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FYI, Barry Wellman
_____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto
455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162
wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 19:48:28 -0700
From: danah boyd <[log in to unmask]>
To: Barry Wellman <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: CFP: Special Issue of JCMC on Social Network Sites
CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Theme Issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
**** Social Network Sites: People, Practice, and Culture ****
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~dmb/jcmc-sns/
GUEST EDITORS:
• danah boyd, University of California-Berkeley
• Nicole Ellison, Michigan State University
DEADLINES:
• Abstracts due: November 28, 2006
• Decisions on abstracts: December 8, 2006
• Full papers due: February 28, 2007
• Anticipated publication: October 2007 / January 2008
FOCUS:
Recently, social network sites like Cyworld, MySpace, orkut, and
Facebook have captured the public's attention and attracted millions
of users. Such sites typically enable individuals to create a profile
that defines their online personae through the use of photographs,
text, and multimedia elements. More importantly, social network sites
enable individuals to articulate their social connections visibly on
the site, a practice that may help individuals meet self-
presentational and social goals. "Friends" links offer users a window
into an emerging and fluid social landscape, allowing them to explore
and interact with a larger network via profiles and the communication
tools they offer. Together, profiles, traversable "friends" links,
and communication tools comprise the backbone of social network
sites. This special issue seeks to bring together scholarship on
social network sites to highlight current understanding of the
practices, implications, culture, and meaning of such sites.
There are currently hundreds of social network sites, spanning a wide
range of individuals, interests, and technological affordances. While
the key technological features are fairly consistent, the cultures
that emerge in these sites are varied. For example, music is the
cultural glue of some sites, while others gather people around
particular interests, such as political beliefs or pet ownership.
Some sites cater to a wide variety of people, while others target
people based on race, age, sexuality, religion, language, or
nationality. Sites vary in the extent to which they incorporate new
tools, such as mobile technologies, blogging, and photo/video-sharing.
This special edition will bring together experts from the fields of
information, communication, sociology, anthropology, HCI, policy,
design, and education to explore the different socio-cultural
practices that take place on social network sites. We are looking for
papers that address social network sites from a variety of
perspectives and from different methodological and theoretical
traditions.
Potential questions that submissions might address include, but are
not limited to:
- What strategies do individuals use to craft an online presentation
of self in a profile, and for what audiences?
- What privacy or other concerns emerge from use of these sites? What
kinds of policy decisions and educational practices might ameliorate
these concerns?
- Can we predict social, psychological, or other outcomes from
profile and network analysis?
- How can "friends" networks most usefully be visualized? What can we
learn from network visualizations?
- How does the network structure differ among sites, and what are the
social and cultural implications of these differences? How does the
structure of networks in these sites compare to the networks of other
communities?
- What are the patterns of relationship development in these spaces?
Do individuals use these sites to meet new people or to maintain pre-
existing, offline connections?
- What role do race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual
orientation play in social network sites?
While all social network sites allow participants to create a profile
and publicly articulate their social connections within the system,
the line between social network sites and dating sites, MMOGs, media
sharing sites, blogging tools, and other social community sites can
be blurry. Rather than enforcing a strict definition of what
constitutes a social network site, we ask authors to explain how
their site of study fits into a rubric of social network sites.
SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:
Potential authors should submit a preliminary proposal of 500 words
by November 28, 2006, to danah boyd ([log in to unmask]) and
Nicole Ellison ([log in to unmask]). TXT, RTF or DOC formats are
preferred. Proposals should indicate (a) the central research
question; (b) theoretical and methodological frameworks that will be
used in the analysis; (c) a preliminary sketch of what claims the
author(s) expect to make; (d) the author(s) rubric of what
constitutes a social network site and how their research fits into
this framework. While the proposal should include which site(s) is
being addressed, the author(s) can assume that the reviewers are
familiar with the site. Thus, it is not necessary to describe the
site in detail in the proposal. A brief author biography should also
be submitted.
Early submissions and questions are welcome. Authors whose proposals
are accepted for inclusion will be invited to submit a full paper of
roughly 7,000-9,000 words for peer review by February 28, 2007.
Anticipated publication date for the special issue is October 2007 or
January 2008. Since JCMC is an interdisciplinary journal, authors
should plan for papers that will be accessible to non-specialists,
and should make their papers relevant to an interdisciplinary audience.
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