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.




Tuesday, June 30, 2015

CFP: Chapter abstracts invited for a book on urban communication regulation


CFP-- Chapter abstracts invited for a book on urban communication regulation

Urban Communication Regulation: Designing Communication Abundance and Limits in the Urban Century

A volume edited by Susan Drucker and Harvey Jassem

Authors are invited to submit abstracts for chapters they propose writing for this volume. Chapters may be prescriptive or descriptive, and will discuss an issue where policy or regulation impacts the quality of urban communication.   Please submit a one to two page abstract by August 15, 2015 to Harvey Jassem (Jassem@Hartford.edu).

We anticipate that selections for inclusion will be made in September, 2015, with selected chapters due January, 2016.

The 21st century has been dubbed the urban century. It is an era marked by recentralization and a return to the inner core after decades of suburban sprawl. It is an era of urban sprawl. It is the first century in which the majority of the world's people will live in urban areas with over three billion residents in cities representing a demographic transformation on an unprecedented scale. Cities have always been social settings.

There is a relationship between how we communicate with each other in social settings, the physical and virtual nature of those settings and the regulatory framework governing those settings. From a communication perspective, communication freedoms and opportunities are significant attributes used as determinants of quality of life in municipalities, and the purpose of this volume is to bring together people and ideas that argue for - or against - policy and legal approaches that impact the urban communication environment and experience.

Some regulations directly control free expression in cities through licensing and control of content. Some are more indirect, targeting non-communication related activities which nevertheless determine the nature of communicative interaction. These secondary regulations might include such things as anti-loitering, anti-littering, gambling and public nuisances and the licensing of alcoholic beverages, minimum drinking age and driving age, parking regulations, anti-babble locations prohibiting the use of mobile phones, street furniture, public utility ownership, etc. Similarly, land use regulations, especially zoning laws, all influence communication patterns. Additionally, much of the communication infrastructure is shaped by diverse regulations.

The contributing authors will demonstrate how governments, legislatures, property owners and courts are incentivizing and responding to changes in technology, demographics, economies, and cultures. This anthology will examine how primary and secondary regulation can shape the communicative environment of cities.

Chapters will focus on the legal and policy aspects of such topics as:
  • Rights of Assembly: protest, leafleting, picketing, guerilla protest, sit-lie, panhandling, begging ordinances
  • Surveillance and privacy
  • The privatization of public space and public utilities
  • Broadband and Wi-fi: marketplace & regulatory threats and opportunities
  • Signage, billboards, advertising on/in municipal & licensed property & facilities
  • Zoning
  • Sound Regulations
  • Free Speech rights and Zones
  • Newsrack/street furniture
  • Graffiti
  • Street performers
  • Photo journalists/photography in public places
  • Tenure in public schools
  • Cities and strategies for enhancement of telecommunication infrastructure development/investment, including alternative ownership models
  • 211, Apps, and other new telecommunication options for governing the urban experience.
  • Private vs. Public investment
  • Moving communication from regulated to unregulated arenas.
  • Local ownership/control
  • Policy strategies designed to enhance ITC access & affordability

Monday, June 29, 2015

CFP: STUDIES IN NEW MEDIA


CALL FOR BOOK PROPOSALS

STUDIES IN NEW MEDIA

Series Editor: John Allen Hendricks
Series Editor Email: jhendricks@sfasu.edu

ABOUT THE SERIES:

This series aims to advance the theoretical and practical understanding of the emergence, adoption, and influence of new technologies. It provides a venue to explore how New Media technologies and Social Networking Sites (SNS) are changing the media landscape in the twenty-first century. Single authored, Multi-authored, and Edited book proposals will be considered.

