April 27-29, 2007
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

CALL FOR PAPERS (submission deadline: Jan. 5, 2007)

Our understanding of the technical and social processes by which culture is made and reproduced is being challenged and enlarged by digital technologies. An emerging generation of media producers is sampling and remixing existing materials as core ingredients in their own work.

These and related cultural practices have generated heated contention and debate. What constitutes fair use of another's intellectual property? What ethical issues are posed when sounds, images, and stories move from one culture or subculture to another?

This fifth Media in Transition conference aims to generate a conversation that compares historical forms of cultural expression with contemporary media practices. We hope this event will appeal widely across disciplines and scholarly and professional boundaries.

Among topics the conference might explore:

history of authorship and copyright

folk practices in traditional and contemporary society

appropriating materials from other cultures: political and ethical dilemmas

poetics and politics of fan culture

blogging, podcasting, and collective intelligence

media literacy and the ethics of participatory culture

artistic collaboration and cultural production, past and present

fair use and intellectual property

sampling and remixing in popular music

cultural production in traditional and developing societies

Web 2.0 and the "architecture of participation"

creative industries and user-generated content

parody, spoofs, and mash-ups as critical commentary

game mods and machinima

the workings of genre in different media systems

law and technological change

Short abstracts of no more than 200 words for papers or panels should be sent via email to Brad Seawell at seawell@mit.edu no later than January 5, 2007. Brad can be reached by phone at 617-253-3521. Email submissions are preferred, but abstracts can be mailed to:

Brad Seawell
MIT 14N-430
77 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139