Heads up: Contribute to the UN's upcoming General Comment on Children's Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment

Heads up: The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has announced that they will be drafting a new General Comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment. In addition to holding consultations with children around the world, they are inviting interested parties to contribute comments on aspects of the concept note. Details are as follows. The deadline is May 15 (2019), 6 pages max.

Concept note for a General Comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment

Call for submissions

The Committee on the Rights of the Child will draft a General Comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment.  

The Committee invites all interested parties to comment on the concept note of the General Comment. Submissions are welcome on all aspects of the concept note for the General Comment, with a particular focus on the following:

• The purpose and scope of the General Comment;
• The structure of the General Comment; 
• General measures of implementation by State parties needed to realise children’s rights in relation to the digital environment; 
• Views on the issues and questions raised in the concept note; and 
• Suggestions for new issues for inclusion in the General Comment.

In particular, the Committee welcomes relevant research evidence; knowledge of the sector; findings from consultations with children; examples of laws, policies or programmes; or evidence of good practice that would contribute to the drafting process.

All submissions:

• Should be submitted in one of the official languages of the Committee - English, French or Spanish; 
• Should be in one concise document focusing explicitly on the implications of the digital environment for the realization of children’s rights and must not exceed 6 pages; 
• Should include a short statement introducing the submitting organization or individual;
• Should be submitted electronically in WORD format to the following email address: crc@ohchr.org; 
• Shall not be translated; and
• Shall be posted on the Committee’s webpage devoted to this draft General Comment.

The deadline for submissions is 15 May 2019.  No submissions received after this deadline will be considered or posted on the webpage.

In parallel, consultations with children in diverse contexts across multiple countries, as well as with experts from relevant fields, will be undertaken to ensure that their perspectives are fully reflected in the General Comment. After due consideration of all inputs provided, the Committee will prepare a first draft of the General Comment for additional consultation with relevant stakeholders.

The concept note is available.

Awesome Event Alert: MediaSmarts @ the KMDI-Semaphore Speaker Series

Kara Brisson-Boivin, the Director of Research at MediaSmarts will be presenting at the KMDI-Semaphore Speaker Series. 

When: Thursday, March 14, 2019 | 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Where: Room 417, Claude T. Bissell Building, 140 St. George Street, Toronto

This is a FREE event.  Light refreshments, coffee, tea and cookies will be served.

Please RSVP on the link below.

 https://kmdisemaphorespeakerseries-kara-brisson-boivin.eventbrite.com

Title: “Use, Understand, Create: Cultivating Digital Literacy In Young Canadians”

Abstract

As increasing numbers of businesses, services and even democratic processes migrate online, citizens who lack digital literacy skills risk being disadvantaged when it comes to accessing healthcare, government services and opportunities for employment, education and civic participation. In order to be literate in today’s media-rich environments, Canadians (especially young Canadians) need to develop knowledge, values and a whole range of critical thinking, communication and information management skills for the digital age. MediaSmarts is a Canadian not-for-profit charitable organization for digital and media literacy with a vision to ensure that children and youth have the critical thinking skills to engage with digital media as active and informed digital citizens. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of the emerging issues we see in the areas of technology, information, and society as well as MediaSmarts’ recent and upcoming projects that aim to promote digital literacy in Canada. In particular, I will discuss our community-based research framework including who our stakeholders are, how we disseminate our research, and what our research is used for and by whom.

About Our Speaker

Dr. Kara Brisson-Boivin is the Director of Research at Mediasmarts, Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy. Kara oversees all of the planning, methodology, implementation, and dissemination of key findings from original MediaSmarts’ research studies. She researches the various impacts of digital technology and digital culture on Canadians broadly and youth in particular. Kara's current research projects examine digital citizenship and the intersections of digital publics and democracy, digital well-being among families, and what life online looks like for young Canadians. Kara also holds an appointment as an Adjunct Research Professor in the Sociology Department at Carleton University. 

Details for the KMDI-Semaphore Speaker Series are posted on our website link below.

http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/events/

RESCHEDULED Awesome Event Alert: Critical Gaming Night on Super Smash Bros. Melee. NOW on Feb. 13 @4pm

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO THE MASSIVE SNOW/ICE STORM, THE EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED. IT WILL NOW BE HELD ON WEDNESDAY FEB. 13, 4PM IN BL417.

I am so happy to announce the revival of Critical Gaming Nights, a student-run initiative that has yielded many fantastic conversations and play sessions in previous years. Here are the details:

"Bonds Between Players in Competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee" 

- presented by Augusto Schmitt

In this presentation Augusto Schmitt, international Master's student from Brazil, will be talking about the competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee player subculture, and analyze it through the lens of media studies, cultural studies and communication theories. Come to talk about this community and how they have managed to withstand the test of time, build themselves into something that wasn't intended by the developers, and grow stronger than the game's successors in the franchise.

