Communication Law and Policy: Issues of concern

The CLP section of ECREA wishes to draw attention to some worrying developments in Europe regarding policy debates questioning public service media’s position and (license fee) financing in countries like Germany, Denmark and Switzerland. Of particular concern is the Swiss referendum, in early March 2018, on an amendment of the Swiss constitution that would prohibit public funding for radio and TV channels as well as the collection of a license fee. Supporters of this referendum argue that broadcasting should be funded by the market and that their solution would free the Swiss people from ‘state television’ (Staatsfernsehen) and abolish the ‘forced license fee’ (Zwangsgebühren). Basic media economics and the small size of the multilingual Swiss market suggest that the most likely outcome would be the closure of SRG SSR (the public broadcaster) or at least its transformation into a commercial company and the dwindling of original Swiss quality programming, particularly in French, Italian and Romansh. In times of a funding crisis of journalism this would undermine further a sustainable media system. Fortunately, the Swiss voters turned the referendum down. 71.6% of voters and every single canton (or state) rejected the dismantling of public service media. The Swiss result might be an important signal for other European countries as well.

Given the important role of public service media in a digital environment and the limitations of private (audiovisual) media in small media systems, these and similar developments demonstrate the need for communication scholars in general and law and policy researchers in particular to observe and take part in public debates concerning these issues. The CLP section looks forward to discussing these and other issues with all of you during the Lugano conference.

The Management team of the Communication Law and Policy Section

Hilde van den Bulck, Sarah Broughton Micova, Marko Milosavljevic

The dispute at Universities in the UK

This statement was written on 11th March, a day before the controversial ‘agreement’ between UUK and UCU. As this has since been rejected by all the local UCU branches, the strike continues.

Several universities in the UK are currently embroiled in a sustained strike action over a proposed pension reform. The issue concerns an attempt from the university employer association, Universities UK (UUK), to fundamentally reform the main university pension scheme (USS) from a Defined Benefits scheme to a Defined Contributions scheme (making pensions 100% contingent on the stock market) as a way to minimize employer liability for staff pensions. There are many facets to this dispute, but a key point of contention has been the valuation that informs the reform, which claims that the existing scheme is unsustainable and is suffering from a multi-billion pound deficit. This valuation has been continuously challenged as fundamentally faulty and deliberately constructed as a way to pave the path for university employers to ‘de-risk’ staffing, a strategy in line with the broader marketization of the Higher Education sector in the UK.

The issue therefore is and has never been ‘just’ about pension reform, but rather about the nature and purpose of the University today. Over the past decade or so (particularly since the tripling of tuition fees in 2010), Higher Education in the UK has rapidly been turned into a sector with all the markings of corporatization: suppressed labour costs for frontline staff (through casualization, wage stagnation, and now pension cuts), a proliferation of auditing measures (form-filling, student satisfaction surveys, activity recording), centralization and bureaucratization of administration (to undermine autonomy), and with that, an ever-escalating tier of management in various forms, whose main function it is to oversee these developments. Emblematic of this corporatization is the rise of the Vice-Chancellor as the CEO of today’s University, along with their inflated pay packets, ludicrous benefits, and dubious expense accounts.

The pension dispute has triggered an outpouring of discontent about the direction of the sector. Over the last few weeks, thousands of university lecturers, support staff, and students have carried out the biggest strike action ever to take place in the sector. Up and down the country, we have seen picket after picket, rallies, teach-outs, and student occupations; Vice-Chancellors have one by one been pressured into changing positions, breaking ranks with the employer association UUK. At the time of writing, the strike action is about to enter into its fourth week and UUK has been forced into new negotiations with the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU). These negotiations are currently ongoing.

We have already achieved a lot. At a time when unions have long struggled to make themselves seem relevant, the pension dispute has illustrated the power of collective action in the workplace, and has renewed a belief that the University is not made up of managers but by the people who actually teach, research and create an environment of learning together with students. These are the people who should be cherished and protected. Standing on the picket-lines, organizing teach-outs and other events, communicating and mobilizing through various channels, we have (re)discovered a stronger sense of collegiality amongst both staff and students that has, in the process, sharpened our focus on what Higher Education is actually about. As we move forward, these convictions remain and will shape relations within and beyond the University to come.

