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International Journal of Internet Research Ethics

Message sent around by Charles Ess announcing a new journal.... Announcing the release of the International Journal of Internet Research Ethics

Call for Papers for the Premier Issue of IJIRE

Description and Scope: The IJIRE is the first peer-reviewed online journal, dedicated specifically to cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural research on Internet Research Ethics. All disciplinary perspectives, from those in the arts and humanities, to the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences, are reflected in the journal.

With the emergence of Internet use as a research locale and tool throughout the 1990s, researchers from disparate disciplines, ranging from the social sciences to humanities to the sciences, have found a new fertile ground for research opportunities that differ greatly from their traditional biomedical counterparts. As such, "populations," locales, and spaces that had no corresponding physical environment became a focal point, or site of research activity. Human subjects protections questions then began to arise, acros disciplines and over time: What about privacy? How is informed consent obtained? What about research on minors? What are "harms" in an online environment? Is this really human subjects work? More broadly, are the ethical obligations of researchers conducting research online somehow different from other forms of research ethics practices?

As Internet Research Ethics has developed as its own field and discipline, additional questions have emerged: How do diverse methodological approaches result in distinctive ethical conflicts ­ and, possibly, distinctive ethical resolutions? How do diverse cultural and legal traditions shape what are perceived as ethical conflicts and permissible resolutions? How do researchers collaborating across diverse ethical and legal domains recognize and resolve ethical issues in ways that recognize and incorporate often markedly different ethical understandings?

Finally, as "the Internet" continues to transform and diffuse, new research ethics questions arise ­ e.g., in the areas of blogging, social network spaces, etc. Such questions are at the heart of IRE scholarship, and such general areas as anonymity, privacy, ownership, authorial ethics, legal issues, research ethics principles (justice, beneficence, respect for persons), and consent are appropriate areas for consideration.

The IJIRE will publish articles of both theoretical and practical nature to scholars from all disciplines who are pursuing‹or reviewing‹IRE work. Case studies of online research, theoretical analyses, and practitioner-oriented scholarship that promote understanding of IRE at ethics and institutional review boards, for instance, are encouraged. Methodological differences are embraced.

Publication Schedule: The IJIRE is published twice annually, March 1, and October 15. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, and are subject to Editorial and Peer Review.

Subscription: Free

Editors- in- Chief: Elizabeth A. Buchanan, Ph.D. Director, Center for Information Policy Research School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee elizabeth.buchanan@gmail.com

Charles M. Ess, Ph.D. Distinguished Research Professor Drury University cmess@drury.edu <mailto:cmess@drury.edu>

Editorial Board: Andrea Baker, Ohio University, USA Heidi Campbell, Texas A&M University, USA Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green State University, USA Jeremy Hunsinger, Virginia Tech, USA Mark Johns, Luther College, USA Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba, Japan Tomas Lipinski, JD, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA Ulf-Dietrich Reips, Universität Zürich, Switzerland Susannah Stern, San Diego State University, USA Malin Sveningsson, Ph.D., Karlstad University, Sweden

Style Guidelines: Manuscripts should be submitted to ijire@sois.uwm.edu <mailto:ijire@sois.uwm.edu> ; articles should be double-spaced, and in the range of 5000-15,000 words, though announcements of IRE scholarship, case studies, and book reviews of any length can be submitted for review. Please ensure that your manuscript is received in good format (proper English language usage, grammatical structure, spelling, punctuation, and compliance with APA reference style). The IJIRE follows the American Psychological Association's 5th edition. Articles should include an abstract no longer than 100 words, full names and contact information of all authors, and an author's biography of 100 words or less.

Copyright: In the spirit of open access, IJIRE authors maintain copyright control of their work. Any subsequent publications related to the IJIRE work must reference the IJIRE and the original publication date and url.

Web site: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS/cipr/ijire.html

Mobilities Journal

I've just been taking a look at the new Routledge Journal titled 'Mobilities'. Currently working on a chapter for The Medicalization of Cyberspace that draws extensively on this notion, I'm struck by how wide the concept might apply. Much of the journal so far focuses on automobiles, which reminds me of some of the work I've read in the philosophy of technology literature. Nevertheless, I'm sure this journal will become influential as this term becomes all the more intriguing by the prevasive movement of data. My interest is particularly from the perspective of urban mobility. The work I've done at the various Olympic Games has been interested to examine how both screens and hand held technology become an integral part of the development of community. This draws on the work by William J. Mitchell whose 'City of Bits' has informed a lot of my ideas in this area, along with Paul Virilio's various works..

Our Sporting Future (21-23 March, 2007)

Next month, I jet across to Brisbane to give a keynote by the title:  New Media Futures: The Challenge from Posthumanity.

The emerging technologies of new media are changing the way people work, enjoy leisure and communicate. This paper will explore the challenge raised from the convergence of technology platforms and scope the scene for what lies ahead for sports involvement. The paper identifies two crucial trends in development, the process towards ‘immersion’ (bringing audiences closer to the arena) and ‘abstraction’ (bringing athletes closer to simulated arenas) and discusses the collapse of bodies and technology as distinct categories, which raises prospects of the posthuman performer in competition. The discussion considers what tomorrow’s people will expect from the mediatisation of sports and explores some of the implications this has for the organisation of society and the role of technology within it. While dominant cultural narratives portray such futures as inhuman or dehuman, I argue that these transformations offer rich variation to contemporary life by appealing to imaginative ways of communication and embodiment.

