1. YeungNam University WCU Project
Lecture & Workshop Series
WCU Project Website at YeungNam University
National WCU Website
YeungNam WCU Project Blog
Tentative Schedule
21-24 September 2009
Schedule, Topics & Abstracts
This document provides an overview of lectures and workshops planned during September 2009 that are part of
the WCU YeungNam University Project. Consult the YeungNamWCU Project Blog for updates or contact the
coordinators of the series at: wcuatyeungnam@gmail.com.
21 September 2009 (13:00-14:20)
Workshop: Mapping Political objects across the Web 2.0
Presenter: Prof. Greg Elmer, Associate Professor of WCU YeungNam University,
Director of Infoscape New Media Lab, Ryerson University, Toronto
Location : 101, Human knowledge Hall, YeungNam University
Abstract:
This paper provides the building blocks for an object-oriented method of studying online politics, particularly in
the so-called 2.0 sphere. The paper argues that networked politics, in particular campaigns deployed by
political parties and third parties during elections, span across various 2.0 platforms (e.g., Facebook, blogs,
Twitter, Youtube). An understanding of networked politics thus requires new methods to track and analyze the
possibilities and limitations of cross platform political campaigns. The paper details the emergence of new
forms of ID and programmable user interfaces (API) that facilitate research into online forms of politics.
*****
21 September 2009 (15:00-17:00)
Lecture: Social Science Research Practice in the Digital Age
Open to university-wide community: undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members
Presenter: Nicholas W. Jankowski, Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS),
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Respondents:
• Prof. Greg Elmer, Ryerson University, (Toronto) School of Radio TV Arts, Director of Infoscape New
Media Lab
• Prof. Maurice Vergeer, Associate professor, teaching and research position, Dept. of Social Science,
Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• Dr. DongSung Han, Dept. of Humanities and Social Research, National Research Foundation of Korea
• Dr. Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki: Center for International and Comparative Approaches to Japan Studies
Graduate School
Location: Chunma-Art Center (Chamber Hall), YeungNam University
Abstract:
No less than a revolutionary transformation of the scientific enterprise is claimed to be underway. This transformation
extends beyond the natural sciences, where ‘e-science’ has become the modus operandi, and is penetrating the domain of the
social sciences and humanities, sometimes with differences in accent and label. A plethora of phrases have been coined to
describe this transformation: e-science, e-social science, e-research, cyberinfrastructure, cyberscience, Internet-mediated
research. Some observers suggest that the very essence of scholarship is changing, particularly through employment of
electronic networks and high-speed computers – two of the conventionally noted components of e-science. The everyday
procedures and practices of traditional forms of scholarship are said to be affected by these and other features of e-science.
Especially affected are the following aspects: internationally-oriented collaboration among researchers separated by
distance and using high-speed computers and Internet-based tools for managing the research enterprise; for performing
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2. data collection, archiving and analysis; and for disseminating findings. This presentation reviews these developments, and
accentuates changes in scholarly communication and publishing. The presentation draws from materials prepared for and
discussions held during the 5th International Conference on e-Social Science; see the VKS e-Research Wiki for further
information.
*****
22 September 2009 (13:00-15:00)
Workshop: Practical Considerations in Scholarly Publishing: Reflections from a Journal Editor
Open to non-WCU members; intended audience: graduate students & junior faculty members;
maximum 20 persons
Location: Law School Seminar Room, YeungNam University
Facilitator: Nicholas Jankowski, VKS
Abstract:
Myriad considerations play a role in preparing a scholarly journal article for publication: To what journal should the work
be submitted, how should the editor be approached, what procedures should be followed in preparing a manuscript for
submission, what form of peer review is followed and how does decision-making regarding publication transpire? In this
workshop the co-editor of New Media & Society outlines the procedures followed by this core journal in the area of new
media studies and draws on more than a decade of processing submissions to this and other journals. Attendees to this
workshop will be given a packet of reading materials regarding submitting manuscripts to academic journals; these will
constitute the basis for this interactive-style workshop. Given the intensity and interactive style, attendance will be limited to
20 persons.
