[Reader-list] CFP: NEW MEDIA AND SOCIETY: MOBILE COMMUNICATION AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD

[Tapio Makela]

CALL FOR PAPERS SPECIAL ISSUE OF NEW MEDIA AND SOCIETY: MOBILE  
COMMUNICATION AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD Rich Ling & Heather A. Horst,  
guest editors

We are seeking papers for a special edition of the journal New Media &  
Society focusing on mobile communication and media, and its impact on  
the developing world. We are interested in papers that empirically  
describe the use of mobile practices as well as the convergence of  
mobile and other platforms in the developing world (e.g. Africa, Asia,  
Latin America, Eastern Europe or other locations in the "global  
south"). Successful papers will examine the integration and use of  
mobile communication technology and its implications (both positive  
and negative) in individuals' lives. We are seeking papers that  
investigate the global as well as the local appropriations of mobile  
media use and its relationship to social change and/or development.  
Papers might address issues such as:
*	What are the social, cultural, gender related and political  
dimensions of mobile communication in the developing world? *	What are  
the determinants, obstacles and implications of the adoption and use  
of mobile communications? *	What are the dimensions of inequalities  
and how does mobile communication address these inequalities?  *	How  
does mobile communication facilitate activities such as care giving,  
coordination, social cohesion, money transfer, commerce, locally and  
globally?    Submissions may be in the form of empirical research  
studies or theory-building papers and should be 5000 - 7000 words (in  
English). Papers must reflect new scholarship and not have been  
previously published (it is possible to submit revised conference  
papers). Authors interested in submitting to the special issue should  
send their 200-word abstract to either guest editor (Rich Ling or  
Heather Horst) on or before 1 March 2009.  A sub-set of these  
abstracts will be selected for further development. Papers based on  
the abstracts that have been accepted for further consideration, will  
be due on 15 July 2009. Authors of papers selected for formal review  
may be invited to participate in a Pre-Conference Workshop at  
Association of Internet Research meetings on 7 October 2009 in  
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA.
About the editors of this NM&S special issue:
Rich Ling (richard.ling at telenor.com) is a sociologist at Telenor's  
research institute located near Oslo, Norway, and a guest Professor at  
the IT University of Copenhagen. He has also been the Pohs visiting  
professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan. He  
is the author of the recently published book New Tech, New Ties: How  
Mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion as well as The  
Mobile Connection: The cell phone's impact on society, and along with  
Scott Campbell he is the editor of The Reconstruction of Space and  
Time Through Mobile Communication Practices. For the past fifteen  
years, he has worked in the research arm of Telenor and has been  
active in researching issues associated with new information  
communication technology and society with a particular focus on mobile  
telephony. Heather A. Horst (hhorst at uci.edu) is a sociocultural  
anthropologist at the Humanities Research Institute at the University  
of California, Irvine. She is the co-author (with Daniel Miller) of  
The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication that examines the  
implications of mobile phones for development in Jamaica and is  
co-author with Mizuko Ito, et al. of a forthcoming book published by  
MIT Press, entitled Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out:  
Living and Learning with New Media  She received her Ph. D. in Social  
Anthropology from University College London. Before joining UCHRI, she  
worked as a research fellow at the University of the West Indies and  
University College London and a postdoctoral scholar at University of  
Southern California, and University of California, Berkeley where her  
focus has been on the appropriation of new media and communication  
technologies in Jamaica and the United States.

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