ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 7-8, 2026

Roskilde University, Denmark

Deadline: February 28, 2026

SMiD 2026 – 50 Years Anniversary Conference

Generative AI (GenAI) fundamentally reconfigures the very processes that lie at the core of media and communication scholarship. Recent estimates show that ChatGPT alone processes approx. 2.5 billion prompts daily, which illustrates the unprecedented speed and scale at which GenAI tools are adopted and integrated into everyday practices. This development raises not only critical questions about the changing conditions of communication and media practices but also knowledge work, journalism, organisational structures and cultures, agency, authenticity, transparency, accountability, labour, bias, power relations, etc. In addition, GenAI sparks fundamental methodological debates and challenges the status quo of academic teaching and learning.

Current GenAI developments echo, mirror and build upon previous technological innovations and are deeply embedded into and shaped by societal and cultural transformations. Over the past five decades, such transformations have continuously redefined the study objects of media and communication scholarship, leading to an expansion of the field from its early focus on mass media, radio, print journalism and television to encompass a wide array of social media, digital cultures and datafied infrastructures.

The SMiD 2026 anniversary conference wishes to mark 50 years of media and communication research in Denmark, the Nordics and beyond, as well as 45 years of MedieKultur. It aims to provide a forum for critical reflection that situates current GenAI developments and disruptions within broader historical trajectories and transformations in media and communication studies. Scholars and educators are invited to engage in discussions on how media and communication research can provide adequate responses to the pressing questions contemporary societies are facing in the era of GenAI. Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Changing communication and media practices, e.g., transformations in everyday communication practices, shifting norms, cultures, human-machine communication, health communication.
  
• GenAI in relation to news production, journalism and data, e.g., how GenAI reshapes journalistic routines, newsroom work, GenAI as epistemic authorities.
  
• Platform materiality and environmental communication, e.g., critical examinations of the material and environmental demands of GenAI and how these are communicated, justified and/or obscured, narratives of resistance on the inevitability of GenAI.
  
• Historical, ethical and philosophical perspectives on GenAI, e.g., historical trajectories, philosophical and ethical implications, and changing human-machine relations.
  
• Audience and user studies, e.g., how users and audiences make sense of, interpret, and co-create GenAI output, shifting forms of agency, engagement, trust, and literacy across various contexts.
  
• Methodological explorations, e.g., opportunities and challenges for research design, data collection, and analysis, as well as ethical considerations.
  
• Academic teaching and learning, e.g., innovative pedagogical approaches to using/resisting GenAI in media and communication education.
  

The conference’s aim is to bring together academic scholars, from PhD candidates to professors, and practitioners within the broader field of media and communication research.

We welcome traditional academic formats in the form of abstracts and presentations, and we encourage creative and/or experimental, alternative contributions. In connection to the conference, participants are invited to submit a full paper for peer-review to MedieKultur.

As in the previous years, SMiD 2026 is open to all researchers and practitioners with connections to the media and communication research and/or practice environment in Denmark and/or having the wish to connect to the community. If your work is not related to the overall conference theme, you are still welcome to submit an abstract and present your work.

Abstract submissions and other contributions should be between 300 and 500 words (excluding references and a short bio). Please submit no later than February 28th via email to smid@foreningen-smid.dk.

For further information please visit: https://www.foreningen-smid.dk/

Conference costs (including lunch, dinner and refreshments, excluding transportation and lodging):

• Conference participation and full SMiD membership: 2000 DKK
  
• Conference participation and reduced SMiD membership (e.g., PhD students and emerita): 1700 DKK
• Conference attendance only: 1500 DKK
  

In special circumstances it is possible to waive the conference fee, e.g. if you are an independent researcher. Please write a short informal application stating your current situation via e-mail to smid@foreningen-smid.dk.

