CFP:“Digital parenting"

Call for chapters proposal: “Digital parenting"

The book Digital parenting: the challenges for families in the digital age focuses on the opportunities and challenges of digital media for families and changing parenting practices.

Families with young children are usually early and enthusiastic adopters of new technologies, which, in turn shape the family’s communication practices and media consumption habits. The appropriation of digital media into families’ everyday lives is influenced by parenting styles or ethics (Clark, 2013). While providing means for remote parenting and coordinating family life, new technologies pose new challenges to parents, as the practice of sharenting – the oversharing of children’s pictures and personal information (see Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2017) - and the increasing reliance on the internet and parenting apps for (health) advice, well exemplify.

The pervasiveness of the internet and mobile media is giving rise to an emergent form of parenting, called “transcendent parenting” (Lim, 2016), whereby parents are faced with the challenges of transcending online-offline social interactions, the multi-media and multimodal environments, and the “timeless time” of parenting. Parents are variously equipped to face the increasing complexity of the digital world and its social and developmental consequences.
The book will explore how socio-economic differences, parenting cultures and parent’s imaginaries, all play a part in shaping the extent to which parents can navigate the contemporary internet and guide their children’s use. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

    •    Sharenting
    •    Mummy bloggers
    •    Parental imaginaries around the internet/touchscreens
    •    Parental mediation of the internet/mobile media (also through cross-cultural analysis)
    •    Changing parenting cultures
    •    The child effect
    •    Opportunities and challenges of the digital among rural families and/or immigrant families
    •    Parenting across generations, including reverse socialisation: grandparents, parents and children
    •    Digital parenting of children with special needs
    •    Digital parenting and health information

The target audience of this book will be composed by students, media professionals, practitioners and researchers working in the field of education, communication, digital art, children and youth studies, new literacy studies and media and information literacy. Contributions should take into account the diversity of target audience and facilitate flow in reading.

Giovanna Mascheroni, PhD, Senior Lecturer of Sociology of Communication and Culture, Department of Sociology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, Cristina Ponte, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Sciences, FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, and Ana Jorge, PhD, Lecturer, Faculty of Human Sciences, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal, are the editors.

Publisher: Nordicom - Nordic Information Center for Media and Communication Research, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
http://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publikationer

Articles:
Between 3000 and 4000 words

Time Schedule:
Book Description + Call for chapters:  early May 2017
Submission of abstracts (500 words): 1st June 2017
Notification of acceptance/refusal: 1st July 2017
Full chapter submission: 15 October 2017
Editor’s feedback: early January 2018
Submission of final chapter: 28 February 2018
English Proof Reading: April 2018
Graphic Edition: April 2017
Graphic Design: Jul 2018
Print + pdf: September 2018

Submission Guidelines for Nordicom’s Publications will be sent to authors of selected abstracts.

Contact:
Ana Jorge | anajorge@fch.lisboa.ucp.pt
Giovanna Mascheroni | giovanna.mascheroni@unicatt.it
Cristina Ponte | cristina.ponte@fcsh.unl.pt
For questions regarding Nordicom:
Ingela Wadbring  | ingela.wadbring@nordicom.gu.se

CFP: CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES

NEW CALL FOR OPEN ACCESS BOOK PROPOSALS: CRITICAL DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES

Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is a new open access book series edited by Professor Christian Fuchs on behalf of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and published by the University of Westminster Press (UWP). We invite submissions of book proposals that fall into the scope of the series.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday 30 January 2017 23:00 BST

by e-mail to Andrew Lockett (University of Westminster Press Manager), A.Lockett@westminster.ac.uk.

For full details and proposal guidelines see; http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/news

CALL DETAILS

The Critical Digital and Social Media Studies Series is published by the University of Westminster Press (http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk). The first volume in the series - Christian Fuchs: Critical Theory of Communication - has just been published and is available as gratis open access book and as affordable paperback:

http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/detail/1/critical-theory-of-communication/

Example topics that the book series is interested in include: the political economy of digital and social media; digital and informational capitalism; digital labour; ideology critique in the age of social media; new developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media; critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online; critical social media research methods; critical digital and social media ethics; working class struggles in the age of social media; the relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media; the critical analysis of the implications of big data, cloud computing, digital positivism, the Internet of things, predictive online analytics, the sharing economy, location- based data and mobile media, etc.; the role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media; alternative social media and Internet platforms; the public sphere in the age of digital media; the critical study of the Internet economy; critical perspectives on digital democracy; critical case studies of online prosumption; public service digital and social media; commons-based digital and social media; subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media; digital art and culture in the context of critical theory; environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture.

CFP: Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age

Call for Chapters: Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age

For more Information: http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2447

Editors

Renira Rampazzo Gambarato (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia) 

Geane Alzamora (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Publisher

IGI Global

Call for Chapters

Proposals Submission Deadline: December 30, 2016

Full Chapters Due: April 30, 2017

Since the advent of digitization, the conceptual confusion surrounding the semantic galaxy that comprises the media and journalism universes has increased. Multimedia, cross-media, intermedia, and transmedia storytelling are some of the terms aggregated in the media convergence process involving news in liquid, fluid, participatory environments (Bauman, 2000). Transmedia storytelling is one of the newest terms. It was coined by Henry Jenkins (2003) in the fictional realm and refers to the expansion of content across multiple media platforms, encouraging audience engagement in the story. Ever since, transmedia storytelling has been the focus of diverse studies, including its application to journalism (Alzamora &Tárcia, 2012; Canavilhas, 2014; Dominguez, 2012; Gambarato & Tárcia, 2016; Moloney, 2011; Renó, 2014). In the journalism realm, audience can add information to the news content, edit it, and/or share it in online social networks, in addition to eventually collaborating directly in the coverage. Although various media are present in journalism and journalists employ multiple practices to cover multifaceted media events, not every news production is necessarily transmediatic; thus far, the majority of the content spread across different media platforms is simply repurposed. We consider that transmedia journalism, as well as other applications of transmedia storytelling in fictional and nonfictional realms, is characterized by the involvement of (a) multiple media platforms, (b) content expansion, and (c) audience engagement (Gambarato &Tárcia, 2016). Transmedia journalism can take advantage of different media platforms such as television, radio, print media, and, above all, the Internet and mobile media to tell deeper stories. Content expansion, as opposed to the repetition of the same message across multiple platforms, is the essence of transmedia storytelling and, therefore, should be the focal point of transmedia journalism as well. 

