Call for Papers

Internet Research 13.0: Technologies

The 13th Annual International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)

October 18-21, 2012

MediaCity:UK – University of Salford
Salford – Greater Manchester – UK

Internet Research 13.0 will focus on the theme of technologies, understood in the broadest sense as crafts, techniques, and systems. The conference will examine the place of the Internet in the contemporary world and in relation to a range of existing and emerging technologies, considering its impact in a context where life is entangled with technologies of all kinds as never before. The conference will bring together scholars, researchers, students and practitioners from many disciplines to map and situate the development of the Internet as part of the history of human technology.

To this end, we call for papers, panel and pre-conference workshop proposals from any discipline, methodology, community or a combination of them that address the conference themes, including, but not limited to, papers that intersect and/or interconnect with the following:

• the speed and acceleration of technological change
• 
the past, present and future of technology
• emerging and converging technologies
• educational technology
• cultures of crafting
• connectivity and access
• space, location and mobile technologies
• technology, networks and attachments
• 
technology and the body
• 
technologies of the self
• technology, regulation and ethics

Sessions at the conference will be established that specifically address the conference themes, and we welcome innovative, exciting, and unexpected takes on those themes. We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the internet beyond the conference themes. In all cases, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary submissions as well as international collaborations from both AoIR and non-AoIR members.

Submissions

We seek proposals for several different kinds of contributions. As in the past, we welcome proposals for traditional academic conference PAPERS, organized PANEL PROPOSALS that present a coherent group of papers on a single theme, as well as PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS which focus on a particular topic. We also invite proposals that will focus on discussion and interaction among conference delegates. A common form of this type is the ROUNDTABLE SESSION, but we would also like to encourage other formats, such as OPEN FISHBOWL SESSIONS. (See the Wikipedia entry under “Fishbowl (conversation)” for a description of this format. Fishbowl sessions should cover broad topics of interest to a wide segment of the AoIR community.) Finally, we invite short 5-minute talks on topics of interest to the community as part of our Ignite-IR panels. Please see below for more information on this format.

Deadlines

• 

Submissions Due: 1 March 2012 (Papers, Panels and Pre-Workshops. Details below.)
  NOTE: The submission deadline is a HARD DEADLINE; there will be NO extensions to this date.
• Notification: 1 May 2012
• Full Papers Submissions Due for inclusion in Selected Papers of IR: 1 July 2012
• Ignite-IR Final Proposal Deadline: 1 August 2012
• Ignite-IR Slides Due: 15 September 2012

Submission Requirements

• All papers and presentations will be evaluated in a standard blind peer review.
• PAPERS (individual or multi-author) – submit abstract of 600-800 words
• PANEL PROPOSALS – submit a description of 600-800 words on the panel theme, plus a 250-500 word abstract for each paper or presentation. The panel organizer must assemble these materials for submission
• ROUNDTABLE and FISHBOWL PROPOSALS – submit a statement indicating the nature of the discussion and form of interaction, and listing initial participants. (In the case of a fishbowl proposal, this will include the name of the moderator, and the names of the first four speakers for the fishbowl.)
• PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS – please submit all workshop proposals via email to atwood@aoir.org. Workshop proposals should include names of presenters and a 1,000-word description.
• IGNITE-IR – please submit a one-paragraph abstract and other information. Details at http://ir13.aoir.org/ignite-ir

Papers, presentations and panels will be selected from the submitted proposals on the basis of multiple blind peer review, coordinated and overseen by the Program Chair. Each individual may present only one paper during the conference, though they may be listed as a co-author on multiple papers. In addition to this one presentation, they may also appear on a panel, roundtable, or performance. The exception is the Ignite-IR lightening talk, which may be in addition to any other presentations.

Publication of Papers

Full papers submitted by the 1 July 2012 deadline will undergo review to be published in an open-access, online collection, Selected Papers of Internet Research (ISSN 2162-3317). A template and guidelines for preparing your final paper are available on the conference website (http://ir13.aoir.org/papers)

Selected papers from the conference will alternatively be published in a special issue of the journal Information, Communication & Society. Authors selected for submission for this issue will be contacted prior to the conference.

