<nettime-ann> [call] AoIR Conference 2006: 1st announcement and call for papers

["AnnBotO'Riordan, Kate" <k.oriordan@lancaster.ac.uk>]

CALL FOR PAPERS

IR 7.0: INTERNET CONVERGENCES
International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of
Internet Researchers

Brisbane, Australia
28-30 September 2006

Pre-Conference Workshops: 27 September 2006

INTERNET CONVERGENCES

The Internet works as an arena of convergence. Physically dispersed and
marginalized people (re)find themselves online for the sake of
sustaining and extending community. International and interdisciplinary
teams now collaborate in new ways. Diverse cultures engage one another
via CMC. These technologies relocate and refocus capital, labor and
immigration, and they open up new possibilities for political,
potentially democratizing, forms of discourse. Moreover, these
technologies themselves converge in multiple ways, e.g. in
Internet-enabled mobile phones, in Internet-based telephony, and in
computers themselves as "digital appliances" that conjoin communication
and multiple media forms. These technologies also facilitate
fragmentations with greater disparities between the information-haves
and have-nots, between winners and losers in the shifting labor and
capital markets, and between individuals and communities. Additionally
these technologies facilitate information filtering that reinforces,
rather than dialogically challenges, narrow and extreme views.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Our conference theme invites papers and presentations based on empirical
research, theoretical analysis and everything in between that explore
the multiple ways the Internet acts in both converging and fragmenting
ways - physical, cultural, technological, political, social - on local,
regional, and global scales.

Without limiting possible proposals, topics of interest include:

- Theoretical and practical models of the Internet
- Internet convergence, divergence and fragmentation
- Networked flows of information, capital, labor, etc.
- Migrations and diasporas online
- Identity, community and global communication
- Regulation and control (national and global)
- Internet-based development and other economic issues
- Digital art and aesthetics
- Games and gaming on the Internet
- The Net generation
- E-Sectors, e.g. e-health, e-education, e-business

We call for papers, panel proposals, and presentations from any
discipline, methodology, and community that address the theme of
Internet Convergence. We particularly call for innovative, exciting, and
unexpected takes on and interrogations of the conference theme. However,
we always welcome submissions on any topics that address social,
cultural, political, economic, and/or aesthetic aspects of the Internet
and related Internet technologies. We are equally interested in
interdisciplinary proposals as well as proposals from within specific
disciplines.

SUBMISSIONS

We seek proposals for several different kinds of contributions. We
welcome proposals for traditional academic conference papers, but we
also encourage proposals for creative or aesthetic presentations that
are distinct from a traditional written 'paper'. We welcome proposals
for roundtable sessions that will focus on discussion and interaction
among conference delegates, and we also welcome organized panel
proposals that present a coherent group of papers on a single theme.

This year AoIR will also be using an alternative presentation format in
which a dozen or so participants who wish to present a short overview of
their work to stimulate debate will gather together in a plenary session
involving short presentations (no more than 5 minutes) and extended
discussion. All papers and presentations in this session will be
reviewed in the normal manner. Further information will be available via
the conference submission website.

- PAPERS (individual or multi-author) - submit abstract of 500-750 words

- SHORT PRESENTATIONS - submit abstract of 500-750 words

- CREATIVE OR AESTHETIC PRESENTATIONS - submit abstract of 500-750 words

- PANELS - submit a 250-500 word description of the panel theme (and
abstracts of the distinct papers or presentations)

- ROUNDTABLE PROPOSALS - submit a 250-500 word state
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