[AISWorld] KM&EL CFP Special Issue on Non-Use in the Age of the Post-Digital

Fri Sep 16 09:25:21 EDT 2016

Call for Papers

Knowledge Management & E-Learning (KM&EL)

(Indexed by SCOPUS)

Special Issue on Non-Use in the Age of the Post-Digital

Guest Editors

Dr. Claes Thorén

Department of Informatics and Media,

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Email: claes.thoren at im.uu.se

Dr. Jenny Eriksson Lundström

Department of Informatics and Media,

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Email:  jenny.eriksson at im.uu.se

Prof. Mats Edenius

Department of Informatics and Media,

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Email: mats.edenius at im.uu.se

The concept of “the digital society” has not only come to equate progress
in the “golden age of digital innovation”, but is often seen as a
fundamental aspiration of late modernity. Digital technologies are today
integral to nearly all aspects of society, from the business sector,
education to civic involvement, where citizens are not just citizens but
have become digital citizens and digital users, with universal access to
information technologies. However, the term “digital user” is a complex and
multi-faceted concept – technologies can be used in many different ways,
and to varying degrees. “Digital user” would be almost impossible to
discuss without its counterpart; “digital non-user”.

Now we have entered into an era where practices revive older media
technologies, not merely reusing them, but repurposing them in relation to,
as a reaction against, inspired by, dictated by, transformed by, compelled
by, curated by, following the mainstream of, digital media technologies:
flip phones as anti-smartphones, vinyl records and cassette tapes as
anti-streaming, analog film as anti-digital cameras, or as a seemingly
anachronistic phenomenon that does not follow traditionally linear models
of technological innovation. What does this post-digital age entail for the
digital user/non-user?

This special issue of the KM&EL international journal is dedicated to
exploration of the potential of non-use, as a concept, context, phenomenon
and practice. Conventionally, non-use of technology has been understood and
critiqued in terms of lack or deficit constituting a clear division between
digital haves and have-nots.  Normative responses to such “lack” is to
designate non users as individuals that should either be assimilated into
modern technological use or be dismissed as outliers and ignored. In other
words, individuals who do not use a particular technology (such as a
computer or the Internet) tend to be portrayed as lacking in terms of a
skill set, ability or socio-economic potential or opportunity, an argument
that oversimplifies the absence of use as binary opposites. There is a need
to nuance the discussion by recognizing the multiple facets of digital use
entails. We see non-use not as something ready to become absent in the
digital society, neither in practice nor theory. Non-use is not a negative
space. Rather the opposite. Non-use can be active, meaningful, motivated,
considered, structured, specific, directed and productive.

>From this outset we invite papers that both theoretically and empirically
deepen our understanding of non-use in its varieties and forms. We invite
papers that explore advances in the theorization and application of non-use.

The primary contribution of this special issue will be to highlight actual
trends and challenges in research in non-use with the aim to stimulate
innovative research and new insights in the domains, theories, models and
practices in this research topic.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Empirical investigations into non-use from the individual’s perspective,
going beyond existing explanations of non-users of technology (such as
material and cognitive deficiency, technophobia and ideological refusal
etc.)

Exploring conceptual understandings of non-use of digital technologies

Exploring conceptual bases through which non-use can be understood and
investigated

Novel empirical studies that shed light on combinations of different kinds
of use and non-use and its outcomes

Ethical issues for taking action, the making of statements and their
interpretations related to non-use seriously

Non-use beyond specific circumstances of use

Non-use, innovation and edge thinking

Learning and non-use

Managing non-use, strategies for accommodating non-users

Practicing non-use

Ecologies and economies of non-use

Non-use as DIY, workarounds and quality assurance

References:

1.     Selwyn, N. (2003). Apart from technology: Understanding people's
non-use of information and communication technologies in everyday life.
Technology in Society, 25(1), 99-116.

2.     Thorén, C., & Kitzmann, A. (2015). Replicants, imposters and the
real deal: Issues of non-use and technology resistance in vintage and
software instruments. First Monday, 20(11): 10.

Important Dates

Extended abstracts (500-750 words) due: 30th October, 2016

Feedback from editors on abstracts: 15th November, 2016

Full Submissions due: 15th January, 2017

Notification of acceptance: 1st April, 2017

Planned Publication: June 2017 (Vol. 9. No. 2)

Submission Instructions

Electronic submission through EasyChair is required:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nonuse2017

Papers must not have been published, accepted for publication, or presently
be under consideration for publication elsewhere. A standard double-blind
review process will be used for selecting papers to be published in this
special issue. Authors should follow the instructions outlined in the KM&EL
Website (see URLhttp://
www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions
)

For more information about the KM&EL, please visit the web site:

http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication

KM&EL Journal Metrics (Scopus):

2014 SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): 0.359 | Ranking: 82/155 Management of
Technology and Innovation | 411/914 Education

2014 SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): 0.64 | Ranking: 77/118
Management of Technology and Innovation | 401/687 Education