TtW v2.0 USER’S GUIDE

CONFERENCE APRIL 14, 2012UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Department of Sociology

iSchoolUniversity of

MarylandMaryland Institute for Technology in the

Humanities

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Thank you for attending the second annual Theorizing the Web conference.

First, we want to thank our committee: Tyler Crabb, Ned Drummond, Dan Greene, Rachel Guo, Zach Richer, Jillet Sam, David Strohecker, Matthias Wasser , Sarah Wanenchak, and William Yagatich.

This conference builds off of the success of last year’s event. 2011’s conference featured open and invited panels, art, and talks by George Ritzer, Saskia Sassen and danah boyd. It was simply too much fun to not do again. The lasting memory from that conference is of a vibe that was both lively and smart. Folks were engaging in their presentations, with each other in person, and also with others via the back-channel. We strongly encourage this again today (note: the hashtag is #TtW12).

Today’s program consists of 32 competitively selected papers arranged into eight open-submission panels. We also have one invited panel discussion on art and another on the role of technology after revolution. Our keynote will be a discussion between Andy Carvin of NPR and Zeynep Tufekci of UNC discussing technology, journalism and social movements.

This year, we opted for a slightly smaller and more focused conference. We were humbled by the amount and quality of submissions and only a quarter were accepted for today’s event. 2012’s crop of submissions was even more international and interdisciplinary than the last.

The goal of the conference is both to demand and provide an outlet for more theorizing of new social technologies (e.g., Facebook, mobile phones, blogs, etc.). Discussions about these technologies both inside and outside of the academy have been largely a-theoretical, and our understanding of these technologies is worse for it.

Bringing together people interested in theory can help us to better refine ideas as well as provide an outlet for theoretical insights to inform technology research in general. A strong theoretical foundation is essential to ensuring that empirical research captures the most significant aspects of Internet-related phenomena and, importantly, that research does not ignore vulnerable or marginalized populations

that might otherwise be overlooked. Focusing on theory allows us to move beyond simply describing the world and into a critical realm of conversation about the way things ought to be.

While there is no official theme for the conference, what has emerged is a special focus on how the Web both reinforces and upsets power dynamics, sometimes on a grand scale. It is not enough to simply describe how people either used or did not use new technologies to overthrow dictators, to occupy Wall Street, or to riot in the UK. Instead, we hope to historically and theoretically situate the fact that massive digitally-connected groups, amassing in physical space, have come to be the new normal. Further, we hope to explore how the Web might provide new outlets for repression and control.

Given this scope, we should also admit that this one-day conference—thrown by a group of graduate students on a tight budget—cannot fully meet the growing imperative to theorize the Web. We hope to find additional opportunities to expand the conversation in the future by making this conference an annual event. Most fundamentally, as organizers, we continue to have the simple and selfish goal of trying to create the event we would want to attend.

In addition to the academic talks, be sure to check out the art exhibit in the Maril gallery and the installations in the atrium, including the short film Over & Out. And, don’t forget to take in all that the DC metro area has to offer.

Thanks for joining us!

Nathan Jurgenson & PJ ReyConference Co-Chairs

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ORGANIZERS

Co-Chair // Nathan Jurgenson

Co-Chair // PJ Rey

Treasurer // Tyler Crabb

Secretary // David Strohecker

Publicity Officer // Dan Greene

Publicity Officer // William Yagatich

OUR SPONSORS

Designer // Ned Drummond

Member // Rachel Guo

Member // Zach Richer

Member // Jillet Sam

Member // Sarah Wanenchak

Member // Matthias Wasser

Department of Sociology

iSchoolUniversity of

Maryland

Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities

GENERAL INFO

CONFERENCE HASHTAG # TtW12 We encourage participating in the Twitter backchannel. Each panel has a unique hashtag comprised of the room and session number (e.g., #b1 is for the panel occurring in room B during session 1).

BACKCHANNEL MODERATOR The backchannel moderator will act as a panel’s official livetweeter and will compile questions from Twitter for the Q&A session.

EVENT LOCATIONS The Theorizing the Web 2012 is held in the Art-Sociology building. Locations for specific events are noted on the program schedule. Food options are available on and off campus within walking distance.

PANEL DETAILS Though abstracts are not included in the print program, write-ups for each panel can be viewed on the Cyborgology Blog.

ART INSTALLATIONS Will be on display in the Atrium of the Art-Sociology building and in the Maril Gallery.