Critical Gaming Nights are an occasional series of events that combine presentations of works-in-progress by digital game researchers (students, faculty, practitioners), informal group discussions, and game play sessions. Each game night focuses on one particular game (or game-related activity), and considers how that game can be analyzed using critical theories drawn from multidisciplinary fields of study. It is sponsored by the Critical Games Lab, a part of KMDI-Semaphore. 

These events are not only for academics, but for anyone interested in games, such as game developers, players, modders or enthusiasts who want to engage with new perspectives and questions relating to the social, cultural and technical dimensions of digital games and gaming. 

This event is more of a conversation than just a traditional talk, so take this as an opportunity to discuss and engage. There will also be a setup available for everyone to play and learn about the game firsthand in the later part of evening.

The event will be held in room 417 in the InForum, on the 4th floor of Bissell Building (140 St George St) from 4PM to 9PM on February 13th, 2019 (REVISED DATE). 

Spread the News: Seeking an RA to assist with preparing a big grant application for KMDI + Semaphore

RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITION WITH KMDI + SEMAPHORE

Professor Sara Grimes, Director of the KMDI and Semaphore, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, is seeking to fill a Research Assistant position focused on preparing a literature review and assisting with a large grant application. 

The RA will assist with research and activities relating to an upcoming grant application led by the Institute, its Director and Lab Heads, which will seek to establish a sustainable model for engaging in cross-sector, responsive research aimed at improving the lives of humans within an increasingly technologized information society. 

Qualifications: 

- Previous experience with both research and grant writing
- Formal training in common qualitative social science research methods

- Excellent written/communication skills

- Excellent organizational skills (including scheduling, note - taking, categorizing digital files and
  folders, etc.)

- Ability to work both independently and as part of a team

Preference will be given to PhD students (current or recent graduates), but Master’s students are also welcome to apply if all other criteria and qualifications are met. Qualified applicants must be available to complete a majority of the work in person at the University of Toronto St. George campus. 

Responsibilities:

- Conducting a literature review that incorporates both theoretical works as well as relevant
   previous academic research in the areas requested

- Assisting in the design and coordination of workshops and meetings aimed at establishing
   common themes, goals and methodologies among project partners;

- Assisting in writing portions of the grant application(s) (LOI and full application)

- Assisting in the supervision and coordination of Master’s and undergraduate level RAs

- Assisting in coordinating, communicating and liaising with project partners (e.g. ensuring partner
   access to project documents and online components, providing timely feedback to and from
   partners on deliverables, ensuring partners are reminded of upcoming due dates, etc.)

The successful applicant will be offered an initial contract of 200-275 hours, to be completed over the course of the Winter 2019 semester (with a possibility of renewal for the Summer semester, and beyond). Salary will be commensurate with experience, projected between $35-$39/hour. 

Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted for an interview.

To apply, email a CV and cover letter to Dr. Sara Grimes at sara.grimes@utoronto.ca by January 16, 2019. Questions may be directed to Dr. Grimes or to the KMDI Administrative Coordinator, Rekha Morbia rekha.morbia@utoronto.ca

Cool Event Alert: Loot Boxes: Video Game Gambling, Paying to Win, and the Question of Game Design, Talk by Drs. Mark R. Johnson and Tom Brock

Long time no see!

I am resurfacing after a pretty long hiatus from academic/public life, which included both a yearlong sabbatical (or research leave) and a (nearly) yearlong maternity leave. Work on Kids DIY Media is in full swing, as we are nearing the end of our data collection and analysis, and getting set to finalize our project reports, and I'll have more news on that in the coming months, along with some additional exciting announcements about the status of my book, courses, etc.

In the meantime, however, I'm so happy to be involved in this upcoming talk, hosted by Semaphore,  the Jackman Humanities Institute, and Gambling Research Exchange Ontario, which is happening on June 19th, 2018, 3-5pm, and will delve into some extremely key issues relating to pay-to-play models found in an increasing number of digital games. All of the details are below, and can also be found on the Eventbrite page for the event. I hope to see many of you there!

Loot Boxes: 

Video Game Gambling, Paying to Win, and the Question of Game Design

A Research Talk by

Dr. Mark R. Johnson (University of Alberta) and
Dr. Tom Brock (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Sponsored by the Semaphore Lab, Jackman Humanities Institute, and the
Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO) 

This talk is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
Attendees are invited to join the speakers and organizers at a local pub after the Q&A.

