ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 14-15, 2020

Dijon, France

Deadline: October 1, 2019

In recent years, social tensions linked to national, religious and ethnic identities have made the headlines in many countries, often linked to migration, as this “other globalization” (Wolton, 2003) brings the not-so-exotic “Other” ever closer in our cosmopolitan societies. For decades now, scholars have denounced the way in which the notion of culture has been exploited and misused in the public sphere, in support of various causes grounded in majority or minority identity discourse, by various groups defending or promoting national/nationalist, regional/regionalist, postcolonial, religious or other agendas, and resorting to “culture speak” (Hannerz, 1999). However, despite repeated warnings against rigid and “essentialised” uses of the concept of culture, these same social discourses and the identity phenomena motivating them seem to resist and even to grow stronger.

In the wake of the postmodern turn in anthropology (Clifford & Marcus, 1986) and in cultural studies (Hall, 1997), intercultural communication scholars have gradually shifted towards a more dynamic conception of culture as a communication process on the microsocial level (Dervin, 2011; Holliday, 2016). There appears to be a consensus emerging among many researchers within the field, as to the necessity of “deconstructing” the notion of culture by adopting more “liquid” (Bauman, 2011) or “fluid” (Ogay & Edelmann, 2016) perspectives, and such approaches have progressively been applied to associated fields, such as management studies (Primecz, Romani & Sackmann, 2011), public relations (Carayol & Frame, 2012; Frame & Ihlen, 2018), education science (Ogay & Edelmann, 2016; Tremion & Dervin, 2018), media studies (Sommier, 2017), and migration studies (Frame, 2018). And yet, paradoxically, solid discourses about “cultural” identities appear to be becoming more resistant in the public sphere. Reductive, xenophobic populist discourse, on the one hand, but also accusations of cultural appropriation and minority identity movements on the other, seem to threaten social cohesion in political models based on British or North-American multiculturalism or indeed the French republican model of integration, as well as in many other areas of the world affected by perceived “migration crises.”

But could it be that these two opposing views – fluid and solid approaches to culture – actually work to strengthen one another? In a context where the legitimacy of “experts” is increasingly being challenged, a process catalysed by the trends of fact-checking, “fake news” and the fragmentation of the digital public sphere, academic discourse is frequently discredited, falling victim to the social constructionist relativism it extols. It seems to reflect less and less the social consciousness of those parts of the world population who feel they have been left behind in the rush towards globalization.

What is needed to reconcile these two extremes, to enable academics to re-engage with social debate and reduce the apparent gap between prevailing discourses within the ivory tower and those spread in society at large, amplified by the media and some politicians? Even if we deconstruct and show certain uses of the notion of culture to be oversimplified and hegemonic from an academic point of view, we must also take into account the fact that such “culture speak” makes sense to many people thinking about identity in their everyday interactions (Holliday, 2015). To address this gap we might examine possible points of convergence between critical approaches to culture in intercultural communication (Dervin & Machart, 2015; Nakayama & Halualani, 2010; Romani et al., 2018) and in postcolonial or critical cultural studies, which have long been interested in the (de)construction and repression of identity discourse notably within minority groups (Gilroy, 1987; Hall & Du Gay, 1996).

How should we understand interculturality in the light of increasingly strongly-expressed identity claims on the one hand, and of assigned “prison identities” (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2006) on the other?

How should we take into account these “cultural identities” which are experienced, emotionallycharged, and which give meaning to everyday social interactions?

Even if all communication is intercultural because of our multiple social identities (Dacheux, 1999; Lahire, 2001), interculturalists must also engage with social discourse about culture and the social psychological mechanisms it implies, and not simply reject it as oversimplified. By dismissing it, we only continue to widen the gap between scholarly discourse and the social reality which it seeks to analyse. The aim of this 2-day conference isto focus on this gap and addresssocial discourse on cultural identities, with the following objectives:

• To analyse social discourse on cultural identities (populist political speeches, media coverage of migration, cultural appropriation, reification of cultural forms through heritage, banal nationalism, institutional racism…) in order to better grasp underlying theoretical models and the conceptual and psychological mechanisms involved in this discourse.

• To propose methods (research activities, awareness-raising, training tools…) to better engage with social debate around those questions.

• To study the areas of convergence and possible synergies, in relation to these questions, between critical cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and intercultural communication.

• To open a space of dialogue between anglophone and francophone intellectual traditions in intercultural communication research, focusing particularly on critical approaches, applied to a  variety of types and levels of cultural phenomena, without geographical limits.

This conference will take place in Dijon, on May 14th and 15th 2020. It is organized by the University of Burgundy (“Text-Image-Language” research group) and supported by the ECREA International and Intercultural Communication division and SAES. Conference languages will be English and French with mediation provided between the two languages.

