Association of Internet Research - reporting from the conference

It is the second year that AoiR (Association of Internet Researchers) is running its conference online, and its doing it beautifully. The conference starts tomorrow and there is still time to register.

This year, the keynote will be delivered by André Brock, a professor of Black Cyberculture, media studies, and critical race and digital studies, and the author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (2020, NYU Press), the winner of 2021 Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award for Outstanding Work in African-American Popular Culture Studies. His keynote is titled "Race and Racism in Internet Studies". Even if you miss the conference, check out his research and publications.

This year, the conference also features three "spotlight" panels: "Declarations of Interdependence: How Media Literacy Practices Are Developed, Negotiated, Rejected, and Exploited across Social Media Platforms"; "Caring for Our People: Indigenous Responses to COVID-19 Era Informatic Colonialism"; and "Colonialism, Independence, and Digital Technology".

Finally, there are a number of pre-recorded "streams", one of which is dedicated to Digital Politics - more details to follow. In the meantime, for shorter but more frequent updates from the conference, you can follow #AoIR2021 on Twitter.