THE SECOND HILARY NG’WENO CONFERENCE (3RD – 5th JUNE, 2024)

THEME: SUSTAINABILITY OF INFORMATION GENERATION, DISSEMINATION, CONSUMPTION, AND PRESERVATION IN THE AGE OF DISRUPTIVE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS/PROPOSALS

Hilary Ng’weno Centre for East Africa Media Research

Mr. Hilary Boniface Ng’weno contributed immensely in shaping the media and publishing industry in Kenya, making him an icon in both print and broadcast spaces. Before his demise, his works were donated to the school of Information Sciences at Moi University, resulting in the establishment of the Hilary Ng’weno Centre for East Africa Media Research in 2015. The Centre performs a number of activities including: Acting as a repository of Kenya’s media history, organizing and coordinating The Hilary Ng’weno Annual Conference, encouraging collaborations/partnerships with national, regional and international organizations with similar interests; and organizing panels and forums in local and international conferences.

The question of sustainability
A closer look at Hilary’s life—as a Harvard trained nuclear physicist later turned journalist and media entrepreneur—reveals his foresight and belief in embracing sustainable practices for a better society. This issue is even more pronounced today than it was during Hilary’s sojourn in this world. The world is facing existential threats from a wide range of issues, key among them being the sustainability of mankind's activities on Mother Nature. While the concept of sustainability has attracted significant attention in areas such as climate change and environmental management, little has been devoted to understanding the sustainability of information access/gathering, dissemination, consumption, and preservation in the context of a rapidly evolving digital environment.
Today, relatively new concepts such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cloud computing, and data science, among others, have expanded the pool of vocabularies in this digital age. As a result, the way people connect with and communicate between and among each other has been altered. Journalistic processes have also been re-configured, leading to dwindling revenues across media houses across the world. Media Users/audiences have become more active in sourcing, interacting with, and sharing information. Libraries, which have been relatively stable hubs of information preservation, are equally grappling with the advent of e-publishing and e-books, among many other innovations. In addition, new concerns have emerged about the increasing spread of mis-information, di-information, and mal-information.
Similarly, the recordkeeping sector has been undergoing a transformation from paper to digital, culminating in a paradigm shift from traditional records and archives management practices to digital records management and digital archiving, respectively. Privacy issues have also emerged, particularly how these technologies, in part, act as conduits in a larger capitalistic scheme of
processing, storing, archiving, and even selling users' data to the highest bidders. Scholarly publishing is no longer the way it used to be due to disruptive digital technologies. The new technologies have given authors more leverage in terms of disseminating their research work through self-publishing, which results in a lack of peer review as the norm in traditional scholarly publishing. This new development in the field of publishing has other emerging issues, such as predatory publishing, which is often disguised as open-access publishing. The publishing industry in general has been disrupted and has serious integrity issues regarding the reliability, verifiability, and authenticity of the published information. Taken together, these relatively new innovations invite questions on how they have (re)shaped the cardinal processes of accessing, gathering, (re)packaging, disseminating, consuming, and preserving information. Therefore, the Hilary Ng’weno Centre for East Africa Media Research invites abstracts/proposals around the following

Key themes:
1. Adapting Sustainable PR Strategies in the Age of Disruptive Digital Technologies
2. Sustainable Journalism Practices in an Evolving Digital Media Landscape
3. Media and Information Literacy in the Disruptive Digital Era.
4. Sustainability of Quality Library and Information Services in the Age of Disruptive Technologies.
5. Sustainable Records and Archives Management in the Age of Disruptive Digital Technologies.
6. Mis-, Dis- and Mal-information and Sustainability of Science Communication in the Age of Disruptive Digital Technologies
7. Inclusivity and Collaboration in Digital Records and Information Management
8. Cloud Computing Models in Information Storage and Dissemination

Cross-cutting themes
1. Education and Training of Information Professionals in the Age of Disruptive Digital Technologies
2. Social media and Private Messaging Applications and the Diverse Roles They Play in Information Gathering, Dissemination, Consumption and Preservation
3. Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Influence in Information Gathering, Dissemination, Consumption and Preservation

Submission Guidelines

•  Abstracts: Please submit a 250-word abstract outlining the key theme which the study falls under, your study focus, rationale, methodology, key findings and conclusions.
•  In addition, each abstract should be typed in Calibri font 12. It should also include the title, name of author(s), affiliation(s), email address of the corresponding author and the telephone contacts. Abstracts can be uploaded through the portal: https://hnca-syst.onrender.com
•  Submitted abstracts will be peer reviewed and author(s) notified accordingly through email. For more inquiries or further information, please contact the organizing committee through: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. OR This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
•  Author information: Include a brief bio (150 words) for each contributing author
•  Deadline for abstract submission: 15th March, 2024
•  Notification of acceptance :30th March 2024
•  Full article submission: 30th April 2024
• Conference dates: 3rd -5th June 2024

Conference Fees:
Post-graduate students (Kenyans/East Africans) - KES 2000
Kenyan/East African participants - KES 5000
International Post-graduate students -USD 50
International participants - USD 100

Additional notes:

• This conference will be held physically at Moi University (Main Campus) in Eldoret, Kenya
• All accepted abstracts will be published in the book of Abstracts by the Moi University Press
• Full conference papers will be peer reviewed and published as conference proceedings by the Moi University Press
•  Selected articles will undergo a double blind review for publication in the East African Journal of Information Sciences (EAJIS)

Conference Committee:

• Dr. Edwin Tallam - Chairman
• Prof. Daniel Rotich - Vice Chairman
• Prof. Abraham Mulwo - Dean School of Information Sciences, Member
• Dr. Duncan Amoth - CoD LRMIS, Member
• Dr. Nicholas Kiget - CoD IT, Member
• Dr. Jared Obuya - CoD PJCS, Member
• Mr. Elisha Okuto - Moi University Press
• Dr. Victoria Kutto - Member
• Dr. Elsebah Maseh - Member
• Dr. Erneo Nyakundi - Member
• Dr. Juliet Erima - Member
• Dr. Emily Bosir Ogechi - Member
• Dr. Ibrahim Okinda - Member
• Mr. Musakali Juma - Member
• Dr. Gloria Ooko - Member
• Dr. Emily Ng’eno - Member
• Mrs. Florence Chesseret - Secretariat