Paper proposals of around 800 words, including a short bibliography, in English or French, should be submitted via the conference website (http://blog.u-bourgogne.fr/aci2020/) by 1 st October 2019 for double-blind peer review. A selection of submitted texts will be published either in an edited volume or a journal special issue after the event.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

• Fred Dervin (University of Helsinki)
• Vincent Latour (University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès)
• Laurence Romani (Stockholm School of Economics)
• Gavan Titley (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)

Scientific Committee

• Eric Agbessi, Clermont Auvergne University
• Nathalie Auger, Montpellier 3 Paul Valéry University
• Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz, University of Bremen
• Christoph Barmeyer, University of Passau
• Jean-Jacques Boutaud, University of Burgundy
• Valérie Carayol, Bordeaux Montaigne University
• Lilian Ciachir, University of Bucharest
• Robert Geisler, University of Opole
• Mélanie Joseph Vilain, University of Burgundy
• Malgorzata Lahti, University of Jyväskylä
• Vincent Latour, Toulouse Jean Jaurès University
• Éric Maigret, Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 University
• Will Noonan, University of Burgundy
• Tania Ogay, University of Fribourg
• Philippe Pierre, Paris Dauphine University
• Saila Poutiainen, University of Helsinki
• Nadine Rentel, University of Applied Sciences Zwickau
• Laurence Romani, Stockholm School of Economics
• Sébastien Rouquette, Clermont Auvergne University
• Claire Scopsi, CNAM, Paris
• Marko Siitonen, University of Jyväskylä
• Helen Spencer-Oatey, University of Warwick
• Christoph Vatter, Saarland University
• Jacco Van Sterkenburg, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Albin Wagener, Campus Tech
• Jacques Walter, University of Lorraine
• Michal Wanke, University of Opole
• Carsten Wilhelm, University of Haute Alsace
• Romy Woehlert, German Institute for Economic Research
• Khaled Zouari, Clermont Auvergne University

Organising Committee

• David Bousquet (Associate Professor, Cultural Studies, University of Burgundy)
• Alex Frame (Associate Professor, Communication Science, University of Burgundy)
• Mélodine Sommier (Assistant Professor, Intercultural Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Calendar

Deadline for abstract submission 1 st October 2019

Feedback from scientific committee January 2020

Texts submitted for inclusion in digital conference proceedings 15th April 2020

Conference 14th -15th May 2020

Selected final papers submitted for publication September 2020

Conference fees

Full rate: 200€

Student rate: 90€

The registration fees include all the conference materials, coffee breaks and lunch, and social programme with the exception of the conference dinner.

http://blog.u-bourgogne.fr/aci2020/

aci2020ub@gmail.com

References

Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (2006). L’interculturel comme paradigme pour penser le divers. Presented at Congreso internacional de educacion internacional, Madrid, 15-17 March 2006.

Bauman, Z. (2011). Culture in a Liquid Modern World. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (Ed.). (1986). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dacheux, E. (1999). La communication : point aveugle de l’interculturel ? Bulletin de l’ARIC, 31, 2.

Dervin, F. (2011). A plea for change in research on intercultural discourses: A ‘liquid’ approach to the study of the acculturation of Chinese students. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 6(1), 37‑52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2010.532218

Dervin, F., & Machart, R. (Ed.). (2015). Cultural Essentialism in Intercultural Relations. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Frame, A. (2018). Repenser l’intégration républicaine à l’aune de l’interculturalité. Communiquer. Revue de Communication Sociale et Publique, 24(1), 59–79.

Frame, A., & Ihlen, Ø. (2018). Beyond the Cultural Turn: A Critical Perspective on Culture-Discourse within Public Relations. In S. Bowman, A. Crookes, S. Romenti, & Ø. Ihlen (Eds.), Public

Relations and the Power of Creativity: strategic opportunities (pp. 151–162). New York: Emerald.

Gilroy, P. (1987). There ain't no black in the Union Jack. London: Routledge.

Hall, S., & Du Gay, P. (Eds.). (1996). Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage Publications.

Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications.

Hannerz, U. (1999). Reflections on varieties of culturespeak. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(3), 393‑407. https://doi.org/10.1177/136754949900200306

Holliday, A. (2015). Afterword. In F. Dervin & R. Machart (Ed.), Cultural Essentialism in Intercultural Relations (pp. 198‑202). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Holliday, A. (2016). Difference and awareness in cultural travel: Negotiating blocks and threads.

Language and Intercultural Communication, 16(3), 318–331.

Lahire, B. (2001). L’homme pluriel : Les ressorts de l’action. Paris: Armand Colin / Nathan.

Nakayama, T. K., & Halualani, R. T. (Ed.). (2010). The handbook of critical intercultural communication. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Ogay, T., & Edelmann, D. (2016). ‘Taking culture seriously’: implications for intercultural education and training. European Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 388-400. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2016.1157160

Primecz, H., Romani, L., & Sackmann, S. (Eds.). (2011). Cross-cultural management in practice: Culture and negotiated meanings. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.

Romani, L., Mahadevan, J., & Primecz, H. (2018). Critical Cross-Cultural Management: Outline and Emerging Contributions. International Journal of Management and Organisation, 48, 403-418. https://doi.org/10.1080/00208825.2018.1504473

Sommier, M. (2017). Insights into the construction of cultural realities: Foreign newspaper discourses about the burkini ban in France. Ethnicities, 19(2), 251–270.

