I'd like to bring to your attention what promises to be an
excellent - and much needed - event. Stuart Shulman and Michael
Xenos are the organizers (I'm on the program committee).
YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States
April 3 & 4, 2009 - Amherst, Massachusetts
http://youtube08election.crowdvine.com
A two-day conference jointly hosted by:
* The University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of
Political Science
* The Science, Technology, and Society Initiative (STS) at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
* The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
* The Journal of Information Technology & Politics (JITP)
* The Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP)
Keynote Speakers
Richard Rogers, Professor in New Media & Digital Culture at
the University of Amsterdam and Director of govcom.org.
Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University, the Jane S. &
William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the School of
Engineering, School of Communication and the Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern University, USA.
Approach
The Program Committee encourages disciplinary and
interdisciplinary approaches rooted in political science, media
studies, and communication scholarship. The JITP Editor strongly
endorses new and experimental approaches involving collaboration
with information and computer science scholars. Potential topics
might include, but are not limited to:
- citizen initiated campaign videos,
- candidates' use of YouTube,
- bloggers use of YouTube to influence the primaries or
election,
- the impact of YouTube on traditional or new media coverage of
the election cycle,
- the effect of YouTube on citizen interest, knowledge,
engagement, or voting behavior,
- social network analysis of YouTube and related
election-oriented sites,
- political theory or communication theory and YouTube in the
context of the 2008 election,
- new metrics that support the study of the "YouTube Effect" on
elections,
- archives for saving and tools for mapping the full landscape
of YouTube election content,
- use of YouTube in the classroom as a way to teach American
electoral politics, or
- reviews of existing scholarship about YouTube.
Paper Submissions
Authors are invited to prepare and submit to JITP a manuscript
following one of the six submission formats by January 7, 2009.
These formats include research papers, policy viewpoints,
workbench notes, review essays, book reviews, and papers on
teaching innovation. The goal is to produce a special issue, or
double issue, of JITP with a wide variety of approaches to the
broad theme of "YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United
States."
How to Submit
Everything you need to know about how to prepare and submit a
strong JITP paper via the JITP web site is documented at
http://www.jitp.net. Papers will be put through an expedited blind
peer review process by the Program Committee and authors will be
notified about a decision by February 15, 2009. A small number of
papers will be accepted for presentation at the conference. Other
paper authors will be invited to present a poster during the
Friday evening reception. All posters must include a "YouTube"
version of their research findings.
Best Paper and Poster Cash Prizes
The author (or authors) of the best research paper will receive
a single $1,000 prize. The creator (or creators) of the best
YouTube poster/research presentation will also receive a single
prize of $1,000.
Conference Co-Chairs
Stuart Shulman, University of Pittsburgh
Michael Xenos, Louisiana State University
Program Committee
Sam Abrams, Harvard University
Micah Altman, Harvard University
Karine Barzilai-Nahon, University of Washington
Lance Bennett, University of Washington
Ryan Biava, University of Wisconsin
Bob Boynton, University of Iowa
Tom Carlson, Åbo Akademi University
Andrew Chadwick, Royal Holloway, University of London
Greg Elmer, Ryerson University
Kirsten Foot, University of Washington
Jane Fountain, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jeff Guliati, Bentley College
Mike Hais, Co-author, Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and
the Future of American Politics
Matthew Hale, Seton Hall University
Justin Holmes, University of Minnesota
Helen Margetts, Oxford Internet Institute
Mike Margolis, University of Cincinnati
Andrew McCallum, University of Massachusetts Amherst
John McNutt, University of Delaware
Andrew Philpot, University of Southern California-Information
Sciences Institute
Antoinette Pole, Montclair State University
Stephen Purpura, Cornell University
Lee Rainie, Pew Internet & American Life Project
Jeffrey Seifert, Congressional Research Service
Mack Shelley, Iowa State University
Charlie Schweik, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Chirag Shah, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
John Wilkerson, University of Washington
Christine Williams, Bentley College
Morley Winograd, University of Southern California
Quan Zhou, University of Wisconsin-Stout