece is just to google the title.

Here's the title and url [;)]: (e)text:Error...404 Not Found! or the disappearance of history http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j005/Articles/AMiah.htm

10x Human-Machine superperformance

I am a long-distance member for one of Yale's inter-disciplinary bioethics group, which soon receives a talk from Professor Deb Roy. Taking a closer look at Roy's work draws me even nearer to the work at MIT. I visited there in April this year and was struck by the breadth of creative invention taking place there. This project 10x Human-Machine Symbiosis is discussed in an outline paper available from its website, wher Roy explains ths relationship between art, science and design.

In my various travels, I have found the richest of environments where a range of disciplines and views inform an approach to a problem, where it is difficult to characterise researchers as having expertise in specific domains. The more intriguing researchers seem to be those who apply a set of understandings to a range of applications.

More recently, I have been drawn towards architecture in work related to technology - such as William Mitchell's 'city of bits' - to research surrounding media spectacles - the Situationist Internationale are integral to a course I wrote on Spectacle. Today, I was reading an article about Unifying Urbanism, which described a use of communication technology within the city to de-fragment its evolving character. I struggle to separate out disciplinary perspectives when writing about culture. Far too much is connected.