Tremion, V., & Dervin, F. (2018). De Cultura aux MOOCs de communication interculturelle : Quelles opportunités pour l’apprentissage interculturel à distance ? Revue internationale du elearning et la formation à distance, 33(1).

Wolton, D. (2003). L’autre mondialisation. Paris: Flammarion.

University of Brighton - School of Sport and Service Management

Deadline: July 24, 2019

Location: Eastbourne

Salary: £35,211 to £42,036 per annum (pro-rata)

Hours: Part Time

Contract Type: Fixed-Term/Contract

Placed On: 5th July 2019

Closes: 24th July 2019

Job Ref: EV3130-19-261

Contract Length: 12 months

Located in Eastbourne, the School of Sport and Service Management draw together a range of disciplines of which Sport Journalism/Journalism plays an integral role. The School is a vibrant and outward facing community of staff and students built on transparency and trust, with the student experience at the heart of everything we do.

This is an exciting opportunity to join an established and proactive team of academics dedicated to the learning and teaching of Sport Journalism/Journalism students. We are looking for an experienced Journalism lecturer who will teach on our undergraduate degree on our Journalism/Sport Journalism courses. You will be required to teach practical components of the syllabus with particular focus on NCTJ delivery.

To be successful in this role you will have:

• An undergraduate degree
• NCTJ qualifications

Experience of working in a related field are essential as well as having up to date knowledge of the subject.

The University of Brighton is committed to equality and embraces diversity in our working, learning, research and teaching environment. We welcome all applicants and are committed to providing a supportive and flexible working environment.

This is a part time contract of 12 months with a 0.5fte.

The School is proud to hold a national Athena Swan award for our work in promoting gender equality in the workplace.

In return, we offer a generous package including annual leave starting at 35 days, paid bank holidays, additional paid leave during the Christmas period, travel loans and pension schemes.

Further details:

The University of Brighton is committed to equality and embraces diversity in our working, learning, research and teaching environment. We welcome all applicants and are committed to providing a supportive and flexible working environment.

Further information about working for us, as well as the wide range of benefits we offer, can be found in the "working here" section of our vacancies page.

Closing Date: Wednesday 24 July 2019

Interview Date: Monday 19 August 2019

Apply here.

February 21, 2020

London School of Economics and Political Science

Deadline: August 31, 2019

A European Communication Research and Education Association conference co-sponsored by the ECREA Organisational and Strategic Communication section; the Department of Media and Communications, LSE; and the School of Media, Communication and Sociology, University of Leicester.

Date/Time: Friday 21 February 2020, 09:30-17:30

Venue: The Silverstone Room, Department of Media and Communications, Fawcett House (7th floor), London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE

We live in a time characterised by uncertainty, hybridity and complexity, when the powerful dualisms that characterised the post-Enlightenment era (nature/society, human/machine, male/female, etc.) are being problematised in a fundamental way. This conference explores how we research the promotional cultures that have become central to the liminal times in which we live. What strategies do we use to explore and attempt to understand the assemblage of technologies, texts, networks, and actors in contemporary promotion?

The moniker ‘promotional culture’ is now well-established as a way of describing the ubiquitous presence of promotional work – whether public relations, branding, advertising or other forms - in all aspects of our lives (Davis, 2013). It is enacted by organisations working in all sectors, from politics to the arts, in non-profit and commercial environments, while individuals also adopt promotional techniques in the ways they present themselves and their lives to others. However, the singularity of the term ‘culture’ belies the fluid and complex worlds that promotion is built on, engages with, and perpetuates. Organisations that use promotional tools in their strategic communication can be implicated in the worst excesses of persuasion and propaganda, yet can also contribute to positive social change (Demetrious, 2013; Miller & Dinan, 2007). Communication campaigns track, survey and instrumentalise our lives through their endless appetite for data, yet ensure organisations can deliver convenience and interest precisely because they know us so well (Turow, 2006). Mainstream public relations and advertising tactics are used to sell us cars, face creams and holidays, but are deployed to greenwash environmental damage, whitewash corporate corruption, woke-wash social causes, and frame political opportunism as strategic thinking. Promotional culture cannot be pinned down to one form, process or purpose, so how do we account for its complex modes of production and deployment in our research questions, methods and sites?

To talk about promotional /culture/ is to acknowledge the deep embeddedness of promotion in quotidian life and the importance of its circulatory dynamics (Aronczyk, 2013). Just as Williams argued that culture is a ‘whole way of life’ rather than an elite set of activities (Williams, 1981), when individuals use promotional tools and tactics on their own terms, those tools are transformed from being a mechanism of elite power and repurposed to serve our own agency. Agentic power circulates through promotional work, via digital and analogue channels, and with unpredictable outcomes (Collister, 2016; Hutchins & Tindall, 2016). In this sense, promotional culture is a continually emergent manifestation of the struggle between agency and structure, a hybrid form of power of which the outcome is never certain. Can research adequately address the tensions and power struggles that underpin all promotional work, including inequalities within and between nations and regions, whether in the Global North and the Global South? To what extent do we incorporate a wide range of sites, voices and articulations of its effects, and where are the gaps in our current practice?

