[Air-L] CfP: HICSS 56 minitrack on Critical and Ethical Studies of Digital and Social Media (6/15 Deadline)

[Nicholas Proferes]

Hi all,

Along with my colleagues Amelia Acker and Andrew Iliadis, I invite you to submit to the HICSS 56 Digital Social Media minitrack panel on Critical and Ethical Studies of Digital and Social Media: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-56/digital-and-social-media/#critical-and-ethical-studies-of-digital-and-social-media-minitrack

This minitrack focuses on two themes: a) research that critically interrogates how and when digital and social media reify existing power structures or realign power for underrepresented or marginalized groups, and b) research that addresses ethical issues associated with doing research on digital and social media. The minitrack seeks both conceptual and empirical approaches to these two themes. Conceptual papers should address foundational scholarship and theories —e.g., important interventions for thinking about information exchange in communities and societies, key ideas, paradigms, and methods. Empirical papers should draw on original studies of digital and social media that illustrate the critical or ethical dimensions of digital infrastructures, social media platforms, or data use.

Potential paper topics could explore the following topics and themes:

   - studies of the perpetuation of gender, race, ethno-nationalist, and faith-based hostility and bullying found in a range of online environments;
   - studies of the values and worldviews embedded within specific hardware and software technologies;
   - studies that look at the political economies and labor conditions of digital content creation, digital work, and the consequences of sharing economy platforms;
   - studies that look at mediated representations and practices of political community;
   - studies that examine digital power relations between individuals, collectives, and societal institutions.
   - case studies that grapple with the challenges and opportunities of unequal data access among digital and social media researchers (e.g., APIs, open vs. proprietary data);
   - studies that explore the situated ethics of social media research in different digital contexts
   - studies of the environmental impact that digital and social media researchers have on the planet by using and reusing data and metadata stored in resource-intensive ways;
   - studies of academic collaborations with actors that are a focus of controversies (e.g., military units, immigration enforcement officials, lobbying groups);
   - studies that mobilize non-traditional or experimental research methods developed for the specificities of digital and social media.

Submissions are due 15 June 2022. For more information about dates and author instructions, please see: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/.

Additionally, please share this CFP with interested colleagues, as you can. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

All the best,
Nick


Nicholas Proferes, PhD

Assistant Professor

School of Social and Behavioral Sciences

New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

Arizona State University