Pre-conference Workshops

On 18 October 2012, there will be a limited number of pre-conference workshops and symposia that will provide participants with in-depth, hands-on and/or creative opportunities. We invite proposals for these pre-conference workshops. Local presenters are encouraged to propose workshops that will invite visiting researchers into their labs or studios or locales. Proposals should be no more than 1,000 words, and should clearly outline the purpose, methodology, structure, costs, equipment and minimal attendance required, as well as explaining its relevance to the conference as a whole. Proposals will be accepted if they demonstrate that the workshop will add significantly to the overall program in terms of thematic depth, hands on experience, or local opportunities for scholarly or artistic connections. These proposals and all inquiries regarding pre-conference proposals should be submitted as soon as possible to both the program chair (atwood@aoir.org) and no later than 1 March 2012.

Contact Information

Program Chair: Feona Attwood, Communication, Sheffield Hallam University, UK. email: attwood@aoir.org

Local Conference Chair: Ben Light, School of Media, Music, and Performance, University of Salford, UK. email: light@aoir.org

Monday, Elizabeth Buchanan and I are convening a doctoral colloquium, bringing together over thirty young scholars to discuss their dissertation research with a collection of notable Internet researchers. It should be a stimulating — and hopefully fruitful — day.

Tuesday the main conference kicks off, featuring a new format for AoIR: Ignite presentations. An “Ignite” presentation is a structured, high-energy, short talk in which you share your passion and creative ideas about internet research. Like pecha-kucha, Ignite is formed around a formalism: you must create a “deck” of 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. This represents a radical departure from the traditional paper presentation, and is focused on telling an enlightening story, making an argument, and inciting an audience to come to your way of thinking and action. Nick Proferes, a 2nd year SOIS PhD student, is slated to kick off the ignite sessions with a very clever presentation of his on-going research into how issues of research ethics are discussed on the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) mailing list. I saw a preview of Nick’s talk — it will be very entertaining.

Wednesday, I’m moderating a privacy panel, featuring these excellent papers:

Information Movements in Networked Spaces: A Model of Networked Private and Public Spaces
Beth Patin, Jeff Hemsley, Karine Nahon
University of Washington, United States of America

Seeing Surveillance in the Cloud: Both Sides for the Moment
David J. Phillips, Karen Pollock, Michael Murphy
U Toronto, Canada

Social Networking & Young Adults in the U.S.: Participation, Privacy, and (Mis)Perceptions
Heidi A. McKee, Hillary Oberpeul, Amy Wilkins, Francis Kazungu
Miami University, United States of America

I also will be attending various sessions on technology & resistance, the Wisconsin labor protests, and, of course, just catching up with many old friends.

And while in Seattle, I’ll be taking in the Battlestar Galactica exhibit at the EMP museum. I also might or might not be spending some time at Tavern Law.

Hope to see many of you there!

I am pleased to announce the following student travel grant opportunity for IR 12 in Seattle.

The Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR) is pleased to again offer a CIPR Student Award in Information Policy & Ethics, to sponsor one student (undergraduate, graduate or post-doc) for the Association of Internet Researchers IR12 Conference in Seattle, Washington. The amount of the award is US$500.

The student’s research must focus on some aspect of information policy or ethics, and internet studies, broadly conceived. The recipient must have an accepted paper at IR12 and must attend to present the research.

To apply, please send the following documents to Michael Zimmer at zimmerm@uwm.edu:

• Accepted Paper Abstract
• CV
• Brief statement describing how the paper/research will make an impact on the fields of information policy, ethics, and internet studies.

Application deadline is August 31, 2011. Notification of award will be received by September 15.

The recipient should acknowledge the CIPR grant at IR12 and in any subsequent presentations or publications.

***

The Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR) is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s multidisciplinary research center for the study of the intersections between the policy, ethical, political, social and legal aspects of the global information society. It is lead by co-directors Dr. Joyce Latham and Dr. Michael Zimmer.

Call for Participation:

Doctoral Colloquium at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Annual Conference 2011

Internet Research 12.0

Seattle, Washington, USA

In keeping with its commitment to students’ scholarship in the Association of Internet Researchers, the Internet Research 12.0 Doctoral Colloquium offers Ph.D. students  working in internet research or a related field a special forum on October, 10, 2011. Participants will have a chance to present their dissertations-in-progress and discuss them at length, with peers and established senior researchers.

