CFP: Pokémon Go Discussion Panel

Pokémon Go Discussion Panel

Central States Communication Association
2017 Annual Conference

Minneapolis, MN

March 16 – March 18, 2017

The latest iteration of the seminal video game, Pokémon, uses location-based augmented reality. Pokémon Go (PG) became an instant success upon release, accessing the GPS and camera of user’s smartphones in their quest to capture. In-game Pokémon are found in and near different environments (water, forest, grass, etc…) so players must travel in order to obtain a variety of Pokémon, and visit Pokéstops to obtain items used for the game.

The requirement of physically moving around to play PG has been a blessing and curse. Many medical professionals and commentators have praised PG for the improved mental and physical health of players, as they are now moving about their communities and interacting with other players (Halle, 2016). At the same time, PG players are creating issues by trespassing to find different Pokémon, ignoring safety precautions do to being distracted by the game, and disturbing residents who live near very active Pokéstops.

As scholars, we have a unique opportunity to examine a variety of aspects surrounding PG literally from the start of the game release. As such, I would like to assemble a group of scholars for a discussion panel regarding PG for the coming Central States Communication Conference.

• Possible discussion topics include, but are not limited to the following:
• PG helping with family communication
• PG bridging different groups such as young and old, female and male, etc…
• PG helping those with communication anxiety
• PG and community involvement
• PG assisting those with illness such as PTSD, agoraphobia, depression, etc…
• Pedagogical potential for PG
• Players breaking the law (trespassing, destruction of property, etc…) to track down Pokémon
• Differences between the PG gaming community and other gaming communities
• PG creating distractions that are dangerous to the user and those around them
• PG and privacy concerns
• Abuse of the system where criminals have used the app to track down and/or attract unsuspecting players
• PG creating issues for those living near popular Pokéstops
• Discourses about the potential benefits or downsides to PG
• PG as a display of the social and economic conditions of a community
• PG as a site for disruption, protest, and amplification

If you are interested, please send me your name, email, phone number, affiliation, and a brief message explaining what your are interested in discussing in regards to PG and why you would be an excellent addition to the panel.

Thank you,

Christopher Anderson
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
ander973@uwm.edu

Global Media Policy, Governance & Rights: IPSP report panel, Sat 30 July - IAMCR 2016

Global Media Policy, Governance, and Rights Beyond NWCIS and WSIS: Reflections on the International Panel on Social Progress

Saturday July 30, 2016 14:00 - 15:30
LT3 KEB, Ken Edwards Building

Pradip Thomas (University of Queensland)

Ingrid Volkmer (University of Melbourne)

Herman Wasserman (University of Cape Town)

Pradip Thomas (University of Queensland)

Aimée Vega Montiel (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

Cees Hamelink (University of Amsterdam)

In the midst of significant global challenges, especially associated with media transformations, how we can grasp and rethink global media policy, governance, rights, and social justice? How do the complex infrastructures of connection today both expand capitalism but also enable counter-movements? From scientific and policy perspectives, as well as the standpoints of other key actors, how can we approach media infrastructures as a specific site of social and political struggle? What opportunities and challenges are available to us, across the various domains of global media policy, struggling to deal with longstanding issues in media power, as well as new issues in Internet governance, intellectual property, social media platforms, mobile media, the data turn, and so on?

Engaging these urgent questions, this panel introduces and explores a major international initiative the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP; http://www.ipsp.org/) involving over 300 scholars, ‘rethinking society for the 21st century’. The IPSP includes a number of IAMCR scholars, as well as other leading figures in the field, responsible for the pivotal chapter on media (publicly available in draft form). Participants will include various authors from the IPSP media in dialogue with experts in framing and intervening on global media concerns.

Transnational Mobility in the Asia Pacific

Transnational Mobility in the Asia Pacific
​ ​
Family, Friends, Facebook
​ Symposium​

3 November 2016
RMIT University

Travelling internationally for work, study, humanitarian and lifestyle reasons has become a global phenomenon and commonplace in the Asia-Pacific.  Facilitated by cheaper and more frequent modes of travel together with varied degrees of desire, determination and desperation, the past few decades has seen greater and increasing numbers of people leaving their countries of origin and families to pursue better and improved lives for themselves.  The normality of transnational mobility also means that people have prior, if not frequent experience living outside the country of origin.  Transnational mobility however does not mean a loss of connectivity to family and friends left behind due to the vast improvements in media and communication technologies.  Social media which has grown rapidly in less than a decade has become an embedded part of everyday life.

