Call for papers

An increasing number of researchers and communities have an interest in and perspectives on the relationship between people and ICTs. The conference will be organized around the following four themes or strands:

1. Users as innovators

Customers and citizens have often used ICTs in very creative, sometimes unanticipated, ways at home, at work and in public places. This refers to ways in which ICTs enable and/or constrain users’ ability to develop innovatory social practices, linked to technology design and content creation. In this regard COST 298 researchers looking at ICTs use integrate insights from three main domains: domestication and social constructivism (like science and technology studies), diffusion and marketing approaches and usability/human-computer interaction studies.

As a way of structuring the field and making connections between these research traditions the COST 298 workgroup ‘Users as innovators’ is currently exploring how the research projects in these interdisciplinary domains can mutually inform each other. In addition we are concerned with the ways these insights can inform the design of and policy on media technologies. One practical way of doing this is to use case studies in order to explore these links. An important focus in COST 298 is on digital TV, but in the conference we would like to expand this approach by inviting researchers to submit research on the use of other new media and technologies, such as Web2.0 and mobile Internet, in both public and private capacities.

We welcome not only papers presenting empirical case studies but also method papers, literature reviews and theoretical reflections. We encourage you to discuss which enablers and/or constraints lead to creativity in the use of ICTs and/or how such innovative use of ICTs may lead to an inclusive broadband society. We hope that product developers, social scientists, designers, engineers, researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds and policy makers from different countries will submit a paper to this strand.

2. Humans as eActors

Contemporary societies are so marked by the presence and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as social network sites and advanced mobile communication, that these warrant calling it the “broadband society”. ICTs have become a central medium of social interaction on different levels, so that participation in this society seems to depend on their access and use. Under these conditions, what does it mean to participate in the broadband society? We invite papers addressing this question on theoretical, empirical and methodological levels.

This strand will explore participation in different social realms – everyday life, interpersonal relationships, work and leisure activities, collective and political action, etc. Across these realms, analysis will focus on the changes in modes of social participation. These changes affect, among other things, the temporal, spatial and organisational framing of participation; the engagement, trust and norms involved; and the personal and collective skills required. How do the presence and use of the technologies in question affect the modes of participation? Is social participation being improved by the presence and use of ICTs? Do they serve to empower actors on the individual and collective level?

In particular, we invite critical contributions addressing the question of whether or not using these technologies is already sufficient for participation. Is being a user the same as being an actor? Can participation be measured by, or even be equated with, increased connectivity, or with the possibility of providing content and information oneself? If it is not, what would be the conditions that allow us to talk of participation?

3. The multiple cultures of the Information Society

Although there are now a limited number of cross-cultural comparisons of the experiences of ICT use, it is quite clear that there are complex issues involved in making sense of international differences, as well as differences within national cultures. While we welcome papers at the conference that focus specifically on cross-cultural issues we want to encourage a wider engagement in this issue. This strand invites people conducting national research on ICT adoption and use to report on that work. But we would like them to add what they think might be cultural or national influences shaping these developments in their country. For example, if studies focus on gender or age groups (such as youth, the elderly) we would ask researchers to consider how people’s experiences are influenced by national or regional circumstances (educational, legal, employment, financial, time structures, domestic division of labour etc.) or particular meanings and values in that culture. There is a workgroup within COST 298 that is looking at this whole area of cross-cultural comparisons. We hope to build on the reflections from the papers in this strand and develop our thinking with a view to producing a coherent publication based on these contributions.

4. The future in young and old hands: towards an inclusive broadband society

Compared to the other work of COST 298, this strand is more focused on the changing experiences of two particular social groups: the young and the old. There are various assumptions about the degrees to which younger and older people are more or less willing to use, or capable of using, new media in order to gain access to the information that can help them to participate in a broadband society. Some researchers argue that there is a widening ‘digital gap’ between younger users of new media and older non-users. Others think that the situation is better characterised by the notion of a ‘digital spectrum’, with people using new media to varying degrees depending on factors such as life events, gender and education. In order to get a better understanding of what is really going on it is important both to conduct empirical studies and literature reviews in this field as well as develop our theoretical reflections upon the societal practices of today and tomorrow. It is for this reason that we welcome papers within this strand that address the following types of question to researchers interested in young people’s experience of new media, older people’s experience of new media, or both:

To what extent might future generations of the young and old (e.g. very young children now, pre-retired people now) experience ICTs differently when they are a few years older? Are any such differences due to the experience they had earlier in life, to the way that technology is itself changing or to other changing social practices so that they are reaching their next life stage in a slightly different world compared to previous generations?

How can we ensure that, the digital information represented in new media is accessible to, usable by and useful for these age groups? For example, what is the role of texts and images in facilitating access to and use of new media by younger and older people? In what ways do these groups learn to use new media differently and, drawing on debates relating to ‘digital divides’, what is the nature of their various skills in using new media, from more operational ones to strategic searching skills? How do these technologies fit into their lives, or not, and indeed what makes various new media interesting for or attractive to these younger and older users?

On a methodological level, what is the contribution of different approaches to understanding younger and older people’s use of new media? What new methods are being developed and what are the limitations of existing modes of analysis as well as innovatory methodologies? For example, what insights do we get from observations in living labs or participation in design studies when we try to appreciate the degree to which younger and older people use new media in different, or perhaps similar, ways? At a more general level, to what extent can various forms of scenario analysis help to forecast future developments in relation to these issues? At a more detailed level, what can we learn from techniques such as eye-tracking and social semiotics?

We invite paper writers with different backgrounds such as such web-designers, social scientists, linguists, scenario designers and policy makers to submit an abstract for this strand that will allow us to discuss the ways new media in young and old hands can lead us towards a more inclusive broadband society.

 

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