This year, Elizabeth Buchanan and Michael Zimmer will coordinate the Doctoral Colloquium, and will be joined by colleagues including:

• Mia Consalvo
• Andrew Herman
• Steve Jones
• Charles Ess
• Hector Postigo
• (Others to be announced)

Interested students should prepare a two-page summary of their research. This should provide a context for the research, describe the methods being used,  the progress to date, and expectations and hopes from the colloquium.  Participants will be encouraged to discuss research problems or statements, methodologies, ethics, and the process of “bringing it all together” in the dissertation.

SUBMISSION/PARTICIPATION

Please submit the two page application by Friday, May 31, 2011 to: Elizabeth Buchanan, at buchanane@uwstout.edu

Applicants will be notified of acceptance by July 1, 2011. Successful applicants will be asked to prepare a four page paper on their research and the issues they wish to discuss by August 30, 2011

This year, I participated in three main events: a pre-conference workshop on “Ethics and Internet Research Commons:  Building a sustainable future”, a session on “Networking and Social Sites” where I presented a paper on “The Laws of Social Networking, or, How Facebook Feigns Privacy”, and a panel discussion titled “On the Philosophy of Facebook“. Details below…

:::

Ethics and Internet Research Commons:  Building a sustainable future

This pre-conference was organized primarily by Elizabeth Buchanan, and featured brief talks by Charles Ess, Alex Halavais, Annette Markham, Malin Svenningson, and myself. We presented case studies that revealed key ethical challenges and identified important components of ethical decision making for Internet researchers, including:

• How does cultural specificity define research ethics and regulation?
• What constitutes a public text online and in what ways can and should they be used in research?
• Why do we consider firewalls and passwords to be the “gold standard” for determining if something was meant to be kept public or private?
• How do researchers work towards the imperative of sharing data while adhering to human subjects regulations?
• What ethical guidelines should be applied to trace data?
• How do researchers handle “closeness” in ethnography in ethical ways?
• What oscillations take place when a researcher is first known as a member of a group and then as a researcher?
• How is “empirical imperialism” affecting research ethics?
• What are the virtues of deception?

An excellent summary of the entire day is over at the Internet Research Ethics project website, which includes links to my slides.

:::

The Laws of Social Networking, or, How Facebook Feigns Privacy

I participated on an excellent session titled “Networking and Social Sites”, which also featured Robert Bodle and Christian Thorsten Callisen.

Bodle’s presentation, “Opening the social media ecosystem: the tenuous nature of interoperability, crossposting, and sharing among dominant social media sites, services and devices”, explored the values, characteristics, and conditions of interoperability between Facebook and its third party developer ecosystem. He found that while Facebook’s APIs provide new ways to share and participate, they also provide Facebook a new means to achieve market dominance, as well as undermine privacy, data security, contextual integrity, user autonomy and freedom.

Callisen’s talk, “The Old Face of ‘New’ Social Networks: The Republic of Letters”, was a historical contextualization of the so-called digital revolution within the longer history of “the virtual”. He showed how the Republic of Letters was essentially a networked virtual community for the reciprocal sharing of information, complete with its own techniques for simulating co-presence, protocols for information transfer and interaction, and varying levels of transparency and encryption.

My presentation, “The Laws of Social Networking, or, How Facebook Feigns Privacy”, was an expanded thought piece inspired by this blog post, where I suggest three natural laws that thwart attempts to provide users of social networking sites sufficient means to control their information flows:

• The first law is somewhat obvious: Social networking sites are incentivized to promote the open and unfettered flow of mountains of personal information.
• The second law, perhaps more of a corollary, follows naturally from this: Providing users robust and easy-to-use tools to control their personal information flows is counter to this profit maximization motive.
• Thus, the third law: Provide users privacy controls only when you must, and position them as both a great a sacrifice, as well as something users probably shouldn’t bother with; make privacy hard.

To support this argument, I discuss various public comments by Facebook’s management team, and show how the laws become encoded within the design of Facebook’s architecture and recent privacy “upgrades”. I concluded that the existence of the laws of social networking create — and perpetuate — a great power imbalance where users lack robust privacy controls, leaving them with limited ability to manage their personal information flows.

