CFP: 10 Years On: Looking Forwards in Mobile ICT Research

[ Call for Abstracts ]

10 Years On: Looking Forwards in Mobile ICT Research 

ICA Communications and Technology Division 

Mobile Communications 10th Anniversary Pre-Conference Workshop 

16th and 17th June 2013 

London School of Economics and Political Science 

Media and Communications Department Lead 

Organisers: 

Leslie Haddon (Senior Researcher LSE) 

Jane Vincent (Visiting Fellow University of Surrey Digital World Research Centre) 

We are pleased to invite papers for the Mobile Communications ICA Pre-Conference Workshop. In celebration of its 10th Anniversary Year we also announce the introduction of an Award for the Best Paper. We look forward to receiving your submissions and to welcoming you in London in June 2013! 

Aims of the Pre-Conference Workshop 

This Workshop aims to understand more about the implications of the fast moving mobile world both on the social practices of the users of mobile ICTs as well as, and following the main ICA conference theme, on the ability of researchers to deliver reliable and effective research material. This 10th Mobile Communications ICA pre-conference provides a chance to take stock, reflect on and look forward to developments in research in this field over the forthcoming years. This will include discussing the general expectations and aspirations of an invited panel of experts and exploring the future research implications of contemporary studies to be reported at the conference. 

Workshop Topics 

Mobile communications are by no means new when we think in terms of walkie-talkies or car telephones but the hand held digital voice and data mobile communications that now populate our always on connected lives have only become omnipresent in the last five years. Ten years ago, when the first ICA Mobile Communications Pre-Conference Workshop was held, Twitter was unheard of, wifi virtually non-existent and mobile phone subscriptions a fifth of their present day numbers. Nowadays mobile ICTs are no longer merely mobile phones nor do they just involve communication between people. Instead mobile devices like smartphones, tablets or laptops use many convergent technologies (3G, 4G, Wifi, Television etc). How can this experience of, and exponential global growth in, mobile ICTs inform our ideas about the future? We anticipate many diverse topics which will be linked through the common thread of looking forwards in mobile communications perhaps also providing material that may help set a future research agenda. 

We welcome abstracts that relate to the following broad areas of mobile ICT research 

• Cultural differences 
• Gender
• Children
• Elderly
• Mobile media
• Migration
• Social Media 

This range is in part designed to produce a broad overview, but other more specific areas will be considered. For example, contemporary studies are already identifying challenges in achieving consistency, reliability and quality of results in a fast moving world of Big Data, petabytes and change. New research has already highlighted the effects of people on the move around the globe – migration within and between nations; as well as emotions, affect and sentiment with regard to using mobile devices. 

Best Paper Award 

An Award for the best paper will be given at this event; only full papers submitted by the entry date can be included for consideration for this award. 

Programme Outline 

Commencing 9am Sunday morning 16 June 2013 and concluding at 1pm 17th June, this one and a half day event will consist of expert panel presentations and reflections, and strands for the presentation of papers. 

There is an upper limit of 46 papers, and a limit of 70 delegates. Poster sessions may be an option if there is high demand. More details of the programme and social events including a dinner on Sunday night will be released as they are confirmed Venue and Cost The event is hosted by The London School of Economics and Political Science Media and Communications Department. The cost will be £70 per person inclusive of lunch Sunday and coffee/tea Sunday and Monday morning. Map link http://www2.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/howToGetToLSE.aspx The LSE is the world’s leading social science institution for teaching and research, with an academic profile spanning a wide range of disciplines. Teaching and research are conducted through 18 departments and 26 research centres and institutes, with students drawn from more than 130 countries worldwide. 

Paper Submission Process

Contributions are invited from scholars from multiple disciplines studying mobile ICTs and at all stages of their career. In keeping with the pre-conference theme, those submitting abstracts should write something about the broader implications, issues, trends, future research, etc. that can be derived from the particular empirical study or the topic they focused upon. This will also help to seek further publication of any papers. Although the papers may well cover diverse topics this will ensure they have a common thread of implications for communications research.

Abstracts 250 – 500 words to be sent to j.vincent@surrey.ac.uk Please use ICA Mobile Communications cfp Abstract Submission as email subject and include a 50 word max biography 

Abstract Deadline 16 November 2012 

Confirmation of acceptance by 4 January 2012 

Only Full Papers (max 8000 words) submitted by 31 March 2013 will be considered for the Best Paper Award.

