Participation"*
As Manuel Castells observed in his seminal work "The Rise of the Network >Society", the network has become the dominant organising logic of society today. It has transformed our homes into hyperconnected nodes for communication, interaction, and information sharing. The traditional, hierarchical structure of local and national government is giving way to the complex and intricately interwoven architecture of the global economy. And the ubiquity of mobile media devices, WiFi networks, and networked infrastructure in urban space has replaced the archaic grid layout of the
city with a vast, sprawling network of cables and telecommunication lines.
The rise of digital networks has opened up new possibilities for public participation and engagement by revolutionising the way we communicate with our friends, communities, political institutions, and the physical environment. Earlier this year, political activists in Moldova used Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social networking technologies to stage public protests and storm government office buildings. The proliferation of citizen journalism websites, Massively-Multiplayer Online games, and user-generated advertising campaigns has made media organisations increasingly reliant on content created by a global network of users to thrive (and make a profit).
And in the United States, Barack Obama has made public participation,transparency, and civic engagement through online initiatives a cornerstone of his administration=92s approach to governance.
But while networked technologies enable public participation and mobilisation on a scale not possible in the pre-digital era, they also create tensions and provoke conflicts with potentially devastating consequences: The same technologies that allow us to organise social gatherings or political protests were used to coordinate the Mumbai terrorist attacks and the 2005 Cronulla race riots in Sydney. These technologies may establish spaces for public engagement and networked participation, but they can equally have undesirable effects and unexpected outcomes which challenge traditional structures of power and control, or reinforce others.
PLATFORM, an online graduate journal of media and communication, is currently seeking submissions from graduate students which critically examine policy initiatives, projects, online services, or interventions in the area of "Digital Media and Networked Participation".
Possible case studies might include:
- E-democracy and online deliberation (Lincoln Dahlberg, James S. Fishkin
and others)
- Networked mobilities (Castells, *Communication Power*; Rheingold, *Smart
Mobs*; Mitchell, *Me++*)
- Citizen journalism and collaborative news production (Axel Bruns, *Blogs,
Wikipedia and Second Life*)
- Crowdsourcing (Daren C. Brabham
- P2P and peer production (Michel Bauwens
- Viral marketing/User-generated advertising
- Networked cities and public interventions (*Open
11
* special issue; McQuire, *The Media City*)
- Urban design and participatory planning projects (Marcus Foth, *Urban
Informatics*)
- Locative media/Augmented space (see edited book *Space Time Play* by
Frederick von Borries *et al*)
Submission guidelines:
All submissions to PLATFORM must be from current graduate students (no more than 6 months after graduation) undertaking their Masters, Ph.D. or international equivalent. All eligible submissions will be sent for double-blind peer-review.
Email proposed papers to: platformjmc@gmail.com
Deadlines:
29 January, 2010: Abstracts/Proposals (500-800 words)
31 March, 2010: Full Papers (6,000-8,000 words)
For more information and to read the full call for papers, visit:
http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/platform/call_papers.html
Or contact:
Dale Leorke
d.leorke@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Editor-in-Chief, PLATFORM Vol 2, Issue 2
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