Politics Online: Comparative Perspectives, Theories & Methodological Innovations

EU COST conference in Moscow, 23-25 May 2007

Call for Papers

Politics Online: Comparative Perspectives, Theories & Methodological Innovations

Contributions are invited for two conference sessions devoted to recent theoretical developments in online politics and methodological innovations for investigating these developments. ‘Politics Online’ should be conceived broadly to include both traditional politics such as ‘top-down’ government-driven activities as well as ‘bottom-up’ citizen-based initiatives.

Session 1: Comparative Perspectives

For Session 1, comparative contributions as well as single-country case studies are invited, independent of geographical region. These papers may be either primarily theoretical or empirical studies. The site of the conference in Moscow provides opportunity to explore developments regarding online politics in post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and other CIS countries as well as China and Southeast Asia from the perspective of comparative post-communism. Contributions from elsewhere – including North America, Western Europe and other regions – are also welcome.

Suggested topics for Session 1 include:

· use of mobile telephones (e.g., SMS exchanges) and e-mail during election campaigns, political and social movement actions;
· web presence (websites and blogs) by political actors;
· online discussion and chat forums oriented towards politics, public affairs and social movements;
· Internet censorship and authoritarian measures regarding new media;
· online privacy;
· theoretical conceptualizations (such as social-shaping of technologies)

Session 2: Methodological Innovations

For Session 2, we invite methodologically-oriented papers concerned with conducting
research in the online environment. As with the papers for Session 1, online politics
should be seen as encompassing traditional political communication as well as citizen and
social movement oriented political initiatives.

Suggested methodologically oriented topics include:

· comparative online research;
· content and discourse analysis techniques for studying political websites;
· ethnographic exploration of online political engagement;
· link analysis;
· mixed-method research designs.

The sessions are planned as part of a larger EU COST Action 298 conference, to be held 23-25 May 2007 in Moscow. This conference, entitled The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected: The user and the future of information and communication technologies, is hosted by the Institute of the Information Society, Moscow, Russian Federation. For further details, see the conference site http://conference.cost298.org. These two sessions about online politics are co-organized by COST Action A30, which is concerned with establishing a new media research agenda for East and Central Europe. For further details, see http://www.cmcs.ceu.hu:8080/cmcs/a30cost/.

Interested persons are encouraged to contact the session organizers as soon as possible
regarding ideas for papers. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 10 January
2007. Authors will be notified by 31 January regarding acceptance. Full papers are to be
submitted no later than 15 May 2007. Plans are being made for a journal theme issue and
submissions will be considered for inclusion.

The sessions are co-organized by:

· Miklos Sukosd (Central European University), Chair, COST Action A30:
sukosdm@ceu.hu

· Nicholas Jankowski (Virtual Knowledge Studio, Royal Netherlands Academy of
Arts and Sciences), COST Action A30, Working Group 1 leader:
nickjan@xs4all.nl

· Chantal de Gournay (France Telecom R&D), COST Action 298,
chantal.degournay@orange-ftgroup.com

Please send abstracts to:

· Miklos Sukosd, Chair, COST Action A30: sukosdm@ceu.hu

· the organizational address for the conference: costconference@fub.it.