This ECREA interim conference invites submissions that address the challenges of researching the complex, hybrid and liminal nature of promotion in a range of ways. Submissions may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Structures of promotion – platforms, suppliers, industry structures, networked movements, industry hybridity and blurred boundaries between professional territory in theory and practice;
• Technologies of promotion – modes of production for promotional work, including digital technologies (data, AI, algorithms, bots) as well as old (but still current) techniques such as press releases, events and sponsorships, display advertising, and their effects on the development of promotional work; the power of promotional industries and the diffusion or limitation of promotional culture;
• Agents of promotion – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practitioners and organisations; producers and/as audiences; non-human agents and their effects on promotional campaigns, circulation, and impact;
• Representations of promotion – practice, practitioners, organisations, industries and professional fields as good, bad, inevitable, normal, deficient, diverse, or a matter of professional pride, and their continuity and change over time.
• Effects of promotion – from populism in politics to excessive or ethical consumption, to social and political activism and change; from racialised, gendered and classed audiences, messages and images to subaltern discourses and representations that reassert the power of the ‘other’ on a local, national and global scale;
• Ethics of promotion – from deontological, teleological or virtue ethics, to an ethics of practice, feminist ethics, globalised ethics, or, alternatively, contractual ethics, ethics in the digital sphere, and their effects on practice;
• Methods of promotional research – challenges of researching the digital, excavating promotional ideologies, confronting professions, engaging audiences through academic work, and the risks and realities of research that can equally promote change or speak into a vacuum.

To submit to the conference, abstracts of 500 words should be submitted by 31 August 2019 to the conference organisers, at the following email: media.promotion2020@lse.ac.uk .

Decisions on papers will be made by 30 September 2019. Full papers

should be submitted by 15 January 2020, to give time for them to be circulated to conference participants.

The Department of Media and Communications at the LSE and the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester are making travel stipends available for a small number of PhD students, to support their attendance at the conference. The application process for the stipends will be publicised closer to the conference date.

If you have any further questions please contact the conference organisers Lee Edwards (l.edwards2@lse.ac.uk ) or Ian Somerville (ijas1@le.ac.uk). 

October 24-25, 2019

Erich-Brost Institute, Dortmund, Germany

Extended deadline for proposal submission: July 20, 2019

Joint conference of the section International and Intercultural Communication (DGPuK) and the network Media Structures

Affiliation: Institute for Media Studies (IfM), Ruhr-University, Bochum (Germany)

The disruptive transformations of the media ecology are in the focus of media scholars and politicians world-wide. Technological and cultural changes as well as major shifts in audience behaviour are core drivers of these transformations, which can be observed in various sectors, refer to different aspects of media systems, and are based on intertwined, but often contradictory and dialectical dynamics (D'Haenens, Sousa & Trappel 2018). Transformations of the media ecology have to be considered in a wider scope of challenges of democracies in the digital age. The planned conference aims to bring together research that addresses current developments and challenges with regard to four dimensions:

1. Media policy, strategies and regulation are crucially challenged by meta-narratives such as globalization and digitization, since they have historically evolved through national regulatory routines (Holtz-Bacha 1994). Scholars and politicians alike critically assess questions whether the information available to citizens is sufficient to build an informed citizenry and what kind of regulation of digital media contributes to plurality and diversity. Moreover, civil society demands for more involvement and participation in content creation and regulation. Contributions to the planned conference will debate the (re-)formulation of public service media (PSM and the extent to what a „Civic Commons Online“ is necessary. A possible point of discussion is whether public service media (PSM) are in the position to establish such a deliberative space complementing both public sphere and parliamentary debate (e.g. Ramsey 2013; Schweizer 2016).

2. At the economic and innovations level, commercial media in Europe have always been challenged to balance between fulfilling the professional norms of journalism by acting as a watchdog to the government while at the same time making profit. However, with the loss in revenues, this tension became more intense. Many media institutions cut costs and reduced the number of staff, which in consequence limited the ability of the media to act as a watchdog (McChesney & Nichols, 2010; Pickard, 2011; Siles & Boczkowski, 2012; Starkman, 2014). Conference contributions are asked to address commonalities and differences of economic challenges in the private and PSM sector and discuss alternative funding schemes (Kiefer 2011, Schweizer & Puppis 2018). The question to what extent the nexus between economy and media quality is addressed in media strategies will be of interest.

3. At the content level, despite the described crisis in journalism, it has never been easier for the audience to receive and publish information, while at the same time it has never been more difficult to evaluate the quality of information gained. The number of digital media outlets, blogs and social media posts seems to be expanding continuously and technological innovations such as recommender systems allow for personalized user experience, audience interaction and may also foster user participation on the content level.However, the establishment of so called social networks has been accompanied by undesired developments such as the rise of hate speech, an increased influence of populist spin on the formation of public opinion (Sponholz 2018) and disinformation (Report of the High-Level Group on Fake News and online disinformation 2018). Paradoxically, while governments and regulators discuss how to hold social networks accountable, established and publicly funded media have become customers of these companies in the meantime, because they enable, for example, PSM to reach younger audiences in order to fulfil their public remit (Sehl, Cornia & Kleis Nielsen 2018). Conference contributions are asked to assess content innovations, public value and the ethics of journalism in the digital media world. Contributions may inquire in how far gamification or the automatization of journalistic content is in the public interest and address advantages and disadvantages of personalized information. What kind of debates and measures are necessary to tackle the future of the public remit of media in general and PSM in particular?

