Call for papers

The Inaugural Interdisciplinary Conference of the Virtual Communication, Collaboration and Conflict (VIRT3C) Research Group at the University of Hull

VIRT3C@Hull 2010 Developing the Virtual Society: Conflict in Adoption of Collaborative Networks
19-20 March

Public Keynote speaker:

Geert Lovink [Institute for Network Cultures, Hogeschool Van Amsterdam and University of Amsterdam]

Keynote speakers:

Gabriella Coleman [Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU]

Mathieu O’Neil [Paris Sorbonne – Paris IV]

Our plenary theme is ‘Developing the Virtual Society: Conflict in Adoption of Online Collaborative Networks’. As virtual society develops, and peer technologies and practices pump in its heart, this conference brings together academics of all disciplines to discuss conflict in the adoption of collaborative networks. This is a time of confrontation between older forms of communication and organization and new ways of sharing, collaborating and acting collectively. We seek to explore conflicts emerging in the transition from, and resistance to, horizontal participatory networks, as well as conflict within collaborative networks. We welcome suggestions for panels and papers on any area relating to our theme, and particularly in the following areas:

• Network Theory
• P2P and FLOSS methodology adoption
• FLOSS methodology
• Open source conflicts and forking
• Adoption by NGOs and the developing world
• Adoption by social movements, hacktivism, cyberconflict
• Institutional resistance to networks
• Online P2P places and conflicts

We encourage especially contributions, including, but not limited to, politics, economics, computer science, business, psychology, sociology, and law.

With your abstract of no more than 300 words please include the following information:

Name, postal address, email
Institutional affiliation and position (if applicable)

Please send abstracts in Word or pdf format to the organisers at
athina.k@gmail.com
Provisional Deadline for abstracts: 15th January 2010

 

Network Security project award

The NPCU can announce a new £130,784 research grant award to Dr Ben O’Loughlin in collaboration with Linguamatics Ltd. The award, from the Technology Strategy Board (http://www.innovateuk.org/), will fund a 12-month pilot investigation of the use of blogs and twitter as a way of monitoring information infrastructures for early warnings of problems. Linguamatics are a text-mining company based in Cambridge, UK. Lawrence Ampofo, a PhD student in the department, will be a Research Assistant on the project.

 

Automatic analysis of formal channels (e.g. customer surveys and user feedback forms) using Natural Language Processing (NLP) has been successfully used by large organisations to identify issues reported with products and services. Informal online sources of information, such as blogs and twitter, give the potential for greater coverage of issues in near-real time. We will take NLP technology already proven in life science research and apply it to blogs and twitter for monitoring of digital services. Weak signals gathered from large numbers of users can suggest problems which do not show up as single point failures. We will also see if it is possible to catch cases where a rumour of a problem may exacerbate or even cause the problem itself.

2009-09-14: Web metrics workshop

To initiate the launch of several research activities involving web metrics and political behaviour (see newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/web-metrics), the NPCU is holding a one-day workshop on 14 September 2009 to launch our focus on web metrics. The purpose of the workshop is to establish a research theme of Web metrics and political behaviour that will enable both academics and practitioners to debate and to shape an interdisciplinary research agenda that will:

 

1) Examine the increasing degree to which Web metrics can be used to measure and potentially predict such political behaviour from election voting to terrorism.

2) Bring together the combined expertise and opinions of academics, government and private sector actors to advance research in this field and inform debate.

3) Attract further support and interest from other people to form a community that is at the forefront at the nexus of Web metrics and political behaviour.

Speakers include:

 

Simon Collister: Head of Consumer Digital, Weber Shandwick

 

Rob Pearson: Digital Diplomacy, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

 

Simon Bergman: Information Options

 

Carrie Baker and Dominic Campbell: FutureGov

 

Dr Maura Conway and Lisa McInery: Department of Law & Government, Dublin City University

 

Darren Lilleker: Department of Media and Communications, Bournemouth University

 

Claire Spencer: I to I Research

 

Journal of Information Technology & Politics special issue on "Politics: Web 2.0" published

Edited by Andrew Chadwick. Click here for the Taylor and Francis journal page. See below for the table of contents.

  • Introduction: The Internet and Politics in Flux - Andrew Chadwick
  • Realizing the Social Internet: Online Social Networking Meets Offline Social Capital? - Josh Pasek, eian more, and Daniel Romer
  • Typing Together? Clustering of Ideological Types in Online Social Networks - Brian J. Gaines and Jeffery J. Mondak
  • Building an Architecture of Participation? Political Parties and Web 2.0 in Britain - Nigel A. Jackson and Darren G. Lilleker
  • Norwegian Parties and Web 2.0 - Øyvind Kalnes
  • The Labors of Internet-Assisted Activism: Overcommunication, Miscommunication, and Communicative Overload - Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
  • Developing the “Good Citizen”: Digital Artifacts, Peer Networks, and Formal Organization During the 2003–2004 Howard Dean Campaign - Daniel Kreiss
  • Lost in Technology? Political Parties and the Online Campaigns of Constituency Candidates in Germany’s Mixed Member Electoral System - Thomas Zittel
  • Internet Election 2.0? Culture, Institutions, and Technology in the Korean Presidential Elections of 2002 and 2007 - Yeon-Ok Lee
  • The Internet and Mobile Technologies in Election Campaigns: The GABRIELA Women’s Party During the 2007 Philippine Elections - Kavita Karan, Jacques D. M. Gimeno, and Edson Tandoc, Jr.

Trophy photos from Afghanistan

A colleague has pointed out that photos of British troops killed in Afghanistan are appearing on jihadist websites. Click here, for instance, and scroll down. The original poster praises the 'mighty warriors of Taliban' and talks of their courageousness. He uses derogatory names and titles for the fallen British soldiers. When their names are written, they are proceeded with, “Allah's damned enemy X”. All others praise the work of the Taliban and pray for more death inflicted on the foreign troops. There is nothing too sophisticated here. But do the families of the dead troops realise these images are being used this way? Is this an occupational hazard of digital media to which everyone must adapt?

Deliberately failing to explain Afghanistan?

 

On the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, the head of the British Army, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, consistently failed to explain why British forces are in Afghanistan. Despite the shift in public opinion in the last few days against British involvement in Afghanistan, all Dannatt could say was:

“A high number of deaths inevitably makes you question what we are doing, how we are doing it. The conclusion one has to reach is, going right back to basics on this, that this mission is really important”.

Yes it is important – but why? Just saying something is important is not enough to convince listeners. He went on, “Things are much clearer if you flip the coin and look at the other side and ask ‘What if we were to pull out unilaterally? What if we were to just come out of this mission?’”

So: what if? What would happen? He didn’t say. How about: it would appear a victory for the Taliban, it would weaken Britain’s position with NATO, it would damage relations with the US, it would undermine the credibility of future British interventions, it would make the death of British troops in Afghanistan seem pointless ... and no doubt many other reasons.

The British Army appears to lack a strategic narrative about why it is in Afghanistan at all. It is when the absence of justifications for policy occurs that opposition voices have space to provide alternatives. Consequently, in the last few days, allied to the increase in British casualties, there has been a proliferation of suggestions that Britain withdraw from Afghanistan - a clear, intelligible alternative. If they want to close the debate down the British Army - and the government - need to find a way to frame and justify the war and not be afraid to keep repeating it. This is not rocket science, and the failure to take this action suggests the army is happy for a public debate about a withdrawal to take place.