<nettime-ann> Call for Papers - Media: Digital, Ecological and Epistemological

[Norm Friesen <nfriesen@tru.ca>]

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Special issue of E-Learning and Digital Media, Editor Dr. Norm Friesen

(Please disseminate and forward as appropriate)

Media today are everywhere. From educational gaming through portable e-texts to cell phones ringing in class, it seems we can’t escape. Nor can we live without media; instead, they form a kind of ecology that we inhabit. In addition, media have an epistemological function: they shape both what we know and how we come to know it: “Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live,” as Niklas Luhman observed, “we know through… media.”

Speaking of media in education suggests a range of possibilities that are different from what is suggested by educational technology (electronic, digital or otherwise). Describing computers and the Internet specifically as digital media casts their role not as mental tools to be integrated into instruction, but as “forms” and “cultures” requiring “literacies” or acculturation. In this way, speaking of media in education brings instructional environments more closely together with the world outside. Explorations of these terms and possibilities have been initiated by the likes of Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman and Elizabeth Eisenstein, and they are also touched upon in research on media literacies. However, more recent theoretical developments and accelerated mediatic change --from blogging through networked gaming to texting and sexting-- offer innumerable opportunities for further exploration.

This special issue of E-Learning and Digital Media invites contributions that focus on media, particularly digital media, and their ecological and epistemological ramifications. Specific topics may include:

·         School and classroom as media (ecologies) and the changing world outside

·         Digital challenges to media literacy and literacies

·         Media socialization and media education

·         Histories of media and education

·         The epistemological character of (new) media

Submissions for this special issue are due May 1, 2010

Length of submissions: generally 6000-8000 words

Further submission and formatting information is available at: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/howtocontribute.asp

Direct comments and questions to: nfriesen@tru.ca

-- 
Norm Friesen
Canada Research Chair in E-Learning Practices
Thompson Rivers University
mobile +1 250 574 3620
http://learningspaces.org/ 
CONFERENCE: Media Transatlantic (Apr. 8-10; www.mediatrans.ca) 
New Book - Re-Thinking E-Learning Research (http://elearn.tru.ca)

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