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conference
introduction | conference rates and registration| keynote speakers| special events|pre-conference workshops| pre-conference lab tours| birds of a feather meetings | book displays | graduate students |Artistic Works | contact info |
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Introduction: BROADENING THE BAND
AoiR paper acceptances have gone out (April 24, 2003)
Thanks to Program Chair Matt Allen, Jeremy Hunsinger and the Review committee.
International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 16-19
Digital communications networks such as the Internet are changing the way people interact with each other, with profound effects on social relations and institutions. Yet many remain excluded from access and meaningful participation. It is timely to consider who is included, who is excluded and what we now know about the composition and activities of online communities.
Internet Research (IR) 4.0 will feature a variety of perspectives on Internet, organized under the theme Broadening the Band. As in previous conferences, the aim is to develop a coherent theoretical and pragmatic understanding of the Internet and those that are empowered and disenfranchised by it. IR 4.0 will bring together prominent scholars, researchers, creators, and practitioners from many disciplines, fields and countries for a program of presentations, panel discussions, and informal exchanges.
IR 4.0 will take place at the Hilton Hotel in the heart of downtown Toronto. The conference is hosted by a team led by The Association of Internet Researchers Toronto 2003 with the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) and its partners at the University of Toronto. The IR 4.0 steering and working committees reflect the growing pan-Canadian network of Internet researchers, including members from Quebec, Alberta, and New Brunswick, in addition to the local contingent from Toronto, York and Ryerson Universities.
This year's theme, Broadening the Band, encourages wide participation from diverse disciplines, communities, and points of view. Under the umbrella theme, contributors are called to reflect upon, theorize and articulate what we know from within the emerging interdisciplinary space known as Internet Research.
In a cultural sense, the theme calls attention to the need to examine access, inclusion and exclusion in online communities. What role do race, gender, class, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, geography, and other factors play in the degree of online participation? What are the indicators of meaningful participation?
In a technical sense, the theme points to the development of broadband, wireless and post-internet networks and applications that are currently coming on-stream including community, private, public as well as national research networks (e.g. CA*net 4, Internet 2). We plan to use these technologies to make the conference an internet-mediated and internationally accessible event.
In an organizational sense, the theme reflects a widening of AoIR’s reach to include more researchers and constituencies involved in the evolution of the Internet. French language presentations will be included in the call for papers for the first time. Researchers and practitioners in the arts and culture sectors are encouraged to participate alongside social scientists and humanities scholars and researchers.
In a thematic sense, “Broadening the Band” suggests widening the scope of topics and problematics considered within past conferences, while retaining the consistent emphasis on rigorous research work. This call for papers thus initiates an inclusive search for theoretical and methodological correspondences between this expanding theme and the many disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches that are required to address it with precision.
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Keynote Speakers
Jane Fountain is the Director for the National Center for Digital Government Research and Practice. She also teaches at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Dr. Fountain's present interests lie at the intersection of governance, organizations, and information technology. Her work leads her into current investigations of the institutional processes that influence the enactment and use of information technologies in government, as well as the structural and behavioral characteristics of inter-organizational networks, and the political economy of gender in computing and new media.
Steve Jones is a co-founder of AoiR. He is the Head of Communication at the University of Illinois - Chicago, and studies the social history of communication technology. Dr. Jones is the author of six books, which have earned him critical acclaim and interviews for stories in Time, the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsweek and many other newspapers and magazines. He has also been interviewed on radio and TV, and has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "Sounds Like Science." Dr. Jones will be reflecting on the "future past" of Internet studies.
Pierre Lévy, who has been described as a "cyber-philosopher," currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Collective Intelligence at the University of Ottawa. He will be presenting aspects of a cultural evolution theory, his further understanding of knowledge management in digital networks, background on his study into intercultural dialogues in interactive multimedia arts, and how certain behavioural traits fostering collective intelligence in a given population can promote human development.
Keynote Address: For a Collective Intelligence Oriented Cyberspace
The abilities of human communities to produce, exchange and use knowledge are at the core of the knowledge society. A new transdisciplinary research field is growing, aiming to study the "cognitive power" of groups. This power is not only based on the optimized use of new communication techniques for intellectual collaboration, but also on the deliberate improvement of several kinds of cultural and social factors. A better understanding of these collective intelligence phenomena will boost the aptitudes to learn and innovate in many real and virtual communities.
The research project that I am currently leading intends to make visible the internal dynamics of collective intelligence thanks to a navigable 3D visual synthesis of the semantic landscape of any collection of data. Since a growing part of human knowledge and transactions are located in cyberspace, this new digital medium could be instrumented to show, from real data, a scientific image of the collective intelligence who produce and exchange them. I call this instrumented cyberspace: the CI-oriented Semantic Web.