Books included in this series focus on topics such as:
  • New Media and research methodologies
  • Media technologies
  • Theory development
  • Video games
  • Mobile content
  • Policy development
  • Media usage and psychology
  • Political usage
  • Social media technologies

PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS:

Scholars interested in having a proposal considered should contact the series editor:

John Allen Hendricks, PhD
Chair/Professor
Stephen F. Austin State University
Department of Mass Communication
PO Box 13048, SFA Station
Nacogdoches, Texas 75962-3048
(936) 468-4001

CFP: The ASIAN CONGRESS FOR MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION

CALL FOR PAPERS
The ASIAN CONGRESS FOR MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION (ACMC)
2016 International Conference
in partnership with the
Department Ilmu Komunikasi, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

The Changing Power Structures of Communication: Shifting Notions of Authority and Influence
27-29 October 2016
Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Important Dates:
Abstract submission - April 15, 2016
Abstract acceptance - May 15, 2016
Full papers - June 30, 2016
Early Bird Registration - July 30, 2016

Conference Rationale

Asians today live in globalised communities of interconnectedness harnessed by social media. Increasingly, news stories are shared and read across multiple social media platforms. The audience have become content creators as much as receivers, expressing their views on a wide range of topics, from politics to fashion.

Today, the traditional communication pyramid for power structure is constantly challenged. No longer are governments, monarchies and appointed leaders centres of authority and influence. Traditional news media are no longer the gate keepers that determine what content is fit for public consumption and what is not. Apparently, the pyramid has been overturned with audiences setting the agenda, raising issues and concerns that become newsworthy, calling out politicians and threatening governments and powerful groups with massive boycotts.

Any communication paradigm today must address the complexities of information content, flow and impact, acknowledging the roles and influence of communication participants. The communication  discipline needs more research in all areas of practice and study to fully understand communication developments of our times.

The ACMC Conference 2016 is pleased to invite papers addressing the conference theme. 
  • Conference streams include but are not limited to:
  • Changing definitions of news 
  • Challenges in public relations
  • Hashtag journalism and other alternative forms
  • Media and informed citizenry
  • New Paradigms in Communication Education
  • Intercultural Communication in a globalized era
  • Media and pop culture
  • Gender and diversity
  • Gatekeeping the environment
  • The electorate's new power 
  • Open Government Data
  • Social media potentials and pitfalls
  • Communicating Youth
  • Mobile networked communities



CFP: Users Across Media. Convergence: Special Issue


CFP: Users Across Media. Convergence: Special Issue, vol. 23, no. 3 (August 2017)

Guest Editors: Stine Lomborg and Mette Mortensen (University of Copenhagen)

The concept of crossmedia has primarily been associated with the production of media content for multiple platforms. At the same time, media users also cross media – they combine, juggle, and move almost seamlessly between various media platforms and services: to pursue information and entertainment, to communicate about and undertake tasks, and respond to demands in their everyday lives. Mobile media such as smartphones and tablets with ubiquitous internet access epitomize this development and converge various media on a single multi-purpose platform. A key observation in the current, digital media landscape is that media use – from television to telephones – is increasingly personalised, fragmented and connective. Blurring the boundaries not only between users and producers, but also between amateurs and professionals, laymen and experts, this development has prompted new forms of participation (collaboration, co-creation etc), and, consequently, new terms such as produsers, citizen journalists, prosumers etc. Crossmedia use transforms interpersonal communication, journalism, political communication, cultural consumption, celebrity culture, and many other central areas and aspects of society. But how might new types of users – and forms of crossmedia use – be defined? How do users combine and reinterpret the relationship between so-called 'old' and 'new' media? And to what extent are traditional distributions of power challenged and changed by the ability of users to circulate content on and across multiple platforms?

Understanding how individual media users cross media, and how they organise and make meaning in networks of media, is pivotal to furthering academic scholarship on crossmedia and the contemporary media user.

This speial issue of Convergence aims to develop the conceptualisation and analysis of contemporary crossmedia use and users in order to study the implications for users themselves as well as for media companies and society at large.

