Posted on by AoIR Staff Posted in Uncategorized

The Executive Committee of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is now seeking expressions of interest (EOI) from prospective Conference Hosts for the annual meetings of the Association for October 2022, 2023, AND 2024. In keeping with our regular rotation schedule, the 2022 conference will take place outside North America or Europe for the AoIR conference, the 2023 conference will take place in Europe, and the 2024 conference will take place in North America. See our list of previous conference locations. 

EOI are due to the AoIR Executive Committee by March 1 2020. EOIs will be reviewed by the AoIR Executive Committee, who will then gauge feasibility through a series of follow-up discussions with proposers. Proposers for the 2022 conference will be informed of decisions regarding conference hosting by August 1. The general AoIR membership will be informed of the 2022 conference location at the 2020 AoIR conference.

The AoIR conference draws an international group of 500-700 researchers and practitioners to present and discuss work at the cutting edge in understanding the individual, social, political, economic and cultural aspects of the internet and related technologies. Serving on the Conference Hosting committee is a large commitment that is greatly appreciated by all members of AoIR and highlights the contributions being made to internet, digital and mobile media, and related fields of research from certain regions of the world. The role of the Conference Host and committee is to oversee region-specific fundraising (where possible, provide venue space at cost or in kind), make contributions to the conference theme and call for papers, identify keynote and plenary speakers, plan and oversee the conference programming, and provide crucial local knowledge and connections. Dedicated AoIR staff, including the Association Coordinator and Conference Coordinator, lead much of the practical conference planning, including negotiating contracts with hotels, meeting venues, catering, and the like, and partner with the host committee on many of the administrative details of the conference, such as registration, reception and meal planning, possibly AV and wifi provision, and exhibitor displays.  

The Conference Host Committee is comprised of a regional group of scholars that may be part of the same or different organisations. They are also invited to propose a Program Chair. The Program Chair oversees the submissions and review process of papers, panels, workshops, and preconferences, and schedules the conference sessions. The Program Chair may be a member of the organization that acts as Conference Host. Members of the Conference Host Committee should have a strong existing connection to the Association of Internet Researchers.

Seeking three Expressions of Interest in the same year is a change from previous years. We are making this change in recognition of the changing landscape of conference organization and negotiations with conference hotels. Previous experience has demonstrated that hotels may prefer to negotiate with (and provide better terms to) AoIR, rather than individual organizing institutions. AoIR works with a Conference Coordinator, who will handle all negotiations, obtains proposals, and other contractual arrangements. We now ask, therefore, that prospective conference hosts do NOT contact area hotels when exploring an interest in serving as AoIR Conference Hosts. However, we explicitly invite prospective Conference Hosts to indicate possible venue options, including on-campus venues and in-kind donated venues where feasible, as these often offer more favourable arrangements than hotels. Before initiating any action with venues, Hosts and prospective Hosts need to be in touch with the Executive Committee, which is ultimately responsible for the organization’s fiduciary commitments and conference budgeting. 

Organizations or consortia that may be interested in serving as Conference Host should contact President Lynn Schofield Clark  at prez (at) aoir.org by 1 March 2020 with a brief expression of interest, and while preparing the EOI. The EOI should include the following and be no longer than 5 double spaced pages:

  1. the individuals and organization(s) involved, and their proposed roles; 
  2. the connection of proposers to internet research and to AoIR;
  3. a description of any prior experiences proposers have had with organizing or hosting a conference, and the roles played in this;
  4. an argument to support the proposed conference location, especially with respect to ease of travel for AoIR’s multinational community of conference participants;
  5. initial thoughts on local venue options (AoIR has in the past held the annual conference at a variety of venue spaces including universities, conference centers, and hotels);
  6. prospective conference dates, keeping in mind any major local, national, and international holidays, semester schedules, or other aspects that might affect the timing of the conference;
  7. a firm indication of whether you will be attending AoIR 2020 in Dublin and are available to meet for further discussions about hosting AoIR 2022, 23, or 24.

Posted on by AoIR Staff Posted in Administrative, Awards, Conferences

The Student Paper Award for the #AoIR2019 for Brisbane goes to Alice Witt for their paper, ‘A New Black Box Methodology: The challenges and opportunities of interrogating the moderation of images depicting women’s bodies on Instagram’, was reviewed amongst the 45 accepted student papers and is regarded the most outstanding paper of those submissions for this year.

Specifically, we were most interested in this paper because of its focus on the Instagram platform and the seemingly automatic representation of women’s bodies, the increasing significance of this very important subject area, and also because of the innovative methodological approach. These three aspects made the paper the most interesting and stand-out student paper of the conference.

You will be able to hear Alice’s paper and meet them in Brisbane, Saturday, 05/Oct/2019: 11:00am – 12:30pm.

We would also like to recognize, Brydon Timothy Wang’s Paper, Can We Automate Trust? Assessing the Trustworthiness of Machine Superintendents on Smart City Building Projects with an Honorable Mention.

Posted on by AoIR Staff Posted in Administrative, Awards, Conferences

Each year a small portion of AoIR conference fees go toward several travel scholarships for junior scholars to attend the conference. We want to recognize our scholarship recipients and share with you a little bit about them and their research interests.

Who are you? 
I am Godofredo Ramizo Jr., a 3rd year DPhil student from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, under the supervision of Prof. Vili Lehdonvirta and Prof Eric T. Meyer. I study the platform economy, such as ride-hailing platforms in Southeast Asian megacities. I have published public engagement pieces with CNN and New Naratif on these topics. I have also been invited as a resource person for the Philippine government regarding the regulation of the platform economy. I became an AoIR member this year.

 

Where are you from?
I am originally from the Philippines. Thanks to merit scholarships, I have done postgraduate studies in London (University of Westminster), Brisbane (University of Queensland), and now at Oxford under the Oxford Clarendon Scholarship.

What is your current area of study?
My research is on the platform economy and its implications in the Global South, with ride-hailing platforms in Southeast Asian megacities as my empirical focus. Through interviews, document analysis, and immersive fieldwork, I investigate the impact of platform solutions on users’ ways of doing and thinking, as well as on institutional issues such as regulation and governance reform.

Describe the research you will present at AoIR 2019
At the AoIR Conference 2019, I discuss how surge-pricing (or dynamic pricing) affects trust toward ride-hailing platforms in Manila. There is well corroborated distrust against dynamic pricing and yet this distrust has negligible impact on overall trust for the said platform. The novelty of the findings is that they reveal mechanisms behind users’ pro-technology biases, which explain why trust in technological solutions may persist even when besieged by distrust. The findings are important because they have real world implications: With the help of these pro-technology biases, technology actors may inspire trust from the public on less than meritorious grounds, and firmly grip users’ trust even as the latter begin to harbor healthy skepticism over fairness and transparency.

Have you presented at AoIR in the past? If yes, what has been your experience? If #AoIR2019 Brisbane is your first AoIR conference, what made you choose this conference? What do you expect from it?
This is my first time joining an AoIR Conference, which I believe is one of the most important and most focused conferences in the field of internet research. I hope to get to know academics and students during the conference, and possibly plant seeds for future collaboration. I also hope to share my research, receive feedback, and confer with other students and seasoned researchers about the common issues we encounter in multi-method internet research. I hope to be inspired by the interesting work of researchers from all over the world. I am thrilled to be part of AoIR in Brisbane, and I very much appreciate the AoIR’s support.