[ecrea] DCC Call for papers. Digital Culture: Promises and Discomforts

Call for Papers

*Digital Culture: Promises and Discomforts*

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) 
<mailto:(ecreadigitalculture /at/ gmail.com)>. Notifications of acceptance will 
be sent out after June 13, 2013.

*Keynote Speakers*

We are delighted to announce the following two keynote speakers:

*Annette Markham* <http://www.markham.internetinquiry.org/> (Umeå 
University, Sweden) -- topic to be announced
*Jakob Svensson* <http://www.kau.se/forskare/jakob-svensson>(Karlstad 
University, Sweden) will give a lecture on "New Media for Development"

The workshop will take place at the Department of Media Studies of the 
University of Bonn, Germany, Poppelsdorfer Allee 47, 53115, Bonn. The 
conference date is *October 2nd -- 5th, 2013*. More information on the 
conference venue and registration will be published here 
<http://dccecrea.wordpress.com/workshop/> and at 
dccecrea2013.uni-bonn.de <http://dccecrea2013.uni-bonn.de/>

--
*Gemma San Cornelio Esquerdo*
Estudis de Ciències de la Informació i de la Comunicació
*Universitat Oberta de Catalunya*

93 326 (3431) | (gsan_cornelio /at/ uoc.edu) <mailto:(gsan_cornelio /at/ uoc.edu)>
22@ (Rambla Poblenou, 156)

http://uoc.academia.edu/GemmaSanCornelio |
http://mediacciones.es/ <http://es.linkedin.com/in/gsancornelio>
http://cartografia.wordpress.com/


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