Monday, August 1, 2011

Fw: H-ASIA: CFP Digital East Asia Conference 9-10 December 2011, Leiden, The Netherlands

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 3:11 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: CFP Digital East Asia Conference 9-10 December 2011,
Leiden, The Netherlands


> H-ASIA
> August 1, 2011
>
> Call for papers: Digital East Asia Conference, Leiden, The Netherlands,
> December 9-10, 2011
> DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS 28 AUGUST 2011
> ************************************************************************
> From: MEARC <info@mearc.eu>
>
> Digital East Asia
>
> International Conference
>
> The Modern East Asia Research Centre (MEARC), at Leiden University's
> Institute for Area Studies, welcomes submissions for an International
> Conference taking place on
>
> 9 – 10 December 2011 in the Netherlands
>
> MEARC welcomes scholars from the area studies, social sciences,
> humanities, and from multi-disciplinary backgrounds to submit proposals
> that address the complex social, economic, and political questions that
> arise from new ICTs across the East Asian region.
>
> Introduction:
>
> At the outset of the 21st century, the world is witnessing what
> communication scholars such as Clay Shirkey have called a "tectonic
> shift" in social, economic, and political processes. New information and
> communication technologies (or: ICTs) have made it easier than ever to
> form communities and act collectively. As sociologist Manuel Castells has
> argued, we have entered a new age: the "information age", a period in
> which communication processes are cheaper, faster, and more effective,
> and in which societies are increasingly organized as "networks" rather
> than as hierarchies.
>
> The profound changes of the information age have caused both optimism and
> fear. On the one hand, the optimists argue that the open nature of new
> communication methods empowers marginalized social groups, strengthens
> "civil societies", and generally makes traditional forms of political
> organization (such as the "state") obsolete. On the other hand, sceptics
> question whether new technologies indeed have such ground-breaking
> impacts on social and political processes. A decade into the 21st
> century, the nation-state is still a successful model of social
> organization, the World Wide Web has become highly commercialized, and
> ICTs in many cases seem to have strengthened state control over
> information rather than weakened it. The liberal dream of free
> information flows seems, for all intents and purposes, to be over.
>
> Conference Focus:
>
> The aim of this international conference is to examine what these
> developments mean for the study of modern East Asia. Digital East Asia
> examines what impact new technologies, new channels of communication, and
> unprecedented convergence of media formats have in the East Asian
> context. Examples abound: In South Korea, online computer games have
> become so popular that individual matches are broadcasted on TV. In both
> South Korea and Japan, democratic campaigns are accompanied by online
> activism in the form of "twitter" and blogging, which in turn has
> prompted political actors to integrate new media content into their
> campaigns. In the People's Republic of China, roughly 420 million Chinese
> citizens regularly use the Internet today. If past growth rates continue,
> then by 2011 the number of Chinese netizens will exceed the population of
> the European Union. Yet while the number of users in China has expanded,
> the PRC government has tightened its control of the national web, and has
> even used the new technologies to its advantage: the PRC government today
> offers not only state-of-the-art e-governance services, but also deploys
> ICTs to better manage the sprawling propaganda system of the Chinese
> Communist Party.
>
> Such examples raise a range of questions that scholars, journalists,
> politicians, and businessmen will have to address if they want to succeed
> in East Asia in the 21st century: How do new media formats change the way
> ideas and cultural elements "travel" across the region? How do state and
> non-state actors interact through these new communication networks? How
> are societies in East Asia goverened in an age of information? Moreover:
> who truly holds the power over communication processes in the information
> age? The conference will address these questions, and will focus in
> particular on issues such as:
>
> media convergence in the digital age,
> transnational flows of digital culture,
> e-governance and the politics of network societies,
> social and participatory media,
> online activism and digital challenges to state power.
>
>
> Information for participants:
>
>
> Location: Leiden University, the Netherlands
>
> - The conference will start on Friday morning, 9 December and sessions
> will continue until the afternoon of Saturday 10 December
>
> - No registration fee for the conference will be required.
>
> - Organizers will provide 2 nights of free accommodation for paper
> presenters.
>
> - The language of the conference will be English.
>
> - The conference is open to the public, without any fees, but please
> register in advance by sending an e-mail to info@mearc.eu with
> 'Registration: Digital East Asia conference' in the subject line
>
>
> This conference is funded by the Modern East Asia Research Centre (MEARC)
> and NWO (Dutch Scientific Organisation) through the MEARC hosted project
> 'Beyond Utopia: New Politics, the Politics of Knowledge and the Science
> Fictional Field of Japan', led by Professor Goto-Jones
>
> Submission of proposals
>
> - Deadline: 28 August, 2011
>
> - Submit your abstract of 300 words max. in an email (no attachments) to
> the Modern East Asia Research Centre at Leiden University: info@mearc.eu
>
> - Put 'Abstract: Digital East Asia' in the subject line
>
> - Include a brief biographical statement (max. 150 words).
>
> We will notify you by September 15, 2011 if your proposal was accepted
>
>
> ******************************************************************
> To post to H-ASIA simply send your message to:
> <H-ASIA@h-net.msu.edu>
> For holidays or short absences send post to:
> <listserv@h-net.msu.edu> with message:
> SET H-ASIA NOMAIL
> Upon return, send post with message SET H-ASIA MAIL
> H-ASIA WEB HOMEPAGE URL: http://h-net.msu.edu/~asia/

No comments:

Post a Comment