The book "Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age" moves far beyond studies on multimedia journalism to explore how to tell pervasive news stories across multiple platforms and formats, using current digital technologies, expanding the content and engaging audiences. The publication will conceptualize transmedia journalism, delving into theoretical and critical approaches to this updated subject. Moreover, the book will present analytical views on transmedia journalism case studies and the applications and implications of technological advancements in the journalism realm. 

Recommended Topics

We are seeking chapters for this edited book that address (but are not limited to) the following topics: 

• Theoretical and Critical Approaches to Transmedia Journalism 
• Transmedia Journalism Analysis of Case Studies 
• Transmedia Journalism & Virtual Reality 
• Transmedia Journalism & Social Media Networks (Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) 
• Transmedia Journalism & Newsgames 
• Transmedia Journalism & Data, Robots, Algorithms 

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December 30, 2016, a chapter proposal of 500 to 1,000 words, a list of 10 references and short biography. Authors will be notified by January 31, 2017 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by April 30, 2014. Propose a chapter here: http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2447 

Important Dates

December 30, 2016: Proposal Submission Deadline 

January 31, 2017: Notification of Acceptance 

April 30, 2017: Full Chapter Submission 

June 30, 2017: Review Results Returned 

August 15, 2017: Final Acceptance Notification 

August 30, 2017: Final Chapter Submission

Inquires can be forward to Renira Rampazzo Gambarato, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow (rgambarato@hse.ru).

CFP: Studies In New Media

Call For Book Proposals -- Studies In New Media

Series Editor: John Allen Hendricks, Ph.D.
Series Editor Email: jhendricks@sfasu.edu
Publisher: Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield

Deadline: Rolling Deadline

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:

• Online Gaming
• 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/QUERIES:

Scholars interested in having a proposal considered should contact the series editor:
John Allen Hendricks, PhD
Chair and Professor
Stephen F. Austin State University
Department of Mass Communication
(936) 468-4001

CFP In Radio & Audio Studies

Call For Chapters In Radio & Audio Studies

Radio’s Second Century: Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future

Editor:
John Allen Hendricks, Stephen F. Austin State University (jhendricks@sfasu.edu)

Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday, November 25, 2016

As radio enters its second century of serving the news, information, and entertainment needs of listeners around the world and despite seismic shifts both internally and externally, it has remained a very robust and vital media industry. Undeniably, the radio industry has witnessed extraordinary changes and challenges since the passage of the Radio Act of 1927, and it remains a primary mass media outlet around the globe.

Recent research indicates that 91% of Americans, or 243 million people, aged 12+ listen to radio weekly, 53% listen to online radio monthly from mobile phones and computers, and 81% listen to radio when they are in automobiles. Research also indicates radio continues to have the ability to appeal to new listeners. Millennials, those born between 1982 and 2004, are now the largest share of the radio audience. Moreover, UNESCO asserts: “Radio is the mass media reaching the widest audience in the world.” There are more than 40,000 radio stations worldwide. Undeniably, despite numerous challenges, radio is thriving. This book will explore and explain how the radio industry has been able to remain relevant.

Research from both national and international perspectives of the radio industry will be evaluated. Specifically, the book will examine issues that have played a pivotal role in radio’s evolution, and may specifically focus attention on: 1) technological changes and challenges (internet, mobile, and satellite); 2) legal, regulatory, and ownership policies; 3) a shifting and dynamic audience; 4) management/sales; 5) programming; and, 6) the history of the industry. All research methods and theoretical approaches will be considered.

Specific Topics that Could be Explored: Digital music, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, Apple and Digital Music, Rdio’s partnership with Cumulus, Radio Advertising, Radio Listener Demographics (Teens, Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers), Performance Fees, Connected Cars, HD Radio, Social Media, Radio Automation and Localism, etc.

Proposal Guidelines

Submit a title and 300-400 word abstract as an email attachment (MS Word) no later than November 25, 2016 to the editor. Abstracts should give a clear sense of (a) the focus of the chapter, (b) the scope of the research, (c) the method of inquiry, and (d) the theoretical foundation.

In addition to the abstract, please submit a bio of each author no longer than 200 words that succinctly includes (a) highest degree earned and the institution from which it was earned, (b) most recent relevant publications and research interests, and (c) areas of scholarly interests and expertise.

The deadline for the final manuscript to submitted is May 15, or earlier.

PLEASE DISSEMINATE THIS CALL TO ANY COLLEAGUES WHO MAY BE INTERESTED.

CFP: Mobility, Mobile Media, and Health in Asia: Culture, structure, agency

Call for Book Chapters

Mobility, Mobile Media, and Health in Asia: Culture, structure, agency

Editor: Mohan J. Dutta, Provost’s Chair Professor, Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Book Series: Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications

Series Editor: Sun Sun Lim, Associate Professor, Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Overview:

In the proposed book, we examine the nature of mobility in mobile health, exploring the ways in which Asian mobilities configure into mobile media and health. The overarching framework of the book explores the intersections between mobile media and health, contextually situated in Asia and theoretically informed by Asia-centric conceptual maps for engaging with the linkages between mobile media and health. In one segment of the book, we examine mHealth projects across Asia, examining the overarching frameworks that constitute these projects, the underlying assumptions, the articulations of culture, and the expressions of agency as communities negotiate their access to and experiences with mHealth solutions. Drawing upon the overarching framework of the culture-centered approach, the book examines the flows of material, labor, and participation in mobile health interventions. Attention is paid to the ways in which mHealth interventions are conceptualized in community contexts!

the role of these interventions in engaging with communities, and the constitution of community agency in mHealth interventions.  In another segment of the book, we explore the ways in which health is constituted in Asia in the uses of mobile devices. Attention is paid to the vulnerabilities and risks to health constituted by mobile media, and the ways in which communities at the margins negotiate these health risks. The Chapters in this section will explore the health consequences of mobile media uses, and how mobile media products and artifacts are negotiated in the overarching context of health.

First, this edited book calls for scholarship across Asia that explores critically the interplays of power and control in mHealth interventions, addresses cultural context, and/or pays attention to the ways in which community agency is conceptualized in the ambits of mHealth Interventions. Based on the cases explored in the book, the overarching framework will examine Asia-centric concepts of health, culture, and technology as conceptualized in the ambits of mHealth Interventions. The book will provide an overarching structure for comparing mHealth cases across Asia, thus developing key theoretical anchors for exploring the linkages between mobility, culture, and structures as communities enact their agency in negotiating mHealth.

