Posts tagged mobile communication

New journal: Mobile Media & Communication

A new peer-reviewed journal for research on mobile media and communication. While focusing on social sciences and humanities, the journal is open to research with technical, economic, and design aspects.

To be published by Sage. Co-editors include Rich Ling, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Read more about this journal.

New Book: Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces - Locational Privacy, Control, and Urban Sociability

On the development of location-aware technology within the context of other mobile and portable technologies such as the book, the Walkman, the iPod, the mobile phone, and how these technologies work as interfaces to public spaces.

Authors: Adriana de Souza e Silva & Jordan Frith, North Carolina State University

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ABOUT - Mobile phones are no longer what they used to be. Not only can users connect to the Internet anywhere and anytime, they can also use their devices to map their precise geographic coordinates – and access location-specific information like restaurant reviews, historical information, and locations of other people nearby. The proliferation of location-aware mobile technologies calls for a new understanding of how we define public spaces, how we deal with locational privacy, and how networks of power are developed today.

In Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Jordan Frith examine these social and spatial changes by framing the development of location-aware technology within the context of other mobile and portable technologies such as the book, the Walkman, the iPod, and the mobile phone. These technologies work as interfaces to public spaces – that is, as symbolic systems that not only filter information but also reshape communication relationships and the environment in which social interaction takes place. Yet rather than detaching people from their surroundings, the authors suggest that location-aware technologies may ultimately strengthen our connections to locations.

Call for Papers: New interaction orders, New mobile publics? (due Feb 24, 2012)

We invite researchers, designers, technology developers, architects, urban planners, artists and urban communities to submit contributions that explore aspects of new and old ‘behaviour in public spaces’.

Abstracts due Feb 24, 2012. Workshop 13-14 April 2012 at Lancaster University, UK.

Introduction
Equipped with mobile technologies, people connect in ways that were unthinkable when Goffman wrote Behaviour in public spaces (1963) and William Whyte explored The social life of small urban spaces (1980). The momentous Arab Spring events, London riots and ‘2011 Occupy’ demonstrations are extreme examples that pose old questions about the ‘interaction order’ and its relation to social order and the public sphere in new ways.

On the one hand, mobile connectivity enables micro-coordination of increasingly mobile everyday lives, new modulations of co-presence, absent presence and present absence, and transformations of socio-material practices of availability, obligation, intimacy and strangerhood in public. Some of the social innovations involved also shape emergent new practices of mobilising people in protests and crises.

Arguably new, agile, local and globally networked communities and ‘mobile publics’ are forming. On the other, worries over a loss of civility, community, privacy, and new forms of surveillance enabled by the ever closer intermeshing of digital technology and everyday ‘movement-spaces’ fuel fears over an erosion of civil liberties and ‘capital P’ politics.

Goffman’s insistence that ‘the interaction order’ is the performative locus of such utopian and dystopian transformations and his and Whyte’s attention to detail are the motivation for this two-day interdisciplinary workshop. We would like to bring micro and macro, theory and empirical research, everyday lived practice, design, policy and politics together through collaborative analysis of multi-sited, mobile, ethnographic or otherwise qualitative studies of behaviour in today’s public spaces, zeitdiagnostic theory and avantgarde design.

We invite researchers, designers, technology developers, architects, urban planners, artists and urban communities to submit contributions that explore aspects of new and old ‘behaviour in public spaces’, including (but not limited to):

• the ‘osmotic’ relationship between physical and virtual spaces, connectivity and mobility the social life of such spaces
• emergent principles and practices of the 21st Century interaction order
• augmented embodied and sensory phenomenology, material agency
• links between the interaction order, public engagement, public space
• tensions between mobile informationalized everyday lives and movement-spaces and principles of privacy and civil liberty, security, splintering and sorting of ‘access’
• examples, practices and impacts of improvised communities and mobile publics, and collective intelligence
• examples and methods of collaborative, experimental, radically careful and carefully radical design of new practices, technologies, forms of public engagement and spaces
• reflections on the links between theory, empirical studies, design and politics in the broadest sense

Please send a 300 word abstract to p.feron(at)lancaster.ac.uk by 24th February 2012. Notification of Acceptance 9th March 2012.

There is a small amount of financial support available for travel. If funds are an obstruction, please contact p.feron(at)lancaster.ac.uk

Full program: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/new_interaction_order/

CFP: Workshop on Mobile Communication - Mobile Internet, Locative Media, Mobility and Place

We invite researchers who work with mobile communication as a cultural, spatial and social phenomenon to join us for this two-day round-table workshop hosted by the Media Studies Department at Aarhus University. We will emphasize the spatial aspects of mobile communication and mobile internet. The workshop aims to reflect and discuss general theoretical perspectives, empirical case studies and methodological implications of studying mobile internet and locative media in relation to mobility and place. We have invited an international panel of speakers in order to encourage and facilitate the development of an international research network on mobile communication.