Social media has changed the landscape of communication.  We are now able to communicate with family, friends and acquaintances en masse and privately, constantly and in real time wherever we are and in whatever we are doing.  More than just presenting us with various ways of communicating with each other, social media has also expanded the social groups we communicate with.  While social media is a platform of choice for everyday communication with people we know, it also allows us to broadcast our thoughts, opinions, ideas and ideologies with a broad audience – across state and national lines.

Discussing the intersections of transnational mobility with new communication technologies and their impact on familial and social networks and relations, this symposium brings together cutting edge research from scholars across disciplines.

Keynote address: Prof Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore

Convenor: Dr Catherine Gomes

This event is funded by the RMIT Foundation, International Visiting Fellowship, Digital Ethnographic Research Centre and Asia@RMIT

Registration is FREE

Website: https://tmapsite.wordpress.com/

CFP: Symposium on Big Data and Human Development

Symposium on Big Data and Human Development

Thursday 15 - Friday 16 Sep 2016

Said Business School, Lecture Theatre 04

Oxford, UK

http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/events/?id=786

To attend, please email your name and affiliation to events@oii.ox.ac.uk. Attending this conference is free of charge. Please note space is limited and registration preference will be given to contributors of selected abstracts.

This workshop aims to move forward the debate about the ways in which big data is used, can be used, and should be used in development.

This symposium will also serve as a bridge between methodological knowledge about big data, critical academic research on the topic, and the desires of stakeholders and practitioners to achieve key developmental outcomes and goals.

With keynotes by:

Professor Bitange Ndemo, Former Permanent Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication, and Lecturer at the University of Nairobi

Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Academic Director of Data-Pop Alliance, and Director of the MIT Human Dynamics Lab

Dr Linnet Taylor, Fellow at the Department of International Development, University of Amsterdam

Organizers:

Mark Graham

Eduardo Lopez

Christopher Dobyns

Call for abstracts

We welcome the submission of abstracts (of max 250 words) for talks, panels, and sessions at the workshop. Submit them to christopher.dobyns@oii.ox.ac.uk by 15 July 2016.

Papers presented in the conference will be considered for an edited volume in big data and human development.

Please contact Mark Graham (mark.graham@oii.ox.ac.uk) with any questions.

The Oxford Human Development and Big Data Incubator is working to stimulate policy-oriented research. Topics that we seek to focus on in our workshop include (but are not limited to):

What ‘big data’ can tell us about human development; how we can facilitate better decision-making and accountability in previously data-sparse environments;

• What presences and absences of data tell us about issues of participation and exclusion among marginalised populations;
• What tools have emerged globally that can maximise citizen ownership of big data, by making data meaningful within the cultures of participation that characterise different localities.
• Research results of projects employing big data in the contexts of development.

Submissions may include:

Talks: Contributors are invited to submit full-length talks (15 min) related to the conference themes

Panels: Contributors are invited to pitch a panel discussion on core conferences themes

Demonstrations: Contributors are invited to submit an idea for a demonstration (which may be facilitated as part of a panel as a stand-alone event)

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.

CFP: Social Media and Political Participation

CFP: Full manuscript for Special Issue "Social Media and Political Participation" in Social Sciences
(Edited by Terri L. Towner, Oakland University)

Manuscript Deadline:  Full manuscripts due by June 30, 2016.

Social media’s role in politics, campaigning, and elections has been the focus of scholarly research for over a decade. Scholars have examined how political candidates, parties, and citizens use social media during campaigns as well as how social media influences citizens’ political attitudes and behaviors. Despite extensive study, the empirical literature linking social media use and attention, particularly Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to political participation is mixed and thus, inconclusive. Some research suggests that social media facilitates and promotes political and civic participation whereas other research does not. Therefore, this special issue seeks to further clarify the link between social media and political engagement. This call is particularly interested in research that examines relatively understudied social media platforms, such as Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, and SnapChat. In addition, this call encourages submissions that examine many forms of political participation, as this concept can be a multidimensional activity including voting, protesting, marching, blogging, tweeting, volunteering, sharing online content, emailing, and more.

Submissions are sought from a broad array of disciplines, perspectives, and nations, representing a diverse collection of topics, including, but not limited to:

• Social media and political participation
• Social media and election outcomes
• Social media and political attitudes
• Social media as a campaign tool
• Social media and mass media, particularly the role of social media in reporting political news
• Social media and interest/advocacy groups
• Social media and social movements
• Social media and government/e-government
• Social media and democracy
• Social media users and their characteristics in the context of political participation

If you are interested in submitting, please see the website for more information and submission instructions: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci/special_issues/political_participation

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.