*****
22 September 2009 (16:00-18:00)
Workshop: Social Media in Korea
Open to non-WCU members; intended audience: advanced undergraduate and graduate students;
maximum 20 persons
Location: Law School Seminar Room, YeungNam University
Facilitator: Nicholas Jankowski, VKS
Abstract:
This workshop is held in “master class style” and involves discussion among advanced undergraduate and graduate
students interested in the study of social network sites and other social media. The two-hour seminar will begin with a
relatively short presentation (ca. 20 minutes) by the WCU project visiting scholar (Jankowski). The presentation will be
based on a draft chapter for a forthcoming textbook on digital media. Participants in this master class will be expected to
read the draft text prior to the meeting and submit commentary on the work. Additional preliminary readings will be
assigned related to social network sites and other social media. Most of the seminar will be devoted to discussion of these
texts and to reflection on the meaning of social media for Korean youth and possibilities for empirical research.
*****
23 September 2009 (13:00-15:00)
Lecture: e-Scholarship: Communicating and Publishing in Networked Environments
Open to non-WCU members; intended audience: graduate students & junior faculty members
Location: The 2nd Human Knowledge hall at Yeungnam University
Presenter: Nicholas Jankowski, VKS
Abstract:
Traditional venues for scholarly publishing are rapidly changing: established journals are moving online, online only open
access journals are proliferating, alternatives to ISI Impact Factor metrics are being developed, publishers are
experimenting with multimedia components, pre-print archives are being established by institutions, and data repositories
are achieving the status of publications. These and other issues in the area of scholarly communication and publication are
much in flux although the rate and degree of change varies considerably between disciplines and scholarly cultures. This
presentation reflects on these transformations, placing them in both an historical and theoretical context, and examines them
from a broad range of materials that generally accentuate concerns related to development of a Web presence by authors
and publishers, and incorporation of Web 2.0 venues for scholarly communication. This presentation draws on a keynote
contributed to the recently held conference of the Association of Learned and Professional Society of Publishers.
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3. *****
23 September 2009 (16:00-17:30)
Lecture: Public Sphere, Information literacy and the New Media
Open to the university-wide community including undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members
Location: Law School Seminar Room at YeungNam University
Presenter: Prof. Jeong-Hoon Lee
Abstract:
Since the introduction of the new media, communication study strives to improve the understanding of the technical
characteristics and social impacts of the new media. The new media, usually known as the Internet, are based on different
production and delivery systems than those of traditional mass media. Many communication scholars have focused on the
changes in the dynamics among various media, or the qualitative and quantitative changes of information due to a new
method of communication. However, the new communication has not created new political communication, which features
open political discussion in the public sphere and collective intelligence based on political discussion. Consideration of how
much the technical potentials have been realized should precede the evaluation of the current political communication.
However, it is still uncertain that the simple increase of diverse information would establish a public sphere and active
collective intelligence. In order to achieve a new form of political communication, it is essential for people to be capable of
selecting the useful information from 'sea of information' and making reasonable conclusions based on the information.
Taking notice of personal ability could suggest directions for communication education and for the social function of
communication study. 'Information literacy' represents a necessary ability for people living in information age. Historically,
a new literacy concept, an art to understand and produce information, has been suggested whenever a new information
method is introduced. When printing media was a primary communication method, the literacy mean how much people
understand the written text and the concept media literacy extends the old literacy when mass media was established,
combined text media with visual media. Information literacy is the concept about the comprehension and management of
information from diverse types of communication platforms. The adoption of this concept provides a useful tool for
understanding the new media politically and socially.
*****
24 September (13.00-15.00)
Lecture: e-Research: Challenges & Opportunities for the Social Sciences & Humanities
Open to the university-wide community including undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members
Location: to be announced; at YeungNam University
Presenter: Nicholas Jankowski, VKS
Abstract:
What is ‘e-research’ and what is its relation to the kindred notions ‘e-science’ and ‘cyberinfrastructure’; how do these
notions relate to the social sciences and humanities? What are fruitful theoretical perspectives for understanding the
apparent 'revolution' underway across the entire spectrum of scholarship? What empirical orientations and research
questions especially merit attention? What challenges do scholars and institutions face as they adopt e-research tools and
resources? These are some of the myriad questions being posed at scholarly events across North American, Europe, and
Australasia, and being considered in a range of recent publications. This presentation sketches some of the concerns
regarding the ongoing transformation of scholarly practice in the social sciences and humanities, with emphasis on policy
considerations. The presentation draws from a recently published volume e-Research: Transformation in Scholarly Practice,
edited by Jankowski, and a range of seminars and workshops that he has facilitated; see overview at VKS e-Research Wiki.
