CALL FOR PAPERS MEDIA IN TRANSITION A National Conference October 8-10, 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA To celebrate the launch of our graduate program in Comparative Media Studies, we invite your participation in a conference on the topic of "Media in Transition." This conference will also mark the conclusion of the Media in Transition Project, a series of lectures, forums and conferences begun in 1997 by the MIT Communications Forum and funded by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation. We intend this culminating conference to address the defining themes of the project by situating our current experience of media and cultural transformation in the perspective of earlier periods of technological and social change. The Media in Transition Project aims to nourish a pragmatic, historically informed discourse about the significance of new communications technologies and the role of economic, political, legal, social and cultural institutions in mediating and partly shaping technological change. A good deal of work on such topics has emerged in recent years across a range of academic disciplines. But one consequence of this intellectual diversity has been that scholars of comparative media have had little contact with each other. The Media in Transition conference hopes remedy this isolation by bringing together an interdisciplinary roster of scholars committed to understanding the past, present, and future of media. We encourage papers that address the following themes: The transformation of the book and book culture in the digital age Conceptions of intellectual property Democratic culture and new media The aesthetics of transition -- technological change and the arts and literature The "virtual community" as an historical construction Media change and central institutions (schools, libraries, banks, corporations, etc.) Privacy, public safety, surveillance Global media and local or national cultures Media audiences "Vernacular theory" -- the role of science fiction, popular journalism, and other popular discourse in explaining emerging media Technology and journalism -- the impact of technological change on journalism; newspapers and local readership Social and cultural factors influencing the use and diffusion of new media Childhood and adolescence in a mediated culture Hypertexts: history, theory, practice SUBMISSIONS: 1-2 page abstract to be submitted no later than July 1, 1999. Papers should be sent to: Media in Transition Conference, CMS office, 14N-430, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139. For more information about the Media in Transition Project: http://media-in-transition.mit.edu. Henry Jenkins ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html