CALL FOR CHAPTERS

Global Media Convergence and Cultural Transformation: Emerging Social Patterns and Characteristics

To be published by IGI Global:
http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=665

A book edited by Dal Yong Jin, Simon Fraser University, Canada

INTRODUCTION
New media and technology are firmly embedded in our contemporary society and culture. The Internet and mobile communications and their applications, including online gaming, have made a huge impact on political participation, business, education, social and family relations. Several regions, including Asia and North America are marked by diverse penetration rates of gaming (e.g., online, mobile, and console games), and mobile and broadband technologies, which are subject to local culture and socio-economic nuances. Young people are techno-savvy, and their use of new technology has been culturally remarkable. Media policy makers, software designers, mobile technicians, and computer corporations around the world are eager to learn, not only the result of the rapid growth of new technologies and their implications, but also the primary driver of the development of advancement of new technologies, as a reflection of the importance of convergence of technology and culture.

OBJECTIVES
The overall mission of the book is to engage the complex relationship between technology and culture, as well as technology and socio-economic elements by exploring it in a transnational yet contextually grounded framework. This book employs diverse perspectives and approaches, from political economy to cultural studies, and from policy studies to ethnography in order to reflect several different focuses and areas in new media technologies and their convergence with culture. Specifically, it will focus on the following key objectives:

  • To analyze the convergence of technology and culture, which is one of the major drivers of the development of new technologies.
  • To provide understanding of macro and micro level factors currently affecting convergence from both a developing and a developed nation’s perspective.
  • To offer cross-country analysis of media and technology convergence that can be applied in various geographical settings
  • To document our experience of technological change in economy and culture that may shed light on the more general trends of the shifting global media, culture and technology.

AUDIENCE
Our major target readers will be upper-level undergraduate and graduate students who study media, culture, and technology as well as media economics. The prospective audience is the academic audience as well as the much broader world of users from business, government, and information technology sectors. This book has an international appeal in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, because many Western media scholars would like to understand the reasons why the global world has rapidly grown and been transformed in the context of new media and culture.

TOPICS
The chapters can address topics such as the following, but are not limited to:

  • New Media Polices and Economy of Media Convergence
  • Broadband as a key for convergence of technology and media
  • Convergence of American Fandom and Asian Technology: play culture changes game technology
  • Transnational, regional, and national: convergence of Western capital and locality in the mobile industry
  • When the West meets the East: convergence of Western culture and Asian new media
  • Playing at Being Mobile: gaming, cute culture and mobile technology
  • The Mobile-zing Culture: emerging structure of mobile email users in Asia and Europe
  • Call Centers, India, and a New Politics: cultural interpretations
  • Broadband Internet, Online Game, and Culture: a cross-cultural analysis
  • Social networking for Online Game Content
  • Playing at Being Mobile: gaming, cute culture and mobile technology
  • Online Game Fans: are they new audience commodities in the new media era
  • Adventure of Local Video Games towards Globalization
  • New Media Hubs in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai
  • Discourses of Keitai culture in Japan
  • The making of neo-Confucian cyberkids: mobile phone users in Korea
  • Web-portals: a socio-cultural interpretation of American youth and Asian youth in the usage of Web culture
  • Chinese online game culture: Western capital controls the national cultural market
  • Japanese Console Game Industry and Culture
  • Glocalized Asia: an integration of the World of Warcraft with Asian culture
  • Thinking through Diaspora: Asian Americans live with the Internet

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before September 15, 2009, a manuscript proposal outlining title, mission, and concerns of the proposed chapter (500 – 600 words). Authors of accepted proposals will be notified as soon as possible about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters (6,000 – 9,000 words) are expected to be submitted by November 30, 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.

PUBLISHER
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” and “IGI Publishing” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in late 2010.

IMPORTANT DATES
September 15, 2009: Proposal Submission
September 30, 2009: Proposal Acceptance
November 30, 2009: Full Chapter Submission
January 31, 2010: Review Results Returned
March 15, 2010: Revised Chapter Submission
April 15, 2010: Final Chapter Submission

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Dr. Dal Yong Jin (djin@sfu.ca)
School of Communication
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC Canada, V5A 1S6
Tel: 604-420-2856

close