The rough text of my remarks can be downloaded here, and my slides are available here.

As an aside: I found it amusing that the most tweeted comment from my talk was a completely off-the-cuff remark criticizing Facebook’s claim that users have control over their information simply due to the existence of privacy controls. I noted that all the controls to fly  a 747 are in the cockpit too, but that doesn’t mean anyone can fly a 747.

:::

On the Philosophy of Facebook

Recognizing that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has built his social networking empire on the belief that “information wants to be shared“, a particular philosophy of information that directly impacts the values built into the design of Facebook, ranging from its user interface, privacy policies, terms of service, and method of governance, I organized a panel to explore the philosophy of Facebook and its broader implications for norms of privacy, identity, governance, sociability, and online life generally.

I was lucky to welcome the following speakers to IR.11 to discuss this important topic:

• Kate Raynes-Goldie, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
• Anthony Hoffmann, UW-Milwaukee, USA
• Korinna Patelis, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
• Trebor Scholz, New School University, USA
• Dylan Wittkower, Coastal Carolina University, USA

Unfortunately, we only had 1 hour (!!) for the panel discussion, but it was a very good 60 minutes; one of the few times I’ve heard Marx, Hegel, Kant, Rawls, Deleuze and Guattari, etc discussed at length at AoIR. We concluded that perhaps an entire pre-conference on the topic is in order for IR.12 (in Seattle in 2011).

Registration is now open for Internet Research 11.0: Sustainability, Participation, Action, the 2010 conference for the Association of Internet Researchers, taking place October 21-23 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Yes, the costs are higher this year, but, frankly, this conference is more expensive to run than IR.10 was in Milwaukee last year.

If you’re a student looking for ways to defray some of the costs, the UW-Milwaukee Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR) will again sponsor a student (undergraduate, graduate or post-doc) for the conference in the amount of US$800. Details below:

Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR)
School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
AoIR 11 Grant

The CIPR will sponsor one student (undergraduate, graduate or post-doc) for the Gothenburg AoIR 11conference in the amount of $800 (US). The student’s research must focus on some aspect of information ethics or information policy, and internet studies, broadly conceived. The recipient must submit a proposal for a paper according to AoIR procedures. Once accepted, the following should be submitted to Elizabeth Buchanan at elizabeth at internetresearchethics.org:

• Paper Abstract
• CV
• Brief statement describing how the paper will make an impact on the fields of information ethics, policy, and internet studies.

Submissions should be received by 1 August 2010. Recipient will be notified by 30 August 2010.

The recipient should acknowledge the CIPR grant at AoIR and in any subsequent presentations or publications.

I hope to see many of you in Gothenburg this fall!

Internet Research 11.0 – Sustainability, Participation, Action
October 21-23, 2010
University of Gothenburg/Chalmers University of Technology
Gothenburg, Sweden

The full call for papers is here.

I am proposing a panel for IR.11 titled “On the Philosophy of Facebook“. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has built his social networking empire on the belief that “information wants to be shared“, a particular philosophy of information that directly impacts the values built into the design of Facebook, ranging from its user interface, privacy policies, terms of service, and method of governance. This panel will explore the philosophy of Facebook and its broader implications for norms of privacy, identity, governance, sociability, and online life generally.

Ideal papers will provide philosophical, conceptual, and/or critical insights into Facebook and social networking generally.

If interested in joining this panel, please email me a 250-500 word abstract, and a brief biography, by February 13.

The conference program is fantastic, featuring keynote addresses by Siva Vaidhyanathan, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Megan Boler. I’ll be presenting an updated version of my paper, “But the Data is Already Public”: On the Ethics of Research in Facebook, based on my critique of the “Tastes, Ties, and Time” Facebook data release.

I’ll also be participating in a pre-conference workshop on Critical Issues and Perspectives in Internet Research Methods and Ethics, where the focus will be on raising awareness of and sensitivity by researchers around critical methodological and ethical issues working particularly in online or Internet-mediated realms.

There already is a great tweet stream at #ir10, so please follow us if you can’t make it.

UPDATE: By most measures, the conference was a great success. As an organizer, I was only able to sit in on a handful of sessions (including my own), but others have blogged about here and here.

