Please post/forward as appropriate. Please also excuse any unavoidable cross-postings... > *Call for extended abstracts for an edited collection -¡©- Please circulate > widely* Social Media, Politics and the State: Protest, Revolutions, Riots, Crime, and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Edited by Daniel Trottier and Christian Fuchs http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/CFP_SMPS.pdf ¡°Social media¡± is a new > buzzword, marketing ideology and sphere of imagination in which contemporary > techno-optimistic and techno-pessimistic visions are played out. Social media > platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have made a considerable impact > on contemporary life. A growing corpus of research considers how these > platforms have affected marketing, identity construction, social > coordination and privacy. The scholarship that this collected volume > addresses looks at how state power and politics are both contested and > exercised on social media. Because social media are saturated in > contemporary life, they have become a tool and a terrain for conflicts > between states and a multitude of organized and autonomous actors. Social > media are celebrated for ¡°levelling the playing field¡± by empowering > otherwise powerless actors. The ¡®Green Movement¡¯ during the 2009 elections in > Iran was globally broadcast on Twitter. Marginalized political groups can now > promote their agenda on free and easy-to-use platforms. Even rioters and > other actors breaking the law can organize and discuss their exploits on > these platforms. Yet in practice, social media often lead to asymmetrical > power relations, as a result of asymmetrical relations of online > visibility. Studying social media politics, there are on the one hand > techno-optimistic approaches that claim that social media helps to revive > democracy (examples of such talk include the focus on ¡°Twitter revolutions¡±, > ¡°YouTube democracy¡±, or a ¡°Twitter public sphere¡±) and on the other hand > techno-pessimistic approaches that claim that social media are a new threat > to democracy (examples of such talk include focus on the omnipresence of > criminal threats, harassments, terrorism and violent extremism on social > media, the talk about ¡°Twitter and Blackberry riots¡±, the stress on the end > of political activism due to the lack of real-life contacts between activists > and citizens, the focus on how the police and repressive regimes monitor > social media in order to repress political activism, etc). The focus of this > collected volume is different in that it seeks contributions that give a > realistic assessment of the relationship between various forms of collective > action (e.g. the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, contemporary student > protests, contemporary social movements in Greece, Spain, and other > countries, Anonymous, WikiLeaks, various forms of terrorism, various forms > of crime, various forms of political activism, etc) and state power (the > police, various political regimes, intelligence, the state-industrial > surveillance complex, the neoliberal regime of governance, etc) on social > media. In the Iranian protests in 2009 just like in the Arab spring, > activists have used social media as organizing and communication tool in > their protests and governments have tried to censor and monitor social media, > often with the help of surveillance technologies produced and exported by > Western companies. WikiLeaks has tried to make the power of state actors > transparent with the assistance of online leaking, and political opponents of > the project have answered with boycotts and large-scale campaigns. Anonymous > has advanced a networked form of political hacktivism and is facing the > criminalization of distributed denial of service attacks and politically > motivated cracking as well as prosecution of some of its activists. > Organizations concerned about police brutality, including discriminatory and > racist practices have turned to social media in order to ¡®watch the watchers¡¯ > (regional CopWatch branches on Facebook, leaking personal data about abusive > police officers to the public, drone and citizen journalism of police > activities during political protests). However, these very sites render > political activists visible to the police, and the police have developed an > interest in monitoring social media and using them as surveillance tools. > Social media and mobile phones have been used as communication tools in the > London and Vancouver riots in 2011, to which the police answered with an > offensive of policing social media, developing new social media surveillance > tools, and publicly declaring the need for laws and technologies that enable > the control of riots, crime and terror. Since the start of the global > economic crisis in 2008, Europe has experienced an electoral shift towards > the right in many countries and a growth of right-wing extremism and fascist > activism that has culminated in Anders Breiviks¡¯ mass killing of 69 people. > The public and the police have since asked if Internet- and social > media-monitoring and control can prevent such massacres, by detecting early > warning signals and help catch criminals and terrorists before they attack. > Privacy and civil society activists are the