Abstracts due 15 January, 2012

International research workshop on Mobile Communication: Mobile Internet, Locative Media, Mobility and Place. 29-30 March, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Topics to be analyzed and discussed:

• Theoretical, analytical and methodological aspects of mobile communication, mobile internet and locative media
• Travelling, mobility and mobile technologies
• Locative media and the production of place
• Mobile internet, mobile media devises and new media practices

Submitting abstract for presentation:
There will be a limited number of participants in the workshop. Deadline for submitting an abstract for presentation is 15 January 2012. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words. All participants will receive a response by 1 February. Please send your abstract to Sarah Shorr: imvsgs(at)hum.au.dk

Guidelines for the presentation
Prepare a presentation of ca. 10 minutes inclusive relevant questions to be posed for the workshop discussion. It might be based on a paper, an article or just a note or questions. Please send your contribution by 1 March to Sarah Shorr: imvsgs(at)hum.au.dk. Contributions will be distributed to participants prior to the workshop: participants will be asked to read each other¹s papers in advance of the workshop.

Guest speakers:
Rich Ling (DK)  “Digital Gemeinschaft”
Naomi Baron (US)”Reading on the Run: What We Read on Mobile Devices and Why”
Leopoldina Fortunati (Italy)  “Mobilities and Mobile Phones”
Jonas Larsen (DK) “Mobile Communication, Place and Mobile Methods”

Additional contributors:

• Iben Have, DK & Birgitte Stougaard, DK “Audiobooks and Mobile Listening: New Medium, New Users, New Literary Experiences?”
• Anja Bechmann, DK  “Communication to-go: Studying Mobile and Seamless Communication Practices”
• Jakob Linaa Jensen, DK “Online Social Networks; Augmentation of Social Space”
• Martin Brynskov, DK “Mobile Media and Smart Cities”
• Stine Lomborg, DK  “The internet in my pocket”
• Charles Ess, DK  “Mobile Communication, Culture, Convergence”
• Anne Marit Waade, DK  “Locative Mobile Media, Place and Performativity”

Logistics
The roundtable workshop starts Thursday 29 March at 10.00am and ends Friday 30 March at 5.00pm. The workshop takes place at Aarhus University, IT-campus, ADA Building, meeting room 333, Helsingforsgade 15, 8200 Aarhus N. Workshop fee: participation in the workshop itself is free, but participants will be asked to cover meal expenses (400 DKr for lunch and coffee for two days, and ­ optional - 400 DKr. for dinner Thursday night). Accommodation and travel expenses are covered by each participant.

Organizers
Charles Ess, Media Studies, Aarhus University  
Anne Marit Waade, Media Studies, Aarhus University  
Sarah Schorr, Ph.D. Fellow, Media Studies, Aarhus University

CFP: Mobile Interaction with the Real World - Journal of Pervasive and Mobile Computing

We welcome all contributions related to mobile interaction with the real world. This includes new techniques, technologies and scenarios for physical mobile interaction, distribution of mobile interfaces between mobile devices and real world objects, security and privacy issues, using sensors for mobile interaction, multimodality, and authoring support.

Paper submission: November 18, 2011

We increasingly rely on smartphones and tablets as personal information devices in our everyday lives. The use of those devices for interactions with nearby physical objects has been a popular research area in recent years. We currently see a dramatic increase in the interest in this field as technologies like Near Field Communication (NFC) and TransferJet will soon be widely available to smartphone users, as camera-based interactions (e.g. based on 2D Barcodes or image recognition) are widely supported by today’s smartphones, and as short range networks (e.g. over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Ant+) become a standard feature of mobile devices. These technologies enable direct or indirect interactions with nearby objects and enable new interactions and services in application areas like smart environments, transportation, healthcare, advertising and
tourism.

For this special issue we invite researchers to submit papers that provide a reflective summary of their work in this area as well as papers reporting recent work in this field. We welcome all contributions related to mobile interaction with the real world. This includes new techniques, technologies and scenarios for physical mobile interaction, distribution of mobile interfaces between mobile devices and real world objects, security and privacy issues, using sensors for mobile interaction, multimodality, and authoring support. We are seeking high quality papers that are related to the overall theme of the special issue and focus on topics that include, but are not limited to:

• Mobile interaction with real world objects and smart objects
• Using mobile devices as user interfaces for terminals and vending machines
• Frameworks, middleware, architectures and APIs for mobile interactions with the real world
• Guidelines for mobile interactions with the real world
• Automatic user interface generation for real world interactions
• Interactions between mobile devices
• Social interactions with mobile devices (and objects)
• Multimodal interaction involving mobile devices
• Interaction metaphors for pervasive applications and services
• Sensors for mobile interaction
• Augmented, virtual and mixed reality on mobile devices
• Portable media players and personal servers as mobile interaction devices
• Interactive context-aware services on mobile devices
• People with special needs interacting with the real world
• Field studies and real world deployments
• User experience, user studies, evaluations
• Applications and scenarios

A key criterion in the evaluation of papers will be the relevance of the work for Mobile Interaction with the Real World.

The Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal (PMC) is a professional, peer-reviewed journal that publishes high-quality scientific articles (both theory and practice) covering all aspects of pervasive computing and communications.