We encourage theoretical as well as empirically grounded contributions on crossmedia use and users addressing subjects such as:


  • Conceptualisations of crossmedia in a personal media environment
  • Changing relations between consumption and production (e.g. produsage, prosumption)
  • Personalised and connective media use and its consequences
  • The consequences of audience fragmentation for the measurement of media use and targeting
  • New actor roles and forms of participation
  • Power structures and flows in crossmedia communication
  • Institutional and private crossmedia flows
  • Audience studies adapted to cross media usage and users
Submission details:

Prospective authors should submit an abstract of no more than 500 words by email to Stine Lomborg<mailto:slomborg@hum.ku.dk> and Mette Mortensen<mailto:metmort@hum.ku.dk>.  A selection of authors will be invited to submit a full paper. Please note that acceptance of abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will be put through the journal's peer review process. All enquiries should be directed to the editors of this special issue.

Deadline for abstracts:  15 September 2015
Notification to authors:  15 October 2015
Deadline for submission of full papers:  1 May 2016
Final revised papers due:  1 November 2016
Print publication:  August 2017

See the full call here: http://www.crmcs.sunderland.ac.uk/journals/convergence/cfp-aug-2017/

Saturday, June 20, 2015

CALL FOR SMARTPHONE, MOBILE AND POCKET CAMERA FILMS

CALL FOR FILMS
#MINA2015 | 5th International Mobile Innovation Screening @ RMIT – Melbourne, Australia
19 November 2015
In Perspective

Deadline for submission: 17 July 2015 (www.mina.pro/submit)

CALL FOR SMARTPHONE, MOBILE AND POCKET CAMERA FILMS

The Mobile Innovation Network Australasia [ MINA ] aims to explore the possibilities of interaction between people, content and the creative industries.

The International Mobile Innovation Screening 2015 will showcase short films produced on and with smartphones, mobile, pocket cameras and drones. This year MINA is pleased to announce that RMIT University (AUS) will present the screening in Melbourne, Australia, on the 18th November. #mina2015 is co-organised by Colab (AUT University, NZ), Te Rewa O Puanga – School of Music and Creative Media Production and Toi Rauwharangi, the College of Creative Arts (Massey University, NZ) in conjunction with the Mobile Creativity and Mobile Innovation Symposium.
Working in collaboration with Super 9 (Portugal), Mobile Motion Film Festival (Switzerland), Cinephone (Spain), Mobil Film Festival (USA), Mobile Film Festival (Macedonia), Mobile Screenfest International (Australia), MINA showcases mobile filmmaking projects from around the world at the 5th International Mobile Innovation Screening.
The MINA showcase will include micro-movies and micro-formats (Vine, Vyclone and live streaming apps), travel, mobility and adventure films (i.e. sports or skate videos) including projects realised with GoPro and/or drone cameras.

In its 5th edition the screening theme In Perspective will explore, but not limited too:
  • ACTUALITIES / Vine, Vyclone & live streaming…
  • ACTION / Travel, mobility & adventure (i.e. sports, skate…)
  • CONNECTIVITY / GoPro & pocket camera videos…
  • DIGITAL ART / iPhonography & animation…
  • FICTION / Short films & micro dramas…
  • MICRO / Extreme short-movies & emerging formats…
  • NONFICTION / Documentary, moving-image & experimental…
  • PERSPECTIVE / Drone & underwater…

Selected mobile films will be featured in the MINA showreel, MINA DVD, MINA eBook and MINA’s international partner festivals.

For further assistance regarding submission enquiries, please contact Dr. Max Schleser [ max@mina.pro | +64 226 920 872 ]

Deadline for submission via www.mina.pro/submit – 17th July 2015.
All screening proposals will be double peer reviewed and notification of acceptances will be send out on 31st August 2015.

MINA 2012 showreel: http://vimeo.com/51724574
Twitter @MINAmobile
Screening programms 2011-2014: https://www.scribd.com/mschleser