There are quite a few images up on Flickr, and I’ve created a Wordle from all the individual paper titles. Matt Allen blogged the AoIR general meeting, where the locations of the next two conferences were announced: Gothenburg, Sweden (2010) & Seattle, Washington (2011). See you there!

In Code, Lessig argues that all of the rules, tendencies, affordances, and constraints of/in cyberspace are the result of human decisions, actions, and, ultimately, code. What we can and cannot do there is governed by the underlying code of all of the programs and protocols that make up the Internet, which can, alternatively or simultaneously, permit and restrict certain human actions:

In real space recognize how laws regulate – through constitutions, statues, and other legal codes. In cyberspace we must understand how code regulates – how the software and hardware that make cyberspace what it is regulate cyberspace as it is. (1999, p. 6)

For Lessig, “how a system is designed will affect the freedoms and control the system enables” (Lessig, 2001, p. 35); the very architecture of the Internet dictates its politics and ideology. He argues that it is the architecture of cyberspace that constitutes its culture, its community, and its freedom; and as the architecture is threatened or changed, so is the culture, community, and freedom it enables.

To see this in action, consider two recent examples: a change to the default reply settings on the Association of Internet Researchers discussion list, and a similar change implemented by the microblogging service Twitter.

:: Air-L ::

The Association of Internet Researchers hosts a quite active discussion list (air-l) on all things related to Internet studies. This past Sunday evening, the list manager sent out the following message:

Up until now on air-l, replies to messages posted to the list went, by default, to air-l. The default reply setting for air-l has been changed. As of now, replies to list posts will go privately to the message poster and not to air-l. If you would like people on the list to see your reply, you will need to manually insert the air-l address into the To: field of your reply.

Within minutes, this change was strongly criticized:

I think this is very detrimental to the community. This change fundamentally destroys the conversation construed as a group, and forces it to be between individuals, unless they consciously choose otherwise. …Air-l should be about collegiality and sharing, not about replying to individuals…. (source)

A lengthy discussion ensued, which included more detailed explanations of the motivation behind the change (centering on a concern over the inability to remove personal/confidential/harmful information that might be mistakenly sent to the entire list given the original default reply setting — a motivation that has been questioned by myself and others). Some also found the nature of the change quite surprising considering we’re an organization who studies Internet-based communication and culture; while others criticized the lack of community feedback, participation, or notice about the change.

The debate continues, but what it reveals is how the architecture of a system can impacts not only the mode of communication, but also the members’ sense of community, dialogue and sociability. As one commenter put it: “Even small technological changes can have immense social and political repercussions.”

As Lessig states, code is law, and as the reaction to the change in settings on the Air-L list reveals, many fear that this new code will regulate their experience in new — and detrimental — ways.

:: Twitter @Replies ::

At just about the same time as the Air-L debate, Twitter announced a similar change to how it would treat replies on its microblogging platform:

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

Translation: If I follow certain people, I can see their tweets, including those they send in reply to people I don’t follow. Twitter states their data shows this is “undesirable,” so, with this global change in place, I no longer see replies from friends to people I myself don’t follow.

Again, the reaction was swift, with the hash tag #fixreplies quickly emerging as a means of following the chatter.

And again, we are reminded of Lessig’s warning that the way a system is designed regulates our experiences within it. Consider this commenter’s reaction:

The new policy isn’t something you have to opt-in to. It’s not something you can opt-out of. It’s true for people who use 3rd party Twitter clients to read their Tweets. It’s more fundamentally closed than Facebook is; on that site I may not be able to view the profiles of strangers talking to my friends, but I can see that the conversations are happening and I can read the comments. This new Twitter policy breaks one of the fundamental rules of social activity streams: that I can discover new people by seeing who is conversing with the people I already know.

As with the Air-L issue, this is an ongoing debate with arguments from both sides (and Twitter appears to be making changes their original tweaks).

The point of both these cases is that architecture matters; especially architecture that is hidden, controlled by others, and set globally. The way a system is designed is constitutive of its culture, its community, and its freedoms; and as Lessig argues, when the architecture of a system is threatened or changed, so is the culture, community, and freedom it enables.

