From: Julian Bleecker ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Subject: Convergence: Special Issue on Digital Cultures of California
Date: July 13, 2007 10:58:54 AM PDT
Colleagues and Friends,
I am editing an upcoming special issue of Convergence: The
International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. If you
would, please consider contributing. Inquiries or questions can be
directed to me.
We are particularly interested in articles that have a practice-based
approach to their topic, or are explications of digital culture as
seen through new kinds of interaction rituals brought to us courtesy
of California's peculiar ways of making and circulating culture.
Thanks. Hope to hear from you.
Julian Bleecker
Julian Bleecker, Ph.D.
http://research.techkwondo.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media
Technologies
Call for Papers – Special Issue on ‘Digital Cultures of California
Vol 15 no 1. February 2009
Guest editor:
Julian Bleecker (julian [at] techkwondo [dot] com and bleeckerj [at]
gmail [dot] com)
(Near Future Laboratory and University of Southern California)
The deadline for submission of research articles is 1 February 2008.
This call invites submissions for a special issue related to digital
cultures of California. Internationally, California is a phenomenon
in terms of its relationship to creating, consuming and analyzing the
era of digital technologies. From the legendary garage entrepreneurs,
to the multi-billion dollar culture of venture capital, to stock back-
dating scandals, to the epic exodus of California’s IT support staff
during the Burning Man festival, this territory plays an important
role in the political, cultural and economic underpinnings of
digitally and network-mediated lives on a global scale.
The Bay Area of California (often referred to somewhat incorrectly as
Northern California) is perceived as a hot-bed of technology
activity. Nearby Silicon Valley serves as a marker for the massive
funding of enterprises that shape many aspects of digital culture.
The new interaction rituals that have come to define what social life
has become in many parts of the world can often be traced back to
this part of California. New, popular and curious forms of presence
awareness and digital communication such as Twitter and Flickr have
found a comfortable home here. Lifestyles of the Northern California
digerati have enveloped the cultural milieu, often changing the
social landscape to such a degree that it become unrecognizable and
unpalatable to those less engaged in creating and consuming digital
cultures. Complimenting the Bay Area’s technology production
activities is Southern California – the greater Los Angeles basin in
particular – where Hollywood sensibilities bring together
entertainment with technology through such things as video games,
mobile content distribution, digital video and 3D cinema.
California is also the home of several colleges and universities
where digital technologies are developed in engineering departments
and reflected upon from social science and humanities departments.
This curious relationship between production and analysis creates the
promise of insightful interdisciplinary approaches to making new
kinds of digital networked cultures. Many institutions have made
efforts to combine engineering and social science practices to
bolster technology design. Xerox PARC probably stands as the
canonical example of interdisciplinary approaches to digital
technology design. Similarly, combining arts practices with
technology as a kind of exploratory research and development has
important precedent at places like Intel Berkeley Labs and PARC and
at the practice-based events such as the San Jose California-based
Zero One festival.
In this special issue we welcome submissions which investigate,
provoke and explicate the California digital cultures from a variety
of perspectives. We are interested in papers that approach this
phenomenon in scholarly and, particularly, approaches that emphasize
practice-based analysis and knowledge production.
* What are the ways that social networks have been shaped by digital
techniques?
* How has the phenomenon of the digital entrepreneur evolved in the
age of DIY sensibilities?
* What are the ways that ‘new ideas’ succeed or fail based on their
dissemination amongst the elite, connected digerati, as opposed to
their dissemination amongst less more quotidian communities?
* What is the nature of the matrix of relationships between Hollywood
entertainment, the military, industry and digital technology?
* Can the DIY culture explored in the pages of Make magazine produce
its own markets?
* How does the Apple Inc. culture of product design and development
shape and inform popular culture?
* How have the various interdisciplinary approaches undertaken at
corporate research centers connected to universities such as Intel
Berkeley Labs shaped digital cultures?
* What does ‘Silicon Valley’ mean in other geographies? How has the
model of associations between innovation, research and funding been
transplanted elsewhere and to what measures of success?
The deadline for submission of research articles is 1 February 2008.
Submissions/proposals for papers should be directed to the guest
editor. The special issue will be published (by SAGE) in February
2009. For full details of house style and submission format, please
consult www.beds.ac.uk/Convergence
(For all other submissions/inquiries, please contact
[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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