Second, the book calls for scholarship in Asia that explores the intersections of mobile media and health, and the juxtaposition of mobilities in/through mobile media in the backdrop of health outcomes. Chapters may explore the health outcomes attached to the manufacturing/production/disposal of mobile media, the health outcomes of mobile media uses, and the ways in which health risks/vulnerabilities are negotiated through mobilities afforded by mobile media in Asia. Based on the conceptual anchors offered by Chapters covering Asia, this section of the book will offer comparative conceptual nodes for theorizing health, mobility, and mobile media located in Asia.

Call for abstracts:

Please submit abstracts outlining the paper. Papers submitted for the book may be theoretical pieces, empirically based pieces, or case studies comparing multiple cases. The important thing is that the Chapters be grounded in the context of Asia and seriously attend to the ways in which context configures in the theorizing of mobility, mobile media, and health. The abstract should spell out how the chapter contributes to the theorizing of mobility and health centered in Asia, drawing on culturally situated concepts that originate from and situate themselves in the Asian context. Abstracts should be no more than 1000 words long. Abstracts selected for submission will be invited to be developed into full papers (between 8000 and 10,000 words in length). Please submit abstracts to cnmmohan@nus.edu.sg


Timeline:

Call for Abstracts Issued: September 22, 2016

Abstract Submission Deadline: October 30, 2016

Authors Notified: November 15, 2016

Chapters Due: April, 2017

Revisions Requested: May 2017

Final Versions Due: July 2017

Call For Chapters: Youth Mediations and Affective Relations

Susan Driver (York University, Toronto) and Natalie Coulter (York University, Toronto) are inviting submissions for a proposed anthology exploring the intersections of youth cultures, affective relations and digital media.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of academic and popular interest in the ways young people engage with digital media as a pervasive and integral part of their everyday lives. On the one hand celebratory approaches position youth as generational leaders with unique knowledge and skills to operate devices and mobilize applications. Alternately young people are positioned in passive ways as victims of corporate technological systems that shape their identities and delimit their social relations within narrow and normative boundaries. In both these framings young people are homogenized and fixed within dominant institutions of the digital political economy. Big data and overarching structures become primary sites of study losing touch with the voices, embodiments and practices of youth within their local contexts of learning, creativity and socialization.

Alternatively, to hone in closely on young people has often proven to be invasive, bound up with moral evaluations that rigidly interpret the subjective and interpersonal lives of young people, negatively judging how they connect, play games, make profiles, text each other, upload images and gather information. And within this process it is striking how much interest gets loosely placed on the emotional and affective dimensions of young peoples’ experiences. It is precisely the feelings and bodily encounters of young people that grip moral panics about the excess and dangers of online interactions: sharing too much information, immersing too fast and far within virtual realities, fictionalizing the self, taking sexual risks, becoming violent or addicted, and losing control. Yet in framing youth experience in terms of affectively charged relations that transgress rational and moral codes of meaning, youth are once again constructed in universalizing and naturalizing ways. What is lacking in this research are expansive critical, empirically detailed and ethically nuanced modes of theorizing the links between youth, affect and digital mediations.

Scholars have begun to grapple with the affective contours of youth mediations using supple and complex interdisciplinary tools that recognize the historical and ideological stakes of their practice. Nancy Lesko’s deconstructive approach to modern normalizing conceptions of youth offers a brilliant starting point to reconsider how youth affect gets erased, reified and misrepresented. Feminist approaches to the study of girls’ media engagements have been especially responsive to the creative emotional and symbolic negotiations of young people across a range of media formats (Angela McRobbie, Michelle Fine, Anita Harris, Jessica Ringrose, Jessalynn Keller, Anna Hickey-Moody, Emma Renolds).  Critical attention to youth sexualities have also turned toward the ways desire and power play out in a multitude of ways, against restrictive heteronormative expectations (Jack Halberstam, Susan Talburt, Whitney Monaghan, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Natasha Hurley, Jen Gilbert, Mary Louise Rasmussen). Focusing on how racial and national identities and embodiment  become articulated and resisted, scholars have elaborated research to considering how and why race matters across media  (Tricia Rose, Gwendolyn Pough, Greg Dimitriadis, Sunaina Marr Maira, Gayatri Gopinath).  These lists are in no way exhaustive but what is striking are the ways in which thinking through affects of joy, fear, desire, anxiety, hope, longing, anger, pleasure and grief (among many others), become central to the process of understanding young people’s mediated lives across a range of youth scholarship.  Recognizing the interconnected embodied, affective, psychic, social, cultural, political worlds of young people becomes vital within research grappling with experiences of marginalization and inequality.

These diverse and overlapping bodies of work are at the forefront of attending to the historically mediated and situated dynamics of young peoples affective lives and the conceptual mappings and discursive formations that make them thinkable and politically relevant. Our book aims to expand upon this emerging research, insisting upon theoretical applications and speculations that are simultaneously specific and historically grounded. Attending to the emerging networked publics and social media landscapes that elicit young people’s intense interest, we want to address changing intersections of technology, practice, representation and affective experiences. We are excited to explore how social movements including Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, Arab Spring and Occupy have been propelled through the affectively charged and nuanced participations that mobilize social movements by, for and about young people. We also want to attend to the detailed ways youth use and transform media technologies and platforms, at the level of their everyday worlds. With the popularity of sharing user-generated content on mobile devices through platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr, youth are telling stories, imaging themselves and forging connections in prolific ways that articulate relations between self and other, intimacy and community, creativity and politics that go beyond binary ways thinking. We value research that engages with the small data realms of young people through which ephemeral and fluid online interrelations become noticeable and meaningful, giving rise to new interpretive styles and methodologies that refuse totalization and closure. Against the often abstract tendencies of affect theory, we aim to gather research that is attentive to the changing mediated social conditions of the affective relations of young people across gender, sexual, racial, national and class differences.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Affective mediations and globalization/diasporic youth engagements
Young peoples networked sexualities
Gender affect and mediation
Affective dimensions of algorithms/digital surveillance
Affective relations of race/mobilizations of anti-racist youth expressions and movements
Moral regulations/panics of young peoples affective relations
Affective formations of young people through platforms/apps/hardware design
Affective life of video games
Mediated embodiments
Neoliberal ideologies and the mediation of youth affect
Commodification/commercialization of affects

Please submit a 500-word abstract that includes a short list of references, and a brief bio, by Friday Sept. 15, 2016 to sdriver@yorku.ca or ncoulter@yorku.ca .