University of Zurich

The Media & Internet Governance Division (Prof. Dr. Natascha Just), Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich, invites applications for a doctoral position in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network "RePIM – Revisioning Public Interest Media". The Doctoral Candidate will investigate how automated content is used in Public Interest Media and assess the emerging potentials and challenges this creates. The position will involve close collaboration with other Doctoral Candidates in the RePIM doctoral Network Project, and an academic secondment of approximately 2 months at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria. The candidate will also carry out 3-month internship at the VRT, the Public Service Media organisation in Flanders, Belgium.

The planned starting date is 1 May 2026.

For further information and application details, visit https://repimnetwork.eu/dc1-coping-with-the-challenges-of-automated-content-in-public-interest-media/ 

March 19-20, 2026

Lublin, Poland

Deadline (EXTENDED): February 4, 2026

Don't miss your chance to meet our keynote speaker professor Martin Riedl at the Mediatization Conference 7. Come to Lublin 19–20 March 2026 and join the discussion on “Mediatization and Artificial Intelligence. Values, Principles and Practices of AI-zation?”

Martin Riedl Ph. D. is an Assistant Professor at School of Journalism and Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and will deliver his speech in person on the subject: Resuscitated at the deathbed? GenAI as challenge and opportunity for journalism

There is still time to share your ideas and to submit your abstract till 4 February 2026. See the details here: https://www.umcs.pl/en/ms-registration.htm

The conference fee is €48 (PLN 200) and the deadline for payment is 28 February 2026.

Post-conference articles will be published in: Vol. 10, 2026, Mediatization Studies.

ilinglist@ecrea.eu

February 5, 2026

Register for (one of the) DigiMig Webinars on “Digital Inclusion and Migration” now!

The DigiMig Webinar Series aims to create a space for exchange and reflection on how digital technologies shape experiences of migration, belonging, and participation. By bringing together research from different disciplines and countries, the series highlights diverse perspectives on digital inclusion — from education and labour integration to gender and ageing. The series are a part of the NWO VIDI-funded DigiMig project, carried out at the University of Groningen. More information about the project and the webinar series can be found on the project website: www.digimig.nl

Programme

• Nov 6th, 2025 - 15:00-16:00 (CET) (past webinar, recording will be available soon)
  

Maria José Brites, Lusófona University; Terasa Sofia Castro, Lusófona University

Digital wellbeing in schools: the example of Information and Communication Clubs

• February 5th, 2026 - 16:00-17:00 (CET) (Online)
  

Panayiota Tsatsou, Birmingham City University

Exploring digital inclusion, vulnerability and migration: A social lab framework

• March 20th, 2026 - 09:00-10:00 (CET) (Online)
  

Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto, Monash University

Networked Mobility Divide among Older Migrants and their Fragmented Social Networks

• April 9th, 2026 - 16:00-17:00 (CET) (Online)
  

Giacomo Solano, Radboud University

Digitalisation and social and labour market inclusion of female refugees in the Netherlands

• May 6th, 2026 - 16:00-17:00 (CET) (Online)
  

Noemi Mena Montes, Radboud University

Mind the Digital Gap: From Digital Inequality to Digital Equity in Migration & Media

• June 25th, 2026 - 16:00-17:00 (CET) (Online)
  

Claudia Minchilli, University of Groningen

The Myth of Digital Diaspora. An intersectional approach to the study of diasporic digital networking

• September 15th, 2026 - 14:00-15:00 (CET) (Online)
  

Annamaria Neag. University of Groningen; Cigdem Bozdag, University of Groningen; Koen Leurs, Utrecht University

Inclusive media education for diverse societies

Please register for the webinars to receive the Zoom links: https://bit.ly/49XmvP9 <https://bit.ly/49XmvP9

The recordings of the webinars will be available on the project website. Please follow the website or subscribe our email list for project updates: https://bit.ly/4bRO1Qw <https://bit.ly/4bRO1Qw

February 4, 2026 (5pm - 6:30pm)

University of London, UK (LG01, Professor Stuart Hall Building, Goldsmiths)

Speaker: Dr Jessica Martin, University of Leeds

Chair: Prof Jo Littler, Goldsmiths 

https://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=15778

Free, all welcome, no need to book. Part of the MCCS Community Lecture Series.  