PARKING AND PUBLIC TRANSIT Free parking is available in Lot 1, the lot closest to the Art-Sociology building. Metro busses and the 104 College Park Metro Shuttle run between the Stamp Student Union and the Metro subway station until 1:45 AM. Metro Rail closes at 3:00 AM on weekends.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

8:00

Atrium

Registration Opens

(light breakfast provided)

9:00 - 9:30

Room A

Opening Remarks

Speakers: Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) & PJ Rey (@pjrey)

9:45 - 11:15 SESSION 1

Room B# B1

Manufacturing Dissent? Technology and Protest

Presider: Sarah Wanenchak (@dynamicsymmetry) // Backchannel Moderator: David Banks (@da_banks)// Presenters: Kira Ju-met, “Social Media: A Force for Political Change in Egypt”// Hadi Khoshnevis, “Web as a Platform for the Global Moral Brain: A Case Study of Iran” // Paola Ricaurte (@paolaricaurte), “Mexican Cyberactivism: The Power of the New Digital Intelligentsia”// Murilo Machado (@murilomachado)”Hacktivism and Anonymous: Symbol of Resistance in Society of Control”

Room C#C1

Technologies of Identity

Presider: Rachel Guo // Backchannel Moderator: Kim Knight (@purplekimchi) // Presenters: Matthew Morrison, “Queering Intimacy: Class, Coupling, and the Internet in Gay Life” // Alice Marwick (@alicetiara), ““Pinning Down Identity: Consumer Goods and Digital Consumption”// Kelsey Brannan,“Grindr: Networking and Geolocating ‘Sexiness’”// Nicholas Boston, “’Tell yuh friend dem dat Ramchan deh pon YouChoob!’: Cross-Generational Parodies on YouTube by North American-born Prosumers of their Caribbean Immigrant Parents”

Room D#D1

Augmented Reality: Intersecting Atoms & Bits

Presider: Jillet Sam // Backchannel Moderator: David Paul Strohecker (@dpsFTW) // Presenters: James Witte, “Synthesizing the Analog and Digital”// Randy Lynn (@rlynn82), “Actor, Medium, Setting: Integrating Online and Offline” // Sally Applin & Michael D. Fischer (@anthropunk) , “PolySocial Reality: Augmentation and Experience”// Jeremy Antley (@jsantley) ,“Charting the Waves of Augmentation: Textual Dualism & Augmented Reality in the Russian Empire”

11:30 - 1:00 SESSION 2

Room B#B2

Panel Discussion: Revolution, Now What?

Backchannel Moderator: Sarah Wanenchak (@dynamicsymmetry) // Presenters: Dave Parry (@academicdave), Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc), Azza Raslan (@araslangirl)

Room C#C2

Logging Off and Disconnection

Presider: Dan Greene (@Greene_DM) // Backchannel Modera-tor: Ismail Nooraddini (@Call_Me_Ismail) // Presenters: Jenny Davis (@Jup83), “Diagnosing Technological Ambivalence” // Jes-sica Roberts, ”The Effects of Ambient Media: What Unplugging Reveals About Being Plugged In” // Laura Portwood-Stacer (@lportwoodstacer), “Theorizing Social Media Refusal: Conspicuous Non-Consumption and Conscientious Objection” // Jessica Vitak (@jvitak), “Protecting Face: Managing Privacy and Context Collapse in the Facebook Age”

Room D#D2

The Politics of Design

Presider: Kari Kraus (@karikraus) // Backchannel Moderator: sava saheli singh (@savasavasava) // Presenters: Carolyn Kane, “An Ar-cheology of Compositing: From Blue Screen and Chromakey to the Alpha Channel and 2.0 Look, Dirt Style”// Katie Shilton & James Neal (@KatieShilton & @james3neal), ”Theorizing Future Internet Architectures: Values in the Design of Named Data Networking” // Jarah Moesch (@jarahmoesch), “Queer Ghosts in the Machine: The Mechanics of Net-worked Anonymity in the Tor Project” // Aleena Chia, ”Google’s Mind of God”

11:30 - 1:00 LunchSee map for local lunch options

2:00 - 2:30

Room A

Film Screening

Over & Out - Lunch provided for advanced registrants.

2:30 - 4:00 Session 3

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Room B#B3

Whose Knowledge? Whose Web?