We will notify successful submissions by Oct 1.  Full essays will be due by Dec. 1.

CFP: Mediated Intercultural Communication in a Digital Age

CFP: Mediated Intercultural Communication in a Digital Age

Editors: Ahmet Atay, College of Wooster & Margaret D’Silva, University of Louisville

Profound changes in global communication, particularly social media, are leading us to re-examine our notions of culture, communication, audience, and identity. This book aims to bridge the gaps between intercultural communication and traditional and new media scholarship.

Media texts, social media platforms, global applications, and cyber culture play a paramount role in intercultural communication, particularly in the context of globalization.  Beyond traditional media, social media are particularly relevant to facilitating intercultural communication. Global social network sites such Facebook or Twitter, online gaming sites, online courses, global blogs, and all of the applications that appear in smart phones, tablets or computer devices are part of a very complicated and multi-faceted digital culture that moves beyond the borders of nation-states.

These social media platforms allow global communities to emerge; immigrants, diasporic bodies, and cosmopolitans can communicate and connect across the globe. They also allow members of traditionally oppressed groups to find their voices, cultivate communities, create homes away from home, and construct their cultural identities and narratives. Digitalized social movements around the world, identity performances of diasporic queer bodies, and long-distance relationships between partners and family members are some examples. This cyber culture centers around communication between people who are culturally, nationally, and linguistically similar or radically different. Therefore, studying traditional and social media in relation to intercultural communication is extremely crucial and timely.

This call invites abstracts for an edited book that takes qualitative, interpretive, and critical and cultural perspectives in examining the reciprocal relationship between media and intercultural communication. The book’s interrelated goals are to:

1. Examine how media, social media in particular, influence and contribute to intercultural communication.
2. Analyze the complex and multidimensional relationship between culture and media in the context of globalization.
3. Understand how media, particularly social media, construct identities and enable or disable individuals to express their cultural identities.
4. Analyze how globalization as a cultural and political process impacts mediated and intercultural communication.
5. Look at different contemporary issues relevant to intercultural communication and social media scholarship such as immigration, diaspora, social movements, religion and spirituality, democracy, and intercultural/ international relationships, from a media perspective.
6. Examine both negative and positive influences of media, particularly social media, on intercultural communication.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Theorizing mediated intercultural communication
2. Social media and cultural identity
3. Social media and intercultural relationships
4. Media and online courses in the context of globalization
5. Cyber intercultural communities
6. Social media and global social movements
7. Immigrant media
8. Media and intercultural representations

Abstracts are due by September, 20, 2016, with a word length of no more than 500 words, along with pertinent references, contact information, and a short biographic blurb of 300 words. Full-length manuscripts are due on April 1, 2017, with a word length of no more than 5,000-7,000 words and in APA style, including references, endnotes, and so forth. Please mail your abstracts as Word documents to Ahmet Atay (aatay@wooster.edu) for an initial review.

CFP: Computational Social Science in the Age of Big Data

Call for Book Chapters: Computational Social Science in the Age of Big Data
Deadline: 30 June 2016

1.    Working Title of Book

Computational Social Science in the Age of Big Data. Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

2.    Publisher

Herbert von Halem Verlag (Cologne, Germany), in Neue Schriften zur Online Forschung of the German Society for Online Research (DGOF); expected publication in 2017.

3.    Editorial Board
Cathleen M. Stuetzer (JGU Mainz, Institute for Sociology)
Martin Welker (HMKW Cologne, Journalism and Communication Science)
Marc Egger, INSIUS Berlin

4.   Description and Purpose of the Book
In the digital age the exponential growth in the amount of data brings out new forms of social science research by using computational techniques to handle and manage big data sources. The book will demonstrate how data analysts both from academia and business analyze large and complex masses of data by taking a multidisciplinary approach. It will uncover cutting-edge analysis techniques and methods for searching and using large data sets within different disciplines like sociology, information science, communication science, health, education, political science, psychology, economics, and other fields. The rapid emergence of computational social science as new discipline shows the potential need to discuss innovative approaches and new techniques to understand our complex social system (Lazer et al. 2009). Data scientists, researchers, as well as professional data analysts from different fields look for theoretical concepts, methodological approaches, instruments, and tools to make large-scale and complex data available for research on human behavior (Alvarez 2016; CioffiRevilla 2010; Conte et al. 2012). The purpose of the book is to summarize the current state of knowledge about meaning, development, and uses of computational social science in the context of big data. The book will bring together the status quo of theoretical background, concepts, methodological approaches, instruments, tools as well as applications and empirical-based research studies. The audience of this book are the academic as well as commercial sector researchers, commercials, students, and teachers who have begun using big data to examine human behavior online.

5.   Submission procedure for chapter proposals and Notification

Each chapter should contain a critical review of literature on the topic of the chapter, summarize and evaluate what is known about it, report research findings, identify important gaps of knowledge as well as make suggestions for future research.

A subset of possible chapter topics include:

• Concepts and Theoretical aspects
• Methodology
• Analytical Instruments & Techniques
• Tools & Applications
• Big Data Analytics
• Business Analytics
• Data Science
• Behavioral Science
• Data Mining
• Data Visualization
• Data Analysis
• Data Sharing
• Data Storage
• Information Retrieval Methods
• Security and Privacy issues
• Case Studies

Submissions should be in German or in English and must include the title, author(s) name, affiliation(s), e-mail address(es), tel/fax numbers, and e-mail address, postal address(es), and abstract on the first page. In the case of multiple authors, all names, addresses, etc. must accompany the submission and a single author must be identified as the primary point of contact.

Submissions must be sent as an e-mail attachment to Cathleen Stuetzer using the e-mail address office@dgof.de and/or cstuetze@uni-mainz.de.

Chapter Proposal Length: max. 3 pages, Format: Adobe PDF

All chapter proposals will be evaluated by a committee of experts before author(s) are being invited to submit the full book chapter. Papers will be selected based on their originality, relevance, and clarity of presentation. Authors should certify that their papers represents substantially new previously unpublished work.

