Call for Papers Special Issue Sociologija No. 4, 2019, Twenty Years of Internet Studies in Serbia: Status and Perspectives, Guest co-editors Smiljana Antonijević and Dalibor Petrović

This year marks twentieth anniversary since journal Sociologija published its first article focused on social aspects of internet use - "Virtuelne zajednice i društveni odnosi na interentu" (Virtual Communities and Social Relations on the Internet; 1999, Vol. 41, Issue 2, pp. 187-200). Written by Smiljana Antonijević, a co-editor of this special issue, this article was one of if not the first to address social aspects of information and communication technolgies (ICTs) in Serbian academic publishing. We find this anniversary a good opportunity to reflect on some of the social changes that have occurred over the past twenty years, largely as a result of integrating ICTs into various aspects of our lives. Equally important are the transformations that affected the internet itself, changing it in the ways that in retrospect might seem more or less predictable, but which twenty years ago belonged to an uncharted future.
As a result of these transformations, certain topics that constituted analytical locus of early internet studies are either fading into obscurity or becoming interpreted in different ways, while new areas of inquiry are gaining prominence. For instance, virtual communities, which Howard Rheingold so inspiringly described in the early 1990s, are predominantly seen today through the lens of social networks as the form of sociality that preoccupies internet researchers. Similarly, twenty years ago, when internet users carefully hid their identities behind nicknames and when “on the internet, no one knew you were a dog,” it was difficult to imagine a sea-change in online behavior, with users voluntarily rushing to share their most intimate information and thoughts with acquaintances and strangers alike under their own true names. Online anonymity has been chased into the dark web, while various new forms of surveillance capitalism have imposed publicity and public performance as “the new normal.” The Internet thus became a goldmine of data utilized by various parties, from politcial campaigners to scholars, concurently feeding algorithms that—without explicit and direct feedback from users—determine which information they will see and in which order, who will be hired and who fired, and so on.
These are only some manifestations of real virtuality, as Manuel Castells prophetically called the blending of real and virtual life into an inseparable totality. Such transformations, brought about or enhanced through the use of ICTs over the past twenty years, are the topic of this special issue, from micro to the macro level, and from intimate relationships to social systems. In parallel, we want to revive the question about the need for establishing a new academic discipline focused on complex inter-relations of societies and ICTs.
We invite conceptual, methodological, and empirical papers (6,000-8,000 words), as well as shorter position papers (3,000 words) focusing on topics that include, but are not limited to:

Two decades of internet studies: key topics and transformations
Visions of the internet in the next twenty years
Internet sociology – towards a new academic discipline
Social media and mediatization of society
Patterns of online sociality
Family, youth, and the internet
Online activism
Information warfare and online extremism
Internet and transformation of labor
Culture(s) of the internet
Surveillance capitalism
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algoritmization of society
Body and identity in the age of virtuality
Digital humanities
Internet as a scholarly resource, from ethnography to big data
Migration, Diaspora, and the Internet
Digital archives and sites of memory


Submission guidelines

Submit a title and a 300-word abstract to Smiljana Antonijevic (smiljana@smiljana.org) and Dalibor Petrovic (dalibor.petrovic@f.bg.ac.rs) by June 15, 2019. After this first round of review, authors will be invited to submit full papers by September 30, 2019.

Submissions, written in Serbian or English, should be original works not previously published nor undergoing review for publication in another journal at the time of submission.

All articles submitted will be subject to double-blind peer-review. For more on submission formats and guidelines see: http://www.sociologija.org/books/guidelines.php?lng=english


Important dates

Title and abstract submission: June 15, 2019
Notification to authors: July 3, 2019
Full text submission: September 30, 2019
Review results returned: October 20, 2019
Revised text submission: November 15, 2019
Online publication: December 2019

Articles

Sociological Field, Fractal Distinctions and Morals: On Emergence of Analytical Sociology

Stefan Janković, pp: 5-31

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility in Islamic Banking: Theory and Practice

Lekpek Ahmedin, pp: 32-54

Abstract

Everyday Living in Yugoslavia: A Life beyond the Realm of Necessity

Maroje Višić, pp: 55-74

Abstract

Gender Differences in the Choice of Studies of Hungarian, Slovak and Romanian Ethnic Minority High School Graduates in Serbia

Karolina Lendák - Kabók, Stanislava Popov, pp: 75-86

Abstract

Nationalism as a Structural Obstacle to Democratization of Bosnia and Herzegovina Society

Aleksandar Janković, pp: 87-112

Abstract

Ethnoreligious Dichotomization in Serbian Epic Poetry

Nemanja Kostić, pp: 113-132

Abstract

Volunteering and Helping in Serbia: Main Characteristics

Bojana Radovanović, pp: 133-152

Abstract

Book reviews

Evolution Science and Ethics in the Third Millennium. Challenges and Choices for Humankind

Mirjana Bobić, pp: 153-156

Ideological Showdown with Concepts

Đokica Jovanović, pp: 157-159