CFP: IAMCR South-North Conversations - Communication Policy & Technology Section (due Feb 14)

The IAMCR conference wishes to emphasise the communicative empowerment and the positive potential of media and communication technologies in and from the Global South.

Abstracts and panel proposals due February 14, 2012. International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Conference, July 15-19, 2012, Durban (South-Africa) ‘South-North Conversations’

http://www.iamcr2012.ukzn.ac.za/

The conference will be held under the general theme, ‘South-North Conversations’. While the theme points to the asymmetry of and divides in global communication flows, it expresses at the same time a need for Western countries to listen to and learn from experiences from the global South. The theme thus calls for balanced and empowering narratives that do not regard those in ‘the South’ primarily as victims in need of hand-outs from the more affluent. Rather, the conference wishes to emphasise the communicative empowerment and the positive potential of media and communication technologies in and from the ‘Global South’.

[…]

In addition to our open call for papers, the CP&T section invites paper and panel proposals addressing the following themes that are particularly relevant to the section, organised for presentational purposes by a thematic focus on policy, on practices, and on technology:

1 - Policy

• Net-neutrality: a first amendment for the Internet?
• Internet censorship and control mechanisms
• Transparency of government, open data and whistleblowing in the post-Wikileaks age
• DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) and Internet governance
• Redefining Internet openness and power relations in the age of ‘platformisation’
• Civic/internet liberties in relation to hacktivism and peer-to-peer file sharing
• A new civil society agenda and a new strategy for the next WSIS?
• Social, economic and legal issues related to (new) regulatory initiatives worldwide on privacy and data protection (eg EU)

2 - Practices

• User (dis)empowerment and the disappearance of media for people living ‘in’ media
• Reconfiguring trust and identity in online/offline communities and user-generated content
• Privacy and the commodification of personal data
• Radical protest, (everyday) resistance and networks
• Social and policy consequences of (behavioural) advertising - targeting, filtering, profiling and sorting
• Mitigation of risks and responsibility in online environments for different audiences
• OccupyWallStreet/ Indignados movement: how communication technologies and policies are used by and affected by those involved?
• Tensions between content producers (including users and ‘produsers’) and content distributors

3 - Technology

• Construction of technology: privacy-by-design versus surveillance-by-design
• Political economy of social media
• Changing policies, value networks and user practices in a digital audio-visual landscape
• Role of mobile technologies and services in global South contexts
• Hegemony and post-hegemony, and Internet technologies and algorithms
• Creativity and control through ambient intelligence, and the Internet-of-Things (RFID)
• Changing nature of digital divides and mass self-communication

For more information: http://www.iamcr2012.ukzn.ac.za/