Chapters must not have been published elsewhere. Unpublished conference presentations are acceptable. Published conference presentations (e.g. in a proceedings volume) may be acceptable if the full copyright can be transferred. If submitting a published conference presentation, the author(s) must provide proof that the article's full copyright can be transferred.

6.  Important Dates and Anticipated Deadlines for Chapters
Chapter Proposal Submission Deadline: June 30, 2016
Notification of Chapter Proposal Acceptance/Rejection: August 1, 2016
Final Book Chapter Submission Deadline (Revised Version Due): December 15, 2016
Final Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: April 1, 2017
Final Camera-Ready Version Deadline: June 30, 2017
Publication Date (tentative): Summer 2017
The chapter proposal should be sent via email to office@dgof.de no later than June 30, 2016. These papers will be examined in an academic review process by a committee of experts. A confirmation of receipt of the submission will be sent within three days, and if you do not receive the confirmation please resend the email and/or contact Cathleen Stuetzer (cstuetze@uni-mainz.de).

Notification regarding the status of each proposal will be sent by August 1, 2016 to all those who submitted a chapter proposal. At that time authors whose chapter proposals have been accepted will also be e-mailed guidelines regarding full book chapter preparation.

The final book chapter deadline is December 15, 2016. Following receipt, full chapters will be sent out for double-blind review. The editors will make the final decision regarding final acceptance of each book chapter until April 1, 2017. All chapters with revision requests (if necessary) need to be completed by June 30, 2017.

7.    Inquiries should be directed to

Dr. Cathleen M. Stuetzer

Board Member of the German Society for Online Research (DGOF)
Internet: www.dgof.de, Email (DGOF-Office): office@dgof.de

 ---
 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Institute for Sociology
 Department of Social Network Research and Sociology of the Family
 Office: Jakob-Welder-Weg 12, Georg Forster-Gebäude
 Room: 03.443 (GFG), D-55099 Mainz, Germany
 Phone: +49 6131 39 29397
 Email: cstuetze@uni-mainz.de

8.    Further information are available here

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/cfpcomputationalsocialsciences

Publisher: http://www.halem-verlag.de/2015/neue-schriften-zur-online-forschung

Additional Information: www.dgof.de

9.    References
Alvarez, R. M. 2016. Computational Social Science: Cambridge University Press.
CioffiRevilla, C. 2010. Computational social science. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Statistics (2), S. 259-271.
Conte, R., N. Gilbert, G. Bonelli, C. Cioffi-Revilla, G. Deffuant, J. Kertesz, V. Loreto, S. Moat, J. P. Nadal, A. Sanchez, A. Nowak, A. Flache, M. San Miguel, und D. Helbing. 2012. Manifesto of computational social science. The European Physical Journal Special Topics (214), S. 325-346.
Lazer, D., A. Pentland, L. Adamic, S. Aral, A. L. Barabasi, D. Brewer, N. Christakis, N. Contractor, J. Fowler, M. Gutmann, T. Jebara, G. King, M. Macy, D. Roy, und M. Van Alstyne. 2009. Life in the network: the coming age of computational social science. Science (New York, N.Y.) (323), S. 721-723.

CPF: When the Virtual Becomes Real: Gender Violence and Social, Mobile, and Interactive Media

Call for Chapters and Proposals

Working Title: When the Virtual Becomes Real: Gender Violence and Social, Mobile, and Interactive Media

Editors

Lisa Cuklanz, Ph.D.
Communication Department,
Boston College
lisa.cuklanz@bc.edu

Heather McIntosh, Ph.D.
Mass Media Department,
Minnesota State University, Mankato
heather.mcintosh@mnsu.edu

Submission Deadline: October 15, 2016

Overview

Popular reactions to gender violence online parallel the early reactions to sexual harrassment and domestic violence in that the violence is downplayed, denied, or dimissed. "It's just a joke," they say. "It's harmless," they say. "Those who cannot handle it should leave," they say. They even claim free speech as their right to continue.

For the person experiencing the violence, however, it is very real. Online, it shows up as e-mail, comments, blogs, fake social networking profiles, search results bombing, doxxing, and revenge porn. Offline, it results in defamation, SWATting, and physical threats. And yet, the attackers fueling these onslaughts often remain anonymous and unknown, making perpetrator identification and law enforcement challenging.

This edited volume seeks to address the intersections of gender violence and social, mobile, and interactive media in order to further scholarly discussion of these issues. It seeks to question how online environments force us to rethink the questions of gender violence.

Some possible topics for this volume include -- but are not limited to -- the following:

• News framing and other media coverage
• Organizations' uses of social media and other tools to raise awareness
• Social networks, their policies, and their responses
• Communities, apps, and other tools that provide support
• Hashtag campaigns, their contributors, and their hijacking
• Representations in popular entertainment media and audience reactions
• Sociocultural intersectionalities of online identities
• Types of gender violence that occur and tools used to perpetuate them

Submission Guidelines

Chapter submissions must be original works not under review or previously published elsewhere. They should run 6,000-8,000 words, including title, abstract, and references. Along with your submission, attach a current CV. Use .pdf, .doc, .rtf, or other accessible file format for your attachment. Citation style should be consistent throughout, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago. Send your submission to lisa.cuklanz@bc.edu or heather.mcintosh@mnsu.edu by October 15, 2016.

While complete chapters are preferred, we also will consider proposals, which should run 1,000 words and include a working bibliography and title. Along with your submission, attach a current CV. Send your chapter proposal to lisa.cuklanz@bc.edu or heather.mcintosh@mnsu.edu by October 15, 2016.

Projected Timetable

While we have a publisher interested in this project, please note this timetable may change.

October 15, 2016 -- Proposals Due
January 15, 2017 -- Feedback
June 15, 2017 -- Chapter Drafts Due
July 15, 2017 -- Chapter Feedback
October 15, 2017 -- Revisions Due
December 15, 2017 -- Submit to Publisher

If you have any questions, please send them to Lisa Cuklanz at lisa.cuklanz@bc.edu or Heather McIntosh at heather.mcintosh@mnsu.edu.

