ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 14, 2026 (6:30 - 8:00 PM, followed by drinks)

LSE & online

A public lecture by the DFC 

Major online safety regulations and legislation are now in force across the UK and EU. Platforms have new duties, regulators have new powers, and expectations are high. But what has actually changed for children?

Bringing together leading voices from regulation, legal scholarship and child rights, as well as new research evidence, the event will reflect on how regulation reshapes platform design, governance and accountability in practice. 

Speakers:

• Steve Wood, PrivacyX Consulting, former Deputy at the Information Commissioners's Office (ICO) will present new research, followed by responses from the panel members:
  
• Baroness Beeban Kidron, Crossbench Peer, House of Lords, UK Parliament and Chair of the Management Committee at the Digital Futures for Children centre
  
• Professor Orla Lynskey, Chair of Law and Technology at UCL
  
• Professor Lorna Woods, OBE, Emeritus Professor of Internet Law at the University of Essex

Chair: Sonia Livingstone, Professor at the Department of Media and Communications, LSE and Director of the Digital Futures for Children centre

Steve Wood: “The research shows that regulation has yet to drive systemic change in safety and privacy by design for children. Instead, platforms are investing more in parental controls than in default protections. At the same time, we observe a rise in age assurance measures and early regulatory effects on AI services used by children.”

More information & free registration: https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/events/child-rights-regulation

Recent from the DFC in case you missed it:

African children's rights in relation to the digital environment: child-informed provocations to guide digital policy and practice - https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/our-work/African-childrens-rights

The impact of General comment No. 25 in the UNCRC monitoring process and around the world: https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/our-work/impact-gc25

DFC annual research insights day blog overview: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2026/04/14/childrens-rights-in-the-digital-environment-have-been-defined-now-they-need-defending/ 

History of Media Studies

Deadline: September 15, 2026

History of Media Studies solicits proposals for a special section on the histories of publishing in the media, communication, and film studies fields. The focus of the special section is on the role of publishers—both commercial and nonprofit—in these fields’ development. We are keen to highlight the contributions of publishing houses and publication initiatives from around the world, including those beyond the Anglophone North Atlantic.

Most existing histories of the media, communication, and film studies fields take the publication context of the works they survey for granted. The premise of the special section is that specific publishers—and the wider world of academic publishing—have made a difference in the development of local, national, and subfield traditions of scholarship. Very few works of dedicated history have attended to these publishing ventures. The special section will provide a forum for new accounts, in conversation with these fields’ intellectual and institutional histories.

Proposals of around 1000 words, including references, should be sent to hms@mediastudies.press, with the subject line: Histories of Publishing. The deadline for submitting proposals is September 15, 2026. Please reach out if you have any questions or ideas.

Proposals may be submitted in English or Spanish, the two languages that History of Media Studies publishes.

We expect most contributions to be research articles (generally 14,000 words or fewer), but we will also consider other formats, including research notes, commentaries, interviews/oral histories, overlay re-publications, and contextualized archival materials; please see our Author Guidelines for more details: https://hms.mediastudies.press/author-guidelines

Suggested approaches include, but are not limited to:

• case studies of media-related publishing houses
  
• accounts of small and independent presses, as incubators of heterodox media scholarship
  
• treatments of significant commercial publishers (e.g., Routledge)
  
• studies of influential book series, including translation series
  
• accounts of institutional publishing (e.g., UNESCO or CIESPAL)
  
• histories of the publishing initiatives of scholarly associations, including association-affiliated journals
  
• self-publishing and informal circulation in activist media scholarship
  
• the role of translation and translated editions
  
• treatments of the relationship between books and journal portfolios within presses
  
• historical accounts of the political economy of publishing and its effects on the field
  
• reflections on the role of editors and editing as mostly invisible intellectual labor
  
• accounts of publishing initiatives beyond the Anglophone world, including in Latin America
  
• female-run initiatives, editors, and publishers
  

Please reach out to hms@mediastudies.press with any questions.