Abstract:  A 'loot box' is a consumable virtual item purchased and redeemed within a video game to receive a random selection of virtual items. In the last eighteen months, their implementation in many major and independent titles has led to extensive controversy. For example, in April 2018, gambling authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands declared that loot boxes risk creating a new generation of problem gamblers, whilst China, the UK, US and Canada have expressed concern over whether that loot boxes lower the threshold of gambling by integrating 'games of chance' into otherwise skill-based gaming experiences. Despite public and policy outcry, research has not engaged with those who actually design and develop these systems: the voices of designers are missing from the debate. In this talk, Drs. Johnson and Brock will outline their present research program into this phenomenon, which is believed to be the first project to interview industry actors on loot boxes within video games development and integrate these voices into local, national and international debates about the regulation and funding of games development. They will outline their main research questions, interview data and findings to date, and potential directions for further investigation into loot box implementation, effects, and impacts on both policy and regulation, and video game players themselves.

Speaker Bios: 

Dr. Mark R Johnson is a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on the intersections between play and money, such as eSports, live streaming, fantasy sports betting, gamification, and loot boxes. He has published in academic journals including Information, Communication and Society, The Sociological Review, Convergence, and Games and Culture, and his first book, The Unpredictability of Gameplay, is due out in late 2018 from Bloomsbury Academic. Beyond academia he is also an independent game developer and a former professional poker player.

Dr. Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research interests include video games, social theory, digital cultures and political protest. Tom currently co-convenes the BSA Realism and Social Research Group and steers the BSA Theory Group. He is an Associate at the Centre for Social Ontology at the University of Warwick and is also the co-author of the edited book, Structure, Culture, Agency: Selected Paper of Margaret Archer (Routledge).

CFP Alert: Special issue of Information and Learning Science on "Youth and Computational Thinking"

The Journal of Information and Learning Sciences is currently undergoing a major revamp, and in this vein has a number of super exciting special issues coming up. Here is the CFP, cut and paste from the journal website, for an upcoming issue on youth, computational thinking and digital/computer literacy movements. The deadline is coming up soon (May 14).

*************
Learning to Code, Coding to Learn: Youth and Computational Thinking
Special issue call for papers from Information and Learning Sciences

A special issue of Information and Learning Sciences

Professor Jeannette Wing's provocative and influential article entitled "Computational Thinking" appeared in the March 2006 issue of Communications of the ACM; in the twelve years since, educators, computer scientists, policy makers, and technologists have been working to define this conceptual space, measure it, and assess the role that computer science can and should play in the education of young people. While Wing is by no means the first person to notice that computer science can play an important role in developing problem solving capacities in youth across the curriculum (see: Papert, 1980; Clements and Gullo, 1984; Harel and Papert, 1990; diSessa, 2001, to name just a few), her call to arms fueled increasing research attention and policy interest (e.g. Aho, 2012; Cooper and Cunningham, 2010; Guzdial, 2008; Wing, 2008).

Since that time, the Computer Science Education (CSE) movement has gained considerable momentum, led by a coalition of scholars, non-profits, and industry partners. Coding interfaces such as MIT's Scratch platform, Gamestar Mechanic, Kodu, and a host of others (Anton and Berland, 2014; Resnick, Maloney, Monroy-Hernandez, et al., 2009) have opened new possibilities for youth to develop their own interactive games.  The “Computer Science for All” Initiative begun during the Obama Administration suggests that the United States is not far behind France, the UK, and other nations in mandating coding for children beginning in the elementary grades. Programs and initiatives in the US context that contribute to these efforts include Code.org, Hour of Code, and the work of organizations including BlackGirlsCode, GirlsWhoCode, iRemix, Code Savvy, Globaloria, KidsCodeJeunesse, and others.

Scholars in formal and informal learning have been working to make computer programming more accessible to young people. According to a recent survey, coding is already a part of the formal curriculum of 16 countries in Europe (Balanskat & Engelhardt, 2014). Curricula in game design, such as those developed by Constructionist scholars and instructional design experts Yasmin Kafai, Idit Harel and their colleagues (e.g., Kafai, Peppler and Chapman, 2009; Fields, Searle, Kafai et al, 2012; Reynolds & Harel, 2011; Reynolds, 2016) have engaged thousands of young people across several US states in formal, intensive in-school introductory CS education coursework. Public and school libraries also present a context and opportunity to engage children in playful introductions to coding through drop-in making activities (Martin, 2015; Prato, 2017).

These initiatives, and the growing base of research evidence, offer support that the incorporation of computer science concepts in learning programs is an idea whose time has come. Computational Thinking, or CT, can be defined as "the process of recognising aspects of computation in the world that surrounds us, and applying tools and techniques from Computer Science to understand and reason about both natural and artificial systems and processes" (Royal Society, 2012 p. 29). We argue in this call for our special issue that Computational Thinking is a generative space residing between the learning sciences and information sciences, drawing on concepts of cognition and development (e.g., motivation, self-regulation), the system sciences (e.g., algorithmic representation, design of data structures), and areas of shared or interdisciplinary concern and interest (e.g., digital literacy, problem solving).