Submission process:

Authors should prepare and submit manuscripts according to the Guide for Authors as published in the Journal website at http://www.ees.elsevier.com/pmc/. Please make sure to choose “MIRW” from the pull-down menu during the submission process. Manuscripts must not have been previously published or currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.  If a similar version of the paper has been published in a conference or workshop, the submitted version should contain significant additions/enhancements (with at least 33% new material).  Authors are requested to submit their relevant, previously published articles and a summary document explaining the enhancements made in the journal version.

Important Dates:

Paper submission: November 18, 2011
Reviews and decision: Beginning of May, 2012 (includes two rounds of reviews)
Submission of accepted manuscripts: Beginning of June, 2012
Special issue: Late 2012

Aca-article: Crowdsourced news reporting - supporting news content creation with mobile phones

As news organizations are moving towards systematically using the power of crowds in news reporting, mobile phones are potential mobile tools for reader reporters. We conducted two user studies to support the development of future mobile crowdsourcing processes and mobile tools for news reporting. In a quasi-experiment on future mobile crowdsourcing process with location-based assignments, SMS messages were experienced as an easy and handy means for news assignments. A customized mobile client prototype was preferred for submission of multimedia content (photo and video), since submission was experienced simple to use and reliable especially for videos. Based on our findings and earlier research we discuss implications for the development of mobile crowdsourcing processes with mobile news reporting assignments.

Authors: Heli Väätäjä, Tampere Univ. of Technology; Teija Vainio, Tampere Univ. of Technology; Esa Sirkkunen, University of Tampere; Kari Salo, Helsinki Metropolia University.

Published in: Proceeding MobileHCI ‘11 Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, ACM New York, NY, USA ©2011

Access article here, (toll-access).

Aca-article: Location-Based Mobile Collaborative Digital Narrative Platform

A location-based mobile collaborative digital narrative platform through which a user can, depending on his or her location, download one’s favorite collaborative narrative content, and also have the ability to add, edit or record what is happening around; thus, linking the narrative content and the location.

Abstract
This study is based on interactive design theory, supplemented by the concept of communication. We propose a “Mobile Collaboration Digital Narrative Platform”, through which, with the aid of technologies, a user can, depending on his or her location, download one’s favorite collaborative narrative content, and also have the ability to add, edit or record what is happening around; thus, linking the narrative content and the location. Through the function of “collaboration”, the content can be made more diverse and rich and the reader can better immerse him or herself in it. The platform also can work in offline mode. Currently, the preliminary design of the system has been completed, and tests in different situations will be conducted and user behaviors will be recorded and then analyzed. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation and analysis of interface design, operational processes, system functions, and collaboration narrative content of the output are in progress. We believe that this study will be an important application of mobile content.

Keywords: Location based; Digital Narrative; Collaborative Narrative; Mobile Technology.

Access the full article here or download it right away. From CONTENT 2011: The Third International Conference on Creative Content Technologies.

CFP: Mobile Communication, Community and Locative Media Practices - From the Everyday to the Revolutionary

“This preconference will provide a venue for innovative scholars from around the world who are doing research in exploring how we experience our locally-rooted mobile networked interactions and mobile communication’s impact on community.”

Abstracts of no more than 500 words are due by November 15, 2010.

2012 International Communication Association (ICA) Pre-conference Workshop
May 23 – 24, 2012, Phoenix AZ, USA

Mobile and location-based networked interactions permeate our world. We no longer enter the Internet - we carry it with us. We experience it while moving through physical spaces. Smart phones, GPS receivers, and RFID tags are only a few examples of location-aware mobile technologies that mediate our interaction with networked spaces and the people in them. Increasingly, our physical location determines the types of information with which we interact, and the people and things we find around us. These new kinds of networked interactions manifest in everyday social practices that are supported by the use of mobile technologies, such as participation in location-based mobile games and social networks, engagement with location-based services, development of mobile annotation projects, and social mapping, just to name a few. The engagement with these practices has important implications for identity construction, our sense of privacy, our notions of place and space, civic and political participation, building community, policy making, as well as cultural production and consumption in everyday life.

This preconference will provide a venue for innovative scholars from around the world who are doing research in exploring how we experience our locally-rooted mobile networked interactions and mobile communication’s impact on community. It will give them a chance to gather and discuss the challenges that this shift in the use of both mobile phones and the Internet poses not only for the users but for those doing research on mobile communication. We welcome abstracts that will focus on the following areas:

• Mobile communication and location awareness in everyday life practices;
• New urban spatialities developed with mobile gaming and locative social media; definitions of “community” in a mobile mediated context
• Privacy and surveillance issues as they relate to location-based social networks;
• Identity and spatial construction through locative media art / performance design and its impact on communities;
• Civic engagement and political participation through mobile social media, new mapping practices and location-aware technologies;
• Learning and education potentials of mobile and location-based media;

Abstracts of no more than 500 words are due by November 15, 2010. Please send them along with your name and contact information to Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva (adriana@souzaesilva.com).  Accepted abstracts will be notified by December 1, 2010.  Final papers will be due April 1, 2012.

Conference website: http://sociomobile.org/mobile2012/