My starting point underlines Tim Berners Lee’s hypothesis: we need an addressing system that is not based on the physical localization of documents in the servers but on their meanings. This can only be reached with a universal ontology. The CI-oriented Semantic Web will be based on a universal ontology, expressed by an ideographic language, the CI Mirror Language (CIML). The universal ideography of the CIML will not erase the multitude of existing local ontologies. On the contrary, it will provide a background for the analysis of the evolutions and interactions of the semantic singularities, with regional ontologies appearing in the foreground.
The achievement of the CI-oriented Semantic Web will have important implications for human development. The whole WWW (or any part of it) will become a helping encyclopedia instead of a labyrinthic chaos. The huge quantity of information already available could be integrated in a meaningful and living whole. From the torrent of information that constantly flows through cyberspace, we could assemble a comparatively comprehensive reflection of the current state of human affairs, a mirror in which decision-makers could see the operations of human customs, culture, and organizations, and the impacts of those operations. With a sufficiently large and clear mirror, it will be possible for our collective intelligence to detect pathological conditions in our society, and learn to heal them. Conditions would be monitored not only in the marketplaces of things and services, where our societies already has considerable instrumentation, but also in the marketplaces of ideas, confidence, and credibility, where most of the available information is still anecdotal. As the huge quantity of data circulating in cyberspace could be translated into the variables of a scientific model of collective intelligence, the web will become not only a source of information and a tool of communication but also an observatory of cultural dynamics - in the broadest sense of the word “culture”- and an analytical indicator of human development: economic prosperity, public health, education, scientific research, democracy and human rights. The worldwide use of a CI mirror language will help the emergence of a global culture of peace and knowledge growth, not based on any utopian ideology, but on a deepened observation of the fractal interdependence of all cultural, economic, social and political factors, from the scale of micro-communities to the extent of the whole human kind.
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Lucy Suchman teaches in the department of Sociology at Lancaster University, UK, where she is also Co-Director of the Centre for Science Studies. She is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Work, Interaction and Technology Research Group at King's College in London, UK, and worked for twenty years as a researcher at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Dr. Suchman's research, based in anthropology, feminist theory and science and technology studies, has focused on practices of technology creation and use. Her approach incorporates ethnographic studies with interdisciplinary and participatory interventions in new technology design.
Internet Research as Generative Critique: Approaches from anthropology
This talk introduces the idea of generative critique, a form of research aimed at questioning received assumptions/current conditions in a way suggestive of how it could be otherwise, and explores its relevance to internet research. I use three cases to illustrate. The first, Danny Miller and Don Slater's book 'The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach,' draws on an ethnography of the internet among Trinidadians to (among other things) critique received conceptions of the internet itself as a singular object. The second, a study by Joe Dumit on the cultural politics of sociomedical disorders, psychiatry and pharmaceuticals, demonstrates how the internet can be brought together with other sources and media to constitute a form of 'multi-site' ethnography, aimed at critique of contemporary developments. The third draws from my own inquiries into the question of agency at the human-computer interface, and in particular how 'software agents' and the internet/www more generally are figured as the 21st century's new service class.
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Conference Registration and Rates.
On-site Registration and Rates
Participants may register during the AoIR conference. Rates are as follows (where applicable, rates have been indicated in both USD/CAD):
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Member
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Non-Member
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Student/unwaged
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Full Conference
(Sun-Thurs, USD/CAD)
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$150/200
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$200/275
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$100/135
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AoIR Memberships will also be sold on-site. Rates are as follows:
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Professional
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Students
(undergrad, MA and PhD)
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Individuals from non-OECD countries
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$USD45/CAD65
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$USD30/CAD42.50
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$USD10/CAD14
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Single Day Registration available at $80CDN for members and non-members alike and $50CDN for students and unwaged or $60US and $35 US respectively.
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Birds of a Feather Meetings
Use our forum to organize a birds of a feather group, or to join one that interests you. These groups are great for networking, learning, and socializing.
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Book Displays
This year, the Association of Internet Researchers joins forces with the Library of Social Science, a book exhibit management firm based in New York City, to present the latest and most significant books and journals on information technology and Internet studies, all in one location.
Over thirty publishers and two-hundred fifty titles will be represented in this exciting, comprehensive collection of books and journals.
THE BOOK EXHIBIT WILL BE OPEN IN THE JOHNSTON ROOM THROUGHOUT THE DURATION OF THE CONFERENCE. ALL TITLES WILL BE ON SALE AT SPECIAL, DISCOUNTED PRICES.
The Library of Social Science's friendly and knowledgeable on-site book exhibit managers will help you find everything you need.
Quantities of individual titles are limited. Please stop by early and often to make and reserve your selections.
