The Association of Internet Researchers is finally having its conference in Europe, specifically in Copenhagen, next October. Deadline for abstract submissions is February 7, call for papers here

Parking Wars: the game is an advergaming for the upcoming A&E television series Parking Wars about metermaids and parking reinforcements (!) ; the game is a Facebook application to promote the show, in which you have to put cars in your friends’ streets and if the cars stay long enough they start earning money - as Ian Bogost points out, this structure really takes advantage of the social network structure, and, I might add, it adds a whole new dimension to the cross media product. When are we going to see content creation through Facebook applications? I mean, micro-content adding up to some story universe? Has it been done already?/news courtesy of Water Cooler Games

Now you can be a desk activist too: with a few clicks you can demonstrate online for human rights on the new platform released by Amnesty International. Just add your avatar to the virtual square to demonstrate your involvement. Can it really be that easy?Anyway this was just a campaign to publicize the Human Rights Day on December 10. In Dutch only./news courtesy of Adverblog

What is a “twittory”? Apparently it is a story developed by a large number of persons (in this case 140) using Twitter, each person being allowed one tweet (a maximum of 140 characters).While the concept it is all but new (did you ever play that game, “Exquisite Corpse”, literary pastime of noble origins invented by the Surrealist, where you each had to write one line of a story?) the idea of using Twitter, a social network with particular (aesthetic?) restrictions, is engaging.With regards to the “publishing” phase, The Darkness Inside will be podcast at The Podcast Network, and later turned into a machinima.Angela Thomas underscores the educational potential of such a proceeding, encouraging tutors to employ it in classes.I wonder instead about the “political” (a hundred brackets around the word) implications, if the theme of the collaborative storytelling were something real that we would like to change. It would be only a literary exercise on paper, while on social networks everything would acquire the status of a statement. Or would it?uhmmm…/news courtesy of Angela Thomas

Technorati Tags: cross media, participatory, social networks, Web 2.0

After the success of World Without Oil, a new website is addressing collective intelligence to help with environment and sustainability, thanks to the WWF together with the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and Nokia.The website is Connect2Earth, we could call it a “theme” social network, focusing on user generated content from young activists (what about the old?!) - active from February. Connect and enjoy.

A book to be printed out from contributions of MySpace users is already something completely new, but what is best about it is that the topic is, again, environment (could it be that we are all, finally, getting rightfully scared about it?). On MySpace/OurPlanet you can write your thoughts about environment, learn a lot about ecology, meet other ecologists, feel like an activist without actually being one, AND you can have your reflections, from a sentence to a paragraph, published in a book, credited to your username and geographic location.I wonder how many other books are going to be prepared this way. The pivotal “First Person”, edited by Noah Waldrup-Fruin and Pat Carrigan, I remember was born on the website of the Electronic Book, and benefitted from online comments that were included at the bottom of the pages in the printed books.In a previous post I mentioned how one of the models for future journalism is collective writing organized by a “moderator”, who will take the place of the traditional journalist; many essays and scientific writings already feature several different authors.Social networks are making young people used to express themselves in a social context, although this seems contradictory with the blog (solitary writing) being the main expression form on the internet.In this scenario, what are the odds for collective writing to become an official form of writing?/news courtesy of Angela Thomas

A couple of interesting books about democracy in digital times both published by the ECREA organization, (European Communication Research and Education Association) they (ECREA) also have an upcoming conference in Barcelona, here is the call for papersThe broad theme of this major international congress, Communication policies and culture in Europe, refers to the confluence that can be established between the media and the different interpretations of culture in Europe nowadays. This confluence refers to the globalisation effects on a diversity of spaces (multinational, national, local) with all its political implications. It moreover refers to the different mediations and interactions that configure the current European society with respect to migrations, new forms of political participation, the dialectics of identity and diversity, new cultural consumptions, etc. The broad title aims to emphasize the importance of politics and culture, but also refers to new ways of regulation and de-regulation, the technology and the management of convergence within the cultural industries the new public service remit, and the variety of communication policies that aim to guarantee cultural diversity and development in Europe.This invitation for proposals is both for individual papers and posters and for pre-organised panels, from established academics, young scholars, practitioners and postgraduate research students. Apart from the programme of panels, papers and posters established on the basis of the conference call, the conference will also include a series of plenary panels and semi-plenary sessions on topics addressing the main conference theme, such as local communication, the cooperation between Europe and Latin America, etc.I wonder if cross media usage, a main feature in all media activism and citizen participation in general, is going to appear as a topic among the final presentations..

The video and audio podcasts from Future of Entertainment 2 (MIT Comparative Media Studies and Convergence Culture Consortium) are available.Scheduled speakers include: Jesse Alexander (Heroes), Danny Bilson (The Rocketeer), Marc Davis (Yahoo!), Mark Deuze (Indiana U), Raph Koster (Areae), and Tina Wells (Buzz Marketing Group).

I am adding a new link, real wealth of information, about grassroots media productions, often bordering with media activism. It is not by chance that many of these productions or actions involve the use of different media, employ cross media storytelling or cross media distribution strategies.Their name is Produzioni Dal Basso (bottom-up productions), unfortunately only in Italian, I will try and translate all their posts regarding cross media productions.

Technorati Tags: media activism

Arden, the world of William Shakespeare, and also of Edward Castronova who conceived the online experience, has been released last week, together with Castronova’s book “Exodus to the Virtual World”.You can play it here.Various press releases highlight in turn its educational potential, the power of virtual worlds as “theme” social networks, the power of interaction and play in learning and so on. The question on how much can virtual worlds fall into the category of “gaming” is still open.At first sight Arden might fall under “adaptation” rather than transmedial storytelling, but in fact the player is engaged in creating new subplots within the storyworld, so the whole experience is truly cross media. I just started playing, will update later.A post on Terranova by Castronova says that as an experience “it’s rather boring” (it’s just a quote!) and that several of the playtesters said “Where are the monsters?”Apparently the lack of monsters were badly affecting the game experience. The answer to that was to take back Arden I and release Arden II: London’s Burning, which was initially conceived as a game.(This would answer somehow the question if virtual worlds experience can be considered as “gaming”, and the answer would be a sound “no” - more debate to follow)So, what you can see now online is Arden I, boring, apparently (I didn’t say that), but of immense interest for the academic community.