I will also take part in a debate about the role of science in the contribution of winning medals.  It looks to be an exciting event and it's nearly 7 years since I've been to Australia. I just wish I was there for longer!

From YouTube to YouNiversity

I just read the Chronicle article (From YouTube to YouNiversity, Feb 16, 2007) by Henry Jenkins on what might be learned by universities from the current buzz surrounding Web 2.0. It's a great piecce that reminds academics to get up to speed with the new social spaces online or face a new kind of redundancy! He raises the importance of comparative work in media studies to accommodate this new componenent of global culture. I think it particularly difficult for publicly funded bodies to develop tools that are truly cutting edge unless they find ways of utilising open source platforms. I have worked with so many new platforms for teaching that either fail to materialise due to funding changes or just simply were not competitive, that it's hard to see how universities can continue to innovate with online platforms without acknowledging the limitations of a top-down system.

I particularly like his final claim:

The modern university should work not by defining fields of study but by removin obstacles so that knowledge can circulate and be reconfigured in new ways.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

A great video sent to me by Thomas Connolly, former Cyberculture student at Paisley.... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl=]

Ubiquitous Media: Asian Transformations (13-16 July, 2007)

After having been in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur in the last 6 months, the Asian bug is hard to resist (obviously, I don't mean avian flu). This looks like a good event and I'm in the middle of reviewing another article for Theory, Culture & Society as I write this! Ubiquitous Media: Asian Transformations IIIS Tokyo University / Theory, Culture & Society 25th Anniversary Conference

http://www.u-mat.org/

Tokyo University Hongo Campus 13-16 July 2007

Abstract Submission Deadline : 31st March 2007

Conference Outline

Today media are increasingly ubiquitous: more and more people live in a world of Internet pop-ups and streaming television, mobile phone texting and video clips, MP3 players and pod-casting. The media mobility means greater connectivity via smart wireless environments in the office, the car and airport. It also offers greater possibilities for recording, storage and archiving of media content. This provides not just the potential for greater choice and flexibility in re-working content (tv programmes, movies, music, images, textual data), but also great surveillance (CCTV cameras, computer spyware, credit data checking and biometrics). The media, then, can no longer be considered to be a monolithic structure producing uniform media effects. Terminology such as 'multi-media,' and 'new media,' fail to adequately capture the proliferation of media forms. Indeed, as media become ubiquitous they become increasingly embedded in material objects and environments, bodies and clothing, zones of transmission and reception. Media pervade out bodies, cultures and societies.

These ubiquitous media constitute our consumer and brand environment. Their interfaces and codes pervade our bodies and our biology. They pervade our urban spaces. They are ubiquitous in art, religion and our use of language. Yet from another angle art and language are, and have immemorially been, media. Media are about the physical, algorithm and generative code; but they are also immaterial and metaphysical. Communication is about channels and hardware/software; but communication is also about communion and community. Media deal in images: that is in the material; but their idiom is also symbols and the transcendental.

To theorize about today's world, we evidently need to theorize media. Yet to theorize media also means we need to focus on how technological media are used in everyday practices. Not least, we need to address the question of the relationship of media practices to politics. This opens up questions about the formation of informed publics, new social movements and media events, not just the alleged need to combat media terrorism, nationalism and crime. Suggesting further questions about the power and influence of transnational media, intellectual property rights and openness of access. Raising issues of generativity, creativity and critical intervention.

Asia - East Asia, South Asia, and increasingly crucial, the Middle East - are becoming sites for these processes. Global geopolitics has been restructured by the 'rise' of China and India and the turbulence of the Middle East. With concomitant transformations of the role of the West and Japan, this conference becomes also a question of 'ubiquitous Asia.' These transformations are producing new trans-Asian culture industries, social movements and activism. At stake are a set of transformations of Asian culture(s) itself - of language, and modes of cultural thought and being. We will seek to address these questions of media transformations and their relation to social and cultural processes in a number of plenary sessions, paper sessions, round tables and events.

Plenary Speakers

will include:

Rem Koolhaas (OMA Rotterdam) Mark B. N. Hansen (University of Chicago) Katherine Hayles (UCLA) Ken Sakamura (Tokyo University) Barbara Stafford (University of Chicago) Friedrich Kittler (Humboldt University) Akira Asada (Kyoto University) Bernard Stiegler (Centre Georges-Pompidou)

About Theory, Culture & Society

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals... (Sage Publication) http://ntu.ac.uk/research/... (Nottingham Trent University)

About IIIS Tokyo University

http://www.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

Journal of Electronic Publishing

Today, I rediscoverd this journal (Journal of Electronic Publishing), which I was reading a few years ago. I learned that it re-launched in 2006, which is good news indeed! It was instrumental to my writing on this subject in 2003, which led to the article  in Culture Machine. Miah, A. (2003) (e)text: Error…404 Not Found!, or the Disappearance of History, Culture Machine: The E-Issue, 5,  [Available from: http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j005/Articles/AMiah.htm]