History of Media Studies is a peer-reviewed, scholar-run, diamond OA journal dedicated to scholarship on the history of research, education, and reflective knowledge about media and communication—as expressed through academic institutions; through commercial, governmental, and non-governmental organizations; and through “alter-traditions” of thought and practice often excluded from the academic mainstream. The journal publishes high-quality, original articles, reviews, and commentary on the history of this inter- and extra-disciplinary area as it has intersected with other fields in the social sciences and humanities—and with social practices beyond the academy.

University of St. Gallen 

The Media and Culture Research Unit at the MCM Institute, University of St. Gallen is hiring:

We are seeking two highly motivated PhD candidates to join an exciting new SNSF-funded research project investigating the persuasive power of communicative AI (comAI) in the everyday lives of adolescents and families across Europe. 

The Project

Chatbots, virtual assistants, and AI writing tools are becoming a normal part of daily life for young people across Europe. Yet we know surprisingly little about how these technologies actually influence adolescents - their attitudes, decisions, and relationships - in the context of everyday family life. This four-year cross-national ethnographic study investigates the persuasive power of comAI among adolescents aged 13–18 and their families across Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. It examines AI influence along three dimensions: the interpersonal dimension, exploring how young people perceive AI as a social actor and navigate questions of agency and relationship; the social and cultural dimension, focusing on how families respond to AI-generated disinformation, bias, and errors; and the technical dimension, examining how families understand emotional design, data profiling, and manipulative by-design features in comAI. Findings will inform AI regulation and digital literacy programmes across Europe.

The DOK Programme

Successful candidates will be enrolled in the PhD Programme in Organisation Studies and Cultural Theory (DOK) at the University of St. Gallen. The DOK programme integrates the university's core and contextual subjects in an interdisciplinary form of doctoral studies, bringing together organisational research and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS). The programme is particularly suited to research that engages with complex social, cultural, and technological questions from multiple disciplinary perspectives, making it an ideal home for this project.

What We Offer

• A fully funded PhD position (100%) for four years supervised by Prof. Veronica Barassi, starting in September 2026.
  
• Enrolment in the DOK programme at the University of St. Gallen, one of Europe's leading universities.
  
• Integration into the Media & Culture research unit (=mcm3) at the Institute of Media and Communications Management Institute, a dynamic, international, and interdisciplinary research team. See more information about us here: https://mcm.unisg.ch/en/das-institut/lehrstuehle-und-forschungsbereiche/mcm3/.
  
• Access to a growing network of researchers through the PersuasiveAI Futures Network
  

Your Profile

• Master's degree in communication sciences, social sciences, political sciences, or a related field.
  
• Proficiency in English and fluency in at least one or two of the project languages (German, French, or Italian) is mandatory.
  
• Willingness and ability to spend extended periods conducting fieldwork in one of the following cities: Berlin, Paris, or Milan.
  
• Knowledge of qualitative and ethnographic research methodologies is a strong advantage.
  
• Curiosity, intellectual independence, and a genuine interest in the social impacts of comAI.
  

How to Apply: 

Application must be submitted by 4 May. In person interviews will be held by 15 June, with decisions communicated by the end of that month.

Please send along: 

• A cover letter explaining who you are, your background, and why you are interested in the PhD position, including your level of language knowledge and your connection to one of the ethnographic areas
  
• A one-page document outlining your potential PhD project
  
• Your CV
  
• A writing sample (MA thesis, article, etc.), if available but not mandatory
  

APPLICATION LINK: https://jobs.unisg.ch/offene-stellen/two-fully-funded-phd-positions-m-w-d/53f14753-3d80-4877-acfe-1acc0b62e409 

For information about the job opening or general questions, please contact philip.disalvo@unisg.ch (applications must be submitted through the application link, applications coming via email won't be considered).

We invite advanced scholars as well as early-career researchers with a completed PhD to serve as mentors at the poster session of the ECREA European Communication Conference 2026 in Brno. 

This session is designed to support Master’s students and early-stage PhD candidates by combining traditional poster presentations with personalized mentorship.  