In this talk, Jess Martin will introduce her new book, Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity.  The book explores the rise of traditionally “feminine” domestic practices exemplified by key celebrity figures who have forged their public personas in articulation with austerity culture, exploring the potential of the domestic space to be a site for resistance toward or complicity in accepting rising inequalities. The talk will consider how this nostalgic turn to domesticity has intensified during the convergence of crises in the UK, reinforcing narratives of heteronormative femininity, patriotic stoicism, and the so-called British Blitz spirit, while helping to obscure the escalating inequalities of austerity-era Britain. Martin argues that the convergence of nostalgia and femininity has produced new discourses of performative thrift, feminized labour and aspirational domesticity which are key resources for the justification of austerity policy. 

About the speaker

Jessica Martin is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Leeds, where she runs the MA in Gender Studies. Her research interests are in feminist cultural studies, and she has published widely on politics and popular culture, postfeminism and contemporary celebrity and digital cultures. She is assistant editor for The European Journal of Cultural Studies and her new book Feminisms and Domesticity at Times of Crisis was released with Bloomsbury in 2025.

Deadline: March 20, 2026

Dear list members, 

‘Living Books about History’ is a collection of digital anthologies on current research topics. Each volume will feature an essay written by the editors as well as a selection of annotated texts and research resources. These contributions may include online resources such as open source articles, images, films, websites, or sound recordings.

The project offers an innovative form of scientific publication that experiments with the possibilities offered by digital media. It revives the anthology format by virtually compiling scientific papers alongside their sources and resources. Readers can participate in ‘Living Books about History’ by suggesting further contributions, which will be added to the table of contents after approval by the editors.

‘Living Books about History’ showcases noteworthy and hitherto neglected scientific publications and sources on current topics. The selection made by the editors serves as a filter that distinguishes remarkable contributions from the mass of information available online. The project aims to reinforce the principles of ‘Open Science’.

The 12 volumes published to date are available online, in both English and a second language.

Types of Proposals Expected: 

infoclio.ch is launching a new series of ‘Living Books about History’ in 2026. The collection publishes research primarily in the field of historical sciences but welcomes diverse perspectives from other disciplinary fields. Proposals may address a variety of topics, without chronological, or geographical restrictions. The selected sources and scientific papers shed light on the respective research topics from different perspectives.

‘Living Books about History’ can have different objectives, such as providing a historiographical overview of a research trend, defining the contours of a new area of study, offering an introduction to a topic, illustrating different ways of interpreting a specific corpus of sources, or analyzing the challenges of a paradigm shift. 

Format of ‘Living Books about History’: 

Each volume consists of an original introduction of 20,000 to 40,000 characters and a selection of 20 to 30 resources already available online, accompanied by a brief commentary. Each volume is assigned a DOI and an ISBN. 

Submission of Proposals:

This call for proposals is open to advanced researchers.

We welcome proposals for volumes in the form of an abstract of no more than 4,000 characters outlining the theme and focus of the project, 2-3 examples of online resources to be included in the anthology, and a short CV of the editors. Proposals may be submitted in English, French, or German.

The deadline for submitting proposals is March 20, 2026.

Notification of accepted proposals will be sent on April 2, 2026. 

Please send proposals by email to: livingbooks@infoclio.ch

Accepted anthologies will be published during the summer and fall of 2026.

The costs of editing and online publication will be covered in full by infoclio.ch (Diamond Open Access). If the text is written in a language other than English, editors are invited to participate in fundraising for translation.

Contact: 

‘Living Books about History’ is a publishing project of infoclio.ch, the Swiss professional portal for historical sciences. infoclio.ch is an institute of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW).

