Die Jahrestagung der DGPuK-Fachgruppe „Computervermittelte Kommunikation“ findet dieses Jahr in Kooperation mit der Fachgruppe „Soziologie der Medienkommunikation“ sowie der ECREA-Fachgruppe „Digital Culture & Communication“ statt. Der Call for Paper zum Tagungsthema „Digital Media Technologies revisited: Theorising social relations, interactions and communication“ (20./21.11., Berlin) ist inzwischen veröffentlicht und hier als .pdf abrufbar.
This two-day conference on ’Digital Technologies Revisited’ aims to
understand contemporary developments in digital media and digital media
theory by looking backwards as well as forwards. We set out to explore
an in-between time: a time, when much of the hype concerning digital
media has died down, much research material has been gathered and
analyzed and quite a bit about the possibilities and limitations of
digital media (especially in comparison to older media forms) has been
understood.
Far from a communication revolution, the media landscape has nonetheless
changed substantially in recent years. In fact, we have undergone a
process of diffusion and appropriation: digital media have become an
important and ever-increasing part of our everyday lives. They suffuse
our communication, information and entertainment spheres. Not
surprisingly, the perceived connection between the internet and many
areas of social life, from work to play, has steadily increased in
recent years. However, even as digital media become pervasive,
ubiquitous, common and mundane, innovation continues to become an
integral characteristic of digital media forms, the proliferation of
which is challenging to map.
We would therefore like to return to earlier models and theories that
attempted to explain new (digital) media in its ’first wave’ forms.
Additionally, we would like to address the question of what kind of
alterations and additions can be used to adapt existing models and
theories for current purposes (e.g. mediated person-to-person
communication; para-social interactions with virtual agents;
pseudo-social interactions with intelligent machines, etc.).
The range of models and theories that can be used, re-visited, or
adapted is wide (i.e. traditional communication studies models, cultural
studies theories, sociology and others). We want to encourage papers
that explore tensions between older and new approaches and older and
newer ?new media’ formations. Where has there been movement, where not,
and are there in fact new theories emerging?
(…)