ICA 2022 Pre-conference: Digital Disconnection Studies Beyond Borders Cross-Disciplonary, And Cross-National Perspectives

THEME

This ICA preconference explores online life in the attention economy and how users and industrial actors act on experiences of intrusiveness and overload. Disconnection studies emerge as a vibrant subfield, drawing on sociology, psychology, anthropology, human-computer interaction, tourism, and media studies. The preconference explores convergent and divergent perspectives on digital disconnection across disciplines, media, and national borders and invites participants to a dialogue concerning the challenges and promises of digital disconnection research.

OBJECTIVES

This preconference surfaces from a scholarly network built through cooperative efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through monthly running Zoom-seminars, the network has come to represent a wide range of disciplines and established a network of junior scholars within disconnection studies. This preconference brings together participants from different fields to an on-site dialogue and discussion to advance digital disconnection research. Intending to broaden the already established scholarly collaboration network, we expressly welcome contributions that offer original perspectives.

The conference has three main objectives:

Expand scholarly discussions: how is digital disconnection understood and conceptualized within various contexts and across different levels of analysis? In what ways are conceptual underpinnings and understandings of the causes and implications of digital disconnection connected?

Promote collaborative and comparative scholarship: What are the similarities and differences of approaches to digital disconnection across country, discipline, and media?

Networking and career development: What are the emerging perspectives on digital disconnection provided by young scholars? How can new contributions deepen understandings of digital disconnection or expand existing knowledge?

ABSTRACT REQUIREMENTS AND PROCEDURES

The conference is based on non-anonymous abstracts of no more than 300 words.

Submit abstracts to Kari.Spjeldnaes@kristiania.no by January 21, 2022.

The abstracts will be subject to a review process by the organizing committee and placed in thematic clusters for panel discussions and roundtable talks.

Decisions on acceptance will be made by February 11, 2022

We encourage abstracts emphasizing the following dimensions:

Theoretical and conceptual advances

Cultural and historical perspectives

Causes and implications of practices of digital disconnection

Methodological approaches and empirical analyses

Critical discussion of literature and approaches

Authors of accepted abstracts are expected to attend the preconference in person. Participation fee (including coffee break and lunch) is US $30 for all participants. In addition, each participant covers the travel and accommodation costs.

A digital pre-preconference will be organized. Further information will follow after February 11, 2022.

Updated information on this preconference will follow here: Digital Disconnection Beyond Borders.

ORGANIZERS

Trine Syvertsen, Professor, University of Oslo.

Anne Kaun, Professor, Södertörn University.

Ana Jorge, Associate Professor, Lusófona University.

Stine Lomborg, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen.

Mariek Vanden Abeele, Associate Professor, Ghent University.

Mehri Agai, PhD Candidate, University of Bergen.

Kari Spjeldnæs, PhD Candidate Kristiania University College.

SPONSOR

The preconference is sponsored by the research project Digitox at the University of Oslo (funded by the Research Council of Norway).