same time concerned that social > media policing and surveillance bring about a totalitarian society, in which > innocent citizens are criminalized and discriminated against, and in which > social media policing turns against civil society, minorities (especially > people of colour) and political activists, that conservative law and order > politics are advanced, and that a techno-deterministic ideology emerges that > overlooks the societal causes of crime and terror and believes in a > technological fix to societal problems that are rooted in modern society¡¯s > power structures. We are explicitly neither interested in contributions that > tell readers which great opportunities or threats various forms of collective > action on social media pose, nor in contributions that focus on opportunities > or threats posed by various forms of state action on social media. We are > rather exclusively interested in contributions that address how collective > action and state power are related and conflict as two-sides of social media > power, and how power and counter-power are distributed in this > relationship. We are compiling a collection of research papers that address > one or more of the following issues: -Social media and the Arab Spring, and > related regime conflicts -Social media and the Occupy movement -Social media > and student protests / austerity protests -Social media and riots / social > unrest in urban areas -Social media and political protests and > activism -Social media and marginal political groups -Social media, right-wing > extremism, and fascism -Social media and religious violence -Social media and > organized crime -Social media and policing -Social media and police > violence -Social media and the state-industrial surveillance complex -Social > media and Anonymous -Social media and WikiLeaks In particular, we invite > research that considers a) the two-sided nature of power in relation to > social media and politics, and that is b) theoretically focused, c) critical > in nature and d) empirically rigorous. -All chapters should give attention to > theoretical question that address what political power is all about in > general and today and how this relates to social media: What is the state? > What is power? What is politics? What is the police? What is surveillance? > What is activism? What is civil society? How does the relationship between > collective action and state power look like in modern society? -Which > critical theories that conceptualize these phenomena are there? Which of > these theories are feasible in the context of social media? -How can the > relationship of collective action and state power be theorized and how does > this relate to social media? -What does it mean to study social media, > politics and the state critically? -How should the concepts of power and > counter-power be theorized? How can such a theorization be applied to social > media? -How can the power relations and asymmetries between collective actors > and state apparatuses be conceptualized, theorized, and empirically studied > in a realistic and dialectical way? Final versions of chapters should be no > longer than 8000 words, including references and notes. We intend to submit a > full proposal to Routledge, who have expressed an interest in this > collection. We are currently seeking extended abstracts of 800-1200 words. > Please send extended abstracts, along with a brief bio to > [log in to unmask] no later than Monday, October 15th, 2012. Tentative > schedule: Extended abstracts due: Monday, October 15th, 2012 Notification of > accepted papers: Thursday, November 1st, 2012 First draft of chapters due: > Monday, April 1st, 2012 Feedback on chapters returned: Monday, June 3rd, > 2012 Final versions of chapters due: Monday, July 15th, 2012 In order to be > considered, abstracts should adhere to the following style (800-1200 words in > total, please address each aspect separately and include the specific > headlines in your abstract): a) Contribution Title b) Full name of the > author(s) c) Institutional affiliation(s) d) Postal address(es) e) e-mail > address(es) f) Telphone number of the corresponding author Structured > Abstract 1 Purpose: What are the overall task and research question the > chapter addresses? 2 Scope: What is the scope of the analysis (time period > for the analysis, geographical scope, which phenomena are included in the > analysis, which one excluded and why, which spheres of society and their > interrelations are taken into account (politics, state, economy, ideology, > etc))? 3 Method: Which theoretical approaches and empirical research methods > are employed for answering the research questions and attaining the chapter¡¯s > task? How does the chapter employ and apply critical social theories for > studying social media, politics, the state, power and counter-power? How is > the power relationship of collective actors and state power taken into > account? 4 Results: What are the main results presented in the paper? 5 > Recommendations: What are the main recommendations for society that the > research allows to draw from a critical and ethical perspective? 6 > Conclusions: What are the main conclusions of the conducted research for > politics, society, academia, the research field of Critical Internet and > Social Media Studies, and the public? --