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.




Saturday, October 17, 2015

CFP: 13th ICA Mobile Pre-Conference: The All-Powerful Mobile


CALL FOR WORKSHOPS
13th ICA Mobile Pre-Conference:
The All-Powerful Mobile
June 8, 2016, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan

Deadline for Workshop Proposals: December 15, 2015.

Two decades of research on the social implications of mobile-mediated communication have passed, during which the repertoire of mobile devices and mobile contents, functions and usage contexts have tremendously expanded. As we stand at the threshold of the third decade of mobile media research, we can look back at how powerful the influence of mobile media has been in several aspects of people’s everyday life, and use these insights to speculate about what the future of mobile media and mobile research may bring.

The 13th annual ICA Mobile pre-conference aims to reflect upon the influence of mobile technologies on everyday practices through the theme “The All-Powerful Mobile.” The pre-conference will be organized into Blue Sky Workshops. These workshops will provide a forum where graduate students, new faculty, and more experienced scholars can discuss their research, thus creating an opportunity to cultivate a supportive and integrated community of thinkers. The preconference will also feature an opening keynote speaker and other engaging informal, more social, activities.

We invite workshop proposals covering a broad range of topics related to the social implications of mobile media. Topics may include mobile media and civic engagement, mobile activism and social movements, mobile social media, mobile learning and education, mobile media research methods, mobile media and youth, mobile media in international contexts, mobile health, mobile cultures and art, mobile media and place, mobile journalism, mobile media usability and UX issues, mobile language, sociology/anthropology/psychology of mobile communication and mobile media histories.
Workshop proposals are welcome from scholars at all stages of their careers and across multiple disciplines related to mobile communication. We particularly encourage mobile scholars from the Asian region to submit a proposal. Each workshop will be allotted a timeslot of approximately 2 hours. Workshops should focus on the dissemination and discussion of new ideas, theory and empirical results, but can also be more practically or industry oriented. A workshop is typically organized around a consortium of 4-5 proposers who present and discuss their work, but should be open to the active partcipation of other preconference attendees. Preconference attendees can attend multiple workshops.

Submissions should include a workshop summary of 500-800 words (excluding title and references). This summary should describe:
(1) the topic and its relation to the preconference theme,
(2) the goal of the workshop
(3) the scheduled activity, detailing how participants and the audience may be involved, and
(4) the proposers and their contribution to the workshop.

Proposals can be submitted via email to icamobile16@gmail.com. The workshop summaries will be published online and in the printed program. Submissions will be reviewed by a review committee of mobile scholars, and selected based on criteria of relevance, originality, theoretical/practical contribution, clarity of presentation, as well as fit with the conference theme. Review will be non-blind due to the workshop nature. Notifications of acceptance will be emailed to contributors by January 2016.

Mobile scholars who wish to submit a workshop proposal but are still looking for additional participants to form a consortium, are advised to use the twitter hashtag #icamobile16 or to add a post on the ICA Mobile Facebook page.