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The next session is kicked off by George Barnett. He begins by noting the move from an industrial to an information economy which has now occurred in developed nations, and the simultaneous trend towards globalisation on a number of levels. There are a number of models for globalisation: a universal model which points to homogenisation or modernisation, in a diffusion model of knowledge and culture from Europe to other regions; a clustered model with the rise of regional clusters based upon economic, political and cultural similarities; and a hegemonic model with a concentration of economic, political and cultural power in few countries competing at the top of a hierarchy (this is based on work by Hargittai and Centeno). It is also possible to analyse patterns of competition which may occur in triadic or bipolar models, or to present a view by which hegemony competition is lacking because of a new American imperialism.

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We're now moving on to the second ICA2006 conference keynote, by veteran media scholar Jürgen Habermas. Unsurprisingly, the conference plenary is packed to the rafters for this - and the presentation should also be online on the ICA site soon. In fact, I'm going to refrain from blogging this - Habermas's English and elocution isn't the best, making this presentation very difficult to follow and blog at the same time. I did take a few photos of the major slides, though, and I'll upload those as soon as I can.

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It always surprises me that even brand-new convention centres are so poorly set up for the obvious, basic needs: power supply for delegates' laptops. Luckily I've been able to burrow into the underbelly of the conference hall floor, and found a socket - so the last couple sessions won't go unblogged.

This next session deals with the question of the network society and the theories surrounding it - still a somewhat underresearched area deserving further attention. 'Network research' is likened here to 'lunch' - a broad, perhaps overly broad area which needs to be better and more narrowly defined in order to be effectively studied. Network theory and network society theory need to be further and more effectively interconnected. Jan van Dijk starts off by outlining the claims of network theory and analysis about contemporary society: there is the observation that we are moving towards a network society (where according to Castells networks are already the basic units of society - and van Dijk suggests that perhaps individuals still remain the basic units but are increasingly linked by networks). So, in a network society the social relations are gaining influence as compared to the social units they are linking. Despite their articulation all social relations remain inextricably bound up with units.

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Finally for today I'm in a session on convergence and networking which, perhaps unsurprisingly, has a strong representation of Korean and Japanese researchers. The first paper is by Euchiul Jung and is presented in absentia - it is motivated by the increasing flow of people, culture and information beyond national boundaries, and looks at ethnicity-based public spheres at local levels. Diasporic identity is a reconstructed and transformed cultural identity - a hybrid identity.

The paper found that new media technologies were helpful in keeping the members of such communities in touch with their cultures of origin, and increased the close connection between them and their home culture. Key media here were both the Internet, which allowed more access to information and culture from the culture of origin, and the mobile phone, which allowed for more mobility and flexibility. Both increased the intra-cultural communication within the diasporic community. This also led to a growth in the cultural politics of distinction, recognition, and identification, and allowed for the emergence of mediated, ethnicity-based public spheres and communication networks. The result was a transformed, hybridised cultural identity.

I'm going to be conference chair of the Association of Internet Researchers conference in Brisbane in September 2006 - and we've just posted the call for papers. Please consider submitting a paper proposal!

CALL FOR PAPERS

IR 7.0: INTERNET CONVERGENCES

International and Interdisciplinary Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers

Brisbane, Australia

28-30 September 2006
Pre-Conference Workshops: 27 September 2006

My colleagues at the Smart Internet CRC at Swinburne University have just released a major report forecasting Internet developments over the next half decade or so - not an easy task, as in Internet years even 2010 still seems an eternity from now. Looks very interesting - and I'm especially intrigued by the four 'Schools of Thought' for what the Net will be which they've identified in their research:

1. Adaptive User Environment
   (the Net of 2010 will be highly adaptive to human needs)
2. Not The Smart Internet
   (functional and low-cost solutions will lead the way)
3. Rich Media
   (rich, mobile media and media platforms will be the key drivers)
4. Chaos Rules
   (a continual state of decay and worsening disorder)

But of course this brief outline doesn't do the whole 170-page report justice. I look forward to reading the whole thing - and so can you (PDFs):

Backtracking a bit to cover some events from the last couple of weeks. That Ten News story I taped finally ran on Friday 24 June, but with all the delays and amidst other (and perhaps more urgent and timely) news stories it didn't turn out quite as well as it might have - in the end they used only a short soundbite from what had been probably five minutes' worth of material in the interview. That's the nature of these 'soft' news stories, I guess - they're ready to be chopped and changed as required when more important stories come to hand. What we had thought it would be was a more substantial piece to be promoted throughout the week, but in the end they ran only one promo for it on Thursday night. Ah well.

It's nice to see your students do well after university - and especially if they remember you. Today an ex-student of mine who now works for Channel Ten in Brisbane came by to interview me for their Friday news show. He's found some 1980s news footage about the (then) impending changes due to the rise of computers, and is putting together a kind of reality check and update of the predictions made back then.

So, I talked about the 'computers will take over our lives' scenario from back then, and how it has, and hasn't, come true by now - yes, they're almost ubiquitous in our everyday lives, but they still aren't much smarter or in control of us than they were then. The main thing that has happened, and continues to happen, is the gradual shift away from manual and menial and towards more intellectual and creative work environments which computers have enabled - with all the negatives of workforce changes and unemployment for some, and the positives of more interesting and self-determined work for others. Has the computer destroyed more jobs than it's created, or is it the other way around? Perhaps that's not the most important question, as it's unlikely that we can change or stop the trend even if we wanted to. Rather, we need to make sure that new opportunities are made available to those who are disadvantaged by the changes. (Of course, socially responsible policy is not something the Howard government has ever been interested in...)

Suddenly conferences are popping up all over the place - and I'm particularly sorry I didn't hear about this one earlier (the call for papers is closed now):

The 14th AMIC Annual Conference

"Media and Society in Asia: Transformations and Transitions"

18 - 21 July 2005, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

AMIC is the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, based in Singapore. Conference topics include:

• Role of

Well, the launch of the revamped M/C - Media and Culture with its new publication, the M/Cyclopedia of New Media, and of the latest version of the Brisbane Media Map went well last night. A good crowd, a nice event, and live music from Iron On.