Call for Papers - Special Issue - Asian Journal of Communication

Call for Papers

Special Issue Vol. 18(4)

 

New Perspectives on Development Communication: Emerging Technologies,
Shifting Paradigms

 

Guest Editor: Prof. Mark R. Levy, Michigan State University

 

The issue will examine two interrelated trends - one technological and one
scholarly. The technological trend is best exemplified by the rapid
diffusion of mobile phones in the developing world. Indeed, the growing
availability of the full range of information and communication technologies
(ICTs), including the mobile internet, holds out the possibility that
closing the development gap will be enabled in part by a growing
participation in local, regional or even global online networks. The
community of development practitioners now devotes considerable energy to
applications of ICTs for development (ICT4D). But few scholarly studies have
tracked how the newest communication technologies are in fact being deployed
for development in Asia.

 

Meanwhile, academic scholarship has made important conceptual and
theoretical advances in understanding information societies. These advances
have been empirically tested almost exclusively in wealthy, developed
nations. But theoretical insights regarding the changing modalities of
communication, particularly online innovations, could also be studied in the
context of ICTs for development, thus moving development communication away
from its long-running and increasingly sterile debate between paradigms of
diffusion and of participation.

 

Manuscripts should bring new theoretical approaches to the study of emerging
communication technologies for development. Submissions should be rooted in
the Asian experience, should have clear implications for development
communication, and should investigate the following or closely related
research questions: how is access to and use of ICTs, especially the mobile
internet, stratified in developing Asian countries; are the newest
communication technologies, particularly the mobile internet, facilitating
social and economic change; are individuals in developing nations using
social software to collaboratively create information, knowledge, or culture
in online social networks; how do political or cultural factors influence
the growth of online communities, collaboration, social support, and the
creation of social capital.

 

Submissions should be sent to: Professor Mark Levy, Michigan State
University,

409 Communication Arts & Science, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

Or, by email to: mlevy@msu.edu

The deadline for submissions is 31st December 2007.

 

For more information about Asian Journal of Communication, please visit:
www.informaworld.com/rajc