[csaa-forum] Reminder (abstracts due 5 July, or 8 July at a stretch!): CFP ‘OPEN LITERACY’ Digital Games, Social Responsibility and Social Innovation Symposium, Perth, Western Australia, September 30 & Oct 1 (AoIR Satellite Event)

[Tama Leaver]

*‘OPEN LITERACY’ Symposium: Social Responsibility, Social Innovation and
Digital Games*



*An international Research Symposium at Curtin University, Western
Australia*



*Background*

*“We cannot stress highly enough the importance of greater public
understanding of digital information—its use, scale, importance and
influence ... Digital literacy should be a fourth pillar of education,
alongside reading, writing and maths.” [1] *



*Curtin University’s Centre for Culture & Technology (CCAT) and Tencent are
proud to launch the Curtin-Tencent Research Centre* at this international
research symposium, focusing on digital media and the creative economy,
with a special emphasis on digital online games.



The event also marks the 20th anniversary of *Internet Studies at Curtin
University*. We invite you to join our researchers, including *John
Hartley,* *Katie Ellis, Eleanor Sandry, Tama Leaver, Crystal Abidin* and
others, to share your work with visitors from China and the world.
Alternatively, save the date and simply attend to participate on the day.



*International Keynote Speakers*:

•         *Henry Jenkins* (University of Southern California);

•         *Tencent *games executive/developer VP (tba);

•         *Mathew Allen *(Deakin University)––Matt launched Internet
Studies at Curtin in 1999 – the first Internet Studies undergraduate degree
program in the world.



Date: *September 30-October 1, 2019*, prior to the Annual Conference of the
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). We are offering this event
as a *‘satellite
conference’ of AoIR*. Scholars will be able to break their journey in Perth
before heading to Brisbane in time for AoIR’s pre-conference day.



With Tencent’s support, we can offer a limited number of *bursaries to
international and Australian doctoral students and early career researchers*.
Selected applicants will be offered $500 towards their travel costs, and we
will waive our Registration fee for presenters.



*We invite proposals for papers and presentations on what we are calling
‘Open Literacy’.* ‘Open’ literacy links the domain of digital popular
culture, play, and entertainment, including video and online games, with
that of formal knowledge.



At a time when there is increasing tension between large-scale, global
connectivity on the one hand, and a population marked by division,
difference and asymmetries of access on the other, it is more urgent than
ever to extend participation in knowledge and social
responsibility––science and civics––beyond exclusive institutions and
restricted professions.



Recent developments in ‘open access’ scholarship, ‘open science’
initiatives and ‘open source’ software offer new ways to update Karl
Popper’s vision of ‘the open society’ for the connected age. Focusing on
the extension of digital capabilities among a broad global population via
smart devices, apps and digital entertainment to smart users, groups and
enterprises, we want to explore how opening digital knowledge systems to
popular participation may boost innovation and social inclusion and
responsibility.



Many media scholars are sceptical of the ‘mass media effects’ tradition of
research, inherited from anxiety about earlier forms of popular media, from
print to broadcasting. At the same time they are mindful that public debate
about this topic still depends on outmoded industrial and individualist
theories.



We want to go beyond that paradigm, to understand the challenges of
digital, online media and the possibilities for renewing knowledge systems
and social groups in times of technological change and geopolitical
uncertainty. In short, what do entertainment systems and knowledge
systems––and their users––have in common?



*Open Literacy* refers to the dynamic combination of:

(i) individual skills, capabilities and creative imagination (developed
through ‘purposeless’ play-practice) with

(ii) the social networks, teamwork, conflict management and difference
needed in public/media environments, to

(iii) build new social groups––‘knowledge clubs’ and ‘knowledge
commons’––for social innovation under uncertainty.



Open literacy is user-centred and system-wide, producing unforeseen network
effects that in turn change the rules of the game. Navigating ‘newness’
(not just novelty but transformational change) raises new questions:

•         Of what does ‘open literacy’ comprise in the
global-digital-connected era?

•         How do citizens in different contexts, places and
opportunity-spaces learn and practice it? Where is it encouraged; where
impeded?

•         How does Open Literacy intersect with other ‘open’ systems and
initiatives: open society, open knowledge, open science, open access?

•         Given that Open Literacy is cultural and informal, not
institutional and disciplinary, what should policymakers, educators,
arts/literature agencies, sport/exercise bodies and commercial
entertainment/ leisure providers do to nurture it?



To reflect on these developments and to report on cutting edge research
linking games, social innovation and social responsibility, the ‘Open
Literacy’ Research Symposium will be held over two days. Papers and
presentations––including work by postgraduate and early-career
researchers––may address (but is not confined to) the following themes. In
the context of pervasive computational and communicational literacy in the
digital age, presenters will think through the relationships among *social
innovation, social responsibility and games,:*

•         *Responsibility *includes corporate and individual.

o   *Corporate*: what are the social responsibilities of games developers
and publishers? What are they doing right or wrong, according to whose
criteria?

o   *Individual*: rights and duties of players and gamers themselves; how
parents and young people achieve and maintain social responsibility through
play.

•         Responsibility and *control*:

o   how games work in the production of what Curtin researcher Michele
Willson calls “the ideal child” (*Media Culture Society*, 2018);

o   how can games and other online changes be historicised meaningfully;

o   political, moral, religious, authoritarian crackdowns on games/popular
media.

•         *‘Games’* include digital games and analogue play;

o   main focus is on video games, internet and online games;

o   but also branded play (Lego/Barbie);

o   competitive games (sport/health);

o   childhood games (indoor/outdoor play).



The event will include presentations from scholars and practitioners from
the USA, Australia, China and elsewhere. Selected postgraduate students
will be eligible for financial assistance (bursaries) for travel and for
the preparation of their papers and presentations. The intention is to
produce a *published* *report from the proceedings* of the day, including
selected keynote, specialist and early-career (HDR+ECR) contributions.



Potential presenters, please send your *abstract, of between 250-500
words, **to Dr Huan WU,* *by July 5, 2019* (huan.wu at curtin.edu.au). We will
confirm acceptance during July.



For those with institutional support for their research outreach, there
will be a registration fee to cover venue costs and catering. If you wish
to attend without presenting a paper, just let Huan know.



“See you in September!”



[1]  Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (14 February 2019)
Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report. UK Parliament: House of
Commons, pp. 85; 87:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
.
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