Call for Papers

Internet Research 10.0 – Internet: Critical

The 10th Annual International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)

October 7-11, 2009
Hilton Milwaukee City Center
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
http://ir10.aoir.org

As the Internet has become an increasingly ubiquitous and mundane medium, the analytical shortcomings of the division between the online and the offline have become evident. Shifting the focus to the fundamental intermeshing of online and offline spaces, networks, economies, politics, locations, agencies, and ethics, Internet: Critical invites scholars to consider material frameworks, infrastructures, and exchanges as enabling constraints in terms of online phenomena.

Furthermore, the conference invites considerations of Internet research as a critical practice and theory, its intellectual histories, investments, and social reverberations. How do we, as Internet researchers, connect our work to social concerns or cultural developments both local and global, and what kinds of agency may we exercise in the process? What kinds of redefinitions of the political (in terms of networks, micropolitics, participation, lifestyles, resistant or critical practices) are necessary when conceptualizing Internet cultures within the current geopolitical and geotechnological climate?

To this end, we call for papers, panel proposals, and presentations from any discipline, methodology, and community, and from conjunctions of multiple disciplines, methodologies and academic communities that address the conference themes, including papers that intersect and/or interconnect the following:

• critical moments, elements, practices
• critical theories, methods, constructs
• critical voices, histories, texts
• critical networks, junctures, spaces
• critical technologies, artifacts, failures
• critical ethics, interventions, alternatives.

Sessions at the conference will be established that specifically address the conference themes, and we welcome innovative, exciting, and unexpected takes on those themes. We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the Internet beyond the conference themes. In all cases, we welcome disciplinary and interdisciplinary submissions as well as international collaborations from both AoIR and non-AoIR members.

SUBMISSIONS
We seek proposals for several different kinds of contributions. We welcome proposals for traditional academic conference PAPERS and we also welcome proposals for ROUNDTABLE SESSIONS that will focus on discussion and interaction among conference delegates, as well as organized PANEL PROPOSALS that present a coherent group of papers on a single theme.

DEADLINES
Call for Papers Released: 17 November 2008
Submissions Due: 1 February 2009
Notification: 15 March 2009

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
All papers and presentations in this session will be evaluated in a standard blind peer review.
Format

• PAPERS (individual or multi-author) – submit abstract of 600-800 words
• FULL PAPERS (OPTIONAL): For submitters requiring peer review of full papers, manuscripts of up to 8,000 words will be accepted for review. These will be reviewed and judged separately from abstract submissions
• PANEL PROPOSALS – submit a 600-800 word description of the panel theme, plus 250-500 word abstract for each paper or presentation
• ROUNDTABLE PROPOSALS – submit a statement indicating the nature of the roundtable discussion and interaction

Papers, presentations and panels will be selected from the submitted proposals on the basis of multiple blind peer review, coordinated and overseen by the Program Chair. Each individual is invited to submit a proposal for 1 paper or 1 presentation. A person may also propose a panel session, which may include a second paper that they are presenting. An individual may also submit a roundtable proposal. You may be listed as co-author on additional papers as long as you are not presenting them.

PUBLICATION OF PAPERS
Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of the journal Information, Communication & Society, edited by Caroline Haythornwaite and Lori Kendall. Authors selected for submission for this issue will be contacted prior to the conference.

All papers submitted to the conference system will be available to AoIR members after the conference.

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS
On October 7, 2009, there will be a limited number of pre-conference workshops which will provide participants with in-depth, hands-on and/or creative opportunities. We invite proposals for these pre-conference workshops. Local presenters are encouraged to propose workshops that will invite visiting researchers into their labs or studios or locales. Proposals should be no more than 1000 words, and should clearly outline the purpose, methodology, structure, costs, equipment and minimal attendance required, as well as explaining its relevance to the conference as a whole. Proposals will be accepted if they demonstrate that the workshop will add significantly to the overall program in terms of thematic depth, hands on experience, or local opportunities for scholarly or artistic connections. These proposals and all inquiries regarding pre-conference proposals should be submitted as soon as possible to both the Conference Chair and Program Chair and no later than March 31, 2009.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Program Chair: Susanna Paasonen, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
• Conference Co-Chairs and Coordinators: Elizabeth Buchanan, Michael Zimmer, UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies and Center for Information Policy Research; Steve Jones, University of Illinois-Chicago