4. On an international comparative level, it is important to analyze how different media systems adapt to the current changes in the media landscape. In the non-Western world, digitization causes different problems and advantages; e.g. in post-conflict and developing countries well-established regulation structures and strategies do not exist. Comparative research can shed light on the question, in how far the digital era challenges the establishment of regulation patterns in various countries and regions (Sousa et al. 2013). We welcome conference contributions that discuss the most pressing challenges and/or innovations for deliberation, political representation and participation in the media in international comparison. We further invite contributions that aim at identifying patterns of similarities and differences across countries concerning press freedom, media subsidies, and the framework in which media act.

This international conference, hence, aims to bring together scholars and practitioners working on a variety of theoretical, methodological and practical issues arising from the investigation of media policy and regulation in digital environments. Questions to be discussed during the conference should be rooted in theoretical approaches and at the same time inform these approaches to broaden not only the scope of research, but also deliver key factors and messages to media practitioners, policy makers and regulators. The conference especially welcomes international comparative research, but is not limited to it, as case studies may be crucial to understand trends. Also, proposals with a transnational perspective dealing with trends and topics crossing borders are welcome.

The call is open to theoretical contributions as well as various empirical designs.

There will be two lines of submission:

Proposals for individual papers: abstracts of no more than 500 words addressing one of the issues outlined below.

Proposals for panels with 4-5 papers in a panel: abstracts of no more than 1000 words.

Activating formats (i.e. Worldcafe, Workshop) are welcome.

Submissions in English via email to: iic-conference2019@rub.de

Conference organizers:

• Dr. Christine Horz (Ruhr University Bochum),
• Dr. Julia Lönnendonker (Vrije Universiteit Brussels)
• Dr. Florian Meissner (Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf)

January 17, 2020

Village Berlin

Deadline: October 18, 2019

Following on from the success of our network launch at BCU in May 2019 themed around masculinity and body image our next network event in Berlin in January 2020 takes the topic of Masculinity and National Identity as a starting point for conversation around some of the following themes:

• National/regional masculinities
• The sexualisation of regional/ethnic masculinity
• Masculinity and national identities and intersections of sexuality, racial, religious, ethnic, class, etc. identities
• Intra/international constructions and articulations of masculinity and national identity
• Politics & ideology (incl. far-left and far-right articulations), including but not limited to: extremism, populism, activism, nationalism, separatism, neoliberalism
• On/offline representation(s) and performance(s) of masculinity and national identity
• Media discourses of masculinity and national identity
• Men’s (online) groups and forums

We invite individual papers, pre-constituted panels, poster presentations, video presentations, or short performance pieces that address the theme of the symposium. We intend to convene several roundtable discussions so we particularly welcome 5 to 10 min position papers on topics related to masculinity and national identity in the 21st century from any field of study. These are topics that relate popular debate and media reportage, educators and policy makers and we are keen to involve practitioners and non-academics in our discussions and events.

Please send a 300-word abstract and short bio (max. 100 words) to Charlie Sarson charlie.sarson@bcu.ac.uk or enquiries to Professor John Mercer john.mercer@bcu.ac.uk and Professor Clarissa Smith clarissa.smith@sunderland.ac.uk

Deadline for proposals 18th October 2019

Attendance will be free.

MASCNET is a 24-month AHRC funded research network to explore the pervasiveness of sexualized masculine embodiment across contemporary popular culture, and sets an ambitious agenda for subsequent research.

The network steering group includes Begonya Enguix, Joao Florencio, Jamie Hakim, Mark McGlashan, Peter Rehberg and Florian Voros.

Special issue of Journal of Multicultural Discourses

Deadline: September 1, 2019

Guest editors Elena Vartanova & Anna Gladkova, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Today, we observe how Russia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa and other countries (Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and others) the term ‘Emerging States’ has been sometimes applied to, are fast becoming important players on the international stage (Jaffrelot, 2009). The historical path of ‘Emerging States’, accompanied by major social and political transformations, territorial shifts and changes of political regimes in the 20 th century, as well as the growing presence of these countries in global economy, politics, culture and communication, defined by scholars as ‘the rise of the ‘rest’ (Amsden, 2001), make them an interesting and timely case to study.

Yet often, scholars approach multicultural discourses in ‘Emerging States’ from a ‘Western’ perspective which is not always applicable or suitable to countries with a different historical path of development, as well as political, social and cultural legacy. In this special issue, we will discuss how social, political, economic, technological and cultural transformations ‘Emerging States’ evolved in 20-21st centuries influenced cross-cultural communication in these countries from a cultural discourse studies perspective (Shi-xu, 2015), as well as the impact these major events had upon people’s identities (e.g. Wojnowski, 2015; Davies, 1997; Tishkov, 2008). Furthermore, we argue that regardless of national specifics and current peculiarities of ‘Emerging States’’ communication systems, there are challenges in all multicultural/multi-ethnic societies in that region that they are facing under ongoing digitalization process.