The guest editors are seeking high-quality, innovative articles to address conceptual, empirical, and theoretical issues in the broad area of computational thinking and youth: the who, what, where and why of learning to code. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
•    Critical, conceptual, epistemic explorations of code and coding
•    Relationship between computational thinking and literacy or literacies
•    Informal spaces for coding education, including libraries, museums, maker spaces
•    Design and architecture of learning platforms for coding
•    Innovative coding curriculum and pedagogy
•    Emergent and designed communities for learning computing skills and concepts
•    Learner assessment approaches and techniques
•    Effect of coding instruction on youth skills and behaviours
•    Equity, gender, status and identity issues in coding and computation environments


GUEST EDITORS:
Eric Meyers, University of British Columbia
eric.meyers@ubc.ca

Hong Huang, University of South Florida
honghuang@usf.edu

Submissions should comply with the journal author guidelines that are here. Submissions should be made through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system. Registration and access is available at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ils


DEADLINES
Initial submission due: 14 May 2018
First round decisions made: 30 July 2018
Revised manuscripts due: 10 September 2018
Final decisions made: 15 October 2018
Anticipated publication date:  Issue 2, March/April 2019

REFERENCES

• Aho, A. V. (2012). Computation and computational thinking. The Computer Journal, 55(7), 832–835.
• Anton, G., & Berland, M. (2014). Studio K: a game development environment designed for gains in computational thinking (abstract only). In Proceedings of the 45rd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. New York: ACM Press.
• Barr, V., & Stephenson, C. (2011). Bringing computational thinking to K-12: What is involved and what is the role of the computer science education community? ACM Inroads, 2(1), 48–54.
• Berland, M., & Lee, V. R. (2011). Collaborative strategic board games as a site for distributed computational thinking. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 1(2), 65.
• Clements, D. H., & Gullo, D. F. (1984). Effects of computer programming on young children’s cognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(6), 1051–1058.
• Cooper, S., & Cunningham, S. (2010). Teaching computer science in context. ACM Inroads, 1(1), 5–8.
• diSessa, A. A. (2001). Changing minds: Computers, learning and literacy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
• Fields, D. A., Searle, K. A., Kafai, Y. B., & Min, H. S. (2012). Debuggems to assess student learning in e-textiles. In Proceedings of the 43rd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. New York: ACM Press.
• Guzdial, M. (2008). Education: Paving the way for computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 51(8), 25–27.
• Harel, I., & Papert, S. (1990). Software design as a learning environment. Interactive Learning Environments, 1(1), 1–32.
• Kafai, Y. B, Peppler, K. A, & Chapman, R. N. (2009). The Computer Clubhouse: Constructionism and creativity in youth communities. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Martin, C. (2015). Connected learning, libraries, and connecting youth interest. Journal of Research on Young Adults and Libraries. http://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/2015/03/ connected-learning-librarians-and-connecting-youth-interest/
• Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: Basic Books.
• Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernández, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., Silverman, B. (2009). Scratch: programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60–67.
• Reynolds, R., & Harel Caperton, I. (2011). Contrasts in student engagement, meaning-making, dislikes, and challenges in a discovery-based program of game design learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 59(2), 267-289.
• Reynolds, R. (2016).  Relationships among tasks, collaborative inquiry processes, inquiry resolutions, and knowledge outcomes in adolescents during guided discovery-based game design in school. Journal of Information Science: Special Issue on Searching as Learning. 42(1), 35-58.
• Royal Society (2012). Shut down or restart: The way forward for computing in UK schools. http://royalsociety.org/education/policy/computing-in-schools/report/
• Prato, S. C. (2017). Beyond the computer age: A best practices intro for implementing library coding programs. Children & Libraries, 15(1), 19-21.
• Wing, J. M. (2008). Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1881), 3717–3725.

Heads up: TIFF Kids Industry Forum (+ Film Festival) Coming Soon!

Hi All - It's nearly time for this year's TIFF Kids Film Festival. As always, this year's festival includes a number of digital media and games-related attractions, foremost among which is the DigiPlaySpace and AppArcade. Here's the promo text for the festival's associated Industry Forum, which includes presentations, workshops and a number of fun networking events. Please distribute far and wide. Hope to see some of you there. 