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Special Events
Dinner
The AoIR dinner will be held Saturday, October 18th. A few tickets may be available for purchase by cash or cheque ($75CDN) at the registration desk.
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Pre-Conference Workshops
Pre-conference workshops will be held on Wednesday, October 15 at Ryerson University. Ryerson University is located in downtown Toronto, east of Yonge Street, between Dundas and Gerrard Streets. Please visit the Ryerson website for directions to the university (http://www.ryerson.ca/map/directions.html). Ryerson is within easy walking distance from the Hilton Hotel.
When you get to Ryerson, use the entrance at 40 Gould Street. As you come through the arch of the building (walking north), enter the doors on your right. Walk to the end of the hallway, and take the elevator to the third floor (School of Information Technology Management). On exiting the elevator, turn around the corner to your right, KHW371 is the first room on your left.
Due to the importance of both the issues dealt with in these workshops and because of the generosity of Dr. Charles Ess and Dr. Radhika Gajjala, we are able to offer the workshops free of charge. Please join us at Ryerson University in room KHW371 for this incredible opportunity.
Technology / Research / Ethics 8:30 am - 12:30 pm
Postcolonial Feminists Meet Internet Studies
have specific questions relating to pre-conference workshops, please direct them to: olivia.robertson@utoronto.ca.
Available Pre-Conference Workshops:
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Organizer: Charles Ess, Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University
This workshop brings together AoIR ethics working committee members (Charles Ess, Jeremy Hunsinger, Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Leslie Tkach Kawasaki) and nationally-recognized scholars (Elizabeth Buchanan, Michele White) who have significantly contributed to the discussion and development of Internet research ethics. The workshop is designed to: utilize the AoIR ethics statement as a starting point for discussion of the ethical issues surrounding Internet research; highlight important new resources on Internet research ethics - including recent case-studies - that have appeared since the AoIR statement was endorsed; and provide AoIR members and conference participants an environment in which to discuss their own experiences and cases of ethical problems encountered in their research.
Elizabeth Buchanan will discuss the role of Institutional Review Boards and Internet research ethics. How should such boards respond to the novelty of Internet research ethics? What guidelines must be in place to assist boards in reviewing protocols dealing with online research? Jeremy Hunsinger will describe three advanced technologies that can be used to gather research data on the Internet and then discuss some of the areas where they can cause problems pursuing ethical Internet research Beta of Jeremy's Presentation. Michele White will discuss how humanities methodologies generate critical questions and provide particular challenges to Internet research ethics. Charles Ess will review recent developments in Internet research ethics, including the RESPECT guidelines under development in Europe and the most recent guidelines from the Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (NESH).
Workshop participants are encouraged to bring their own ethical case-studies for discussion with workshop presenters and other participants in small groups following the formal presentations.
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Postcolonial Feminists Meet Internet Studies (afternoon) 1:00pm
Organizer: Radhika Gajjala, Associate Professor, Department of Interpersonal Communication Bowling Green State Univeristy
The purpose of this workshop is to bring together well-known Internet related feminist researchers who position themselves as doing race, gender, and postcolonial theory at the site of internet and technology research. Researchers include Theresa Senft, Lisa Nakamura, Jillana Enteen, Kiran Mirchandani and some others in the field of Internet studies and Science and Tech studies who, while they work on issues of diversity, digital divide and the Internet, would not necessarily see themselves along the same lines as those whose work intersects with postcolonial feminisms (e.g., Charles Ess and Michel Menou). We will assert the basic problematics and struggles involved in bringing together the two fields - "postcolonial feminisms" and "internet studies". The session will be concluded with an open round table discussion where all people attending the workshop will be asked to engage with the issues laid out.
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Pre-Conference Lab Tours
The following Toronto labs will be hosting open houses on Wednesday October 15th. Contact Olivia Robertson for more information. University of Toronto campus map http://www.osm.utoronto.ca/map/) Ryerson University campus map http://www.ryerson.ca/map/directions.htmlhttp://www.ryerson.ca/map/directions.html
Participating Labs:
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Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI),
an institute in the School of Graduate Studies, is dedicated to research and graduate education in all aspects of knowledge media design. The KMDI tour will feature posters from researchers and students associated with the Institute, including the work of Arno Jacobsen from the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bianka Filipiuk, a master's student in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Professor Baecker and Dr. Gale Moore's project, ePresence, a scalable, interactive streaming media system with structured archives http://epresence.kmdi.utoronto.ca/ will be demonstrated. The tour begins at 2pm in the KMDI Lab, Bahen Centre for Information Technology, 40 St. George St, Room 7201.
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Access Grid at Ryerson's Rogers Communications Centre will be open for drop in.
We will also have a demonstration of our technology between 12:00 noon - 4 pm Eastern time.
