Communications Policy & Research Forum 2010

Interest areas include ICT, digital media, telecoms, broadcasting, communications culture, Internet and e-commerce. It is a research-oriented forum open to all viewpoints; a co-operative effort by policy and research centres. It is also a national meeting-place for people who create, use and commission research.

You are welcome to submit a proposal or abstract to be on the platform in November. The closing date for refereed proposals is Monday 14 June 2010 or non refereed 26 July 2010. Click here to download the guidelines for submitting.

If you would like to see what the Forum is like, please look at the program from 2009.
You can also click here to download the Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2009. It is a 370-page volume in PDF format containing the published papers.

Areas to be featured include:
• The information economy and the NBN
• User-generated content and applications
• Telecoms and media economics and structures
• Journalism challenges in the multi-platform world
• Politics, policies and regulation of communications.
• New media forms, including user-led innovation
• Internet communities, worlds, blogs and wikis
• Audiences, users, households and social trends
• Social networks and online communities
• Broadband uses, users and infrastructure
• Any other research or policy issues about communications.

Submitting proposals for papers or presentations
There is no required length for proposals or abstracts, but 500 words might be an average. What the Program Committee needs is enough information to rank your proposal against others. Criteria are the usual, such as innovation, policy importance and analytical strength. One strength of the Forum is that academic, professional, government and industry people mix and interact throughout. To support this, two forms of papers and presentations follow different paths to the platform:

* Academic papers can be refereed in accord with DEEWR-friendly rules, to ensure that you receive full research recognition. Please request refereeing only if you need it, because it is a time-intensive process. The deadline is 14 June 2010.
* General papers and presentations are equally welcome. They need to be proposed by 26 July 2010. They do not conform to any convention or format, academic or otherwise. Proposals for slide-based presentations or talks without a paper will be considered equally. What matters is intellectual rigour, clarity and policy value.

Proposals for multiple-paper sessions
The Forum also welcomes proposals for groups of three papers with different authors, forming a complete session. The typical multiple-paper session addresses a single topic area, and maintains the CPRF's spirit of diversity by presenting different viewpoints or perspectives. Each of the three papers needs to be proposed by the relevant deadline above, following the same rules as individual papers.

Publication of papers
All papers included in the program will be published in the annual Record of the CPRF within a couple of weeks after the event.

Three journals also have standing arrangements to consider CPRF papers for publication: Media International Australia, the Telecommunications Journal of Australia and the Media and Arts Law Review. If you do not wish to be included in those arrangements, please say that when submitting your proposal.

What the Forum does
This is the largest annual gathering of communications knowledge in Australia. It gives a springboard to serious thinking and data about the state of media, telecommunications and the Internet. One strength of the Forum is the depth of analysis, criticism and research offered by professional researchers and practitioners.

Registration fee
The registration fee of $450 ($495 for registrations received after 17 September) is the same for all participants. It covers all sessions on both days of the Forum, plus lunch and refreshments on each day. The lowest possible fee has been chosen to make the Forum accessible. The only people who do not pay the fee are our two keynote speakers. All the other speakers and participants pay the same registration fee, as do the organisers. Please do not ask for a concession. The rate is already non-profit, as low as we can make it, and incorporates a lot of unpaid work. We can't offer a further discount, because the price is already below cost.

How to contact us
For inquiries about registrations and attendance: c.abad@networkinsight.org
To submit proposals: cprf@canberra.edu.au
To leave a phone message (if your question really cannot fit into an email): 02 9230 4262 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              02 9230 4262      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

How you can help
One practical way to help the Forum is to register now. That will really help with the planning and funding. Another way is to help it to tell your friends, by directing them to this web page or by downloading and sending the call for papers. We update people who have been in earlier years, but we depend on the research community to spread the word to new people.

These research organisations support the Forum
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
Australian & New Zealand Communication Asscociation (ANZCA)
Centre for Media and Communications Law, University of Melbourne
Centre for Media History, Macquarie University
Public Communications Research Cluster, University of Canberra
Communications Law Centre
Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University
Journalism and Media Research Centre (JMRC), University of NSW
Network Insight Institute
News Research Centre, University of Canberra
Smart Services CRC