*CFP* "CRITICAL ICT INFRASTRUCTURES AND PLATFORMS", 14TH CMI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

 Critical ICT infrastructures and platforms

14th CMI International Conference

Hybrid (online/In-person): 25-26 November 2021

 

ICT infrastructures and platforms are increasingly pervasive and critical for societies, systems and organizations and for individuals. It is, therefore, of great importance that efficient and resilient infrastructures are developed and deployed and that disruptions of services caused by either cyber-attacks or other interruptions of services are mitigated. Also, as digital platforms constitute crucial communication infrastructures for societies, it is important that such platforms contribute to democratic processes and economic and social fairness.

The 14th CMI conference will be concerned with these topics from different complementary angles: The development and deployment of fast and efficient communication infrastructures including cloud and edge technologies; resilience of ICT systems in order to increase cyber security and mitigate cyber-attacks; institution of social practices and governance approaches that will promote democratic discussions and processes, contribute to economic and social development, equity and fairness, and protect privacy.

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", CONFERENCE AND EDITED VOLUME

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans? The line between science and fiction is becoming increasingly blurry: what is already a fact, what is still only imagination; and is it even possible to make this clear-cut distinction? Innovation and development goals in the field of AI are inspired by popular culture, such as its portrayal in literature, comics, film or television. 

At the same time, images of these technologies drive discussions and set particular priorities in politics, business, journalism, religion, civil society, ethics or research. Fictions, potentials and scenarios inform a society about the hopes, risks, solutions and expectations associated with new technologies. But what is more, the discourses on AI, robots and intelligent, even sentient machines are nothing short of a mirror of the human condition: they renew fundamental questions on concepts such as consciousness, free will and autonomy or the ways we humans think, act and feel.

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", A JAPANESE-GERMAN CONFERENCE & EDITED VOLUME

Artificial intelligence and the human 

Cross-cultural perspectives on science and fiction

A Japanese-German conference in Berlin, Germany

12 and 13 May 2022

& Edited volume (2023)

 

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans?

*CFP* "CRITICAL ICT INFRASTRUCTURES AND PLATFORMS", 14TH CMI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Critical ICT Infrastructures and Platforms

14th CMI International Conference

25 - 26 November 2021

Hybrid (Online / In-Person)

 

ICT infrastructures and platforms are increasingly pervasive and critical for societies, systems and organizations and for individuals. It is, therefore, of great importance that efficient and resilient infrastructures are developed and deployed and that disruptions of services caused by either cyber-attacks or other interruptions of services are mitigated. Also, as digital platforms constitute crucial communication infrastructures for societies, it is important that such platforms contribute to democratic processes and economic and social fairness. The 14th CMI conference will be concerned with these topics from different complementary angles: The development and deployment of fast and efficient communication infrastructures including cloud and edge technologies; resilience of ICT systems in order to increase cyber security and mitigate cyber-attacks; institution of social practices and governance approaches that will promote democratic discussions and processes, contribute to economic and social development, equity and fairness, and protect privacy.

*CFP* "MEDIA AND THE EU GOVERNANCE. DEMOCRACY, PARTICIPATION, AND INNOVATION", SPECIAL ISSUE, DE EUROPA JOURNAL

While the European Union (EU) has become increasingly crucial for the life and the work of its 450M citizens, the European integration process itself has historically been characterized by cyclical crises. While looking back, it is clear that economic and political tensions have previously opened new opportunities for widening and deepening the EU's integration. The present crisis seems different. A long-term falling trend of public trust in national and EU institutions has been undermining the European integration process and more recently “citizen dissatisfaction with national governments and disaffection from the EU has been on the rise” (Schmidt, 2015, p.57). The EU has had to face a long-lasting economic crisis, accompanied by the rise of populist and anti-EU parties that have been present in the European Parliament since the last two legislatures. Today, and on top of the political crisis described earlier, for the first time in the history of the EU, an unexpected force of disruption, such as the health crisis caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, has contributed to create an unprecedented critical situation for the European Union.

Aware of this epochal conjuncture, European leaders and Policy Makers have called for "The Future of Europe'' conference. This Conference should help to address the crisis openly, enlarge the participation of European citizens in European governance, and ultimately define the fundamental values and principles that have shaped the European communities, whose building “has always been plagued by uncertainty” (Williams, 2009, p.551). Following the delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the debate is now restarting with renewed energies. Recently, the European Commission has launched the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP) to counter disinformation and the rise of extremism and nurture pluralism in the European public space. Media, politics, and Institutions are all involved in contrasting the rise of extremism and reducing the distance between people and politicians, strengthening media freedom, and fighting disinformation. The EDAP tries to connect traditional goals pursued by the institutions over time: citizens’ empowerment and participation, transparency, innovation as institutional tools to improve internal cohesion in the European Public Sphere.