CFP: Visual Learning: Communication -- Cognition -- Curriculum

[ First Call for Papers ] 

Visual Learning: Communication -- Cognition -- Curriculum 

Conference to take place in Budapest, December 7-8, 2012 

Conference organized by 

the Visual Learning Lab, Department of Technical Education, Budapest 

University of Technology and Economics. 

Speakers included: 

Laura Cull 

James E. Katz 

Zoltan Kovecses 

John Mullarkey 

Klaus Sachs-Hombach 

Barry Smith 

Frederik Stjernfelt 

Contributions are invited from educational, communication, and media theorists; philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and other interested scholars on the following and related topics: 

• educational theory and visual learning pictorial skills 
• pictorial communication 
• visual intelligence 
• the visual mind 
• ontology of images 
• the image problem in the history of philosophy 
• visual argument 
• diagrammatic reasoning 
• scientific visualization 
• visualization and higher education 
• information visualization 
• image and language 
• the use of images in foreign language teaching 
• image and creativity 
• images in the network age

A slot of altogether 30 minutes is planned for each presentation. We envisage an ensuing volume of selected papers (vol. 3 in the series Visual Learning, ed. by Andras Benedek and Kristof Nyiri). 

 Submission of abstracts (max. 200 words) and short biographical statements (max. 100 words) by Aug. 1, 2012. Please send your submissions simultaneously to Prof. Andras Benedek (Head, Department of Technical Education) and to Kristof Nyiri (Professor of Philosophy, Department of Technical Education). Those submitting abstracts will be notified of the decision concerning acceptance by Sept. 15, 2012. 

No conference fees will be charged. Participants are encouraged to arrange their own accommodation. The conference venue (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 1117 Budapest, Magyar Tudosok korutja 2, Bld. Q, Wing A) is located near downtown Budapest.

Mobile Communication, Community, and Locative Media Practices: From the Everyday to the Revolutionary (International Communication Association Preconference 2012)

Phoenix, AZ, USA

May 23 – 24, 2012

https://sites.google.com/site/sociomobilearchive/events/mobile2012

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

Migration, Diaspora and Information Technology

Migration, Diaspora and Information Technology in Global Societies

Leopoldina Fortunati, Raul Pertierra, & Jane Vincent (Eds.)


Description
Migrants and diaspora communities are shaped by their use of information and communication technologies. This book explores the multifaceted role played by new media in the re-location of these groups of people, assisting them in their efforts to defeat nostalgia, construct new communities, and keep connected with their communities of origin. Furthermore, the book analyses the different ways in which migrants contribute, along with natives, in co-constructing contemporary societies – a process in which the cultures of both groups are considered. Drawing on contributions from a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology, psychology and linguistics, it offers a more profound understanding of one of the most significant phenomena of contemporary international societies – the migration of nearly a billion people worldwide - and the relationship between technology and society.

Citation:

Fortunati, L., Pertierra, R., & Vincent, J. (Eds.). (2012). Migration, diaspora and information technology in global societies. New York, NY: Routledge. 

Taken For Grantedness

Taken For Grantedness: The Embedding of Mobile Communication into Society

Rich Ling


Overview
Why do we feel insulted or exasperated when our friends and family don’t answer their mobile phones? If the Internet has allowed us to broaden our social world into a virtual friend-net, the mobile phone is an instrument of a more intimate social sphere. The mobile phone provides a taken-for-granted link to the people to whom we are closest; when we are without it, social and domestic disarray may result. In just a few years, the mobile phone has become central to the functioning of society. In this book, Rich Ling explores the process by which the mobile phone has become embedded in society, comparing it to earlier technologies that changed the character of our social interaction and, along the way, became taken for granted. Ling, drawing on research, interviews, and quantitative material, shows how the mobile phone (and the clock and the automobile before it) can be regarded as a social mediation technology, with a critical mass of users, a supporting ideology, changes in the social ecology, and a web of mutual expectations regarding use. By examining the similarities and synergies among these three technologies, Ling sheds a more general light on how technical systems become embedded in society and how they support social interaction within the closest sphere of friends and family


About the Author
Rich Ling is Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Senior Research Scientist at the Telenor Research Institute near Oslo, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan. He is the author of New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion (MIT Press, 2008).

Citation:

Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness: The embedding of mobile communication into society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.