Questions can be addressed to Enrico Natale: enrico.natale@infoclio.ch

February 6, 2026

The first event in the 2026 By/For: Photography & Democracy virtual lecture series is coming up on Friday, February 6, at 1pm EST: “To Show or Not to Show: Ethics, Censorship, and the Case of the Scourged Back” with Anne Cross & Matthew Fox-Amato. Learn more and register here.

By/For: Photography & Democracy is a collaborative partnership between three photographic historians, Dr. Tom Allbeson, Dr. Colleen O’Reilly, and Helen Trompeteler. 

Our collective investigates photography’s assumed democratic credentials as an art form and a medium of mass communication. We believe a historical perspective on the complex relationship between photography and democracy is critical to understanding how the medium and related visual technologies can address the social and political issues of our time.

In 2026, we invite you to join leading thinkers Anne Cross & Matthew Fox-Amato, Vindhya Buthpitiya, Leigh Raiford, Jeehey Kim, Zahid R. Chaudhary, and Tiffany Fairey for thought-provoking conversations on photography and democracy. Explore season two and register for all events.

Series: Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume: 355 

Volume Editors: Paško Bilić and Thomas Allmer 

https://brill.com/display/title/64825 

In this book, the authors address critical questions about the role of media and communication in capitalist societies. How do power structures shape communication processes? How are inequalities reinforced across different levels of society—micro, mezzo, and macro? Drawing on sociology, political economy, media studies and related fields, the book offers fresh insights into how communication supports capitalist domination, from media commodification to media concentration. It calls for a rethinking of how communication affects social relations and how social relations influence communication, exposing its deep connection to economic and political power. This book is essential for anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping today’s media landscape. 

Hardback ISBN: 978-90-04-74853-8 

E-Book (PDF): 978-90-04-74854-5 

TOC 

Chapter 1 Introduction 

Authors: Paško Bilić and Thomas Allmer 

Part 1 Setting the Scene 

Chapter 2 Contested Legacies – Marxian Influences on the Sociology of Media and Communication 

Authors: Sašo Slaček-Brlek and Boris Mance 

Part 2 Abstraction and Fetish 

Chapter 3 Between Capital and the Lifeworld: Contradictions of Value-Regulated Social Interactions 

Author: Paško Bilić 

Chapter 4 Theorising a Multidimensional Model for Analysing Data Fetishism: Reconciling Marxist and Freudian Approaches to the ‘Split’ 

Authors: Andrea Miconi and Nico Carpentier 

Open Access: 

https://brill.com/downloadpdf/display/book/9789004748545/BP000012.pdf 

Chapter 5 Actio in distans: a Critical Node of Technological and Social Mediation 

Author: Marco Briziarelli 

Part 3 Dominance and Counter-Dominance 

Chapter 6 From the Iron Cage to the Silicon Cage: New Forms of Domination within Hypermediated Societies 

Authors: Davide Lucantoni, Francesco Orazi, and Federico Sofritti 

Chapter 7 Legal Determination of Forms in Software and Communication: between Public and Capital 

Authors: Toni Prug and Mislav Žitko 

Part 4 Public Opinion, Public Sphere and Communicative Activity 

Chapter 8 Fast and Shallow: towards a Critical Theory of Opinion 

Author: Eric-John Russell 

Chapter 9 Activity Theory in the Digital Age: Can Communication and Data Be Expropriated, Exploited, or Alienated? 