Lina Dencik, Cardiff University

Interview with Anne Kaun

Anne Kaun (born 1983) is Associate Professor at Södertörn University, where she teaches and investigates on social movements and digital media activism, media theory related to temporality and space as well as historical approaches to media technologies. Anne is currently vice-chair of the Communication and Democracy section of ECREA, after having served as the vice-chair of the Young Scholars Network for two years.

What are your hobbies outside academia?

Music more generally is one of my hobbies outside of academia. I used to play in a band called the Lavettes that friends and I formed during my PhD studies in Stockholm. The band is still playing but I have paused my engagement at the moment. Already before joining a band, I was traveling for music events mainly to Germany and the UK, and music-related subcultures were important networks throughout my mobile life moving between Germany, the UK, USA and Sweden. I never considered music more than a hobby although I have also helped to arrange music events in the past. 

Anne Kaun playing organs with Lavettes

Besides music, I was practising yoga a lot for a couple of years, but got a little bit bored with it. Lately, thai boxing has become a new passion – it probably makes more sense in the changing academic landscape anyway…

How did you start to be involved in music?

I used to play the accordion as a child. I stopped playing when I turned 13 and the accordion was the most embarrassing instrument to play I could imagine. Ever since, I really regret not picking up playing again. Instead of playing actively, I enjoyed going out dancing. During an Erasmus exchange in Oslo, I developed an interest in Northern Soul – US-American soul from the 1960s and 1970s that is rare and rather unknown compared to the big hits from labels like Motown (The Supremes, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye etc.). After returning to Germany, I started to regularly attend so called allnighters and weekenders and the network of friends related to Northern Soul provided the most important friendships outside of academia ever since. Also in Stockholm most of my non-academic friends I met through music. This is also how I picked up playing an instrument again. A friend remembered my ramblings about how I missed playing actively and asked me to join her Northern Soul inspired band as the organ player. Which I did, despite lacking the actual skills. It was fun, but also challenging to be on stage and recording a demo without years of practice behind me.

Do you define this as hobby or as a second job?

Definitely not as a second job. It is a hobby although I invested quite some time in practising and taking lessons to actually be able to contribute to the collective effort of being a band. For me it would be sad to consider music and the friendships connected with it as a job. I enjoy the freedom and playfulness of it being a hobby.

Would you share with us a bit of your performances?

Here’s a youtube clip for some sonic impression… 

Do you find similarities between playing music and your academic work?

Well, yes there are certain conventions and codes you have to learn and practise both in music and in academia. In both worlds, there is also something like a frontstage, where you perform and a backstage which is work-intense and messy. Most importantly, at least for me, is the aspect that both academia and playing music share the ambiguous relationship between collectivity and loneliness. You always learn from others and you play with others, while there are long stretches of practising and engaging with music on your own. That is something I have also experienced in academic work.

Does playing music conflict with your academic work (missing deadlines, having to choose between events)?

No, not really. I never really had to choose. Except for when I moved to the US for a postdoc and my band asked a friend to take my spot in the meantime. Ever since, it has been difficult to find my role back in the band.

How does it, if at all, help in your academic job?

Probably, since I am engaging with something outside of academic work that so easily encroaches upon all aspects of my life, but I don’t want to be too instrumental about practising music. It is something that is important for me, and sometimes it provides a topic to talk about during conference small talk.

Would you recommend your hobby to other academics?

I would probably recommend academics (and anyone for that matter) to have some kind of hobby that suits them. Just to make sure that we are reminded that there is a world beyond articles, grants, conferences and students.

Ana Jorge

Interview with Miguel Vicente

Miguel Vicente-Marino (born 1980) is based at the University of Valladolid, Spain, where he focuses on audience studies, public opinion, environmental communication and qualitative research methods. Miguel serves as a member of the Executive Board of ECREA since 2016 and, prior to that, he was Secretary of the Executive Board. Currently, he is also the Vice President of the Trampoline Gymnastics Technical Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation.