Risto Treksler will join the Toronto Lab via AccessGrid from the Internet Research Studio in Calgary, and Todd will join from NewMIC in Vancouver.
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CitizenLab with Professor Ron Deibert, Munk Centre, University of Toronto. No set time -- drop-in program.
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Civil Society cluster with Dr. Liss Jeffrey and team: byDesign eLab, eCommons/agora project, McLuhan global research network.
This tour will be held at 386 Huron Street. From 9 - 10am there will be a presentation. An open house will follow, from 10am until noon.
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NetLab with Professor Barry Wellman and students. 10 am, 4th floor, Centre for Urban & Community Studies, University of Toronto, 455 Spadina Avenue, Toronto Canada, M5S 2G8.
NetLab studies the intersection of networks: social, computer, communication, and information. Based at the University of Toronto's Centre for Urban and Community Studies, NetLab is a hub for sociologically-minded research about the relationship between the Internet and society. This research network, headed by Barry Wellman, hosts a motley crew of social science professors, graduate students and undergraduates. Currently, NetLab is analyzing a global National Geographic survey of Internet use; neighboring and long-distance ties in a wired suburb; knowledge brokerage in hierarchical and networked organizations; scholarly networks; computer literacy in the U.S., the U.K., Japan and China; trans- national entrpreneurs online and offline in Toronto, Beijing and Los Angeles; how the Internet connects weak ties (collaborative with the Pew Internet and American Life Project); the digital divide within and between countries; and an indepth look at how the Internet is used by the residents of the Toronto district of East York.
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RCAT: Resource Centre for Academic Technologies at the University of Toronto. This tour will begin at 3:30 pm.
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The Vivid Group: This tour will be held from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Vivid Group's Lab in downtown Toronto. They will be demonstrating many of their products including GestXtreme, ClearTouch, HoloPoint and GroundFX. The tour will include a basic demo of all products, Q&A and demos of applications by request.
317 Adelaide Street West
Suite 302
Toronto, ON M5V 1P9
P: (416) 340-9290
F: (416) 348-9809
Please see the Jestertek website for complete product descriptions.
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Artistic Works
Recent work by the following three artists will be available for viewing during the welcome reception and the dinner cocktail. Each artist will introduce his/her work and be available to discuss their work.
Thursday October 16 5:30 to 7:00 pm Location: TBA at welcome reception
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Vincent John Vincent and and Francis MacDougall
"Innovation at Your Fingertips"
JestPointT is the core technology powering Jestertek's line of interactive products. JestPoint utilizes advanced real-time computer vision techniques to isolate and track your hand, converting your simple gestures into direct mouse control in a variety of environments. JestPointT allows any screen of any size to be controlled from any distance. Besides numerous public forum installations, JestPoint's stereo analysis and control technology is applicable for desktop PCs, corporate presentations, trade shows, education, security, entertainment, fitness and rehabilitation, and more.
Saturday October 18, 5:30 to 7:00pm Locations TBA during pre-gala cocktail.
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Johannes Birringer
"reappearances and oracles"
Film installation by Johannes Birringer (editor) The first international Interaction Laboratory at the former Coal Mine Göttelborn took place in July 2003, produced by Industrial Culture Saar and organized by director/choreographer Johannes Birringer. Göttelborn is projected to become a future high tech location of the Saarland, a small state in southwest Germany bordering on France and Luxemburg. The Laboratory was designed as an experiment in the re-utilization of the abandoned site which now anticipates economic and architectural development. In this changing landscape of industrial culture, an innovative platform was seeded for integrated research in media and technologies, especially interactive performance and telecommunications. The film reflects the project introducing some of the poetic interactions with the location in the work of the 21 participants of the laboratory who came from four different continents. Camera: Jim Ruxton, Maria Stamenkovic, Beatrice Sauberbrey and Johannes > Birringer. Editor/Producer: Johannes Birringer
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Lisa Naugle
"Songs of Sorrow, Songs of Hope" (2001)
A performance commemorating September 11, 2001 tragedies was conducted in real-time at New York University and the University of California, Irvine. At UCI, The Dance and Digital Performance Ensemble, directed by Lisa Naugle, explored new ways to work with technology, sending high-bandwidth audio and video back and forth using Internet 2. Internet 2 allowed each venue to receive sound and video simultaneously. The performers on each coast interacted in a structured improvisational mix using VBrick Systems' television-quality video-over-IP system, which enables each venue to receive sound and video in real time. One of the visual threads created with John Crawford was "The Machine Meeting Its Reflection" or the image of airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, meeting their own reflection in the windows; also creating a conceptual reflection on technology, the disaster of it and its power to bounce back and effect us.
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Contact Information
If you have questions about the conference, program, or AoIR, please contact the people below.
All inquiries on review and acceptances:
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