Date: Thu, 25 Sep 97 19:23:33 CDT
From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@VMA.SMSU.EDU>
Subject: CATaC '98 - Call for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
CULTURAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION (CATaC)
Special Issue: Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique
de Communication
International Conference: CATAC '98, 1-3, August 1998, National
Museum of Science and Industry, London, UK
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) networks, such as the Internet
and the World Wide Web, offer tantalizing possibilities of global
communications. If such communications facilitate dialogues which both
cross and preserve irreducible cultural and political boundaries, they may
contribute immeasurably to greater global understanding and
democratization. But diverse cultural attitudes towards technology and
communication also issue in culturally distinctive ways of implementing and
using CMC technologies. Some of these culturally-grounded differences in
implementation and use frustrate, rather than facilitate, hopes for greater
global communication.
Our thematic question: how do diverse cultural attitudes shape the
implementation and use of CMC technologies?
We seek to respond to this question by bringing together, in a special
journal issue, international conference, and likely book publication, papers
which articulate the connections between specific cultural values and present
and/or possible future communicative practices involving CMC
technologies. We seek articles which, taken together, will help readers,
researchers, and practitioners of computer-mediated communication -
especially in the service of "electronic democracy" - better understand the
role of diverse cultural attitudes as hindering and/or furthering the
implementation of global computer communications systems such as the
Internet and the World Wide Web.
The conference brings together presenters from throughout the world who
will provide diverse perspectives - both in terms of the specific culture(s)
they highlight in their presentations, and in terms of the discipline(s)
through which they approach the conference themes:
* Communicative attitudes and practices in diverse industrialized countries -
i.e., whose infrastructure and economic resources are roughly comparable,
but whose cultural attitudes and communicative practices may differ.
* Communicative attitudes and practices in industrialized and industrializing
countries, including attention to:
the role of gender in cultural expectations regarding appropriate
communicative behaviors;
how different cultures cope with information overload, and with more
information
(= more knowledge?) of other cultures.
* Emerging uses of CMC technologies to preserve local languages/cultures
over against a prevailing, homogeneous/homogenizing "Internet Culture," -
vis-a-vis the isolation of those who have access to the highly technological
resources of CMC environments from "marginalized" communities in both
developed and developing societies.
* East/West cultural attitudes and communicative practices.
* "The Politics of the Electronic Global Village" - how far do CMC
technologies "democratize" (meaning?) and how far do they help preserve
more hierarchical regimes/cultures?
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
Saturday, August 1
9:00 First session: Communication in Industrialized Cultures
Presenter/chair: Herbert Hrachovec (Philosophy, Vienna), "New Kids on
the Net"
Mike Sandbothe (Philosophy, Magdeburg) "American Pragmatism and
the Internet"
Fay Sudweeks (Key Centre of Design Computing,
Dept of Architectural and Design Science, University of Sydney,
Australia, "Group Consciousness and Collaborative Work"
Lucienne Rey (TA-Programm, Switzerland), "Attitudes towards
Technology and Communication across the Multiple Cultures of
Switzerland"
11:00 Break
11:30 Respondant/Discussion
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Second session: Communication in Industrializing / Capitalizing
Countries
Chair: Fay Sudweeks
Additional papers to be selected
16:00 Break
16:30 Respondant/Discussion (ca. 1 hr)
Sunday, August 2
9:00 Third session: Homogeneity, Marginalization, and the Preservation
of Local Cultures
Chair: Sheizaf Rafaeli (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Papers to be selected
11:00 Break
11:30 Respondant/Discussion
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Fourth Session: The Politics of the Electronic Global Village
Chair: Charles Ess
Ian Connell (University of Wolverhampton, UK), "European Policy
and Political Use of Information and Communications Technology"
Antje Gimmler (Marburg University), "The Internet, the Public
Sphere, and Individual and Group Identity"
Additional papers to be selected
16:00 Break
16:30 Respondant/Discussion
19:00 Conference Dinner
Monday, August 3
9:00 Fifth session: East/West cultural attitudes and communicative
practices
Chair/presenter: Ang Peng Hwa (Nanayang Technological University,
Singapore). "Internet Censorship in Asia and the Pacific Rim"
James Dew (Beijing) "Chinese and English conceptions of privacy
and the Internet"
Sunny Yoon, "Computerization and Education in Korea"
Additional papers to be selected
11:00 Break
11:30 Respondant/discussion
12:30 Lunch
14:00-17:00 Conference plenary, closing remarks: Philosophers and
Communication Theorists in Dialogue
Sponsoring institutions and organizations:
Communication & Technology Division, International Communication
Association;
The Communication Technology Policy Section, International Association
for Media & Communication Research;
Javnost-The Public, the journal of the European Institute for
Communication and Culture (Ljubljana, Slovenia);
The National Museum of Science and Industry (the Science Museum),
London, UK
The Korea Society, publisher of The U.S.-Korea Review;
Philosophy East and West: a Quarterly of Comparative Philosophy,
affiliated with the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy;
Technology Assessment Programm, Switzerland.
All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel of scholars
and researchers. The special issue of the Electronic Journal of
Communication/La Revue electronique de Communication (EJC/ReC) will
appear in the third quarter of 1998. For additional information on this
project, visit our Web sites:
<http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/~fay/catac/index.html>
<http://www.drury.edu/faculty/ess/catac/index.html>
Submissions to the special issue with an abstract, are due to the guest
editor, Dr. Charles Ess, by November 1, 1997. For more information,
please contact Dr Charles Ess, <ejcrec@lib.drury.edu>.
Submissions to the conference are due to the co-chair, Fay Sudweeks, by 1
November 1997. For more information, please contact Fay Sudweeks,
<fays@arch.usyd.edu.au>.
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