[ecrea] Fwd: CfP Digital Culture: Promises and Discomforts

Call for Papers – Digital Culture: Promises and Discomforts

Digital Culture and Communication Section of ECREA Workshop
Bonn, 2-5 October, 2013

The ongoing mediatisation process is subject to social transformations
as well as technical innovation processes and creative practices. We
endorse digital technologies with the promises of a better way of
life, solving our problems of managing the world’s complexity,
allowing better participatory policies and helping us in our daily
life. At the same time, however, we are confronted with the
fundamental problems of technological structures, such as the problems
of Internet surveillance, control and the unequal distribution of
power on the Web. Looking at digital cultures as a driving force of
social change, we find ourselves confronted with a variety of
contradictory images of digital culture and its possible futures.

In this workshop we want to critically discuss the promises and
discomforts of digital culture taking into account the tensions raised
by different material practices, understandings and social orders
around the role of digital media in performing social change. Special
focus lies on the three aspects of Digital Culture:

(1) Digital imaginations and narratives
The images of future are drawn in tecno-scapes, like in
science-fiction films, artificial intelligence designs, virtual worlds
or metaverses. What kinds of individuals, societies and environments
are imagined through the growing pervasiveness of Digital Culture into
our lives? How digital imaginaries shape our experience and relate to
our ways of narrating ourselves and our creative practices? What are
the role of innovation, creative industries and urbanlabs in the
design of the future and in the different kinds of social
intervention? How digital imagination is performing new narrative
forms as well as transforming knowledge production and sharing?

(2) Digital Neighbourhoods and Citizenship
Among the existing networked digital technologies it is smartphones
and tablet computers, which are becoming increasingly popular at an
extraordinary pace. These devices not only make digital media
applications truly ubiquitous but also create an abundance of digital
location-sensitive information, which saturates local places, social
relations, and the perception and organisation of neighbourhoods. The
concept of space turns into a mash-up of  material and digital places,
creating new forms of the social while at the same time renegotiating
the cultural and political logics of local/global or private/public.
How does the use of digital media trigger new social phenomena, such
as altered forms and modes of communication, collaboration,
consumption, infrastructure, mobility or public service?

(3) Digital Engagement and Social Change
Digital engagement manifests itself in a broad range of digital
practices. People discursively engage through and with digital media
and thus dissolve spatial, temporal and social boundaries. Especially
a few popular commercial social networks, like Facebook and Twitter,
are presumed to play a crucial role in the process of social change by
means of interaction and connectivity. On a political dimension,
citizens and activists voice their opinions, discuss political issues,
organize and mobilize for protest in new or alternative public
spheres. However, it remains unclear, whether and in which
differentiations digital media engagement affects established power
relations and thus promotes social change. Which diverse forms of
political engagement unfold in digital media environments? How can
underlying technological and power structures of media be rendered
visible and to what extent do they affect the possibilities and
boundaries of digital engagement?

We welcome papers picking up any of the described issues and topics
and we will also consider contributions related with digital forms of
social intervention, art projects or urbanlabs proposals. Extended
abstracts should be no longer than 700 words, written in English and
contain a clear outline of the argument, the theoretical framework,
methodology and results (if applicable).

Participants may submit more than one proposal, but only one paper by
the same first author might be accepted. Panel and paper proposals
from PhD students and early career scholars are particularly welcome.

All proposals should be submitted by April 19, 2013 to
(ecreadigitalculture /at/ gmail.com). Notifications of acceptance will be
sent out after June 13, 2013.

Keynote Speakers:
Annette Markham (Umeå University, Sweden)
Jakob Svensson (Karlstad University, Sweden)

Venue:
The Workshop will take place at the Department of Media Studies of the
University of Bonn, Germany, Poppelsdorfer Allee 47, 53115, Bonn.
The Workshop date is October 2nd – 5th, 2013.

Go to dccecrea2013.uni-bonn.de  for more information on the workshop
venue and registration.


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