How did you start to be involved in gymnastics?

I used to practice Trampoline Gymnastics when I was a child in Ourense, in the Northwest of Spain. I trained there until I moved to Santiago de Compostela to follow my BA in Journalism: this transfer meant my farewell as a gymnast, but also my starting point as a judge. I would have never imagined that this decision, which was taken exclusively because of academic circumstances and priorities, was actually opening a door to such a story with my sport… 

What would you say is your biggest achievement in gymnastics?

I was only a good gymnast at the Spanish national level, so I cannot claim any big merit in that matter. All my main achievements came as an outcome of my judging activity. Being elected to act at the Olympic Games is a milestone that meant my childhood dream came unexpectedly true. As a global media event, any Olympic Games is also an opportunity to partially see the other side of the bright lights and the amazing performances.

What is different in gymnastics from your academic career? And what is similar?

Both activities are based on an external and internal requirement to constantly improve your performance, physical and intellectual. As judged activities, gymnasts, judges and researchers are always reviewed. Sports must teach you to win and, even more important, to lose: this realistic approach to any defeat is something to be kept in mind whenever you face any academic evaluation. No one likes to have an article declined or a rejected project, but it is important to understand that your career (both in sports and, even more, in academia) is a marathon, instead of a short 100 metre sprint. Overcoming difficulties and developing resilience are common to most of human life, and sports and research can sometimes help in acquiring those skills.

Does this task conflict with your academic work, such as missing deadlines or having to choose between events?

It is always hard to combine parallel worlds, and it is even more important to incorporate family commitments to this equation. Consequently, there are projects that you need to refuse and sadly 
there are times when I simply cannot meet my expectations. I tried to be active and useful in the three sides of this triangle (family, academia and sport), but you cannot do that all the time: I always feel upset when I cannot reach my commitments, as they are the evident outcomes of inefficient planning on my side damaging other people.Most of my work on Trampoline Gymnastics can be conducted online, but there are 3-4 weeks around the year when I need to be on-site, at national and international events, and this makes it more difficult to keep my involvement in academic projects. I must admit that I have always received solid support from my colleagues when these collisions are occurring.

Would you recommend your hobby to other academics?

Most academics are involved in evaluation processes very often, so I’m sure they are ready to also judge sporting performances. Trampoline Gymnastics might be too fast a sport to get started with in terms of judging, but it can turn into a challenge! I’m aware of other Media and Communication scholars interested in Gymnastics, so this could a stimulating activity outside from lectures and publications…

Ana Jorge

Photo 1: Miguel Vicente at the Olympic Games in London in 2012

Photo 2: Miguel during the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016

Mediated Intimacies: Connectivities, Relationalities and Proximities

Interview with the editors: Rikke Andreassen, Michael Nebeling Petersen, Katherine Harrison, and Tobias Raun

How did the idea for Mediated Intimacies arise?

We increasingly live our lives in/through/with so-called “new” media, blurring our own boundaries between private and public as we negotiate changing norms of relationality and connectivity. This fast-growing and increasingly complex aspect of daily life in many parts of the globe brings us both closer and further away from each other in ways that often challenge or provoke. As scholars working in the fields of media studies/cultural studies/gender studies, we were inspired by the burgeoning literature on mediated intimacies, but felt that there was a need for a more in-depth exploration of the relationship between media and intimacies.

Rikke Andreassen, Michael Nebeling Petersen, Katherine Harrison, Tobias Raun

What is the original contribution of this anthology?

This book provides a timely contribution to an academic lacuna; by inter-linking new media and intimacy with each other, and exploring them through each other, the book contributes with new insights into the field of media as well as of intimacy. More importantly, it provides new understandings of both media and intimacy (as well as affectivity and emotions) by reading these two fields (new media and intimacy) against each other. This provides new understandings, and introduces new concepts and models for understanding the intimacy constructions unfolding in our contemporary social media landscape.

How do you think Mediated Intimacies can be important for other areas of research, on media and communications, and beyond?