In this special issue, we will look at communication in the multicultural societies of ‘Emerging States’ through the following lenses:

• Social, political, economic, cultural, technological transformations of ‘Emerging States’, and their impact upon cultural discourses;
• Digital communication as a dimension of ‘soft power’ in ‘Emerging States’;
• Diasporas and multicultural discourses;
• Digital inequalities in access/skills/benefits of cultural and ethnic groups leading to new social divides;
• Development of multiculturalism models in ‘Emerging States’ under current digitalization process;
• Constructing ethnic/cultural/linguistic/religious identities in ‘Emerging States’;
• Ethnic media in the new digital environment: audiences, content strategies, roles and functions of journalists;
• Digital media consumption of cultural and ethnic groups, the rise of digital natives;
• Communication policy and its role in supporting intercultural communication across various groups in the society / between societies on a global level.

We welcome contributions from diverse fields of study and methodologies. The special issue is open for general submissions and decisions about inclusion will be quality based, relying on peer reviewing.

Deadline for abstract submission (300-500 words indicating central questions, methodology, and theoretical framework): 1 September 2019.

More details and submission guidelines available here: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/ah-rmmd-2019-si1/?utm_source=CPB_think&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JOG10274

University of Greenwich

The School of Design at the University of Greenwich is announcing a  fully funded PhD scholarship for an interdisciplinary research project exploring the interplay between urban space, visual media and digital  technologies on a variety of different levels. 

The PhD project will review mechanisms by which new technologies can  change our understanding and experience of cities, as well as the ways  in which processes of urbanisation shape increasing use of digital  screens, based on the idea of touch, haptic and interactions. The PhD  will explore the use of screen media as a methodology to construct  narratives in and about the cities, as well as tracing the emergence of  such narratives from the earlier technologies in the 19th and 20th  centuries. 

The PhD project will be open to a range of disciplines, across art,  architecture, design and social sciences, as well as to wide  geographical contexts. The project may be pursued through either  research or practice-based investigations. 

Questions/Areas that can be explored within this project include, but  are not limited to: 

• Cities, screens and non-spaces 
• Digital utopias 
• Creative practice and the city 
• Urban walking on/off/with screen 
• Data, AI, automation and cities 

The supervisory team includes Prof Steve Kennedy (Head of School of  Design), Dr Maria Korolkova (Academic Portfolio Lead Media), and Dr Ed  Wall (Academic Portfolio Lead Landscape and Urbanism), combining the  expertise from Media and Landscape portfolios.

The project will also provide a catalyst from which to establish a new  research centre, in which the PhD candidate will be expected to take the  a major role. 

For further information please contact the supervisors: Dr Ed Wall  e.wall@gre.ac.uk  and Dr Maria Korolkova, m.korolkova@gre.ac.uk ​ 

For additional information about the scholarship please go to: http://www.gre.ac.uk/research/study/research-studentships-and-scholarships

Applications need to be made online via http://www.gre.ac.uk/research/study/apply/application-process

No  other form of application will be considered.

March 26-27, 2020 

Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands 

Deadline: October 1, 2019

The conference ‘The Stage of War’ focuses on academic and popular  representations of war and other large-scale conflicts. Nowadays, the  cultural engagement with the history of violent conflicts spans a  multitude of academic and above all popular genres, including (graphic)  novels, films, tourism, musicals, games, exhibitions and re-enactments. 

Producers of popular genres try to bring the past closer to the public  through interaction, performance and multi-sensory experience, often to  the discontent of academic historians who fear for a distorted or  trivialized past. Nonetheless, research indicates that these popular  genres can significantly affect and enhance our understanding of the past. 

The unique aim of this conference is to stimulate an exchange between  academic and popular approaches to the representation of violent  conflicts. Instead of just criticizing popular historical culture, we  call on academic historians to suggest what a responsible approach to  the past might entail. Simultaneously, we ask producers to clarify what  the practical and ethical limitations and opportunities are of  representing violent pasts in contemporary society. How can we learn  from each other? To what extent can critical historical thinking be  stimulated through popular productions? This two-day conference is  comprised of academic lectures, presentations, roundtable discussions,  and a battlefield tour in Rotterdam by military history specialists. 

Target groups 

         Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists 

         PhD and ReMa students 

         Military specialists 

         Memory / heritage specialists 

         Popular culture specialists 

         Tourism professionals 

         Producers of historical musicals, films, video games,  exhibitions, websites 

         Script writers, curators, game developers, graphic novel authors 

         Trainers, heritage educators, history teachers 

Thematic scope 

Contributors are invited to submit papers on topics as 

         Diversification of war experiences 

         Embodiment and bodily understanding 

         The commercialization of war heritage 

         Creating immediacy, direct contact with the past 

         Battlefield representations for education, tourism and  military training 

         Representing and experiencing authenticity 

         Marginal perspectives / multiperspectivity 

         Commemoration and reenactments 

Keynote speakers 

Alison Landsberg (George Mason University, USA) 

Robin de Levita (Robin de Levita Productions, The Netherlands) 

Stefan Berger (Ruhr Universität Bochum, Germany) 

Please send abstracts of max. 300 words and a short biographical  statement of  max. 50 words to thestageofwar@eshcc.eur.nl before 1 October 2019. 

