-----Original Message-----
From: OII Events [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 30 January 2006 15:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: OII News [2006.01.30]: Information, Communication and New Media
Studies: Good for What?


Dear All

Please may we bring to your attention the following forthcoming event:
'Information, Communication and New Media Studies: Good for What?'

Chairs: 	William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute; 
		Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council. 

Panelists to include:
- Vera Franz, OSI, London
- Alison Bernstein, Ford Foundation, New York
- Sean O'Siochru, NEXUS, Dublin
- Karen Banks, Association of Progressive Communication, London
- Richard Allen, Cisco Systems

Date: 02 February 2006, 17:00 - 18:30
Location: Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JS

Attendance: This panel discussion is open to the public, but places are
strictly limited. If you are interested in attending please email your name
and affiliation, if any, to [log in to unmask]  As places are so limited
they will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

This event will be webcast and available to view on our website at
http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/ from Friday 3rd February 2006.

Abstract
New media, such as the Internet and other convergent information and
communication technologies (ICTs), are now widely used in ways that are
reshaping political, economic, cultural, legal, scientific, and other
activities. The interrelated outcomes in the public sphere of these diverse
uses of the Internet and new media by communities, individuals, and private
and public organizations are leading to wide-ranging societal
transformations, both locally and globally. The pervasive nature of this
growing digital mediation and governance of social life has stimulated
rethinking of research practices, institutional arrangements, and policies
needed to provide better accounts and understandings of such
transformations. 

Over the past decade, digital convergence has been accompanied by a partial
realignment of research around the technologies themselves, most notably in
the form of efforts to build better-integrated, more-fluid models of
engagement across social and technical disciplinary boundaries. No
established field, dominant paradigm or appropriate institutional
restructuring has emerged to take advantage of the new multidisciplinary
research opportunities. However, distinctive approaches and themes for
research on the social dimensions of new media and related ICTs-such as the
relationship between ICTs, public life, media, and governance-have been
created within communication and media fields, information studies, social
informatics, computer science, law, the humanities, and the core social
sciences. Some of these new configurations have acquired stability within or
between fields; in other cases, they are characterized mostly by isolated
experiments.  

This is an open session designed to stimulate and inform an invited workshop
to be held on 3-4 February. Panelists in policy, practice and advocacy
fields will provide brief perspectives on the intersection between research
and more applied agendas. It is an opportunity to reflect on what
constituencies outside the research field expect from information,
communication and media studies. Can it meet these expectations? Under what
conditions?

For further information on all OII events, please refer to our website at
www.oii.ox.ac.uk.
 
Kind regards
The Events Team

Oxford Internet Institute
1 St Giles
University of Oxford
Oxford
OX1 3JS

Tel: +44 (0)1865 287209
Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211

www.oii.ox.ac.uk

**********

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