Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communications


The Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communication (SSSMC) is intended to facilitate the international advancement of cross-disciplinary mobile communication studies. It is intended to serve as a resource and to support a network of scholarly research as to the social consequences of mobile communication.




Wednesday, November 30, 2011

CFP: Mobile Communication, Community and Locative Media Practices

[ Call for Abstracts ]
Mobile Communication, Community and Locative Media Practices: From the Everyday to the Revolutionary 
2012 International Communication Association (ICA) Preconference Workshop Conference 

Keynote Speaker: 
Mimi Sheller (Drexel University, USA) 

Mobile and location-based networked interactions permeate our world. We no longer enter the Internet--we carry it with us. We experience it while moving through physical spaces. Smart phones, GPS receivers, and RFID tags are only a few examples of location-aware mobile technologies that mediate our interaction with networked spaces and the people in them. Increasingly, our physical location determines the types of information with which we interact, and the people and things we find around us. These new kinds of networked interactions manifest in everyday social practices that are supported by the use of mobile technologies, such as participation in location-based mobile games and social networks, engagement with location-based services, development of mobile annotation projects, and social mapping, just to name a few. The engagement with these practices has important implications for identity construction, our sense of privacy, our notions of place and space, civic and political participation, building community, policy making, as well as cultural production and consumption in everyday life. 

This preconference will provide a venue for innovative scholars from around the world who are doing research in exploring how we experience our locally-rooted mobile networked interactions and mobile communication's impact on community. It will give them a chance to gather and discuss the challenges that this shift in the use of both mobile phones and the Internet poses not only for the users but for those doing research on mobile communication. We welcome abstracts that will focus on the following areas: 
  • Mobile communication and location awareness in everyday life practices; 
  • New urban spatialities developed with mobile gaming and locative social media; 
  • definitions of "community" in a mobile mediated context; 
  • Privacy and surveillance issues as they relate to location-based social networks; 
  • Identity and spatial construction through locative media art / performance design and its impact on communities; 
  • Civic engagement and political participation through mobile social media, new mapping practices and location-aware technologies; 
  • Learning and education potentials of mobile and location-based media
The two-day preconference will be comprised of formal panel presentations, one keynote speaker, opportunities for informal discussions, and time for networking. Thirty – fifty attendees are expected. The preconference will be at the main ICA hotel. The pre-conference registration fee will be $100. 

Abstracts of no more than 500 words are due by November 15, 2010. Please send them along with your name and contact information to Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva (adriana@souzaesilva.com). Accepted abstracts will be notified by December 1, 2010. Final papers will be due April 1, 2012. 

Lead Organizers: 
Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva (Associate Professor of Communication, NC State University) 
Dr. Jason Farman (Assistant Professor of American Studies, University of Maryland) 
Dr. Kathleen M. Cumiskey, Associate Professor of Psychology, College of Staten Island/CUNY) 
Dr. Lee Humphreys (Assistant Professor of Communication, Cornell University) 
Dr. Richard Ling (Professor of Mobile Communication, IT University of Copenhagen) 
Dr. Scott Campbell (Associate Professor of Communication, University of Michigan) 
Dr. Yi-Fan Chen (Assistant Professor of Communication, Old Dominion University) 

"Like" us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ICA-Mobile-Communication-Pre-Conference/211745668890424 
Follow us on Twitter: ICA12MoblPreCon 

For further information, please contact: 
Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva 
Associate Professor of Communication 
Interim Associate Director, Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media PhD program 
North Carolina State University 
http://www.souzaesilva.com souzaesilva@ncsu.edu