[ecrea] CFP - Problematizing Cyber Wars

Problematizing Cyber Wars

Call for Papers
CyberOrient: Online Journal of the Virtual Middle East
Editor-in-Chief: Daniel Martin Varisco
Guest Editor: Helga Tawil-Souri
Submission deadline: September 30, 2014 (Full Papers)

Aim

According to military analysts, since the 1991 Gulf War and even more
so since the Hezbollah-Israel 2006 war, we have entered a new phase of
warfare, in which kinetic and traditional military power are losing
importance to symbolic and media power. Perhaps unsurprisingly given a
still-widely held Orientalist view in military circles, many such
perspectives revolve around wars and conflicts in the ‘Middle East’ or
against ‘Islam’ more broadly – taking place in Iraq, Iran,
Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Syria, but also on cyber networks and
mobile phones.

While these claims are of course hyperbole, this special issue of
CyberOrient invites articles on questions of how we might define wars
in a (new) media-age in the region; whether, why, and how (new) media
are increasingly sites of warfare; the relationships between ‘virtual’
and ‘real’ battlespaces. Topics could include the significance of
targeting (and bombing) telecommunications and media infrastructures;
the use of (new) media as outlets for propaganda during wartime; the
mediatization of war and the militarization of media; the role of
participatory or social media and mobile communications during and in
wars; relationships or differences between official, military,
alternative, citizen, and grass-roots (new) media uses during war and
conflict; the expanding definition of warzones; commemoration and
memorialization of war in a digital age; among others. We welcome
submissions from across disciplines and methodological approaches that
are empirically and critically grounded.

About CyberOrient

CyberOrient (http://www.cyberorient.net/) is a peer-reviewed journal
published by the American Anthropological Association, in
collaboration with the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in
Prague. The aim of the journal is to provide research and theoretical
considerations on the representation of Islam and the Middle East, the
very areas that used to be styled as an “Orient”, in cyberspace, as
well as the impact of the internet and new media in Muslim and Middle
Eastern contexts.

Submission

Articles should be submitted directly to Helga Tawil-Souri
((helga /at/ nyu.edu) <mailto:(helga /at/ nyu.edu)>) and Vit Sisler 
((vit.sisler /at/ ff.cuni.cz) <mailto:(vit.sisler /at/ ff.cuni.cz)>). Article should
be between 6,000 and 8,000 words (including references), and follow
the AAA style in referencing and citations. Upon acceptance, articles
will be published online with free access in spring 2015.

More information can be found here:
http://www.cyberorient.net/detail.do?articleId=3682



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