Mentors will be matched with presenters based on shared research interests.  

As a mentor, you will: 

• Provide feedback on the poster draft ahead of the conference; 

• (Ideally) attend the poster session during the conference and engage in discussion with but not limited to your assigned mentee; 

• Meet with the mentee during or after the conference (in-person or online) to offer career guidance and/or help mentees refine their research.  

After introducing the mentor and mentee to each other via e-mail in May, it will be the mentee’s responsibility to reach out to the mentor, ask for the poster draft feedback, and arrange the mentoring meeting.  

Please express your interest in serving as a mentor by April 30 using the following form: https://forms.office.com/e/U3XhhtYaT6 

We will get back to you in May to match you with a mentee. 

If you have any questions, please contact Lucie Čejková: luccej@fss.muni.cz 

Thank you for supporting this initiative and helping us create an inclusive and nurturing environment at ECC 2026! 

Comunicação e Sociedade, Estudos em Comunicação, Media & Jornalismo,  Observatorio (Special issue)

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Four Portuguese free-to-read and free-to-publish journals in the field of Communication Studies (published by public universities) – Comunicação e Sociedade, Estudos em Comunicação, Media & Jornalismo, and Observatorio (OBS*) – have decided to jointly launch a special issue with the aim of fostering reflection on the policies and logics of sharing scientific knowledge.

With the aim of charting a counter-trend path (and within an unprecedented collaborative initiative), we seek submissions that interrogate the material and institutional conditions of conducting research in Communication Studies, including the role of digital platforms in the circulation of knowledge, the limits and potential of open access, and the tensions between quantitative evaluation and the substantive quality of reflection and critical thought.

Suggested Topics

• Marketization of science and academic capitalism;
  
• Academic freedom and university autonomy;
  
• Forms of cultural and organizational resistance;
  
• The nature and reconfiguration of scientific reputation;
  
• Science and language policies;
  
• Academic and scientific rankings;
  
• Oligopolies and scientific publishing;
  
• Metrics, quantification, and impact;
  
• Open access policies and repositories;
  
• The impact of AI on scientific writing and review;
  
• Invisibility, bias, and inequality in scientific citations;
  
• Big Tech, platformization, and publishing ecosystems;
  
• Algorithmic regimes of visibility and classification;
  
• Research independence and innovation agendas;
  
• Research assessment, DORA, and alternatives.
  

Full manuscripts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Submission Period: April 20 to September 30, 2026.

Publication Period: 1st Semester of 2027.

More information here:

https://obs.obercom.pt/index.php/obs/announcement/view/3 

https://impactum-journals.uc.pt/mj/announcement/view/352 

https://revistacomsoc.pt/.../revist.../announcement/view/128 

https://ojs.labcom-ifp.ubi.pt/ec/announcement/view/99 

Ariadna Moreno Pellejero

The book analyses the cinematographic oeuvre of the Belgian director Chantal Akerman, seeking to address a fundamental question: in what way does Akerman’s cinema reach the spectator’s body, activating something that did not exist prior to the encounter with the image? Situated at the intersection of aesthetics, film studies, and contemporary feminist film theory, the book proposes an engagement with the ritual dimension of cinema and intimacy, capable of connecting with the audience’s bodily experience. Furthermore, the essay establishes a correspondence between Akerman’s work and that of other filmmakers operating within the personal realm, where experimental, documentary, and fictional modes hybridise.

Please find attached links with further information and a preview of the text: https://puz.unizar.es/3207-de-la-forma-ritual-a-la-experiencia-corporal-el-cine-de-chantal-akerman.html

The Spring 2026 list of books available to review in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television has been updated on the IAMHIST website: https://iamhist.net/journal/#books-review

Should you be interested in reviewing a particular title, please contact the book review editor at Veronica.Johnson@outlook.ie giving details about your own research and why you are interested in reviewing the book you have chosen.

August 18-21, 2026

Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil

Deadline: April 30, 2026

ALAIC Holds its 12th Summer School

Continuing a long-standing partnership, the organization counts on the participation of ECREA researchers in the activities.