One of the great strengths of this anthology is its broad scope. The anthology analyses a wide range of media, for instance dating sites and dating apps, online classified adverts, YouTube, blogs, SnapChat, Facebook, Badoo, CouchSurfing, Grindr, health apps, iPads, smart phones/apps, Tumblr, as well as online activism. Similarly, it employs various methods, e.g. ethnography, netnography, content analysis, survey, interviews, observation, participatory observation, cross-national comparative studies, visual methods, platform analysis, etc. In other words, the anthology covers a wide variety of media sites as well as methods; at the same time a clear red thread weaves its way through the volume, as all chapters explore the connections between intimacy and new media.

Finally, it engages with various geographical settings – and links these to the global mediascape – while most chapters depart from a European setting (including the UK, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Portugal, Denmark and Finland), other articles depart from countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, and the US. This makes the volume truly international in context as well as scope.

This scope and contextualization of the individual case studies makes the volume relevant to a wide range of both media studies scholars and those working with affect theory. Furthermore, this volume provides new understandings of the bodily and intimate doing of, and experiences with, technology. In doing so, it also questions traditional boundaries between body, media, technology and intimacies. As such, we envisage a significant third audience for this volume in the form of scholars working with gender studies/feminist theory which is often highly attuned to bodies and identities.

Do you feel this is a timely publication in public terms?

Media coverage and public discussion of changing media and intimacy practices has been in evidence for some time. However, the publication of this volume now feels particularly apt in light of recent events, such as the #metoo campaign in which intimate practices and new media were intertwined in important political and personal ways.

How was the process of the ECREA book series and how important was it for your publication?

The publication enabled us to work closely together as well as work together with other scholars. We continue working together, as we are hosting a conference at Roskilde University, Denmark, on ‘online intimacies, intimacies online’ in the spring (May 30 – June 1) 2018. One of our keynote speakers at the conference is a contributor to the anthology (Debra Ferreday). The process with ECREA as well as with Routledge has been very smooth and a positive experience. We are happy to be a part of the ECREA book series, which we consider an important series for bringing forth and highlighting new research.

Ana Jorge

Click here to order the book from the publisher.

Click here for more on ECREA Book Series.

The Russian “virus” spreads into the weakened body of the West

Alina Bârgăoanu, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania, chair of Communication and the European Public Sphere TWG

Eveline Mărășoiu, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania

On November 13, the EU Foreign Affairs ministers addressed two intimately linked topics: the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and Strategic Communication (StratComm). The communication campaigns undertaken by the Russian Federation in the context of the Brexit referendum and the Catalan separatism, as well as the hostile communication activities constantly unfolding in the Eastern EU member states have generated deep concerns at the level of EU officials, thus making communication a top priority on the Council agenda.

These deep concerns, albeit genuine, have not been taken up in the written Conclusions of the Council, especially as a result of the reluctance that Germany and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security expressed behind closed doors. Written conclusions absent, the EU Foreign Affairs ministers addressed, nonetheless, the ways of consolidating the institutional means at both EU and member states’ level that could deal with the subject of strategic communication.

The states who have called for channelling more resources to StratComm are Great Britain, Sweden, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Croatia. Spain has recently joined this call, after discovering that a considerable amount of messages in favour of Catalan separatism were broadcast from Russian territory. Spain’s newfound attitude equals a genuine paradigm shift; previously, the Southern European states (including Spain) have been highly reluctant in considering the anxieties of their Eastern peers and their calls to address and counter hostile messages emanating from Russian territory.

