Whether it’s people in Kenya using their mobile phones to safely pay their bills using M-Pesa, citizen scientists helping ease the workload of geologists, archivists and zoologists, or people people signing online petitions that have a real influence on policymaking, all of that is made possible thanks to the internet, the rules that govern it – and the people who dare to break them.
This year’s Association of Internet Researchers conference (AoIR2016), taking place from the 5 to 8 October, will once again bring together a plethora of different players from the world of the internet, who dedicate their time to studying those rules, as well as how they could be broken and, indeed, if they should be at all. And the call for entries has already gone out: they want to hear from you!
Rule Making and Rule Breaking
From the 5 to 8 October, the Humboldt University in Berlin will play host to a diverse range of scientists, IT types, changemakers and more who will meet up to chat about the rules of the internet and possible ways we can go around breaking them. Because that’s what they say, right? Rules are there to be broken. Or are they? What laws rule the internet? Who invents these laws and what kind of power relationships exist between the different players? What kind of influence does the internet have on community values, and what kind of creative forms of resistance are there? Question after question after question…
This year, the AoIR2016 conference will focus on: media culture and identity, Hacktivism and social equality, codes and practices of internet culture, the Internet of Things, Internet Governance and Regulation, (global) social media, communication, participation and polarisation online, to name just a few.
Call for entries!
Entries under the motto “Internet Rules!” can be submitted in any form. That includes essays, panels, ideas for workshops, or suggestions for round table sessions. And suggestions of an experimental nature are particularly welcome. Each person is free to submit a maximum of four entries by 1 March 2016 at the latest – just click here. You can download the formal requirements by following this link here. If you have questions about the conference or applying to enter, just shoot an email off to: aoir2016@aoir.org
The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is a transdisciplinary alliance of scientists who are dedicated to promoting the critical and scientific exploration of the internet, independent from conventional research methods and academic limitations, and interested in the role that network technologies play within social processes.
This year, the AoIR2016 will be hosted by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and the Hans-Bredow-Institut for Media Research.
Translated from this article by Hanadi that was published on our German-language platform.