***************
Registration is now open for the 2017 TIFF Kids International Film Festival and Industry Forum. Passes offer exclusive access to Festival screenings, our two-day professional development Industry Forum, networking opportunities, workshops, roundtable discussions and our award-winning digiPlaySpace. We have two pass types available to help you customize your Festival experience.

Find out more about our pass benefits and how to register here: http://tiff.net/industry

At our upcoming TIFF Kids Industry Forum, hear talks by representatives from Amazon Studios, eOne, Québecor Contenu, Sinking Ship Entertainment, SoulPancake Productions, Telefilm Canada, and TVO!

Highlights include:
• A special edition of Breakfast at TIFF exploring the landscape of theatrical features produced in Canada
• Sesame Workshop discusses their research methodology and production practices
• An examination into the complex world of viral sensations, online influencers, and youth activists

Speakers will be announced on March 20, along with the full lineup on April 1!

Connected Creations and Wi-Fi Enabled Imaginations (Presentation Slides)

Last month, I had the immense pleasure of giving the keynote talk at the Digital Literacy and Multimodal Practices of Young Children (DigiLitEY) DigiLitEy Conference, a COST Project Meeting, which was held in Prague, Czech Republic. I know that the slides will soon be shared on the organization's website, but I also wanted to post them here so that they might reach a broader audience. See below (and/or on Slideshare). Thanks again to Jackie Marsh for inviting me, and for introducing me to this amazing association of early childhood researchers.

Connected Creations and Wi-Fi Enabled Imaginations: The emerging challenges and opportunities of digital play technologies for young children from Sara Grimes

Cool Conference/CFP Alert: Children's Media and Texts in a Mediatized World

Cut and paste from the original CFP, circulated this week on the Exploring Childhood Studies mailing list. Note: Deadline for 200 word abstracts is Dec. 1, 2016.

Call for Papers:
Children's Media and Texts in a Mediatized World

Conference at Aarhus University, Centre for Children's Literature
30 May – 1 June 2017

Children and young people live in a mediatized world in which literature, other visual and verbal texts, media and platforms converge and coalesce. Established notions of producers and users, target groups, genres and literary forms and experiences are thereby challenged.

Users and readers are ascribed with new forms of agency, while at the same time children confront an increased commercialization and demands for standardized schooling and academic achievements.

At this conference we wish to examine these challenges, bringing together scholars from children's literature studies, media studies and adjoining fields. For instance, children’s literature, in its many manifestations, must be seen as tightly interwoven with the broad spectre media cultures in which children and young people engage. 

Children’s literature and media must be understood in the light of contemporary developments, which enable new, cross-media publishing forms, as well as new modes of interaction and engagement between writers and readers, users and producers. Children and young people are in many cases producers and co-producers of media content themselves, and they often seem to cross traditional borders between digital and analogue media and texts in their everyday practices. 

These developments bring about analytical, theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges which will be addressed at this conference.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Children’s and young people's everyday life with (digital) media
• Children's literature in a new media landscape
• Children and young people as consumers and producers of texts and media
• Children's media and texts in family life and schools

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Rebekah Willett, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Ute Dettmar, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt
• Björn Sjöblom, Stockholms Universitet
• Philip Nel, Kansas State University

Deadline for abstracts (max. 300 words) and a 100-word biography: 1 December 2016
to Sarah Mygind, smyg@cc.au.dk

Notification of acceptance: 15 December

Conference organizers: Nina Christensen (nc@cc.au.dk) and Stine Liv Johansen (stineliv@cc.au.dk)

Please spread the word - we're looking for creative kids to participate in our study (Summer, 2016)

Penguins, Hype and MMOGs for Kids: Online First in Games and Culture Journal

I am very happy to announce the publication of my latest article, entitled "Penguins, Hype, and MMOGs for Kids: A Critical Reexamination of the 2008 “Boom” in Children’s Virtual Worlds Development," in Games and Culture Journal (now available via Online First, print issue forthcoming). The article revisits and reanalyzes some of the data that I collected for my dissertation research on children's MMOGs. Here's the abstract:

According to various media and academic sources, the virtual worlds landscape underwent a profound transformation in 2008, with the arrival of numerous new titles designed and targeted specifically to young children. Although a growing body of research has explored some of the titles involved in this shift, little remains known of its overall scope and contents. This article provides a mapping of the initial “boom” in children’s virtual worlds development and identifies a number of significant patterns within the ensuing children’s virtual worlds landscape. The argument is made that while the reported boom in children’s virtual worlds has been exaggerated, a number of important shifts for online gaming culture did unfold during this period, some of which challenge accepted definitions of “virtual world” and “multiplayer online game.” The implications of these findings are discussed in light of contemporary developments and trends within children’s digital culture and within online gaming more broadly.

You can check out the article on the journal website, and/or access it through various library databases. Warning: A journal subscription is indeed required in order to access the full article.