Presider: Zach Richer // Backchannel Moderator: Jenny Davis (@Jup83) // Presenters: Emily Lawrence, “Epistemic Privilege and the Reification of Natural Kinds in the Radical Feminist Blogosphere”// Piergiorgio Degli Esposti (@pgde), “Digital Garbage: Information Overload and the Web as a Paradox” // Andrew Famiglietti (@afamiglietti), “In Fork We Trust: Why Technologically Empowered Individuals Can’t Guarantee Media Diversity”// Martin Irvine, “Mediology, Network Theory, and the Web: De-Blackboxing the Shiny New Boxes”

Room C#C3

Self-Documentation

Presider: David Paul Strohecker (@dpsFTW) // Backchannel Moderator: Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch (@anneohirsch) // Presenters: Robert Horning (@marginalutility), “Facebook as the “Projective City”// Sam Ladner (@sladner), “Digital Time: The Technological Transformation of the Calendar” // Aimée Morrison (@digiwonk), “The Affordance of Facebook: Autobiography and the changing Status Update Field” // Jordan Frith (@jhfrith), “The Check-in as Marker and Mnemonic Device: Theorizing how FourSquare use Impacts Self-Presentation and Self-Documentation”

Room D#D3

Theorizing the Mobile Web

Presider: Deen Freelon (@dfreelon) // Backchannel Moderator: Bridgette Hendrix (@bridgettediann) // Presenters: Jason Farman (@farman), “The Materiality of the Mobile Internet: An Object-Orient-ed Approach to Mobile Networks”// Katy Pearce (@katypearce), “Is your Web everyone’s Web? Theorizing the Web through the Lens of the Device Divide” // Jim Thatcher (@alogicalfallacy), “Mobile Geo-Spatial Devices: a Theoretical Approach to the GeoWeb” // David Banks (@da_banks), “Finding it ‘Otherwise’: Culturally and Geographically Situating The Practice of Texting”

Room E#E3

Invited Panel: Theory Meets Art

Artists will discuss their work with new media, including the installa-tions on display in the Herman-Maril Gallery

Organizers: Jason Hughes & William Yagatich // Presider: Jeremy Pesner (@The_Pezman) // Backchannel Moderator: Wil-liam Yagatich (@Praxis_In_Space) // Presenters: Cliff Evans (@cliffevansnet), Alberto Gaitan (@nootrope), Krista Caballero

4:15 - 6:00 Session 4

Room A#A3

Keynote

Introduction: Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) & PJ Rey (@pjrey)

Speakers: Andy Carvin (@acarvin) & Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc)

6:00 -Herman-Maril Gallery

Dinner & Afterparty

TWITTER KEY

JeremySallyDavidAndyJennyPiergiorgioCliffAndrewJasonDeenJordanAlbertoDanBridgetteRobertNathanKimMichaelKariSamRandyMuriloAliceJarahAiméeJamesIsmailAnneDaveKatyJeremyLauraPJPaolaJessicaKatiesava saheliDavid PaulJimZeynepJessicaSarahWilliam

AntleyApplinBanksCarvinDavisDegli EspostiEvansFamigliettiFarmanFreelonFrithGaitánGreenHendrixHorningJurgensonKnightKoliskaKrausLadnerLynnMachadoMarwickMoeschMorrisonNealNooraddiniOedorf-HirschParryPearcePesnerPortwood-StacerReyRicaurteRobertsShiltonsinghStroheckerThatcherTufekciVitakWanenchakYagatich

@jsantley@anthropunk@da_banks@acarvin@Jup83@pgde@cliffevansnet@afamiglietti@farman@dfreelon@jhfrith@nootrope@Greene_DM@bridgettediann@marginalutility@nathanjurgenson@purplekimchi@mkoliska@karikraus@sladner@rlynn82@murilomachado@alicetiara@jarahmoesch@digiwonk@james3neal@Call_Me_Ismail@anneohirsch@academicdave@katypearce@The_Pezman@lportwoodstacer@pjrey@paolaricaurte@jessyrob@KatieShilton@savasavasava@dpsFTW@alogicalfallacy@techsoc@jvitak@dynamicsymmetry@Praxis_In_Space

PROSUMPTION SPACE

CAMPUS MAP

PARKING

THEORIZING THE WEBART / SOCIOLOGY BUILDING

STAMP STUDENT UNIONFAST FOOD / FOOD CO-OP

MARRIOTT UMUC

DOWNTOWN COLLEGE PARK

CORNERSTONE GRILL & LOFT

QUALITY INN

PLATO’S DINER

A full interactive map is online at cyborgology.org/theorizingtheweb/2012/location.html