Networked Publics Conference and Media Festival at the Annenberg Center for Communication, University of Southern California (April 28-29, 2006).

This two-day event will bring together new media scholars and practitioners to exhibit and discuss the roles of audiences, activists, and producers in maturing networked media ecologies. The event is organized by the Networked Publics fellowship program (netpublics.annenberg.edu) at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for Communication.

The conference includes a media festival and an academic program.

“Do-It-Yourself: Emergent Networked Culture,” is an experimental news and entertainment media festival featuring new kinds of viral, remixed, and amateur media works enabled by current networked ecologies. Categories of curated work include: political remix videos, the digital handmade, anime music videos, machinima, alternative news, and infrastucture hacks.

The academic program is dedicated to three topics: Politics, Infrastructure and Place. For each of these topics, netpublics fellows will convene a session to interrogate current issues and controversies related to emergent networked ecologies.

The format of the event is designed to promote interaction and dialog across a diverse set of participants. Our goal is to facilitate conversation on topics of shared concern and a mixture of formats that include screenings, debates, and interaction around computer kiosks.

Why do I blog this? I'll be there (thanks Julian!), the event seems great and very pertinent to my interests.