Grimes and Feenberg Workshop: Rationalizing Play, March 1st at the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology

Workshop: Rationalizing Play: A Critical Theory of Digital Gaming

Tuesday March 1 6:00 - 9:00 PM
SARA GRIMES Faculty of Information (iSchool), University of Toronto
Special guest Andrew Feenberg, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University

McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology
39A Queens Park Crescent E. – Parking available off 121 St. Joseph St. Toronto

In this workshop we will present and discuss a new framework for the study of games as sites of social rationalization based on Feenberg’s critical theory of technology. We will begin by making the case for a consideration of games (non-digital and digital) as systems of social rationality, akin to other modern systems such as capitalist markets and bureaucratic organizations. We will then present a conceptualization of play as a process through which the player focuses attention away from the undifferentiated action of everyday life toward a differentiated sphere of playful activity. This approach reveals how the experience of play changes as it becomes rationalized through the technological mediation, specifically computerization, and widespread standardization that occurs as games become largescale social practices. We will review our theory of the rationalization of play, ludification (Grimes & Feenberg, 2009), and outline the key components or processes found in socially rationalized games. Workshop participants will be invited to discuss different applications of ludification as an analytic framework, explore with us its limitations, as well as consider alternate or oppositional tendencies found within digital game technologies and culture.

This workshop is open to all within and outside academia. You are encouraged to register online:https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/workshop-rationalizing-play-a-critical-theory-of-digital-gaming-tickets-20422858319

Updated March 4: Here are my slides from Tuesday's workshop:

Hey, I forgot to mention...our book is out!!!

Edited by wonderful Miriam Forman-Brunell and Rebecca Hains, Princess Cultures: Mediating Girls Imaginations and Identities provides a comprehensive, nuanced and cutting edge look at the various facets, functions and incarnations of "princess culture" within contemporary girlhood. I feel extremely honoured to have a chapter included in this compilation, entitled "Rescue the Princess: The Videogame Princess as Prize, Parody, and Protagonist," which examines some of the key princesses archetypes found in video games.  The book is part of Peter Lang's Mediated Youth series, edited by Sharon R. Mozzarella, and is available in most book stores, as well as from the publisher website.

Reminder: Freedom to Read Week Starts this Sunday (Feb. 21-27)

Freedom to Read Week (Canada's version of Banned Books Week) runs from February 21st to 27th this year. As usual, the official site is a great resource for both finding out more and for accessing various free materials, kits and fact sheets that you can share with your students, friends, family and community groups. This year's kit contains some particularly great articles, including one by Nicole Brewer on who gets to decide what kids and teens read, as well as one by Donald Lynch exploring the freedom to read versus political correctness.

You can also check out the most recent list of the most frequently challenged books in Canada, combining results from the past 5 years, and the more comprehensive Challenged Works List. It's both illuminating/infuriating and a great place to find out about controversial books you might want to read during Freedom to Read Week (it's always fun to read a challenged book in defiance/solidarity/celebration), and beyond. This year, I'm going to check out the award winning Bone Dog by Eric Rohmann, and Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka & Mac Barnett (Illustrated by Matt Myers).

The Critical Gaming Series presents: The Game Gathering, Dec. 10, 4-6pm

CFP Alert: 2016 Conference on Childhood Studies in Turku, Finland

The 1st call for papers for next year's Conference on Childhood Studies is now live. Cut and paste here (from the original announcement sent out to the childhoods-net email list):

The VII CONFERENCE ON CHILDHOOD STUDIES: 

Childhood in Everyday Life

 6-8 June 2016 Turku, Finland 

The international conference on childhood studies (http://www.childhood2016.fi) is a multidisciplinary forum for research on children and childhood. The event is organized by the Finnish Society for Childhood Studies and the Child and Youth Research Institute CYRI on 6th- 8th June 2016 in the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, Finland. 

The theme of the seventh conference is Childhood in Everyday Life. The keynote speakers are: - 

• Professor Emeritus Jonathan Bradshaw (University of York, UK) - 

• Professor Anja Huizink (VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - 

• Professor Simo Vehmas (University of Helsinki, Finland) - ] 

• Associate Professor Patrick Ryan (King's College, Western University, Canada) 

The conference offers possibilities for an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas for researchers who work with children or child related issues. We welcome papers that relate to the main theme Childhood in Everyday Life from different viewpoints. These abstract topics include but are not limited to: equality and inequality well-being and health food and eating play, sports and leisure time social relations consumption and market economy upbringing and education protection and safety mobility and segregation class, ethnicity and culture change and continuity history and future technology media disability diversity special childhoods or special needs some other viewpoint. 

