Digital Freedoms: Challenges
The Cyber-cultures Project
Tuesday 7th July - Thursday 9th July 2015
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Presentations:
Online freedoms have become increasingly endangered in many
regions of the world. This year's Interactive Convergence will be devoted to
exploring the various ways in which digital freedoms are currently challenged -
as well as possible responses to such threats - within the framework of five
thematic tracks. Because of the complexity of these challenges and the overlap
of issues across themes, we are inviting participants of various backgrounds
(academic, legislative, commercial; across disciplines) to submit proposals on
several topics of interest to them. Presenters are additionally encouraged to
think broadly within and across thematic tracks; we encourage submissions
addressing research questions such as (though not limited to) those listed here
below.
Topical Areas: Regulating Online Communities,
Computer-supported Subcultures: What are strategies for preserving freedom of
speech and regaining privacy online? To what extent is it really possible to
preserve digital privacy? In an era when users of anonymity projects such as
Tor are almost automatically considered threats to society, do there exist
user-friendly strategies and applications for protecting individual
communication? If such tools do exist, why have they not been more broadly
adopted by the general public? In the wake of WikiLeaks and Edward Snowdon,
what cyber-security issues have emerged? Is the term "privacy" itself
a remnant of the past?
Internet-related legislation is an ever-present driver of
network activity. What is the future of online piracy? Do current legal
frameworks suffice in relation to data sharing trends? What should happen to
the data and profiles of deceased persons?
Topical Areas: Social Networks, Online Communities: Social
network users are increasingly targeted by online marketing. Do principles of
ethical marketing even exist today? How should users desiring to maintain a
social media presence avoid being disrupted by non-stop advertising? What
strategies exist for creating simultaneous online user profiles which span
social networking services? What are trends in user-generated content, and how
might online communication culture be defined today? What services have been
established with crowd-sourcing?
Topical Area: Mobile Applications: It no longer matters how
one accesses the Internet; mobile devices now compete in terms of
functionality, speed, and software with traditional desktop computers. How have
cloud and mobile services changed user behaviour? That app trends are emerging
in tele-sports, tele-exercise, tele-health, or traffic systems?
In sum, we encourage authors to explore and discuss why -
when networks are increasingly accessible, with increasingly user-friendly
interfaces and lower costs - the status of online citizenship appears to be
increasingly threatened because of government control, loss of privacy,
endangered Internet neutrality, ubiquitous marketing, and cyber-crime.
Proposals, presentations, studies, and reports might explore
topics such as:
Online Communities:
- Emerging and Potential Practices in Social Networking.
- The Psychological Impacts of Online Interaction.
- User-generated Content and Changes in Cultural Practice.
- Ubiquitous Consumption, Mobile Advertising, and Crowd-sourcing.
Design for Social Networking:
- Trends in Web Services, Interfaces and Apps.
- Accessibility, Usability, and Design.
- Quality of Experience.
- Cloud Systems.
- Convergence of Desktop and Mobile Communications.
- Semantic Web - Web 3.0.
- Metadata. Access to Data.
- Surveillance Technologies and Anonymisation Tools.
- Impact on User Behaviour.
Regulating Online Communities:
- Internet Neutrality
- Governance and Control over the Online Environment. Insufficient Legislation.
- Self-Regulation. Hactivism. Computational Privacy.
- Cyber-Activism and Social Mobilisation: Real World Impacts.
- Cyber-security and Cybercrime.
- Intellectual Property Protection. Decline of Piracy?
Computer-supported Subcultures:
- Technology-dependent/Independent Subcultures.
- Interactions between Regional, Glocal, Global, Multi-national, Intercontinental, Cross-generational and Diasporic Online Communities.
Mobile Applications:
- Mobile Applications for Social Networking, Online Marketing, Tele-Health, Traffic Systems, Distance Education and Online Entertainment.
- Promises, Expectations, Case Studies.
The Steering Group welcomes the submission of proposals for
short workshops, practitioner-based activities, performances, and pre-formed
panels. We particularly welcome short film screenings; photographic essays;
installations; interactive talks and alternative presentation styles that
encourage engagement.
What to Send:
Proposals will also be considered on any related theme. 300
word proposals should be submitted by Friday 13th March 2015. If a proposal is
accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words
should be submitted by Friday 22nd May 2015. Proposals should be submitted
simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; proposals may be in Word or RTF
formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear
in programme, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f)
up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Cybercultures 10 Abstract
Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from
using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as
bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper
proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should
assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We
suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs:
Daniel Riha: rihad@inter-disciplinary.net
Rob Fisher: cyber10@inter-disciplinary.net
The conference is part of the 'Critical Issues' programme of
research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and
interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative
and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference must be
in English and will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected
papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s). All
publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from
interested delegates from the conference.
Inter-Disciplinary.Net believes it is a mark of personal
courtesy and professional respect to your colleagues that all delegates should
attend for the full duration of the meeting. If you are unable to make this
commitment, please do not submit an abstract for presentation.
For further details of the conference, please visit:
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit
network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference
travel or subsistence.