CFP: Chapters for the edited volume From Here to Ubiquity

CFP: Chapters for the edited volume From Here to Ubiquity: Critical and International Perspectives on Mobile and Ubiquitous Media

What do we mean when we say we live in a world of “ubiquitous media”? The term has been deployed to characterize platforms such as television, social media, and mobile media; systems such as algorithms, apps, and augmented reality; concepts such as commerce and surveillance, and issues such as privacy, politics, and neocolonialism. Phrases like IoE (the “Internet of Everything”) are increasingly mentioned in academic and the popular press and framed as an inevitability. Universities have laboratories dedicated to the study of ubiquitous media, and marketing companies aggressively tout their ability to target consumers through a ubiquitous media presence (including one company simply called “Ubiquitous Media” which “specializes in targeting consumers throughout their daily routine”).

In short, the phrase “ubiquitous media” is, well, ubiquitous. There is little discussion, however, of what the term “ubiquitous media” actually means. Indeed, individual definitions of “ubiquitous media” are often assumed to be just a ubiquitous as media themselves and, as a result, there is no large-scale theoretical framework through which we can understand the term.

With this in mind, we welcome the submissions of chapter proposals for the edited volume From Here to Ubiquity: Critical and International Perspectives on Mobile and Ubiquitous Media. The purpose of this edited collection is to try to develop a clearer definition of, and theoretical grounding for, ubiquitous media by assembling a collection of chapters by established experts and emerging scholars from around the world. Chapters should critically and creatively interrogate “ubiquitous media” in the hopes of developing an overarching understanding of the meaning, processes, and ramifications of the term.

A portion of this volume will be dedicated to a specific exploration of mobile technologies as a key precursor – if not central element – of a ubiquitous media environment. This could include past and current mobile technologies, from pagers to PDAs, and cell phones to modern smartphones and wearables, provided they contribute to an understanding of ubiquitous media as both a technical and discursive reality for individuals around the world. Representing global perspectives is also central objective of this volume. An international perspective is important to the development of a comprehensive understanding of what “ubiquitous media” means and the prospectively heterogeneous implications of this development.

Possible approaches/frameworks for these investigations include:

• Theories of ubiquitous media
• Mediatisation
• Political economy
• Space, place and time
• User-experience design
• Business models and start-up culture
• Financial/transactional data and services
• App-centric media
• Digital labour and work-life balance
• Surveillance
• Ubiquitous media and digital literacy
• Ubiquitous media and narratives
• Coding and platforms

No matter the approach, a critical and theoretical focus is key. Together, these works will offer a spectrum of perspectives on ubiquitous media.

Abstracts of 300-350 words (for chapters of approximately 8,000 words) should be emailed to co-editors Dr. Michael S. Daubs at michael.daubs@vuw.ac.nz and Dr. Vince Manzerolle at vmanzero@uwindsor.ca by 1 April 2016. Chapters selected for publication will be notified by 30 April 2016, with full chapter drafts due by 30 August 2016.     

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: Mobile Gaming in Asia: Politics, Culture and Emerging Technologies

Mobile Gaming in Asia: Politics, Culture and Emerging Technologies

Edited by Dal Yong Jin, Ph.D., Simon Fraser University. To be published by Springer in October 2016

The dramatic improvement of mobile phones, tablets, and game consoles has fundamentally changed our daily lives. While the bite-sized software programs people loaded onto their mobile phones seemed to be frivolous games until several years ago, smartphones and their applications have recently created new capital for information and communication technology corporations and changed the way people communicate. While many countries have invested in mobile industries since the early 21st century, several Asian countries have become some of the centers for mobile technologies and culture with their global smartphone manufacturers, such as Samsung and LG in Korea, HTC in Taiwan, Huawei and Lenovo in China. Although these countries were once lagging behind in the penetration of mobile phones, Asia exists as an interesting test-bed for the future of mobile technology and culture because several Asian countries advance several new mobile games based on their smartphones and application. The recent emergence of the smartphone industry and mobile gaming in Asia can be attributed to favorable information technology policies, severe competition among IT corporations, and enthusiastic mobile game users in the region. Equally important is the role of local smartphone applications, which have provided convenient smartphone platforms for local game users. Asians’ engagement with smartphones and related mobile apps suggest that the smartphone becomes a symbolic and material resource for people’s mobile game lifestyle.

SCOPE

Despite the significance of smartphones and mobile gaming in both digital economy and youth culture across the globe, there has been a lack of academic literature exploring how mobile phones are integrated into the socio-economic and cultural landscapes of a particular local game context, and how smartphone users engage in the process. This volume looks into a hitherto neglected focus of inquiry, a localized mobile landscape emerging with the smartphone and its apps, with particular reference to Asians’ engagement with mobile gaming. This edited volume focuses on not only the celebratory achievement of local mobile games, but also the significance of the social milieu in the development of Asian mobile gaming culture. It also investigates several dimensions in the growth of mobile game technologies and culture, including government policy through the lens of globalization theory. Although it seeks to identify factors for the growth of local mobile games, it will also critically examine significant conflicts between global and the local forces. Given that users are the primary actors propelling the smartphone era forward, the volume analyzes how smartphones have taken shape within the context of Asia’s particular mobile culture.

We welcome research by emerging Asia-focused or Asian-based scholars whose work has not been published in English.

Possible topics for submissions include but are not limited to:

• History of the growth of mobile gaming as a regional/global industry, discourse, and media product
• Critical interpretation of emerging local game industries in Asia
• Comparative mobile game studies
• Mobile games and globalization/regionalization
• Convergent technologies and the impact on established modes of mobile/social game play
• Government regulations and types of mobile game play
• Mobile game fandom and free labor
• Mobile gaming as social technology/media
• A culturally specific aesthetic to the production and consumption of mobile games
• New media and experimental mobile gaming
• Gendered consumption and production of mobile games
• Mobile gaming and the role of apps
• Moral panics about mobile gaming (especially among religious communities)
• Concerns about mobile gaming addiction and consequent policy changes
• Traditional dominance of the market by Asian developers
• Unique ways in which specific Asian countries have adopted mobile devices
• Intellectual property issues particular to the region
• Tendency for big developers to look to Asia for outsourcing and localization
• Case studies to gaming in places such as Korea (PC Bangs/StarCraft tournaments etc.)