A proposal can be submitted for individual paper presentation, poster presentation, self-organised symposium or workshop. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 31st January 2016. For more information and detailed guidelines, please see http://www.childhood2016.fi/  

For further information, see: www.childhood2016.fi/ 

Inquiries: child2016@utu.fi  

Find us also in twitter: www.twitter.com/childhood2016

CFP Alert: Red Feather Journal

Just saw this CFP on the Exploring Childhood Studies mailing list and wanted to pass it on. The deadline is coming up pretty soon, but the scope is fairly broad. I've been meaning to submit something to this journal for ages now - I really like its style and format, and have enjoyed a number of its issues and articles over the years. Here's a copy+paste of the announcement sent out today:

CFP:  Children in Popular Culture

Red Feather Journal (www.redfeatherjournal.org), an online, peer-reviewed, international and interdisciplinary journal of children in popular culture. 
Red Feather Journal seeks well-written, critical articles for the Fall 2015 issue (deadline October 31, 2015) on any aspect of the child in popular culture.  Some suggested topics include: children in film, television, the Internet; children in popular literature or art; the child in gaming, cosplay, cons, or fan cultures; children and social media; childhood geography or material culture; or any other aspect of the child in popular culture.  

Red Feather Journal welcomes international submissions.

Submissions to Red Feather Journal are accepted on a rolling basis. Red Feather Journal is published twice a year, in Spring and Fall, and adheres to the MLA citation system. Authors are welcome to submit articles in other citations systems, with the understanding that, upon acceptance, conversion to MLA is a condition of publication. Red Feather Journal is indexed through EBSCO host and MLA bibliography.

Interested contributors please submit the article, an abstract, and a brief biography (with full contact information) as attachments in Word to debbieo@okstate.edu 

Deadline for submissions for the Fall 2015 issue is October 31, 2015.

iSchool Colloquia Series Launches THIS Thursday

Not related to kids' digital media in any (real) way, but related to my work since I'm co-charing this year's iSchool Colloquia Series...please spread the word far and wide that there's a cool talk about McLuhan happening at the iSchool this Thursday (and yes, that's right - I said "cool" and "McLuhan" in the same sentence but am NOT going to make a clever pun about hot versus cool media. So there). Here are the details:

iSchool Colloquia Series: 

Unfinished McLuhan: 

Failures, Unfinished Projects and the Art of Kintsugi 

 Please join us as guest speaker Andrew Chrystall, Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing at Massey University, New Zealand and current McLuhan Fellow (The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the Coach House Institute) launches this year's iSchool Colloquia Series, with his talk "Unfinished McLuhan: Failures, Unfinished Projects and the Art of Kintsugi.”

Abstract: Would we think more of Milton if his masterpiece was incomplete? What about McLuhan? What if all we had were fragments? Broken (or double) perspective is a way of involving an audience in the action and providing an inclusive vision. Here, this presentation seeks to do precisely this by offering a retrospective of McLuhan's failures and incomplete projects—his musicals, plays, films, TV projects, political manoeuvres, and unpublished works—through the lens of archival fragments. The goal is to nuance and contribute to an evolving portrait of McLuhan, to open up spaces for future explorations of unsafe ideas, and enable (if not also motivate) us to walk beyond yet beside him.

Biography: Dr Andrew Chrystall is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing at Massey University, New Zealand. His research seeks to develop and extend the work of Marshall McLuhan and the Toronto School of Communication. In addition to his primary discipline(s)—Media and Communication Studies—Dr. Chrystall has a background in Public Relations, Sociology and Theology. Dr Chrystall also likes surfing, playing judo and is an underwhelming jazz guitarist.

Light refreshments will be provided. All iSchool Colloquia talks are free and open to the public.

Date: Thursday, September 24, 2015 - 16:00 to 18:00 Location: 140 St. George St, Rm. 538

Source URL: http://www.ischool.utoronto.ca/content/ischool-colloquia-series-unfinished-mcluhan-failures-unfinished-projects-and-art-kintsugi

Awesome Event Alert: The Hand Eye Society Ball (A Fancy Videogame Party)

CFP Alert: Children’s and young people’s rights in the digital age

Copy+Pasted from the Exploring Childhood Studies mailing list:

Children’s and young people’s rights in the digital age

Call for papers for a special issue of NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY

Editors: Sonia Livingstone and Amanda Third

Abstracts due (400-500 words): 15th September 2015

In 1989, Sir Tim Berners Lee released the code that would form the foundation of the World Wide Web, which now boasts an audience of three billion users worldwide. The same year, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the history of the UN. The trajectories thereby set in motion have recently become explicitly intertwined, with growing momentum behind calls for the recognition of the potential of online and networked media for promoting children’s rights. At the same time, researchers, child rights’ advocates and internet governance experts, among others, are concerned that children’s rights are being newly infringed rather than enhanced in the digital age.