*CFP* "INTERSECTIONALITY AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS", SPECIAL ISSUE, FRONTEIRAS JOURNAL

In recent years, the intersectional perspective has been highlighted in research focused on acknowledge how discrimination articulates by different structures of oppression. The perspective is widely disseminated by the ideas of American black jurist and feminist, Kimberlé Crenshaw, who systematized the concept of “intersectionality” in 1989 in the United States. In Brazil, and a few years earlier but still in the 1980s, Lélia Gonzalez already denounced the effects of the double oppression of sexism and racism over black women. Beyond universities, the concept has been appropriated by social movements. It also circulates in discourses on digital platforms that try to draw attention to the way these oppressions cross and structure the everyday practices of many people. Thus, this configures huge gaps in spaces of power and construction of knowledge. The debate on intersectionality and its effects in everyday lives finds fertile ground in digital platforms for the inclusion of diverse experiences and concrete experiences in view of the particularity of each person.

 

We announce a call for a special issue of Fronteiras Journal, a Brazil-based open access journal, on intersectionality and digital platforms. The special issue encourages submissions that explore one or more of the following issues:

• Intersectionality, citizenship and social media

*CFP* "MACHINE VISION IN CONTEXT: POLITICS AND PRACTICES OF COMPUTATIONAL SEEING", SPECIAL ISSUE, PHOTOGRAPHIES JOURNAL

This special issue will bring together interdisciplinary scholarship that engages critically with the evolving, recursive interrelations between machine vision and photography.

The heightened capacities of machines to ‘see’ and visually categorize the world have been the subject of numerous recent journalistic exposés and public outcry. Whether critiquing the role that machine vision plays in efforts to track, detain, and penalize targeted communities, or charting the incorporation of similar technologies into urban infrastructures, self-driving cars and ‘smart’ appliances, there is a growing awareness that it is reshaping what is seen and what counts as seeing. Online, recognition algorithms increasingly automate the tasks of tagging, categorizing and extracting meaning from the “unmanageable and unassimilable” accumulation of images circulating across networked environments (Henning 2018). Within this context of volume, scale, and distributed production, the photographic image appears to have receded from the realm of human perception (Zylinska 2017), working instead as an ‘operative’ agent (Hoelzl & Marie 2015) that drives and draws together the constellation of hard and soft platforms that comprise the contemporary mediascape (Dvořák and Parikka 2021; Mackenzie & Munster 2019). Images and their audiences are being ‘put to work,’ as the solicitation and generation of metadata as well as the non-human recognition of pixel- and user-based patterns facilitates the improvement and expansion of computerized vision (Sluis 2020).

*CFP* "CULTURA DIGITAL, NUEVAS FORMAS DE OPRESIÓN, RESISTENCIA Y SUBVERSIÓN", NÚMERO DICIEMBRE 2021, VIRTUALIS: REVISTA DE CULTURA DIGITAL

El desarrollo de la tecnología digital responde a una epistemología que fortalece la estructura y la cultura hegemónica: patriarcal, eurocentrada y capitalista. De tal forma, predomina la idea de lo que Paola Ricaurte (2019) denomina como el vigente y pujante paradigma de datos, el cual amplifica las formas históricas de colonización y opresión. En consecuencia, emergen inéditas formas de disciplinamiento del cuerpo social, tales como la represión algorítmica, la apropiación de datos y la fabricación del consentimiento (Treré, 2016). Este escenario se agudiza por la creciente plataformización de la vida social, la cual concentra el poder y compromete los valores asociados al bien común (Van Dijck, 2020).

En este contexto, Tendayi Achiume investigadora de la Universidad de California y relatora especial sobre racismo en las Naciones Unidas, señala que la inteligencia artificial, el reconocimiento facial, los algoritmos y abuso de macrodatos fomentan la discriminación y el control social de grupos que son frecuentemente racializados y criminalizados, como son las personas migrantes, transgénero, afrodescendientes e indígenas (ONU, 2020).

*CFP* "DISRUPTING AND RESETTLING THE LOCAL IN DIGITAL NEWS SPACES", SPECIAL ISSUE, DIGITAL JOURNALISM JOURNAL

We are inviting proposals to an exciting special issue on digital local news and journalism. Please consider to submit and/or forward to interested parties. Deadline for extended abstracts is June 30, 2021.

This special issue of Digital Journalism invites scholars to explore theoretically, conceptually and empirically the 'place', power and challenges of the local in digital news spaces. Both single-country and comparative research are welcome, as well as both theoretical and empirical manuscripts. The latter may involve quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods approaches. The issue particularly welcomes cross-national comparative analyses and non-Western perspectives.