WCU Project overview
The World Class University project is a higher education subsidy program of the Korean government, which invites
international scholars who possess advanced research capacities to collaborate with Korean faculty members and establish
new academic programs in key growth-generating fields. With a vision to enhance the competence of Korean universities
and nurture high-quality human resources, the WCU project seeks to achieve the two following goals: Enhance national,
higher educational and industrial competitiveness in inter-disciplinary fields and transform Korean universities into world-
class research institutions. The ultimate objective of our research team is to identify, track, and analyze the effectiveness of
networked political campaigns across a range of Web 2.0 platforms in Korea (e.g., social network sites, YouTube, blogs,
candidate and campaign Web sites, NGO and civil society Web sites). The software tools will make it possible to see how an
issue of public interest develops over time. The purpose is to further develop the types of methodologies offered by
hyperlink analysis and Web sphere analysis, and to adapt them to the Web 2.0 environment.
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4. Biographical sketch: Elmer
Dr. Greg Elmer has graduate degrees (MA, PhD) in the field of communication studies. Dr. Elmer is an internationally-
recognized scholar of social and political uses of the Internet and other information and communication technologies. Dr.
Elmer holds a $1million dollar endowed research professorship at Ryerson University in Toronto and directs Canada’s only
university research center focused on Web 2.0 politics. Dr. Elmer has been awarded visiting faculty fellowships from the
Royal Dutch Academy of Social Sciences and from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr. Elmer was
the Principal Investigator of the three-year Internet and Politics research project, and is the Principal Investigator of an
ongoing project investigating the growing importance of user-generated content in the mass media.
Biographical Sketch: Jankowski
Nicholas W. Jankowski is Visiting Fellow, Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS) for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has served as Associate Professor, Department
of Communication, Radboud University Nijmegen, and is presently adjunct Professor at the University of Ljubljana,
Slovenia. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Internet Institute and Visiting Professor at University of Leuven, Belgium.
Jankowski has been engaged in the study of new media and research methodology since the mid-1970s; his publications
include: The People’s Voice: Local Radio and Television in Europe (with O. Prehn and J. Stappers, Libbey, 1992); The
Contours of Multimedia (with L. Hanssen, Luton, 1996); Community Media in the Information Age (Hampton, 2002); A
Handbook of Qualitative Methodologies for Mass Communication Research (with K.B. Jensen, Routledge, 1991; translation
into Korean in 2004), Internet and National Elections: A Comparative Study of National Elections (with R. Kluver, K. Foot,
& S. Schneider, Routledge, 2007), and e-Research: Transformation in Scholarly Practice (Routledge, 2009). He is presently
preparing a textbook on digital media (Polity Press, forthcoming 2010). Jankowski is initiator and co-editor of New Media &
Society, founding board member of the European Institute of Communication and Culture (Euricom), and editorial board
member of Javnost-The Public. Email: nickjan@xs4all.nl.
Biographical sketch: Han Woo Park
Prof. Han Woo Park is serving as Principal Investigator of the YeungNam University WCU project, which is investigating
internet-based politics through the use of e-research tools. Prof. Park was employed as Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford
Internet Institute (OII; January-August 2009) and took part in the e-Social Science project at Oxford University. He holds an
Assistant Professor position in the Department of Media & Communication, YeungNam University, South Korea. Prior to
this position, he was a full-time researcher at the Virtual Knowledge Studio of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences He received his MA from Seoul National University and a PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo, both
in Communication Studies. Over the past years, Prof. Park has contributed to work in the area of Link Analysis (also known
as Webometrics). He reviews manuscripts for many international journals, including New Media & Society, Social Networks,
Telecommunication Policy, Electronic Journal of Communication, Scientometrics, Connections, Asian Survey, Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, and the Asian Journal of Communication.
Homepage: http://www.hanpark.net
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