SUBMISSION 

Please submit proposals of up to 800 words, and a brief (300-word) author bio in an e-mail attachment by 30 May, 2015, to Dal Yong Jin (yongjin23@gmail.com). Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by 15 July, 2015, and invited to submit a full paper by 15 October, 2015. Manuscripts should be no more than 8,000 words, including notes and references, and conform to APA style. All chapters will be subjected to anonymous peer review following submission.

new book: Living Inside Mobile Social Information

Living Inside Mobile Social Information Volume available free.

A PDF version of papers from our recent workshop is available.

Please contact us at mobicom@bu.edu if you would like to receive a printed copy; we’d be happy to send you a copy.

Kind regards,
James Katz

CFP: Private chat to public sphere: Mobile media

CFP: Private chat to public sphere: Mobile media, political participation, and civic activism in Asia

Edited by Ran Wei, Ph.D., University of Caroline

To be published by Springer in January 2016

With increasing personal freedom and faster mobile technologies centered around the smartphone, more and more individuals have the capacity to participate, create and disseminate information, shaping a new public sphere of participatory citizenship or democracies for Asia. As the smartphone gets smarter, communal networks take shape and interact,giving rise to grassroots movements that capture national and even global attention. With more than 2.5 billion users, Asia leads the world in mobile phone population. The increasing saturation of Asian societies by mobile phones with their participatory capacity call for a special volume to explore the mobile phone’s efficacy as a tool for citizen engagement and participation in civic and political affairs, especially in the search for solutions to widespread social problems such as food safety, pollution, government corruption, terrorism, and sectarian violence, and public health risks.

This volume in the Springer series, “Mobile Communication in Asia,” explores how personalized content and the inherent networked nature of the mobile phone lead to positive network effects for public good and fostering social progress. Considering the vast cultural diversity of Asian societies that are shaped by different levels of political, social, economic and religious development, the volume will focus on nuanced investigation and in-depth analysis of the mobile phone and political communication in particular Asian societies, from which it will draw broad themes from local cases and synthesize enduring concepts of global significance. Research is only now catching up with advanced mobile technology, and this book provides the most significant and up-to-date studies on the topic.

We welcome research by emerging Asia-focused or Asian-based scholars whose work has not previously been published in English.

Chapter proposals are needed for topics in the volume including but not limited to:

• Empirical studies that examine uses of the mobile phone (calling, voicemail, SMS/texting, mobile social media, mobile blogs, mobile Weibo, mobile webchat) to access and share information about public affairs, mobile crises, community events, and the like.
• How social media transforms at the individual level and at the structural level, leading to mobilization and civic engagement.
• The bridge between Asian news consumption and political participation (e.g. voting).
• Creative use of mobile media for consuming news as well as increasing autonomy.
• The growth of a networked publics among young people through mobile social media.
• Explorations and theorizing about the technical aspects of mobile media in virtual social movements, from network apps to contents of posts.
• Implications of mobile media in Asia for citizenship, national identity, social capital, solidarity and empowerment.
• Research that assesses the effectiveness and outcomes of social movements organized or facilitated by the mobile phone.
• Enhancement through social media of collective action in both scope and integration into daily life.
• Mobile media campaigns in specific movements, such as students’ rights and climate change.
• The implications of the Asian experience for world politics.
• Mobile campaigns to confront social problems such as food safety, pollution, corruption, and social injustice.
• Enhancing information and services for public health initiatives.

Please submit proposals up to 800 words, and a brief (300-word) author bio in an e-mail attachment by 15 June, 2015, to wei2@sc.edu. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by 15 July, 2015, and invited to submit a full paper by 1 October, 2015. Manuscripts should be no more than 9,000 words, including notes and references, and conform to APA style. All chapters will be subjected to anonymous peer review following submission.

The volume editor: Ran Wei is the Gonzales Brothers Professor of Journalism at University of South Carolina, and current Editor-in-Chief of Mass Communication and Society. He earned a B.A. in English Literature and International Journalism from Shanghai International Studies University (China), a M.A. in Journalism Studies at the University of Wales (U.K.), and a Ph.D. in Mass Communication at Indiana University. His research focuses on new media, the processes and effects of media messages in various contexts (political, social, promotional, health and risk) that involve a wide range of media channels and devices (traditional and emerging). He is a pioneering scholar in mobile communication research, with his mobile phone studies being widely cited. He serves on the inaugural board of Mobile Media & Communication, and was a guest editor of Media Asia.

CFP: Time Travelers: Temporality and Digital Mapping

Digital mapping, though generally conceived as a spatial activity, is as strongly grounded in time. With the digital era disintegrating representational fixity, scholars, adept at grappling with the spatial implications of digitality, continue to struggle to conceptualize and communicate the temporal consequences of maps that shift with each moment.

In this peer-reviewed collection we seek to take up Doreen Massey's (2005:107) still critical concern: how do we cope with the 'ongoing stories' in the world. Mapping has long wrestled with the difficulty of enrolling time into such narratives. This collection aims to examine how this is impacted by the presence of digital mapping technologies that, arguably, have disrupted our understanding of time as much as they have provided coherence.

We are looking for contributions that move beyond the descriptive to pay particular attention to what might be called the 'critical dynamics' of time. Examples of such approaches may include drawing on phenomenology and the body (Massumi, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl), theorizing play and ludic devices (Huizinga, Caillois), employing network/assemblage thinking (Latour, De Landa), reading such concerns through philosophers of technology (Stiegler, Simondon etc.). In each case contributions should focus on, or cross-cut between , digital maps, digital mapping or digital locative-media.

We encourage contributions on a range of themes:
•    Rhythm (mapping and/or analysis of rhythm(s)
•    Inscription, folding or layering of temporality
•    'Real-time' data visualization
•    Playing with mapping time
•    Urban 'ghostings' or hauntings
•    Surveillant temporalities
•    The temporality of designing maps.
•    Present absences / absent presences
•    Methodologies of temporal recovery / analysis
•    Changing everyday digital mapping cultures
•    Political valence of temporal dynamics
•    'Capturing' and the flows of everyday life
•    Affective technologies and the half-second delay
•    (Digital) mapping moments or events
•    Fast/slow cartographies
•    Temporal dashboards
•    Play time
•    Attention, interest and changing modes of temporal production
•    Temporality at the interface: haptic and participatory presence
•    Interfaces and digital 'feeds' / content immediacy
•    The blackboxing of temporality
•    Futures and/or loss of futurity
•    Spatial stories and narrative cartographies
•    Embodied mapping practice
•    Temporality of creative processes
•    Designing time
•    Temporal complexities

We invite contributions from range of methodological, theoretical and practical vantage points, and are particularly interested in bringing together a variety of approaches, from junior and senior researchers, and from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

Please send a full chapter of between 4000 and 8000 words (Chicago manual of style), with a short biography of 100 words by *18 December **2014* to: chartingthedigital@gmail.com. We use Easychair as our submission system:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=chatemp2014

For other inquiries please contact:  chartingthedigital@gmail.com.

