Organizers
Ben Light and Marie Griffiths – University of Salford
Sian Lincoln – Liverpool John Moores University
Steve Sawyer – Syracuse University

Confirmed Speakers
Professor Susanna Paasonen
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies – University of Helsinki
Grabbing by the eyeballs: affective intensities of online porn
Dr Kylie Jarrett
Centre for Media Studies – National University of Ireland Manooth
Managing the multiples:
understanding the power of google

There is still negotiation regarding the novelty of Web 2.0 and social media.  Yet, whether these arrangements are ‘new’ or recombinants/re-presentations of extant things, it is very much the case that in many societies, those that would not have engaged with such arrangements in the past are, and that different sites of such arrangements are becoming easier to connect with each other.  Thus, we are increasingly faced with the issue of having to navigate multiple places across and connected with the Internet.  Unsurprisingly, those in commercial and other formal organizations are also making these connections too.  This year we hope the workshop will tackle issues associated with the multi-sited nature of digital culture.  However, as usual, we intend for the workshop to be multi-disciplinary in nature, broad in the approaches participants take and issues they cover. If your work is about any aspect of digital culture, this is the workshop for you! The following are thus only indicative of potential topics that could be raised:

• What kinds of sites/spaces are being connected and why?
• How does identity feature in multi-sitedness?
• How does multi-sitedness feature in our knowledge and experiences of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and disability?
• What are the problems and benefits of convergence?
• What role are mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies playing in multi-sitedness?
• How are commercial and non-commercial artifacts, digital games/TV/Radio/newsprint for example, being situated within and across physical and virtual spaces?

Following from the first workshop we continue to see this workshop having three purposes. First, we seek to give voice and structure to existing digital media, ICT and technology related research which may not readily sit within conventionally accepted areas. Second, we wish to draw in research on new forms of digital technology, ICT, computing, organizing and social interactions. Third, we want to continue discussions regarding potential futures for ICT related research, which combine research as related to the evolving forms and functions of organizations and the changing boundaries and relations between these organizations and their social milieus.

Workshop Arrangements
The fee for presentation/attendance at the workshop is £80. This will cover refreshments and meals throughout the workshop and a dinner to be held on the evening of the 1 July.

There is no fee for PhD students, however they still need to register for the workshop. PhD student registration includes refreshments during the workshop but excludes attendance at the workshop dinner (This is subject to a £25 fee, payable upon registration).

You can register for the workshop at: https://shop.salford.ac.uk

The workshop is being held in association with the Innovation Bazaar details of which can be found here: http://www.isos.salford.ac.uk/innovation_bazaar.php

Location of the workshop
The workshop will be held at CUBE.

CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment) is an architecture centre and a member of the Architecture Centre Network. Located in the city centre of Manchester on Portland Street, it occupies a 500m2 gallery and seminar space. The remit of CUBE is to create and promote understanding of the built environment through activities including exhibitions, events, debates, educational projects and publications.

If you experience any difficulties regarding the workshop arrangements, please do get in touch with Deborah Woodman: d.woodman@salford.ac.uk

Presentations Include:

• Vicki Trowler – University of Cape Town – South Africa
  Political promiscuity and multi-modality
• Phoebe Moore – University of Salford – UK
  Was it an internet election?
• Helen Keegan and Frances Bell – University of Salford – UK
  Multiple spaces and discontinuities as transformative tools
• Daniel Villar Onrubia – University of Oxford – UK
  Mobility – personal learning environments – and the use of space in higher education
• Carolyn Downs – University of Salford – UK
  Growing up in a virtual world: girls – identity and facebook
• David Kreps – University of Salford – UK
  Grindr: immoderation vs sin in the global virtual gay bar
• Saeideh Hajinejad – Stockholm University – Sweden
  Gender representation of iranian youth on facebook profile pictures
• Isis Amelie Hjorth – University of Oxford – UK
  Analysing distributed agency in collaborative open source film making: towards a theoretical framework suitable for multisited ethnographies on networked creators and cultures
• Enas Al-Lozi and Anastasia Papazafeiropoulou – Brunel University – UK
  “And why would i participate?” a framework of value exchange and roles in digitally engaged communities
• Rachel mclean – University of Bolton – David Wainwright – University of Northumbria and Jeff McCarthy – Manchester Metropolitan University
  Football social media:  playing the game – but where is the trust?
• Chris Bull – Manchester Metropolitan University – UK
  Multiplicity – congruity and the development of e-gambling commerce in the uk
• Nic Crowe – University of Brunel – UK
  “We die for the glory of the emperor”: young people and ‘playing’ at war in on-line role playing games
• Ben Light – University of Salford – UK
  Missing cultures across video games: queers – gaymers and the terms of their inclusion

