[artinfo] CfP: "Ethics of Sharing"

[Felix Stalder]

Call for Papers

International Review of Information Ethics
http://www.i-r-i-e.net/

The Ethics of Sharing

Call for Papers for Vol. 15 - July 2011
   *   Deadline for extended abstracts: January 31, 2011
   *   Notification of acceptance to authors: February 8, 2011
   *   Deadline for full articles: April 30, 2011
   *   Publication: July, 2011

Sharing has emerged as one of the core cultural and ethical
values native to the networked environment. It is built both
into the technical protocols that make up the Internet, and
holds together distributed, mediated communities and
organizations (even if they try to limit sharing to members
inside the organizations).

In information ethics, sharing has implicitly been discussed
in terms of privacy, intellectual property, secrecy, security
and freedom of speech, which together define the social
character of the information environment. But recent
developments such as WikiLeaks have shown that there is
a need to go beyond discussing the legitimacy of access or
restrictions. We need to address the motivations and ethical
positions that compel people to share information, even at
considerable risk to themselves. Has sharing of information
a special virtue of the information society? How are
choices of sharing or withholding information justified? Is
sharing subversive of the new global information regime, or
an integral aspect of it?

This issue of IRIE brings together contributions towards an
ethics of sharing that embeds the technological
potentialities in lived social experience. In our
understanding, information ethics "deals with ethical
questions in the field of digital production and reproduction
of phenomena and processes such as the exchange,
combination and use of information."

The task is both descriptive - helping us understand the
contemporary complexities of the ethics of sharing as it
emerges from practices across a wide range social and
cultural contexts - as well as normative - helping us to
address blind-spots and clarifying possible ethical
frameworks to address unresolved issues.

We seeks submission that might address, without being
limited to, issues such as

   *  Sharing of information of different kinds, such
      technical, social and cultural information
   *  Sharing of resources, such as bandwidth and
      processing power
   *  Ethics of sharing across different cultures
   *  Values that facilitate sharing
   *  Ethics of Sharing in historical perspectives
   *  Values emerging from environments characterized by
      pervasive sharing
   *  Subjectivities of sharing
   *  Shifting boundaries between the personal/common
   *  Similarities and differences between the sharing of
      material and of information resources
   *  Ethical limits of sharing, in regard to other values
   *  Ethical economies of sharing
   *  Economies of sharing vs. economies of exchange
   *  Dangers of sharing

We aim at addressing this field from a cross-disciplinary
and cross cultural perspective, thus we encourage
submission from wide range of research disciplines and
from Western and non-Western perspectives.

Guest Editors

Dr. Felix Stalder <felix.stalder at zhdk.ch>
Zürich University of the Arts
Research project "Media Activism" at the University of Innsbruck

Dr. Wolfgang Sützl <wolfgang.suetzl at uibk.ac.at>
Research Project "Media Activism" at the University of Innsbruck

Abstracts and Submissions

Potential authors are requested to provide an extended
abstract (max. 1,000 words) by January 31, 2011.
Abstracts may be submitted in the native language of the
author though an English translation of this abstract must
be included if the chosen language is not English. IRIE will
publish articles in English, French, German, Portuguese or
Spanish. The author(s) of contributions in French,
Portuguese, or Spanish must nominate at least two
potential peer reviewers.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the guest editors. The
authors will be informed of acceptance or rejection by February 8, 2011.

Deadline for the final article (usually ca. 3,000 words or
20,000 characters including blanks) is April 30, 2011..
All submissions will be subject to peer review. Therefore
the acceptance of an extended abstract does not imply the
publication of the final text by July, 2011, unless the
article has passed the peer review.

All submissions should be sent by email with 'IRIE
Submission' in the header to: wolfgang.suetzl at uibk.ac.at



--- http://felix.openflows.com ----------------------- books out now:
*|Deep Search.The Politics of Search Beyond Google.Studienverlag 2009
*|Mediale Kunst/Media Arts Zurich.13 Positions.Scheidegger&Spiess2008
*|Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity, 2006
*|Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks. Ed. Futura/Revolver, 2005