While the past quarter of a century has seen the emergence of a significant literature examining the broad issue of children’s rights and, in parallel, a burgeoning field of research on children’s new media and digital practices in a variety of national and international contexts, the question of children’s rights in the digital age has yet to receive sustained scholarly attention, especially compared with the attention paid to adult rights online. Within popular discourse, children and young people are frequently configured as riding at the forefront of the ‘digital revolution’. Nonetheless, as high level debates about global internet provision and governance extend their geographic, political and economic scope, the position of children and young people is barely acknowledged. Further, in the twists and turns of often heated policy debates, children’s own experiences, voices and interests are vastly under-considered. This special issue thus seeks to contribute to the definition, empirical evidence base, and theorisation of the field internationally.

Not only are children’s needs and experiences in the digital age often treated as merely a minority interest but they are also often seen as essentially problematic, as demanding exceptional treatment from adult society or causing unwarranted restrictions on adult freedoms. It is important to recognise the fundamental nature of the challenges – this is not just a matter of ‘digital rights’ but of all children’s rights as they may be being transformed in a ‘digital age’. Nor is it just a matter of the exceptional circumstances that apply to children, for addressing the rights of children and young people also has implications for adult rights in a digital age. How does a consideration of children compel a wider re-examination of the concepts both of the digital and of human rights?

If children’s rights in the digital age have yet to receive attention in the global North, this is even more acute in the global South. The tipping point has already passed, with two thirds of the world’s nearly three billion internet users living in developing countries, many of them children. At present, the evidence regarding their online activities is very patchy, too often drawing on anecdote, practitioners’ observations and institutional reports or media accounts. There is thus an urgent need for a scholarly focus on the rights of children and young people within this larger picture of expanding connectivity in the global South. This is vital to foster debates about children’s rights informed by dialogues among diverse epistemologies, experiences and normative frameworks.

This special issue seeks to unpack the ways digital media are impacting – both positively and negatively – children’s rights today and, in doing so, to reflect on the ways that children’s rights might provide a meaningful counterpoint from which to consider the role of ‘the digital’ in advancing human rights more broadly. Assembling contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in the field internationally, this special issue seeks to bring fully into view the ways in which children’s rights – indeed rights generally – may be being reconfigured by the appropriation of digital networked technologies around the world. Submissions will critically examine the normative and socio-technological assumptions embedded in conceptual, policy and practitioner perspectives. To catalyse the debates, we now call for reflective papers of 6000-7000 words analysing key dilemmas or tensions shaping children’s rights in the digital age, as well as shorter empirical or practitioner pieces (3000-4000 words each).

Papers on key dilemmas or tensions that respondents to the call might address include:

• The tension between universal or fundamental human rights and the specific rights demanded by the digital age
• The tensions between ‘adult rights’ and ‘children’s rights’
• The relationship between children’s rights and their citizenship
• Collective rights versus individual rights
• The tension between ‘adult power’ and ‘children’s rights’
• The tension between the universal (‘the child’, ‘rights’) and the specific (the lived experiences of children)
• Hierarchies of children’s rights in the digital age
• Children’s rights in the digital age in the global North and global South 

Empirical or practitioner pieces might address:

• Children’s privacy rights and the role of peers and peer culture
• Youth participation rights in the mediated public sphere
• Historical shifts in children’s communication rights
• Child protection in the global South: is the internet helping or hindering?
• From principles to practice: applying arguments about digital rights in particular domains
• Who is (or should be) ensuring children’s rights online – parents, government, industry?
• Children’s creative workarounds to gain health resources online
• Evaluating initiatives for e-learning and other digital educational programmes
• How are children’s rights represented or abused in ‘big data’
• Digital exclusion as a barrier to children’s communication rights
• Rethinking possibilities for children’s identity and expression in the network society
• Problems of reputation for networked youth
• Public policy /multi-stakeholder governance regarding children’s rights in the digital age
• Children’s information rights: what are the dilemmas?
• Education for all – newly possible in the network society?
• Grooming, hacking, cyberstalking, trolling and other crimes against children online
• Meanings/limits of “voice” in participatory research on children’s rights in the digital age
• The intergenerational dimensions of children’s rights

Please submit abstracts for either the ‘dilemma’ papers or ‘empirical/practitioner papers’ by 15th September 2015 to both editors – Sonia Livingstone (s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk) and Amanda Third (A.Third@uws.edu.au).

The editors will invite full papers from selected submissions by early October, with full papers to be submitted for independent review by 1^st February 2016. It is anticipated that the special issue will be published via Online First by late 2016.