[AISWorld] Final Call for Papers - DTMD 2017 (Information, Narrative and Rhetoric: Exploring Meaning in a Digitalised Society)

[Magnus.Ramage]

The deadline for the DTMD 2017 conference on information & narrative has been extended and is now 15th April. Please join us in lovely Gothenburg in June! Full details follow.


Call for Papers - Information, Narrative and Rhetoric: Exploring Meaning in a Digitalised Society
The sixth Difference that Makes a Difference conference, DTMD 2017, will form part of the IS4SI 2017: Digitalisation for a Sustainable Society<http://is4si-2017.org/> summit, which will take place 12-16 June 2017 in Gothenburg, Sweden, on the theme of:

Information, narrative and rhetoric: exploring meaning in a digitalised society

Meaning is embedded within, and defined by, stories. This workshop will explore the use of the language of information in the stories of the digitalised society in order to enhance understanding, both of society and of information.
The workshop will address the following questions (among others):


*         How is information represented/embodied through stories and narratives?

*         In what way do the structures (e.g. shape and grammars) of stories create information in themselves?

*         Is it necessary to have both rhetoric and narrative to create stories? Can narrative-free or rhetoric-free stories exist? For example, can a bitstream or a DNA sequence be considered a story, or do mathematical equations form narratives in themselves?

*         What are the processes by which narratives are formed? How are meta-narratives formed, and what is their reflexive relationship with the information that the narrative shapes and is shaped by?

*         Are there circumstances when the forming of a narrative leads to the destruction or ignoring of information? Likewise, are there circumstances when the destruction of a narrative leads to the creation of information?

*         How do narratives become hegemonic on particular topics, for example, in political discourse? Who has the power to create and shape these hegemonic narratives?

*         What does the relationship between information and narrative say about the rise of post-truth politics?

*         What is the relationship between levels of abstraction (in Floridi's sense) or levels of communication (in the sense of the ISO 7-layer model) and narratives?

*         Which narratives, particularly in public discourse, are generated in a way that (deliberately or tacitly) excludes information from discussion rather than adding to it?

*         How can we identify and investigate the narratives around digitalised societies, and critique the assumptions behind those narratives?

Keynote speaker
The conference will be opened by our keynote speaker, Ken MacLeod<https://kenmacleod.blogspot.com/>. Ken is a celebrated science fiction writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and has written many novels which look in various ways at the relationship, both utopian and dystopian, between technology and society. He has been described as<http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2016/ken-macleod-edinburgh-international-book-festival/> "one of the most consistently interesting authors we have in contemporary science fiction". He has been a writer in residence at the Genomics Forum and at Edinburgh Napier University.

Further information
Submissions should be made via the IS4SI summit website: <http://is4si-2017.org/submissions/> http://is4si-2017.org/submissions/ <http://is4si-2017.org/submissions/>
15/4/2017 Submission deadline for extended abstracts
1/5/2017 Acceptance notifications

For further information, please see the DTMD group website at <http://www.dtmd.org.uk/dtmd-2017-narratives-and-rhetoric> http://www.dtmd.org.uk/dtmd-2017-narratives-and-rhetoric, or contact Magnus Ramage (magnus.ramage at open.ac.uk<mailto:magnus.ramage at open.ac.uk>) or David Chapman (david.chapman at open.ac.uk<mailto:david.chapman at open.ac.uk>).


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Dr Magnus Ramage
Lecturer in Information Systems
School of Computing and Communications
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

E: magnus.ramage at open.ac.uk<mailto:magnus.ramage at open.ac.uk>  | T: @magnusramage<https://twitter.com/magnusramage>
Web: http://stem.open.ac.uk/people/mr888
Blog: http://presentonearth.blogspot.co.uk/