SEMINAR with STANZA (15 Jan, 2007, 4-5pm)

SEMINAR with STANZA MONDAY 15 JANUARY, 4-5pm, Digital Studios Space, Ben Pimlott building, ground floor left. Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME

Stanza is AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow, GDS (2006-2009). He is a London-based artist, who specialises in net art, multimedia, and electronic sounds. The research he is undertaking as part of his AHRC Fellowship with GDS is around The Emergent City, an exploration of data within cities and how this can be represented visualized and interpreted. Data from security tracking, traffic data, and sensor data for environmental monitoring can all be interpreted as a medium to make process led artworks. The underlying theme or main research question is concerned with the organic emergence of the =93city=94. Cities clearly have a character, but do they have a 'soul'? If so, then what can be determined about the validity of the city experience in relation to its 'character', or 'soul', or spirit'?

Stanza's award winning online projects have been invited for exhibition in digital festivals around the world, and Stanza also travels extensively to present his net art, lecturing and giving performances of his audiovisual interactions. His works explore artistic and technical opportunities to enable new aesthetic perspectives, experiences and perceptions within the context of architecture, data spaces and online environments.

He was a NESTA Dreamtime Fellow (2003-2005) and has received many Awards including the following, all peer reviewed and awarded by internaltional juries.

http://www.stanza.co.uk.

Other on-line artworks can be viewed at: other online artworks.

www.amorphoscapes.com www.soundcities.com www.thecentralcity.co.uk www.genomixer.com www.theemergentcity.com www.soundtoys.net

Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka maria x] PhD Art and Computational Technologies  Goldsmiths Digital Studios www.cybertheater.org

Beijing Olympic Narratives and Counter Narratives

Last weekend, Beatriz and I were in Philadelphia, having been invited to contribute to the second meeting of the project developed by Monroe Price and Daniel Dayan exploring the Beijing Olympics. This was another excellent meeting with some great presentations and discussions. It was also my first time in Philadelphia and I really warmed to the place. We were located in the city centre on Chestnut Street, which is a great location, especially for shopping and cultural activity.

In the meeting, our contribution was to discuss the role of new and alternative media platforms at an Olympic Games, which develops our research from the last four Olympics. Beijing looks like an exciting and intriguing case study in this respect.

Global Olympiad, Chinese Media (Beijing, 28-29 July, 2006)

This was an excellent meeting, which is devloping into a book publication. Beatriz Garcia and I were brought in to this collaboration between the Communication University of China and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania by Professor Tian (Tina) Zhihui, star blogger and expert on all that is the Web. At this meeting, Beatriz and I gave a paper titled 'The New Media at the Olympics: Citizen Journalists and the Non-Accredited Media'.

Convergence Culture

Call for Papers Special Issue on Convergence CultureVol 14 no 1. February 2008

Guest editors: Mark Deuze, Indiana University (mdeuze@indiana.edu) Henry Jenkins, MIT (henry3@mit.edu)

This call invites submissions for a special issue on Convergence Culture: the worldwide emergence of increasingly collaborative practices between media producers and consumers. Examples are television fan sites, game modifications (mods) and machinema, citizen journalism, interactive advertising and word-of-mouth marketing, transmedia storytelling (for example using games, movies, television, websites and comics), and so on. Convergence culture is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process. Media companies are learning how to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets and reinforce viewer commitments. Consumers are learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other users. We welcome submissions from a variety of disciplinary, theoretical and methodological backgrounds exploring the changing role and organization of work and productivity in the cultural and creative industries under the influence of convergence culture, as well as on creative processes initiated by or involving the people formerly known as the audience.

Specific topics and issues to be covered in this special issue for example are:

Case studies of media companies adopting convergence culture; Case studies of specific fan communities and their relationships with media producers; explorations of transmedia storytelling, viral marketing, and Alternate Reality; Gaming as forms that tap the emerging relations between media producers and consumers; Mapping of ethical, political, economical and cultural changes and challenges in an emerging convergence culture; Quantitative and/or qualitative empirical work on the production, content, and/or consumption of media messages in the context of convergence culture; Research focusing on convergence culture in the context of specific media industries (such as: computer and video games, advertising, journalism, television); International comparative work on convergence culture in media production.

Submissions addressing the special issue theme are invited to the following sections: Debates which are short polemics (usually 1000-3000 words); Articles which are refereed case study research articles (7000-11,000 words); Feature Reports which offer a critical overview of current research by reviewing a conference, exhibition or festival (4000-8000 words).  Any inquiries concerning the Reviews section (which covers books, exhibitions, conferences, CD-ROMs, websites etc) should be directed to the regular reviews editor Jason Wilson (jason.wilson@luton.ac.uk). Submissions should be formatted using the Harvard reference method. Full details of  referencing style and guidelines can be found on the journal website at http://convergence.luton.ac.uk/.

Proposals for papers should be directed to the editors. The deadline for submission of research articles is February 1st, 2007. The special issue will be published (by SAGE) in February 2008.

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

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

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