CFP
Call for papers
23nd Conference Systems Approaches 2018
System Perspective on Modern Media
November 22rd, 2018
Prague, Czech Republic
We would like to invite you to the traditional conference on system thinking.
About the Conference
The conference “Systems approaches” supports multidisciplinary system perspective on various problems affecting the development of modern society. History has shown that the limited point of view of single scientific discipline is not able to solve the problem in its complexity with respect to various stakeholders’ aims, interests, and reasons. The conference attempts to use both the hard and soft system approaches. Our conference has a long tradition and has led to many fruitful discussions.
Conference proceedings are submitted for evaluation to Web of Science (WOS) Conference Proceedings Citation (CPCI) and Scopus databases.
Journal Publication Opportunities
We are pleased to announce that selected papers will be published after revision in our partner ERIH+ journals:
Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science – ISSN 2336-2375 (www.eriesjournal.com)
Acta Informatica Pragensia – ISSN 1805-4951 (aip.vse.cz)
System Perspective on Modern Media
The system thinking stresses interactivity, interdependence and emergent character of reality. It combines many elements together in an organized way to produce a meaningful whole. In our society, hard and soft systems are combined together and we should take care about their harmonious relations. As the demand for availability of information grows the role of media increases.
Many aspects of today’s society ranging from economy, via politics to everyday social relations are influenced if not saturated by media. The accelerating pace of attention economy is increasing the importance even further. Talk about post-factual society and alternatives to truth prove the vulnerability of the media environment.
The word “media” refers to the Latin “medium” which means “in the middle”. Media are between the receiver and reality. They allow for communication on the one hand, but distort it at the same time. The human body can be regarded as a fundamental medium, but with the development of industrial revolution, man has invented many other tools facilitating communication. They belong into the category of hard systems, but are used by man who manipulates them, interprets the transported content and uses it. Therefore, their smooth system integration is necessary.
The nature of media can be illustrated by three metaphors. Container or channel metaphor stresses the ability of media to store and transport content. The language metaphor highlights the representational character of media, the grammars, communication practices and discourses. The media environment metaphor focuses on how different media and different work of media in different times produce different societies and vice versa. We can with M. McLuhan distinguish cultural periods according to the dominant medium.
Media have brought us many advantages. They have spread information, which helped in the awareness and education of population. Internet and social media have broken the monopolies of knowledge and provided a democratic platform for information exchange. However, the integration of media into society is not without problems. Media strive for sensations, fresh news rather than proven facts, media owners follow their interests and support marketing and consumerism, their reader suffer from information overflow, prefer amusement to serious content, live in digital bubbles. Many people lack information and media literacy and succumb to manipulation and misinterpretation.
The modern devices collecting, storing and processing data are related to media, too. In its most advanced form the transport of information is almost automatic and autonomous as can be seen in the case of internet of things and big data analysis. Currently, we are facing problems regarding privacy intrusion, surveillance, dependence on forecasts instead of explaining narratives, decision paralysis, non-transparency of technologies functioning, confusion etc.
In this year’s conference System thinking 2018 we would like to concentrate (but not limit) to the following questions and topics:
Conference questions:
What is the role of media in today’s society?
How can be modern media integrated into the society?
Pros and Cons of information society?
How to protect privacy?
How to increase the level of media literacy?
How to protect the democratic character of society?
How to protect the vulnerable members of our society?
How to deal with information overflow?
Can artificial intelligence help in privacy protection?
Conference topics include, but are not limited to the following:
- Surveillance
- New media and their role in society
- Internet of things
- Ubiquitous technologies
- Threats to privacy
- Knowledge management
- Socially responsible IT
- Digital divide
- Big data
- Public service media
Venue and Accommodation
The conference is held at the campus of University of Economics, Prague. If requested, we can help you provide accommodation at the university dormitory.
Conference Fee
The conference fee is 1 000 CZK (40 EUR). Payment details will be sent to accepted authors.
Organizing Committee
PhDr. Ing. Antonín Pavlíček, Ph.D.
Ing. Mgr. Tomáš Sigmund
Ph.D., Ing. Bogdan Tiganoaia, Ph.D.
Program Committee
Assoc. Prof. RNDr. Helena Brožová, CSc. – Czech University of Life Sciences, Czech Republic
PaeDr. Anton Lisnik, Ph.D. – Catolic University in Ruzomberok, Slovakia
PhDr. Ing. Antonín Pavlíček, Ph.D. – University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic
Assoc. Prof. Vesna Čančer, Ph.D. – University of Maribor, Slovenia
Ing. Mgr. Tomáš Sigmund, Ph.D – University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic
Ing. Bogdan Tiganoaia, Ph.D. – Polytechnic University Bucharest, Romania
Prof. Sergej Yablocnikov – University of Vinnitsa, Ukraine
Contact to Organizers
e-mail: Systems.Approaches@vse.cz, mobile: +420-731-689-358
University of Economics, Prague
Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, Department of System Analysis
4 W. Churchill sq., 130 67 Prague, Czech Republic