call for essays: open source politics and cultural practices

mediumi 1.4 open source (please distribute)

call for proposals: open source politics and cultural practices

mediumi the Finnish web journal for media culture publishes its fifth theme number mediumi 1.4 open source in English. This call is for submissions articles, essays, reviews that address the economical or legal logic and various cultural/social politics regarding open source software. We are particularly interested in approaches that view software from the user or user group point of view, situating the software in its cultural and social context.

Open source software is often technically exclusive in its development and description. In which ways could open source become more accessible by non-programmers or non-sysadmins? What kinds of research projects, archives or meta-archives address the user end of open source?

In many ways open source economy is far from optimal, since without complimentary strategies it does not provide resources to renew, research and develop further. What kind of models can be created to maintain networked development, free non-commercial distribution yet generate sustainable economies? How to protect open source and open knowledge from becoming approprietarized (sic!), while enabling also commercial non-exclusive use?

While an increasing amount of technical knowledge is not publicly available, creating accessible software, related knowledge archives, and learning environments has become an acute political issue. What kind of policies or civil action is necessary to guarantee this? What kind of artistic or cultural interventions are taking place that address open source as not only a tool or a movement, but as a terrain for creative work?

submissions

We invite submissions in the following categories:
Article/essay 3000-4500 words
Interview/dialogue 2000-3000 words
Review of project, event, book 1500-2500 words

mediumi is a forum for researchers and practitioners of new media culture. However we also wish to have the articles accessible for wider audiences interested in new media. Please keep this in mind when submitting eg. by explaining the more advanced technical or theoretical concepts!

December 27th, 2002 - 100-150 word abstracts sent to mediumi 1.4,
guest editor, Tapio Makela, [email protected]
January 20th, 2003 - Final deadline for full texts.
The journal will be launched in February 2003.


mediumi is published by m-cult, centre for new media culture in Helsinki, Finland. mediumi forms a part of m-cult.net, information and communication server for the Nordic new media cultural scene. (English version launched in 1/03).
http://www.m-cult.net/mediumi/
[email protected]

Tapio Makela
[email protected]
mobile tel. +358-40-7223949
fax +358-40-7821771

Researcher, Department of Media Studies, University of Turku, Finland
Board member, m-cult, Finnish Association for Media Culture, http://www.m-cult.org
Programme chair, ISEA2004, http://www.isea2004.net