From August 18th to 21st, the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (https://www2.ufjf.br/international/), Brazil, will host the 12th edition of the Summer School promoted by the Latin American Association of Communication Researchers (ALAIC).

The activities bring together undergraduate and graduate students in communication who can participate in person or online. The working languages are Portuguese and Spanish. In the coming weeks, a Call for Papers will be published with more information at www.alaic.org.

Continuing the long-standing relationship since the first edition of the ALAIC Summer School, the Latin American organization counts on the participation of at least one representative from ECREA in the program. The name of this researcher will be selected by the ECREA Governing Body. 

If you are interested, please send us an email at info@ecrea.eu by April 30, 2026.

In addition, ALAIC offers 500 euros to support the participation of ECREA postgraduate students who are selected. 

ECREA also supports the 1st World Summer School (WSS), scheduled to take place virtually from October 21st to 24th, resulting from a partnership between scientific associations and universities. The selection of postgraduate students will take place in May.

University of Fribourg, Switzerland 

We are seeking to fill a senior teaching and research assistant position (“maître-assistant”) in Communication and Media Research (teaching in French).

Workload: 40–50% (with the possibility of additional teaching responsibilities)

Location: Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Application deadlinee: April 30, 2026

Start date: September 1, 2026, or to be agreed upon

More information and applications: https://jobs.fr.ch/job/Fribourg2C-CH-MaC3AEtre-assistant-e-en-Sciences-de-la-communication-&-des-mC3A9dias-Sari/1356507857/

Academic Quarter | Akademisk kvarter

Deadline: April 15, 2026

Guest Editors

• Jens F. Jensen, Aalborg University
  
• Kenneth Holm Cortsen, University College Northern Denmark
  

Esports has rapidly evolved from a niche pastime into a global phenomenon that intersects with multiple dimensions of contemporary life. As a form of competitive gaming, it embodies elite performance, strategy, and digital dexterity. As an industry, it drives innovation, sponsorship, and media engagement, constituting a dynamic sector with substantial economic impact. As part of the experience economy, esports further offers immersive entertainment and community-driven events that redefine audience participation and co-creation.

Beyond its commercial and competitive aspects, esports is increasingly recognized as a powerful medium for learning, fostering competencies such as collaboration, problem-solving, and digital literacy. It also constitutes a vibrant cultural field, shaping identities, narratives, and social practices within digital leisure. Participation in esports—whether as players, spectators, content creators, or organizers—reflects broader transformations in how individuals engage with technology, play, and social interaction.

The approaches to esports as both an empirical field and an analytical object are highly diverse. T.L. Taylor’s work examines the cultural practices of esports and the aspirations associated with professional gamer identity (Taylor 2012). Svensson and Pargman analyse the sportification of esports, exploring how esports legitimizes itself as a sport (Svensson & Pargman 2024). Andy Miah investigates the olympification of esports, addressing whether and how esports may become an Olympic discipline. While these studies are interested in the practices and the potentials of esports, scholars such as Brett Hutchins link the emergence of esport to the sociocultural conditions of second, or reflexive, modernity (Hutchins 2008).

Lately Lu Zhouziang has documented “A History of Competitive Gaming” (2022) presenting an overall historical approach to esports. Further Anne Tjønnedal has edited “Social Issues in Esports” (2023) as a comprehensive research publication identifying important issues such as gender, mental health and integrity, diversity and inclusion.

Even though these approaches do not share the same theoretical or methodological framework, it is possible to understand esport both as a particular circuit of culture and as part of a broader circuit of culture (du Gay, 1996). This approach facilitates the analysis of how esports are represented, what identities are negotiated, what modes of consumption and production are currently dominant or marginal, and what regulatory frameworks are established and which regulations need to be formulated, realized, and policed.

This call invites interdisciplinary contributions that examine esports through lenses including, but not limited to, media studies, education, business, cultural studies, sociology, and game studies. We welcome theoretical, empirical, and practice-based papers that explore esports as a site of innovation, interaction, and influence in the digital age. This volume intends to explore issues such as:

• How can the esports gaming experience be conceptualized and described?