Therefore, one can notice that attention paid to Strategic Communication follows the heightening of tensions and conflicts between states. Is this new? History tells us otherwise. The history of communication studies teaches us that communication has been factored in as a weapon of war ever since World War I, when the attitudes and opinion of people behind the front lines were addressed as an explicit part of the war effort. Mock and Larson, for example, published a book on the 1914-1918 propaganda, titled Words That Won the War. Propaganda became the defining term of the interwar period, entering the academic curriculum, too. In 1939, Lee and Lee published the book The Fine Art of Propaganda, which was meant as a university textbook. During World War II, Carl Hovland’s famous studies on the effects of the movies The Battle of Britain and Why We Fight on the morale of US soldiers fighting abroad made attitude the central element in the analysis of mass media persuasion. The systematic study of communication effects developed towards the end of the Second World War and the meetings organized by the Rockefeller Foundation had an essential role. It is under these auspices where Harold Lasswell came up with his influential communication model – who says what in which channel to whom, and with what effect. What we call today the discipline of communication emerged after WWII, building on the lessons learned from propaganda analysis. The founding fathers of communication – Wilbur Schramm, Carl Hovland, Harold Lasswell, were affiliated, more or less explicitly, with the war effort; thus, the “war of communication” (the name associated with WWII) led to the birth of the discipline of communication. All these founding fathers emphasised that, in order to be effective, communication entails profound and sophisticated knowledge of the audiences, targeting and tailoring the message to fit their needs, and a permanent adaptation of the communication processes to the ever-changing social conditions. They all came up with communication rules, that have stood the test of time; “know your audience” – a rule so simple, yet so often ignored – that has the quasi-power of a law of physics.

So much for history. What is new today? Technological changes, the explosion of social media, cutting-edge algorithms able to generate content, computational propaganda, troll farms, likes factories, the change of warfare from classic to hybrid have changed only the communication means, and altered its substance only to a limited extent. Now, the buzzword of communication concerns is “strategic communication”, which is more of an umbrella term. It can be broadly defined as a series of activities undertaken at strategic, operational and tactical levels that allow the transmission of messages (including strategic narratives) to the target audience, promoting certain types of behaviour and/or perceptions. Propaganda, as a type of strategic communication, represents a series of deliberate and systematic activities focusing on the dissemination of false information or the presentation of alternative realities, with the objective of forming perceptions and attitudes leading to the achievement of the initial goals. Strategic communication is used extensively in hybrid conflicts. Dealing with such conflicts requires interdisciplinary approaches and responses. While electronic warfare, cyber-attacks and counter-espionage must be dealt with by applying predominantly the lens of extended security and defence studies, propaganda, disinformation, and the fake news phenomenon must be primarily analysed and dealt with from the perspective of communication science. All these perspectives must be harmoniously blended in order to serve the same objective, that of building and maintaining the resilience of today’s societies in a challenging and fluid security environment.

Communication must figure prominently in all efforts undertaken by EU, NATO, and national governments. No matter how commonsensical or even redundant it may appear, we couldn’t emphasize enough the fact that communication – strategic or not – is an endeavour for communication specialists. They should put the communication body of knowledge, their understanding and expertise to work in order to give substance and to support the decision-making processes at all levels – strategic, tactical and operative. Again, we couldn’t emphasize enough the fact that we deal with subtle communication, psychosocial processes, for which the technical, bureaucratic approaches are wildly insufficient.

The current efforts made by the European Commission in order to counter hostile communication activities suffer from many ills. One such major ill has to do with the fact that they barely address the fragile psychological background against which fake news, propaganda and disinformation are effective. Until we ask ourselves what root causes are in place which allow hostile communication to have effects, what chords fake news and disinformation strike, we will not be in a position to come up with adequate responses. Let us refer to a piece of analysis published by David Von Drehle in the prestigious Washington Post journal on the 17th of November – “We are at cyberwar and the enemy is us”. The analysis emphasises that the propaganda (Russian or pro-Kremlin propaganda, we can call and frame it either way) – has spread a virus. True. But it is equally true that the virus has found a weakened, fragile body. In coming up with his conclusions, David Von Drehle has the US in mind, but, in our opinion, his assessment can be extrapolated to the EU, to the entire Western world. The extraordinary speed at which the virus has propagated itself within this “weakened and discredited” organism says a lot about the virus, but it says even more about the organism that it has caught off guard.

The paradox of the whole situation is created by the fact that America – precisely the country where the communication discipline was founded and in which the greatest scholars and practitioners of communication have excelled – is caught off guard and is on a defensive mood exactly in the field of communication. It can hardly enter our mind that Russian or pro-Kremlin propaganda could defeat or even challenge America on the communication ground, the ground that America created and generously offered to the entire world.