CFP: Intersections of gender, development and mobile technology

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite researchers working in the field of mobile communication and gender in the developing world to submit an abstract for consideration for a volume whose current  working title is Intersections of gender, development and mobile technology: social context and relations of power  planned for submission to the Routledge series Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality. The deadline for abstract submission is September 30th, 2014 (please see guidelines below). Once decisions have been made regarding abstract selection, those who submitted abstracts will be informed in a timely manner and the editors (Caroline Wamala, Laura Stark) will then write the book proposal to the publisher on the basis of the accepted abstracts.

If Routledge accepts our proposal, our target deadline for completion of full chapters is December 31st, 2015. However, this deadline will depend on the publisher’s timetable. A workshop may also be organized for authors to meet and discuss their research if funding becomes available.

THEME:

Mobile technologies such as mobile phones, smart phones, tablets, and note books have revolutionized our way of life. How we communicate, relate and organize our way of living has been impacted and aided by the proliferation of these devices. In order to narrow the socioeconomic disparities between countries and regions, the use of information communication technologies (ICTs), mobile technologies included, continue to be championed by development efforts, and access to timely information enabled through ICTs is said to promote socio-economic well-being. Communication technologies that are mobile in character have enlarged development prospects due to their widespread adoption among even the poor in so-called developing countries. Mobile phones enable communication and information exchange in the remotest parts of the globe, and have consequently become synonymous with the discourse on poverty reduction and economic growth.

The proposed volume focuses on the changing intersections between technology, gender and other categories of social and cultural power difference (age, race, ethnicity, class, caste, religion, etc.), and asks how these intersections can inform development discourse, practice and research. The theoretical underpinnings of the volume engage with the intersectionality paradigm in teasing out the complexities involved in using mobile technologies for development purposes, and the concept of development is problematized through analysis of empirical materials.

The inspiration for this volume comes from new trends observed at the Mobile Communications for Development (M4D) conference held in Dakar, Senegal in April 2014. At the first M4D conference held in 2008, issues related to society and gender were barely on the agenda and only a few voices were raised in skepticism of the dominant climate of techno-optimism. Just six years later, the mobile-for-development field has come a long way. Both researchers and practitioners, often for different reasons, attend closely to the implications of gender and are taking a more critical view of the transformative capabilities of mobile telephony. They are also calling for more sensitivity to the socio-cultural and political contexts of behaviors linked to mobile use, as well as the social consequences of that use.

There is a growing sense that well-being and empowerment, two concepts central to current development discourses, need to be examined from more nuanced perspectives, with greater attention to their internal contradictions. For example, increased benefits through mobile health interventions measured in physical health may come at the cost of social or cultural disempowerment, when for instance HIV patients who come to prenatal clinics are treated badly by community healthcare workers, or when outreach efforts enhance the authority of the mother-in-law over the reproductive rights of her daughter-in-law within the home. While mobile phones are said to provide women with feelings of safety and security both at home and in public because they are tools for women and other vulnerable groups to alert others for help if needed, they have also been shown to lead to physical abuse of women when information in the hands of women can be perceived as a threat to men’s decision-making positions in the home. In addition, just as other technologies have contributed to the expression of hegemonic as well as subordinate masculinities, we hope to receive contributions that highlight how the engagement with mobile technologies in everyday communication practices reinforce, challenge or even subvert contextual expressions of masculinities. Development interventions may entail costs and risks for users other than those which are measurable by quantitative means. Questions need to be asked whether some targeted beneficiaries are empowered while others are disempowered, and we need to forge a more holistic view of well-being. This has led both researchers and practitioners in the field of mobiles-for-development to call for a more profound and rigorous examination of howdifferent dimensions of social life are intertwined, and how forms of differentiation create complex systems of oppression.

PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION OF SERIES:

Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality is committed to the development of new feminist and profeminist perspectives on changing gender relations, with special attention to:

• Intersections between gender and power differentials, based on age, class, dis/abilities, ethnicity, nationality, racialisation, sexuality, violence, and other social divisions
• Intersections of societal dimensions and processes of continuity and change: culture, economy, generativity, polity, sexuality, science and technology
• Embodiment: Intersections of discourse and materiality, and of sex and gender
• Transdiscipilinity: intersections of humanities, social sciences, medical, technical and natural sciences
• Intersections of different branches of feminist theorizing, including: historical materialist feminisms, postcolonial and anti-racist feminisms, radical feminisms, sexual difference feminisms, queerfeminisms,cyberfeminisms, posthuman feminisms, critical studies on men and masculinities
• A critical analysis of the travelling of ideas, theories and concepts
• A politics of location, reflexivity and transnational contextualizing that reflects the basis of the series framed within European diversity and transnational power relations

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACT

Please send a 1-page abstract of your proposed chapter to both Caroline Wamala (caroline.wamala@kau.se) and Laura Stark (laura.stark@jyu.fi), in which the following information is clearly stated (this information will help us to make a more convincing case for the book’s merits to the publisher):

• the main research question(s) of your proposed chapter, please limit these to three questions, and state them in the form of concrete, specific question(s).
• your source data and methods
• the geographical scope of your data and analysis
• to what current discussions do your research findings contribute, with what research literature does your chapter engage?
• in keeping with the themes of the Routledge series in which our volume will be published, how does your chapter topic/theme relate to Masculinity and feminist studies and intersectionality? How will it advance our knowledge in these areas?

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

Caroline Wamala is senior lecturer at the Department of Gender Research, Karlstad University. She is also the Director for the HumanIT research centre also at Karlstad University. Her research is situated within the field of gender and technology focusing on how ICTs contribute to the construction and expression of gender, as well as the other way round.

Laura Stark is Professor of Ethnology at the Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has been the director of the multi-researcher research project Mobile Technology, Gender and Development in Africa, India and Bangladesh funded by the Academy of Finland 2010–2013.