Society and Information Research Group

You are invited to The Difference that Makes a Difference 2013, An interdisciplinary workshop on Information: Space, Time, and Identity.

Location: The Open University and the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK
Dates: 8-10 April 2013
Website: http://www.dtmd.org.uk

Deadline for one page abstracts - extended to 1st February 2013.

Information has been conceptualised in many different ways in different disciplines, and the DTMD series of workshops is a forum for sharing of those insights . We are keen to involve as many different people, from as many different disciplines, as possible in presenting and participating in the workshop. We invite a wide range of participants to give short (10 minute) presentations on their work as it relates to an understanding of information.

There will be six sessions:

Over days 1 and 2 the first four sessions consist of a keynote speaker followed by six or seven short presentations (which will have been selected by referees from submitted abstracts) then a panel discussion.

1. Information and Space. The relationship between information and space, ‘meaning’ in our physical environment, and the information landscapes that go beyond physical space.
2. Information and Time. Both the historic framework of the notion of information, and time as a ‘dimension’ in information – physics, entropy, information and ‘the arrow of time’.
3. Information and Identity. Identity (race, gender, nationality, class and sexual orientation, for example) as information and, conversely, information as identity.
4. What is information? Why are so many disciplines using informational concepts in their narratives? Is a Universal Theory of Information (UTI) possible?

Sessions 5 and 6 on day 3 draw together the insights from the first two days in two ways. First, through art, when the results of the work of the Workshop artist’s collaboration with delegates is presented and discussed. Second, a final keynote speech from Luciano Floridi, Professor of the Philosophy of information will lead in to a panel discussion with the keynote speakers from the earlier sessions.

For more details see the workshop programme: http://www.dtmd.org.uk/programme and the Call for Papers: http://www.dtmd.org.uk/call-for-papers

Accepted abstracts will be published in a Workshop Digest which will be made available online prior to the event, and, following the workshop, delegates will be invited to submit papers for special issue of Kybernetes, based on papers presented at the workshop.

We hope to see you in Milton Keynes in April.

The November SIRG meeting will be on Wednesday 28 November at 2.00 in the David Gorham Library (Venables N1015). Becky Faith will present the following talk.

Technology as freedom and ‘unfreedom’: capability theory and digital inclusion

Social theorists consider that the arrival of mass communications and ubiquitous networked digital technologies have transformed society: yet it is also clear that these transformations are experienced differently by different members of society. ‘Digital inclusion’ and the ‘digital divide’ evolved as a means to express the idea that access to the benefits of digital technology is linked to socio-economic benefit. In recent years debates about digital inclusion have evolved to respond to more sophisticated understanding of technology use – unpicking what is meant by access and engagement with digital technologies

This talk will look at digital inclusion in the UK today using the framework of capability theory, exploring how this theory might give us a language and framework to talk about technology and social justice.

Becky Faith is a PhD student in the Communication and Systems Department, looking at the role mobile phones might play in overcoming digital exclusion in the UK. She blogs about her research at http://beckyfaith.net and is @Becky_Faith on Twitter.

Congratulations to Advait Deshpande on having his first journal article accepted. It is ‘Broadband deployment and the bandwagon effect in the UK’ and will appear in info, a journal of policy, regulation and strategy for telecommunications, information and media, which modishly uses a lower case ‘i’ in its title.  Advait’s article is expected to be published in early 2013, in  vol. 15, no. 1.

My paper on the early BBC science producer Mary Adams has now finally appeared in print:

Jones, Allan, (2012) ‘Mary Adams and the producer’s role in early BBC science broadcasts’ Public Understanding of Science, Volume 21, Issue 8, November, pp. 968 – 983.

Sadly it’s not free!

http://pus.sagepub.com/content/21/8/968