All abstracts will be reviewed. Notification of acceptance: 1 December 2019. 

Location and organization 

The venue of this conference will be campus Woudestein Erasmus  University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The conference is an outcome of  the Research Excellence Initiative 'War! Popular Culture and European  Heritage of Major Armed Conflicts', directed by prof.dr. Maria Grever  and prof.dr. Stijn Reijnders at the Erasmus School of History, Culture  and Communication (ESHCC). See also  http://www.eur.nl/en/eshcc/research/popular-culture-and-war-heritage

Website:  https://www.eur.nl/en/eshcc/stage-war-2020

Contact  thestageofwar@eshcc.eur.nl 

Fees 

         Early bird €70, - 

         After 1 February 2020 €100,- 

         Students €25,- 

         Dinner €35,- 

Our organisation committee consists of Prof.dr. Maria Grever, Prof.dr.  Stijn Reijnders, Prof.dr. Jeroen Jansz, Prof.dr. Kees Ribbens, dr. Susan  Hogervorst, Siri Driessen, Pieter van den Heede, dr. Laurie  Slegtenhorst, Lise Zurné, dr. Robbert-Jan Adriaansen and Prof.dr.  Franciska de Jong. 

The University of Bremen

Application deadline: September 1, 2019

The University of Bremen invites applications for a university professorship at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) in Faculty 9, Cultural Studies.

Tenured Professorship

- Salary group W2 - in the subject area Communication and Media Studies with the focus ‘Media Society’

Reference number: P902/19

Applicants should have a successful record in the field of empirical communication and media research with a focus on social communication and the impact of media on social processes. Research should be carried out with a cross-media perspective in the following thematic areas: The appropriation and use of digital media; cultural, social and economic contexts of digital media; chances and risks of digital traces. Applicants should be experienced in the use of qualitative methods of digital communication research. The successful candidate will be expected to participate in the research cluster ‘Media Change’ in the Faculty of Cultural Studies, the acquisition of third-party funding, as well as in interdisciplinary research cooperation at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) and its research group ‘Communicative Figurations’ (with the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute and the University of Hamburg). The position holder will teach Communication and Media Studies in courses offered by the Faculty and, in addition to thematic courses on social communication and the media influence of social processes, be able to offer foundation courses in the field of communication and media science and its methods. Duties will also include participation in the development of a structured doctoral program.

The University of Bremen is committed to increasing the share of women working in science and particularly welcomes applications from female academics. Applications from candidates with a migration background as well as candidates from other countries are likewise very welcome. Severely handicapped applicants with essentially the same professional and personal suitability as other applicants will be given priority.

The University offers a wide range of services to support newly appointed professors, such as a Welcome Center, childcare and dual career opportunities, as well as personnel development and continuing education.

In addition to the legal requirements for civil servants, a professionally relevant and outstanding doctorate and other relevant academic achievements of outstanding quality are expected, such as a successful junior professorship or habilitation-equivalent achievements. Suitable pedagogical-didactical aptitude, which should be documented by experience in teaching, is prerequisite. Non-German-speaking applicants will be expected to reach proficiency in the German-language after a period of 2-3 years. The appointment is based on Section 18 of the Bremen Higher Education Act (Bremisches Hochschulgesetz) and Section 116 of the Bremen Civil Service Act (Bremisches Beamtengesetz).

For further information, feel free to contact the leader of the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp.

Please send your application, stating the reference number and accompanied by the usual supporting documents (C.V., list of publications, record of teaching and research activities, certificates), to the address below or by e-mail to the Dean of Faculty, Prof. Dr. Dorle Dracklé (bewerbungenfb9uni-bremen.de) by September 1, 2019.

Further information on appointment procedures at the University of Bremen can be found at: http://www.uni-bremen.de/de/berufungsverfahren.html

Die Dekanin des Fachbereichs 9 – Kulturwissenschaften

Frau Prof. Dr. Dorle Dracklé

Universität Bremen

Postfach 330 440

28334 Bremen

Germany

www.uni-bremen.de

Download here

SOAS, University of London, UK

September 2020

Deadline: January 15, 2020

“A way of apprehending the world based on my experience, my education, my culture and my environment. Mantisme is a system of thought that we virtually assimilate to a language that is unique to each individual. A language that I permanently “negotiate” with the language of the “other” with whom I would share an experience, education, culture and a similar environment.”

(Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Africa for the Future: sortir un nouveau monde du cinema [2009], cited and translated by P. Julie Papaioannou, “‘Qu’elle aille explorer le possible!’ Or African Cinema according to Jean-Pierre Bekolo, in Harrow and Garritano, eds, A Companion to African Cinema, Wiley Blackwell, 2018, p.405)

In September 2020, a three-day, fully-funded workshop will be held at SOAS, University of London as part of the ERC-funded project “African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies”. In the broadest sense, the workshop is designed to facilitate and inspire collaborative dialogue and work on creative African screen media texts and contexts among scholars working in this field in different parts of the world and – in particular – within Africa. To facilitate this, all transport, accommodation, visa, and meal costs will be fully covered for the selected participants, regardless of where they will be traveling from. In a more specific sense, the focus of the event will be collectively workshopping and developing pre-submitted chapters for publication in an edited volume titled African Screen Worlds. There will be several inspiring keynote presentations by leading African screen media scholars, practitioners and creative researchers.