• What is the significance of multimodal representation in shaping the esports experience?

• How does gender influence the cultural practices of esports?

• What are the elements in esports that contribute to toxicity and exclusion?

• What role can esports play in teaching and learning?

• What role does esports play in the continuity/discontinuity of the history of sport in general?

• What are the challenges of future esports practices in relation to game design, organization, economic structures, and regulation?

• What are the constituent elements of esports ecosystems?
  

• How does match-fixing challenge esports?

• What key issues related to health and training are relevant to current as well as future esports practices and research studies?

• How are cross-media interactions and convergent media prac- tices relevant to the study of esports?

References

Crawford, Garry, Victoria K. Gosling & Ben Light. 2011. Online Gaming in Context. The social and cultural significance of online games. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

du Gay, Paul. 1996. Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage.

Hofmann, Annette R. & Pascal Mamudou Camara. 2024. Critical Perspectives on Esports. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003383178

Hutchins, Brett. 2008. Signs of meta-change in second modernity: the growth of e-sport and the World Cyber Games· New Media & Society Vol. 10 (6), p. 851-869. Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444808096248

Miah, Andy. 2017. Sport 2.0. Transforming Sports for a Digital World. Cambridge: The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7441.001.0001

Rogers, Ryan ed. 2019. Understanding Esports. An Introduction to the Global Phenomenon. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books. https://doi.org/10.5771/9781498589819

Svensson, Daniel & Daniel Pargman (2024). Esports and Sportification. A View From Sweden. Hoffmann & Camara, eds.: Critical Perspectives on Esports. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003383178-6

Taylor,T.L. 2012. Raising the Stakes. E-sports and the professionalization of computer gaming. London: The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8624.001.0001

Tjønndal, Anne, ed. (2023). Social Issues in Esports. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003258650

Zhouxiang, Lu (2022). A History of Competitive Gaming. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003095859

Practical information

• Abstracts: 150 words
  
• Full article: 3,000-3,500 words
  
• Video essays: Max 7-12 minutes, accompanied by an academic text (1,000-1,500 words) that explicitly reflects on the scholarly/academic contribution. Videos must be original.
  

Abstracts and articles should be submitted to Annemette Helligsø (anhe@ikk.aau.dk). Detailed author guidelines and further information are available on the journal’s website: https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/ak

Video Essays

You are welcome to take the opportunity to produce a video essay following these guidelines:

Video essays must be a maximum of 7–12 minutes long and accompanied by an academic guiding text of between 1,000–1,500 words that clearly reflects on the publication’s scientific/academic contribution. Video essays must be original works of publishable quality within a strict scientific context and can take argumentative, expository, explanatory, documentary, performative, essayistic, poetic, symbolic (metaphoric), or artistic forms—or a combination of these. The guiding text must clearly explain the argument in the video essay and/or the insight the viewer can gain by watching and listening to it. This guiding text must follow the instructions in the article stylesheet.

Note: The European Accessibility Act (EAA) requires audiovisual media broadcasters to incorporate features such as closed captions and audio descriptions to make content accessible to people with hearing or visual impairments. Contributors to video essays are therefore obligated to include closed captions in all video essay submissions to meet these access requirements.

Video essays must be final and submitted as a separate mp4 video file. Academic Quarter supports only the publication and not the technical development of video essays, but contributors are welcome to discuss video essays in progress with the editors.

Video essays and the guiding text are reviewed together. The criteria for reviewing submissions are:

a The clarity of the argument (cogency).

b The technical and stylistic execution of the video material.

c The clarity of the guiding text.

Deadlines

• Submission/review of abstracts: April 15, 2026
  
• Response to authors on abstracts: May 1, 2026
  
• Submission of articles/videos for peer review: July 17, 2026
  
• Peer review returned to authors: September 15 2026
  
• Resubmission of articles/videos after peer review: October 20, 2026
  
• Layout/copy-editing: November 21, 2026
  
• Publication: December 15, 2026