[ecrea] CFP - Non-Use in the Age of the Post-Digital

Call for Papers
Knowledge Management & E-Learning (KM&EL)
(Indexed by SCOPUS)

Special Issue on
“Non-Use in the Age of the Post-Digital”

Guest Editors
Dr. Claes Thorén
Department of Informatics and Media,
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Email: (claes.thoren /at/ im.uu.se)

Dr. Jenny Eriksson Lundström
Department of Informatics and Media,
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Email: (jenny.eriksson /at/ im.uu.se)

Prof. Mats Edenius
Department of Informatics and Media,
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Email: (mats.edenius /at/ im.uu.se)

The concept of “the digital society” has not only come to equate 
progress in the “golden age of digital innovation”, but is often seen as 
a fundamental aspiration of late modernity. Digital technologies are 
today integral to nearly all aspects of society, from the business 
sector, education to civic involvement, where citizens are not just 
citizens but have become digital citizens and digital users, with 
universal access to information technologies. However, the term “digital 
user” is a complex and multi-faceted concept – technologies can be used 
in many different ways, and to varying degrees. “Digital user” would be 
almost impossible to discuss without its counterpart; “digital non-user”.
Now we have entered into an era where practices revive older media 
technologies, not merely reusing them, but repurposing them in relation 
to, as a reaction against, inspired by, dictated by, transformed by, 
compelled by, curated by, following the mainstream of, digital media 
technologies: flip phones as anti-smartphones, vinyl records and 
cassette tapes as anti-streaming, analog film as anti-digital cameras, 
or as a seemingly anachronistic phenomenon that does not follow 
traditionally linear models of technological innovation. What does this 
post-digital age entail for the digital user/non-user?
This special issue of the KM&EL international journal is dedicated to 
exploration of the potential of non-use, as a concept, context, 
phenomenon and practice. Conventionally, non-use of technology has been 
understood and critiqued in terms of lack or deficit constituting a 
clear division between digital haves and have-nots. Normative responses 
to such “lack” is to designate non users as individuals that should 
either be assimilated into modern technological use or be dismissed as 
outliers and ignored. In other words, individuals who do not use a 
particular technology (such as a computer or the Internet) tend to be 
portrayed as lacking in terms of a skill set, ability or socio-economic 
potential or opportunity, an argument that oversimplifies the absence of 
use as binary opposites. There is a need to nuance the discussion by 
recognizing the multiple facets of digital use entails. We see non-use 
not as something ready to become absent in the digital society, neither 
in practice nor theory. Non-use is not a negative space. Rather the 
opposite. Non-use can be active, meaningful, motivated, considered, 
structured, specific, directed and productive.
From this outset we invite papers that both theoretically and 
empirically deepen our understanding of non-use in its varieties and 
forms. We invite papers that explore advances in the theorization and 
application of non-use.
The primary contribution of this special issue will be to highlight 
actual trends and challenges in research in non-use with the aim to 
stimulate innovative research and new insights in the domains, theories, 
models and practices in this research topic.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Empirical investigations into non-use from the individual’s 
perspective, going beyond existing explanations of non-users of 
technology (such as material and cognitive deficiency, technophobia and 
ideological refusal etc.)
- Exploring conceptual understandings of non-use of digital technologies
- Exploring conceptual bases through which non-use can be understood and 
investigated
- Novel empirical studies that shed light on combinations of different 
kinds of use and non-use and its outcomes
- Ethical issues for taking action, the making of statements and their 
interpretations related to non-use seriously
- Non-use beyond specific circumstances of use
- Non-use, innovation and edge thinking
- Learning and non-use
- Managing non-use, strategies for accommodating non-users
- Practicing non-use
- Ecologies and economies of non-use
- Non-use as DIY, workarounds and quality assurance

References:
Selwyn, N. (2003). Apart from technology: Understanding people's non-use 
of information and communication technologies in everyday life. 
Technology in Society, 25(1), 99-116.
Thorén, C., & Kitzmann, A. (2015). Replicants, imposters and the real 
deal: Issues of non-use and technology resistance in vintage and 
software instruments. First Monday, 20(11).

IMPORTANT DATES
Extended abstracts (500-750 words) due: 30th October, 2016
Feedback from editors on abstracts: 15th November, 2016
Full Submissions due: 15th January, 2017
Notification of acceptance: 1st April, 2017
Planned Publication: June 2017 (Vol. 9. No. 2)

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Electronic submission through EasyChair is required: 
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nonuse2017
Papers must not have been published, accepted for publication, or 
presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. A standard 
double-blind review process will be used for selecting papers to be 
published in this special issue. Authors should follow the instructions 
outlined in the KM&EL Website (see URL
http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions)
For more information about the KM&EL, please visit the web site:
http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication
KM&EL Journal Metrics (Scopus):
2014 SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): 0.359 | Ranking: 82/155 Management of 
Technology and Innovation | 411/914 Education
2014 SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): 0.64 | Ranking: 77/118 
Management of Technology and Innovation | 401/687 Education


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