Author: Sebastian Sevignani 

Part 5 Non-Western Directions in the Critical Sociology of Media and Communication 

Chapter 10 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication in the Age of Digital Capitalism 

Author: Christian Fuchs 

Chapter 11 Ibn Khaldûn Revisited: Responding to Christian Fuchs 

Author: Graham Murdock 

Chapter 12 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication: a Reply to Graham Murdock 

Author: Christian Fuchs 

Chapter 13 Re-reading Ibn Khaldûn in Critical Times 

Author: Graham Murdock 

Chapter 14 Critical Sociological and Media Studies: How Latin America Learned to Contest Power from the Periphery 

Authors: Jairo Lugo-Ocando and Monica Marchesi 

Part 6 Re-focusing the Sociology of Media and Communication Debate 

Chapter 15 Dialectics of the Symbolic: Michel Freitag and the Critique of Communication 

Authors: Claude Leduc and Maxime Ouellet 

Chapter 16 Re-examining News Sources in the Sociology of the Media: a Political Economy of Communication Approach 

Authors: Jernej A. Prodnik and Igor Vobič 

Chapter 17 Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory 

Author: Steven Maras

June 28 - July 2, 2026

Galway, Ireland

Deadline: February 3, 2026

The Multimodal Communication Research (MCR) Working Group invites the submission of abstracts for its 2026 conference, to be held from 28 June to 2 July 2026 in Galway, Ireland, hosted by the University of Galway. The deadline for submission is 3 February 2026 at 23:59 UTC.

Moving beyond assumptions that text is the only format in which media and communication research takes place, MCR welcomes projects in any modality other than a traditional research paper (e.g., ethnographic or documentary film, audiovisual essay, podcast, photo essay, exhibition, installation, performance, data visualization, game, animation, etc.). We feature peer-reviewed, multimodal research projects that rely upon arts-based methodologies to consider a range of epistemological, theoretical, ethical, and socio-cultural questions central to media and communication research.

link: https://iamcr.org/galway2026/cfp-mcr

June 3, 2026

Cape Town, South Africa

Deadline (EXTENDED): February 6, 2026

2026 ICA half-day hybrid Preconference

Dear colleagues,

Following requests from potential contributors, the deadline for paper proposals for the 2026 ICA half-day hybrid Preconference, “Researching Media Production in the Global South”, has been extended to 06 February 2026.

Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2026

Time: 12:00-17:00

Venue: University of Cape Town, Centre for Film and Media Studies & online

This preconference will explore the particularities of researching media production in non-Western contexts. Building on the success of the inaugural online conference held in May 2024, this second iteration seeks to bring together scholars examining how cultural, political, and industrial conditions shape media production practices across the Global South. We welcome theoretically informed empirical studies that expand and challenge dominant, Western-centric perspectives on media industries and contribute to the development of de-Westernised and decolonised approaches to production research.

Thematic areas of focus may include:

• How local (political, economic and cultural) contexts shape or constrain media production practices
  
• The appropriation of new digital technologies (including AI and associated tools); the role of platforms in shaping/influencing production practices
  
• The impact of shifting industrial contexts (including decentralisation) and changing media ecologies on production
  
• Methodological approaches
  
• Context- or site-specific challenges and emerging solutions for media production research; the particularities of labour markets and working conditions
  
• Cross-cultural and collaborative media production
  
• The impact of foreign media investment on local production practices
  
• The effects of resource constraints on journalism and other forms of media production
  

Please submit your abstract for a 10-minute presentation (max. 300 words) along with a short biography (approx. 100 words) via this form: Submission Form (form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdi3dIxHgq69bNr-TdeDVpVrS__2M2nTSJXZBq5IheWncxS9g/viewform?usp=publish-editor) by 06 February 2026, indicating whether you wish to participate in person or online.

We aim to provide decisions by the end of February.

If you have any questions, please contact us at: mediaproduction.globalsouth@leeds.ac.uk

Presentation at the preconference is conditional on submission of an extended abstract by 15 April 2026. Acceptance to the main ICA conference is not required.

For the full call for papers and registration instructions, please visit: ICA26 Preconference Details

This preconference is sponsored by the Global Communication and Social Change Division of ICA, supported by the Universities of Cape Town, Glasgow, and Leeds, and organised by Anna Zoellner (University of Leeds), Chris Paterson (University of Leeds), Hayes Mabweazara (University of Glasgow), and Tanja Bosch (University of Cape Town).