This text was first published at http://www.convorbirieuropene.ro/russian-virus-spreads-weakened-body-west/

ECC Lugano 2018 Planning ahead: Information on traveling and staying in Lugano

Preparations are in full swing for the 7th European Communication Conference (ECC) to be held in Lugano from October 31 to November 3, 2018. As you may know, the topic of the conference is “Centres and Peripheries: Communication, Research, Translation”. Now that submissions have closed on March 2nd, and with the review process under way, we want to take the opportunity to give you some further details about your stay in Lugano and about how to make the most of your experience there.

Lugano. Photo taken by USI students, Social Media Management Course

We are aware that costs in Switzerland might be rather expensive compared to recent ECREA conference locations. Therefore, the Local Organising Committee is putting a lot of effort into making the conference and your stay in Lugano affordable for all ECREA 2018 participants. For example, we were able to keep the conference fees for ECREA members unchanged. This will make a difference for participants, who are our priority.

Moreover, together with our logistics partner, we have created a package of hotels with different price levels, including low budget options and solutions for groups. All guests booking one of these options will also receive a “TicinoTicket” offering free public transportation for the duration of their stay. With this, participants can move easily and freely across the whole of Ticino, the southernmost Canton of Switzerland. This is an additional invitation and opportunity for exploring sights and nature in the surrounding areas, including – but of course not limited to – two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: a natural one, Monte San Giorgio; and a cultural one, the Castles of Bellinzona.

Currently, we are also creating a separate section of the ECREA 2018 website dedicated to low budget solutions for traveling to Lugano, as well as for eating and drinking in the city during your stay. Students of USI Università della Svizzera italiana will be happy to assist and provide participants with related information on site, and we are working on special deals with selected bars and restaurants. You will find more details in the evolving section Travel and stay on the ECREA 2018 conference website. Have a look from time to time to explore new tips, deals and travel information.

The ECREA Young Scholars Network (YECREA) and ECREA are also offering ten ECC 2018 grants to support YECREA members who do not have other funding or for those whose funding is very limited. The grants will cover the conference fee and provide a partial reimbursement for the costs of travel and accommodation. Deadline for submitting your application is 14th May, please visit the YECREA website for further information on these grants.

Last but not least: Don’t forget that registration for ECREA 2018 will open on May 7, 2018. Register by August 31st to take advantage of the early bird registration fees.

Looking forward to welcoming you in Lugano!

Warm wishes,

Gabriele Balbi, Lorenzo Cantoni, Katharina Lobinger & Petra Mazzoni

ECREA 2018 Local Organising Committee

Digital Democracy, an interim ECREA conference

The ECREA sections Communication & Democracy, and Media Industries & Cultural Production organized a joint interim conference on November 10 and 11, 2017. The event, titled Digital Democracy: Critical Perspectives in the Age of Big Data, took place at Södertörn University, Stockholm, and gathered over a hundred scholars with 70 outstanding presentations over two days.

The impact of digital media, big data, and algorithmic culture on social constructs such as democracy, civic engagement, and political participation was the main connecting thread for the conference. The debates and conversations shared by most presenters raised a metaphorical eyebrow on the current grip that datafication, media industries, and digital democracy have in our current social environment.

The event kicked off with a YECREA pre-conference, organized by Julia Velkova, and facilitated by Annette Markham and Jenny Sundén. This session, oriented to early career scholars, focused on digital methodologies for studying algorithms and helped shed light on the complex socio-technical relations in which algorithms are crafted. Markham and Sundén did a fantastic job in exemplifying the complexity in defining and operationalizing algorithms. It is unclear whether attendees had a better understanding of algorithms after the workshop, but there is a clear possibility that was Markham and Sundén’s plan all along. The diverse understanding of algorithms that attendees brought to the pre-conference helped visualize how we influence and are influenced by algorithmic processes and practices. Confuse to enlighten. What a brilliant prelude to the main conference.

