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DorfWiki: VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop/Blog >> The Communication Policy and Technology (CP&T) Section of the IAMCR invites the submission of abstracts bearing on the Conference theme as well as on the Section sub-theme: ‘Citizen Participation through Technology, Access and Policy’.


20.11.2009 Interesting conference announcement

http://www.iamcr2010portugal.com/
The Communication Policy and Technology (CP&T) Section of the IAMCR invites the submission of abstracts bearing on the Conference theme as well as on the Section sub-theme: ‘Citizen Participation through Technology, Access and Policy’.
The media and technology landscape as well as relevant communication policies are changing fundamentally, with a shift from mass media and personal media to media for mass self-communication. The technological facilities for mediated communication are proliferating and becoming increasingly fragmented as a result of convergence and the emergence and rapid spread of new media and internet technologies like interactive digital broadcasting, mobile technologies, social computing, internet-of-things and - more recently - cloud computing. Within this transitional digital media ecosystem researchers increasingly aim to understand how participation by people and communities can (still) take a central position and to what end. How can citizens and/or consumers be empowered in participation through ICT design, usages and policy? Or what are the threats and constraints for people to become disempowered in a convergence culture? Three main areas of user (dis)empowerment are being identified as themes of special interest for CP&T section:
(1) market and state ‘feudalisation’,
(2) privacy and surveillance, and
(3) inclusion and media literacies.
The first area of concern relates to the ever increasing ‘feudalisation’ of ICT applications and services by market forces and interests. Besides this, some states are also very active in controlling, monitoring and censoring the internet. This all has serious consequences for the opportunities and potentialities of ICT enabled participation and empowerment. In this regard the debate on net neutrality and its consequences for freedom of speech, access to information, etc. is highly relevant, but also issues of copyright in relation to ownership of user generated content or the posting of copyright protected material on blogs and web 2.0 sites, the share culture, etc.
(....)
A third area of focus deals with inclusion and multiple media literacies. This perspective links in with notions of digital participation that go beyond access. In the changing media environment, new affordances of communication tools require a reconfiguration of digital exclusion-inclusion. We need to look at different levels of capabilities, but also how inclusion is (not) built into specific media and technologies from a human-centred design perspective. At the same time this also means increasing the reach, breadth and depth of digital media and technologies across all domains of society through multiliteracies. The question remains however to what extent inclusion is always empowering, or can inclusion also lead to disempowerment.
abstract submission at
http://www.lasics.uminho.pt/ocs/index.php/iamcr/2010portugal/schedConf/cfp