Possible topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to:

• How do journalists, audiences, policymakers and others define and shape understandings of the 'local' in digital spaces.
• What are the changing ways in which journalism reproduces, represents or builds notions of locality and location in digital space?

*CFP* "SOCIAL NETWORKS TRACK", IEEE GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE

IEEE Global Communications Conference

7-11 December 2021

Madrid, Spain

Selected Areas in Communication Symposium: Social Networks Track

 

Scope and motivation

Recently, social network research has advanced rapidly with the prevalence of online social applications and mobile social communications systems. Moreover, the ongoing pandemic via contact social networks has caused tremendous human life and economic loss around the world, and infodemic is one of the major social impacts that make people difficult to discriminate trustworthy sources, from false and manipulative information sources. 

*CFP* "MESSENGERS FROM THE STARS: EPISODE VI", ONLINE CONFERENCE

Messengers from the Stars: Episode VI

Online Conference

School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon

November 25-26, 2021

 

Science Fiction and Fantasy are lasting fields of inquiring into today’s world. They have become privileged means to question issues of aesthetic, ethical, political, social, economic, environmental and historical nature with high impact on contemporary societies. They have promoted hot-button issues and rich critical debates in literature as well as in cinema, TV, and videogames among other media.

The University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES) invites you to take part in the 6th International Conference Messengers from the Stars: On Science Fiction and Fantasy to be held at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, on November 25-26, 2021. This year Episode VI will focus on the theme “Nature and Overnature in SF and Fantasy Discourses”.

*CFP* "DIGITAL MATTERS: DESIGNING/PERFORMING AGENCY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE", 25TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE DRHA

Digital Matters: Designing/Performing Agency for the Anthropocene

25th annual conference of the DRHA (Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts)

Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 5-7.09.2021.

 

The Anthropocene highlights a fundamental fracture in contemporary culture between what we know and how we act. In the public sphere, this contradiction can be summarized by the overwhelming sense of apathy in the face of growing complexity and crisis. In scholarship the Anthropocene has been tied up with the experience of the unthinkable – by thinkers including Timothy Morton, Donna Haraway, and Amitav Ghosh. Yet, the current COVID-19 pandemic —which as a crisis also exemplifies the human impact on and a reshaping of environments—challenges the pervasiveness of the key concepts of abstraction and unthinkability.

*CFP* "TRANSFORMATION OF NEWSROOMS WITH THE ADVENT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE JOURNALISM", CYBER CONFERENCE

Cyber conference organized by Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague

“Transformation of Newsrooms with the Advent of Artificial Intelligence Journalism”

May 13, 2021

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has entered newsrooms around the globe during the last decade. The era of sophisticated algorithms, machine learning tools, and full automation from early simple solutions began. AI tools play an important role on many levels of the process of making and distributing news. AI assists journalists in their work, whether it is the fully automated production of news stories or the partial use of machine learning. The integration of AI-based tools into the journalism process also places huge demands for journalists, technical staff and lead editors. 

*CFP* "URBAN ASSEMBLAGE: THE CITY AS ARCHITECTURE, MEDIA, AI AND BIG DATA", A HYBRID IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

 Urban Assemblage: The City as Architecture, Media, AI and Big Data 

University of Hertfordshire

28-30 June 2021

London / Virtual / Hatfield, UK

 

he role of computers in the design, control and making of the public life [and space] is increasingly dominant, their presence pervasive, and their relationship with people characterised by a growing complexity. Batty 2017

This conference is planned as a hybrid in-person and virtual event. The keynote will be held in London. In-person presentations will take place in the University of Hertfordshire campus in Hatfield on the outskirts of London.

*CFP* "AUTOMATION AND DATA-DRIVEN JOURNALISM BEYOND THE WESTERN WORLD: ACTORS, PRACTICES, AND SOCIOPOLITICAL IMPACT", ONLINE CONFERENCE OF THE SUSTAINABLE JOURNALISM FOR THE ALGORITHMIC FUTURE PROJECT

Sustainable journalism for the algorithmic future conference

Automation and data-driven journalism beyond the Western world: actors, practices, and socio-political impact

May 5th-6th, 2021

 

The research project ‘Sustainable journalism for the algorithmic future’ in partnership with the Aleksanteri Institute and Swedish School of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki invite the submission of papers to be presented at the online conference ‘Automation and data-driven journalism beyond the Western world: actors, practices, and socio-political impact’.

Algorithmic systems and other data-driven practices exert increasing influence over today’s societies, reshaping how social and economic systems function (Gillespie 2014). Algorithms are society’s new “power brokers,” dictating the stories that we pay attention to, the activities we participate in, and the people we connect with (Kitchin 2017). The news media is among those industries where artificial intelligence and algorithms are making strides and reordering the playing field as their use diversifies and expands.