The first keynote, delivered by Professor Helen Kennedy, masterfully set the tone of the conference by introducing the emotional dimensions of engaging with data and its relevance for democracy and in media work. Using data visualization as a guiding light, Kennedy exposed the importance of addressing processes of datafication with a critical look, especially taking account of everyday experiences and the role of emotional dimensions, what she calls “feeling numbers”, have for democracy. 

The keynote speaker Professor Helen Kennedy, photo credit: Göran Bolin

Mikkel Flyverbom delivered the second keynote. His take on the datafied world seemed taken from a slightly worrying sci-fi movie but was based on current forms of anticipatory forms of governance. While the topic was central to the core of the conference, the novelty of Flyverbom’s cases caught some of the attendees off-guard. Of course, we all know data is being used in policing, cyber-security, and anti-radicalization, theoretically. Seeing how in-depth these processes are embedded in a so-called highly-functioning democracy was not only eye-opening but also conveyed an alarm that showed how much media and communication scholars have yet to delve into, empirically.

In the closing keynote address, Professor Joseph Turow matched two apparently separate worlds, which are clearly and profitably merged, with an alarming lack of well-deserved outrage by the public: goods stores and everyday surveillance. The way in which commerce has appropriated digital tracking and surveilling practices to optimize online advertising is widespread and pervasive. Consumers and governing agencies seem to have normalized commercial surveillance as part of the ordinary everyday digital life, which may be eroding people’s confidence in the public sphere. Turow’s address was a perfect wrap for two days of cheerful gloom-and-doom media and communication academic conference. The world is in shambles, and we need to go investigate it.

After two days, three keynotes, and five parallel sessions, one cannot help but to feel decidedly overwhelmed. Not only because of the amount of remarkable presentations showcasing the forefront of digital media and communication research. Not only because it seems everyone who can misuse data for commercial or power gain will do that. Not even because mid-November in Stockholm gets dark alarmingly early. But because there are so many venues in which data and processes of datafication are becoming instrumental, that the sinking feeling is that a small army of critical social scientists has too much to chew. Thankfully, we have events like this to come together, discuss, and look forward with a glimpse of optimism.

The Digital Democracy interim conference was a great meeting place for scholars who share a fascination with data and algorithmic culture, but also fear their ubiquity and uneven social integration may play an important role in increasing digital inequalities and concentration of power in contemporary democratic nations. Anne Kaun (also featured in this newsletter) and Julia Velkova greatly organized an event that brings to the fore the importance of studying datafication beyond the mesmerizing focus on technology and focusing on the issues and complications that the use of data in everyday social life may bring.

Raul Ferrer-Conill, Karlstad University, Sweden, vice-chair of YECREA

The Digital Culture and Communication interim workshop

The Digital Culture and Communication conference was dedicated to the topic Digital Culture meets data: Critical approaches. Hosted by the University of Brighton, the discussion throughout two days was very fruitful. There were 14 panels with a total of 49 presentations during 6 and 7 November 2017, reflecting on how algorithms and big data are today shaping our sociocultural and technical relations and our everyday experiences. The contributions ranged from looking at politics, to bodies and cities, from literacy and regulation to older citizens, as well as methods and critical research.

The keynotes were given by Rob Kitchin (Maynooth) and Helen Thornham (Leeds). Kitchin reflected on the emergence of data-driven urbanism, through the advent of smart cities and urban big data, from the perspective of critical data studies. Focusing, in particular, on the creation of city dashboards and the case of Dublin Dashboard (www.dublindashboard.ie), the talk examined the politics and praxes of data production, analysis and use in these contexts.

With a keynote on “Being data: Gender, class and the datalogical turn”, Helen Thornham presented empirical research with NEET populations (16–24-year-olds not in education, employment or training) in the U.K. to discuss digital bureaucracy and datalogical systems, and the way these ideologically and politically shape people’s lives, particularly from a gender perspective.

The YECREA representative for DCC, Ysabel Gerrard, organized a useful workshop for young scholars, on interviews for academic jobs, how to get a book contract, publishing research, and careers in the digital media, with participation from Caroline Bassett, Aristea Fotopoulou and Arne Hintz.

