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Call for Papers:
Networking Democracy? New media innovations in participatory politics
A three day Symposium to be held at BabeÅ?-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
25-27 June 2010
Website:
http://www.brisc.info/NetDem/index.php?page=networking-democracy
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Democratic politics worldwide are increasingly
being conducted and re-configured through the
domain of digital communications networks. The
socio-technical developments, such as Web 2.0,
facilitating these media-saturated public
spheres are in little doubt. What is highly
contested however is the interpretation of what
these profound changes offer for democratic
governance in the twenty-first century. At its
heart is the recognition that these new media
networks are themselves the crucial site for a
historical confrontation between opposing
political and/or business interests and
discourses intent upon forging new forms of social relations.
We will address questions such as:
What new forms and relations of power are
produced in the digital network society?
Who are the key social actors shaping the new
public sphere and what are their respective
strategies, framing, and repertoires of action?
What is the democratic potential of Web 2.0
applications such as social networking, blogging and twittering?
What empirical evidence do we have to understand
and assess these developments?
How is networked democracy influencing new democratic societies?
What are its consequences for human rights,
social sorting, migration, e-government,
community politics, surveillance, protest,
participation, culture, identity, mobilization,
representation, nationalism, security, citizen
journalism, trust, regulation, both exogenous
and self-regulation and much more?
Speakers include:
W. Lance Bennett
<http://depts.washington.edu/bennett/about.html>, University of Washington, USA
Bruce Bimber
<http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/bimber/>,
University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
Donatella Della Porta
<http://www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/PoliticalAndSocialSciences/People/Professors/Profiles/todump/bioDellaporta.aspx>,
European University Institute, Italy
William H. Dutton
<http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/faculty.cfm?id=1>,
Oxford Internet Institute, UK
Brian Loader
<http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/soci/about/s_load.htm>, University of York, UK
Rodica Mocan
<http://www.plaxo.com/directory/profile/141734557021/4e737db5/Rodica/Mocan>,
BabeÅ?-Bolyai University, Romania
We invite papers from all disciplines which have
addressed these topics. The paper title, an
abstract of up to 500 words, a short bio and
contact details should be sent to Dan Mercea,
Department of Sociology, University of York,
Heslington, YO10 5DD, (dmm505 /at/ york.ac.uk)
<mailto:(dmm505 /at/ york.ac.uk)> before 7 December
2009. Notifications of acceptance will be sent
out by 15 January 2010. For more details visit http://www.brisc.info/NetDem/
The event is supported by the Center for
Political Analysis
<http://www.polito.ubbcluj.ro/cpa/en/index.html>and
the European Studies Department
<http://www.euro.ubbcluj.ro/en/> (BabeÅ?-Bolyai
University), the Science and Technology Studies
Unit <http://www.york.ac.uk/res/satsu/> and the
Department of Sociology
<http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/soci/degrees/resscitech.htm>(University of York)
Selected papers from the conference will be
published in a special issue of the
international journal Information, Communication
and Society <http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rics>
IMPORTANT DATES:
Submission deadline: 7 December 2009
Notifications of acceptance: 15 January 2010
Symposium: 25-27 June 2010
--
Dan Mercea
PhD Candidate
Communication Studies
Department of Sociology
University of York
E: (dmm505 /at/ york.ac.uk)
T: +44(0)1904 433578