All submissions will need to engage, in some way, with the concept of “screen worlds”, which we put forward as a heuristic device to encourage creative, provocative approaches and angles of analysis in relation to African screen media. Our reasons for suggesting this concept are twofold. First, we would like to put the emphasis on the importance of analysing screen cultures through the diverse “worldviews” of particular locations and individual artists, acknowledging that films are significantly influenced by the ways that filmmakers constantly negotiate their subjective experiences of the world with the contexts in which their films are conceptualised, made, circulated and viewed. Second, we wish to interrogate the possibilities and tensions that manifest themselves in the creation and circulation of diverse “screen worlds” in a variety of formats (feature fiction films, short films, creative documentaries, web series) in our era of digital flows as well as barriers, of mediated border-crossings as well as geo-blocking and censorship. For example, as mobile data becomes cheaper in Africa, the possibilities for streaming African-made content via phones could become transformative for people’s viewing experiences, and platforms such as iRoko, ShowMax, Sodere and Netflix are responding to these opportunities. And if African films are growing in popularity and accessibility, this perhaps means that even “arthouse” films might be able to break out of the international film festival circuit on which they have been dependent for so long, moving beyond the “world cinema” category to which they have often been consigned, for better or worse.

This workshop asks participants to consider these recent developments in African screen cultures and technology in relation to one or more of the following: specific “worldviews” (both on the African continent and in Africa’s diverse diasporas); contemporary, mainstream theorising around screen cultures and experiences (e.g. the work of Giuliana Bruno, William Uricchio, Haidee Wasson); the representational forms African films currently take and might take in the near future; and the ways in which African films are made, circulated and viewed. In each case we encourage authors to foreground something about their own identity, positionality and/or lived experience in relation to the subject matter (in line with Bekolo’s idea of “mantisme”). We wish to be clear that we hold no preconceived or fixed views on how the concept of “screen worlds” should be theorised; we suggest this concept as a prompt to see how different scholars of African screen media choose to theorise/translate/argue against/reject this concept in relation to particular cinematic texts and/or their contexts of production and consumption. We are particularly interested in chapters from Africa-based researchers grounded in local perspectives and experiences, and based on long-term research. We strongly encourage submissions from both established and early career researchers. 

In addition to the issues raised above, chapters might address the following questions (although this list is by no means exhaustive):

-          How do African filmmakers conceptualise screen content depending on whether they are targeting “big screen” or “small screen” cinema audiences?

-          How are the melodramatic, low-production-value “screen worlds” that are common across commercial film industries in Africa changing under new industrial conditions of film production, distribution and exhibition?

-          How do audiences in diverse African and diasporic contexts experience the diegetic “screen worlds” of different African films?

-          What are the relationships between film and television in African and diasporic contexts, particularly in relation to Moradewun Adejunmobi’s groundbreaking theorisation of the “televisual turn” in African screen media (2015), and the general global turn to television?

-          How are video on demand platforms such as ShowMax, Sodere, and Netflix, as well as phone apps such as iRoko, changing the forms, modes and routes of African screen media?

-          Are chasms developing or closing between “popular” cinema and “film festival” cinema in Africa and elsewhere because of the different kinds of screens on which these forms of cinema tend to be watched?

-          What does the popularity of certain film genres across and beyond Africa, as well as the emergence of popular local film genres in specific African contexts, tell us about the local/global nature of “screen worlds”?

-          What kind of new genres of filmmaking, and convergence of artistic forms beyond cinema, are evident in recent creative African screen media texts, both in the continent and beyond?  

-          Does “world cinema” remain an important category of analysis when it comes to contemporary African screen media and why/why not?

Submissions need to include:

i)                    a draft chapter of between 6,000 – 8,000 words (word count includes footnotes but excludes bibliography)

ii)                  a chapter abstract of 300 words

iii)                a biography of 300 words

Please use the Harvard style referencing system and UK rather than US spelling. If you quote something in an African language (which is encouraged), please make sure that you also provide an English translation. 

Please note that the workshop will take place either directly before or after the 2020 African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) conference at Cardiff University, Wales, to make it easier for participants to potentially attend both events. We strongly encourage our participants to also submit abstract/panel proposals to this conference when the Call for Papers is published. Please note, however, that we cannot cover participants’ costs for attending ASAUK.

Deadline: 15 January 2020

Submit to: Dr Lindiwe Dovey (LD18@SOAS.AC.UK) and Dr Michael W. Thomas (MT97@SOAS.AC.UK)

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 819236).

Dr Michael W. ThomasPostdoctoral Research Fellow

ERC funded project - African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film Studies

co-editor of Cine-Ethiopia: The History and Politics of Film in the Horn of Africa