Ana Jorge, CECC/ Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal

Interview with the new TWG Ethics of Mediated Suffering

What are the main interests of this new TWG? What questions do you wish to pursue?

Our main concern is the mediation of distant suffering, namely the process through which images of human pain are produced, circulated and become appropriated in the public sphere. Relevant questions have long been debated in relation to media institutions and journalistic practices (for example, on how to report terrorism), among NGOs and humanitarian communications (for instance, on how to campaign for poverty relief and during disaster emergencies) and within policy circles (for example, on how news coverage of migrant and refugee stories may impact on policy making). Across these domains, such questions have distinct empirical and analytical but also theoretical and normative dimensions and point to distinct moral, political and cultural implications that require special attention. It is these issues that we are planning to engage with through the platform of the TWG.

How is this subject of research significant for the current media and communication research? And why is it of importance to the ECREA community?

Over the last couple of decades, the field of media and communication studies has experienced a proliferation of studies questioning the moral role of the media in a globalised world, with a specific focus on the question of communicating human vulnerability. A number of theorists and researchers have been exploring how encounters with humanity in its most vulnerable forms are entangled with power and how they may expand the spaces of moral imagination, forging post-national bonds of cosmopolitan solidarity. This academic focus reflects contemporary political, social and cultural developments and relevant public debates. Victims of violence, natural disasters and terrorist attacks routinely feature in the daily news. Digital media – as used by sufferers as well as representing suffering – intensify and complicate encounters with human vulnerability. At the same time, the voices of ongoing humanitarian crises and conflicts often get sidelined and under-reported. The refugee crisis and its European coverage have thrown these questions into relief with a renewed urgency, as the reporting of the issue has significant implications for policy decisions and public support for the refugees.

The growing interest in such questions has been reflected in the proliferation of relevant publications, academic conferences and university teaching. In the last ECREA conference a number of panels were exclusively dedicated to the mediation of the refugee ‘crisis’. We believe that the new TWG is an acknowledgment of the significance of this subfield within ECREA and that it will be an intellectual platform for all these colleagues within the community working in relevant areas.

To which scholars should this new TWG be of most interest – whom do you wish to address and invite to join?

We are aiming at using the TWG as a platform for dialogue, cooperation and networking, bringing together academics from different subfields and various stages in their academic career whose work is currently dispersed across the different thematic sections of ECREA but who share an interest in the question of communicating human vulnerability. Such colleagues might come from the field of journalism, humanitarian communication, critical discourse studies, migration studies, media globalization, visual communication, media ethics, moral and political philosophy.

Can you please present the management team?

Lilie Chouliaraki, our chair, is Professor at the London School of Economics and leading figure in the field. Her monograph The Spectatorship of Suffering (Sage, 2006/2011) is a seminal work of textual analysis of television news and of the global hierarchies of place and human life they reproduce and her more recent study on the mediation of solidarity won her the Outstanding Book of the Year Award at the 2015 ICA for The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post Humanitarianism (2013, Polity Press). Maria Kyriakidou, vice-chair, is a Lecturer at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University working on the relationship between media and globalisation, and particularly the mediation of cosmopolitan solidarity through the coverage of crises and human suffering. Metter Mortensen, our other vice-chair, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen. She has published a monograph on Journalism and Eyewitness Images: Digital Media, Participation and Conflict (2015, Routledge) and is currently the Principal Investigator on a research project on Images of Conflict, Conflicting Images (2017-2021, Velux Foundation).

Lilie Chouliaraki, Maria Kyriakidou, Metter Mortensen

What are your next plans (short and long term)?

We are currently organising a very exciting panel for the ECREA 2018 Lugano conference, when we will introduce the new TWG group. We are hoping that a lot of colleagues will join us then to discuss ideas and the future directions of the group. We aim to organise a symposium in 2019 about which we will have more details at Lugano. Overall, we are planning to use the TWG as a space for constructive dialogue and networking, as well as a space for collaboration and the emergence of new research paths.

Please visit the ECREA intranet to join the TWG and subscribe to the TWG’s forum to keep informed and updated.

Tereza Pavlickova