1) I was at www.icis2008.org early in December presenting our work on Facebook (see my last post).  The work went down well (I think) we still have some more work to do on making the contribution stronger, but it’ll get there.  I’m particularly interested in looking at the power as related the morality of technology – how do non-human actors engage in the processes of the exercise of power with us?  Also, another interesting thing happened at ICIS, a few people asked about my work on www.gaydar.co.uk, not only was this flattering, but it was satisfying given the age it has taken to get this work published!  Also, it was great that both men and women asked about the work as central to some of it are notions of masculinity and all too often this can be conflated with men, and men’s interests… So the fact that women gender researchers were interested in this was refreshing given the nature of the conference – (within information systems gender, I feel very much equates with Women in the main and I don’t think that’s very helpful).  Obviously it’s different in other fields where gender research takes place – I do acknowlege that.

2) This is as exciting as my life gets…. Finally, Sony have seen fit to release an update for the SingStar PS3 game which allows PS2 discs to be used within the PS3 game (although only on certain versions of the PS3 console which is strange).  As I’m researching this, it’s going to be interesting to see how this change is viewed by the players I am enaged with.  I know on various social networking sites and forums, the upgrade has been eagerly anticipated, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in practice.

Anyway, all the best for 2009 for those people that actually look at this – I’m hoping my cold shifts soon, so I feel a bit more refreshed before I go back to work on the 5th January…  I’m sure I’ll get through my new year party though… ;o)

Anyway, pics of AOIR9 can be found on flickr – search IR9 and on Facebook…  I am looking forward to what conference dinner photos there may be soon – I am proud to say with the help of TL Taylor, I introduced AOIR to the world of SingStar – and I think mine and TL’s rendition of the Darkness was a definate ‘accept with no changes’ ;o)

Access All Areas? The Evolution of SingStar from the PS2 to PS3 Platform  - Despite many challenges to technological determinism it is fair to say that technological development is often still presented to, and by, those in organisations and society as inevitably good.  The internet is positioned as affording access to a range of information and services that can qualitatively improve our every day lives.  Whilst this clearly can be acknowledged as the case, we also know that the internet can raise difficulties and even disadvantages.  Understanding this interconnected complex domain of sociotechnical experience precludes broad generalizations and requires recognition of the nuances that surround specific sets of sociotechnical assemblages.  By drawing upon Dutton’s (2005) reconfiguration of access arguments we investigate the use of digital games within recreational environments. The ideas in this paper are based upon two intersecting ethnographies and a qualitative non-participant field study of the console based game, SingStar. Through this approach we demonstrate that the sociotechnical choices associated with different versions of the game have constructed a reconfiguration of access to SingStar that critiques the automatic association of new versions of technology with improvement and examines the ways in which non-use and, in effect, non-access could similarly alter and even extend a game play experience. More broadly, studying the evolution of what was, in effect, a ‘stand alone’ digital game to a network enabled version demonstrates how a move to becoming an internet based platform may restrict rather than enable access.  Utilising an entertainment oriented activity and technology to examine the issues that underlie Dutton’s rubric of ‘access’ also permits intersecting consideration of the respective roles that developer, user, non-user and technology have in the mediation of social experience.

You can find a copy of the paper here (aoirv7 )- admittedly we need to work on it some more. Comments welcome!

Meanwhile, I need to get home, get packed and go for a guitar lesson….

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