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE", ISSUE 117, VIEWFINDER MAGAZINE

ViewFinder Magazine Issue 117 is now open for submission from writers, academics, researchers, and video essayists. We will be exploring AI and its relationship with audiovisual media.

We’re looking for articles and essays with a focus on Artificial Intelligence plus the future of education, audiovisual and online teaching are most welcome.

• How are people using AI to study and analyse television and film? 
• What is the potential of AI in audiovisual academic research, particularly in using archive? 
• How can AI help us improve teaching with audiovisual material? 
• How is AI, Augmented Reality and Computer Vision already informing teaching visually across disciplines?
• What ethical issues are there around AI use and images online, how will computer vision look in the future, what are our responsibilities and what is exciting about AI?
• How has AI been represented on screen in the past, how might stories about AI look in the future?

*CFP* "PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY", THEMATIC ISSUE, JOURNAL ATHENA: PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

Journal Athena: Philosophical Studies invites to submit the articles for the thematic issue Philosophical Reflections on Media and Technology.

Media and technology are important topics in contemporary philosophical reflections. They were discussed in the works of renowned thinkers, such as B. Latour, D. Harraway, B. Stiegler, F. Kittler – to name only a few – their insights have shaped the way we live and think in our highly technologized world.

However, recent technological developments and the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence urge us to think further about the impact of media on culture and humans, and formulate bolder hypotheses concerning the modes of technological existence and agency. Moreover, the new media and the smart technologies invite us to reconceptualize the classical philosophical questions and define the new ontological, epistemological, and ethical aspects of media and technology.

*CFP* "A.I. – PANIC OR PANACEA", AUTUMN 2021 ISSUE, EXCHANGES: THE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH JOURNAL

The issue of intelligence lies at the heart of the scholarly lifeworld, although for much of history a topic focussed around a singular, human construct. Today though, algorithms, deep learning and artificial intelligence have emerged into the everyday world. From the seemingly trivial, to battling the pandemic or even fighting our future wars, applications of algorithmic intelligence are increasingly shaping critical decisions and policy helping meet emerging challenges. Should we be celebrating the transition to a more ‘automated’ workplace, freeing humankind from waged-labour exploitative drudgery or does it represent an existential threat to the livelihood of millions?

Some would argue humanity has cause to fear the unchecked rise of the machines in our society. For example, the recent examination debacle in the UK undoubtedly lays still sharp in the minds of many British students and their parents as an example of a misapplied technological aid. Other cautionary tales of unfettered algorithm use abound in fields as diverse as space imaging and earth observation, through to the evaluation of immigration applicants or ‘future crime’ prediction. Is the age of the 'Minority Report' a new era of safety to be trumpeted or a greater force for oppression and fear?

*CFP* "EXHIBITING VIRTUAL BODIES: THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL IMPACT OF VR ON THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES", BOOK CHAPTERS

Virtual Reality (VR) is not a new technology by any stretch of the imagination. Regardless of how futuristic VR might appear in popular culture, VR encompasses a rich and varied history that began to surface in the 1980s and 1990s when VPL Research produced a number of commercial devices (e.g. the DataGlove and Audiosphere). As exciting as these systems were, the technology simply could not live up to the hype (Evans, 2018). In reality, the level of ‘immersion’ associated with these developments was just not enough to fulfil the implicit promise of VR. Simply put, the available technology was not able to conjure an experience of being present in a digital world that felt in any way ‘real’ (Shields, 2005).

In contrast to the failed hype of its first few decades, contemporary VR is going through a marked ‘renaissance’ (Evans, 2018). Modern systems, such as the Oculus Quest and more recently the Oculus Quest 2, are not only far more affordable than earlier offerings, but these headsets also represent a new era of standalone VR. Significantly, the Quest and Quest 2 do not require powerful personal computer to run. Instead, the computer is effectively built into the headset itself. This untethering, as it is commonly referred, not only allows for more immersive experiences free from trailing wires, but also establishes a more complex and ‘coextensive’ relationship between physical and digital space (Saker and Frith, 2020).

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", CONFERENCE AND EDITED VOLUME

Artificial intelligence and the human – Cross-cultural perspectives on science and fiction

Conference and edited volume

A Japanese-German conference in Berlin, Germany (17 and 18 June 2021) & edited volume (2022)

 

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans?

The line between science and fiction is becoming increasingly blurry: what is already a fact, what is still only imagination; and is it even possible to make this clear-cut distinction? Innovation and development goals in the field of AI are inspired by popular culture, such as its portrayal in literature, comics, film or television.