Call for papers

“Networking Democracy? New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics”3 day Symposium to be held at Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
25-27 June 2010
WEBSITE
Democratic politics worldwide are increasingly being conducted and re-configured through the domain of digital communications networks. The socio-technical developments, such as Web 2.0, facilitating these media-saturated public spheres are in little doubt. What is highly contested however is the interpretation of what these profound changes offer for democratic governance in the twenty-first century. At its heart is the recognition that these new media networks are themselves the crucial site for a historical confrontation between opposing political and/or business interests and discourses intent upon forging new forms of social relations.
We will address questions such as:
What new forms and relations of power are produced in the digital network society?
Who are the key social actors shaping the new public sphere and what are their respective strategies, framing, and repertoires of action?
What is the democratic potential of Web 2.0 applications such as social networking, blogging and twittering?
What empirical evidence do we have to understand and assess these developments?
How is networked democracy influencing new democratic societies?
What are its consequences for human rights, social sorting, migration, e-government, community politics, surveillance, protest, participation, culture, identity, mobilization, representation, nationalism, security, citizen journalism, trust, regulation, both exogenous and self-regulation and much more?
Speakers include;
W. Lance Bennett, University of Washington, USA
Bruce Bimber, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
">Donatella Della Porta, European University Institute, Italy
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/faculty.cfm?id=1">William H. Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, UK
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/soci/about/s_load.htm">Brian Loader, University of York, UK
Rodica Mocan, Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania
We invite papers from all disciplines which have addressed these topics. The paper title, an abstract of up to 500 words, a short bio and contact details should be sent to Dan Mercea, Department of Sociology, University of York, Heslington, YO10 5DD,UK mhtml:%7B2A96BD20-94B6-4B08-8768-B86B35BDE8E1%7Dmid://00000068/!x-usc:mailto:dmm505@york.ac.uk before 7 December 2009. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 15 January 2010. For more details visit http://www.brisc.info/NetDem/
The event is supported by the Center for Political Analysis and the European Studies Department (Babeş-Bolyai University), the Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU) and the Department of Sociology (University of York)
Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of the international journal iCS (Information, Communication & Society)
IMPORTANT DATES:
Submission deadline: 7 December 2009
Notifications of acceptance: 15 January 2010
Symposium: 25-27 June 2010