{"id":2502,"date":"2013-12-16T11:20:20","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T11:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.astridmager.net\/?p=2502"},"modified":"2013-12-16T11:20:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T11:20:20","slug":"politics-of-icts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astridmager.net\/index.php\/2013\/12\/16\/politics-of-icts\/","title":{"rendered":"politics of icts"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all STS people out there! My colleague Doris Allhutter and I are organizing a panel for the STS conference \u201cCritical Issues in Science and Technology Studies\u201d taking place in Graz (Austria) next year (5-6 May 2014). Our session focuses on the “Politics of ICTs” since we think that’s an important issue for STS scholars! Now we’re hoping for interesting papers concerned with tight entanglements between ICTs and politics\/ socio-political cultures\/ practices\/ discourses and identity – that’s where you come into play! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Further details on the abstract, deadline (31 January 2014), conference venue etc. may be found here<\/a>. That’s our call for papers:<\/p>\n

— Special Session 7: The politics of ICTs<\/strong>
\n(Doris Allhutter & Astrid Mager, Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences)<\/p>\n

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) emerge along with hegemonic discourses, socio-political cultures, everyday practices and identities. Search engines, social media, wikis, open access portals, semantic software, surveillance tools, and code in a wider sense, are created not only by programmers and technical people, but also negotiated in wider society. Policy makers, law, media discourses, economic rationales, cultural practices, computational infrastructures and algorithmic logics are all taking part in the negotiation of ICTs. At the same time, they also create, stabilize and change cultural meaning, socio-political relations and materiality. ICTs and social power relations thus co-emerge.<\/p>\n

Our panel welcomes both theoretical and empirical papers on practices of software design, power relations and material dimensions, socio-political implications of ICTs. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How are ICTs negotiated in design practices and wider socio-political frameworks?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What actor-networks, practices and arenas are involved in the creation of ICTs?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How are norms, values, and hegemonies inscribed in algorithms, code and software?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How are power relations enmeshed in such infrastructural materials?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What politics (e.g. gender relations, race biases, commercial dynamics, ideologies) do ICTs carry?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How can we investigate the micro-politics of artefacts?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What social, political, economic, cultural implications and challenges do ICTs cause?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How can we open up, investigate and renegotiate the politics of ICTs?
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How can we work towards value-sensitive design and responsible innovation in ICTs?
\n