ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Journalism (Special issue)

Deadline: November 20, 2026

Guest Editors: Pedro Jerónimo, Alba Diez-Gracia, and Joy Jenkins

Rationale and contribution

Local journalism is commonly discussed through a crisis of provision: newsroom shrinking and closures, diminishing coverage, weakened business models, and the expansion of news deserts. These developments are fundamental, but they do not fully explain how people experience local information in everyday life. The presence of a local news outlet does not necessarily result in attention, engagement, trust, knowledge, or civic connection. Conversely, weak, or absent journalism does not always lead people to experience themselves as uninformed, as local knowledge can be assembled through social media, messaging groups, search engines, local authorities, community organisations, creators, and interpersonal networks.

This Special Issue proposes an audience-centred agenda focused on a central question: how do people decide that they are sufficiently informed about the places where they live, and what role does journalism play in retaining, losing, or transforming in that judgement? We use local informedness as an organising lens for examining perceived information sufficiency, demonstrable knowledge, news use and non-use, selective avoidance, incidental exposure, trust, relevance, place attachment, participation/engagement, and unequal access to local public information.

Local news avoidance is an important part of this agenda, but it is not the only form of disconnection. Residents might deliberately avoid news, use it only intermittently, fail to recognise it within platform feeds, distrust it, find it irrelevant to their concerns, lack affordable or accessible provision, or replace it with non-journalistic sources. These processes should not be collapsed into a single category. Uniting them allows the special issue to interrogate when local journalism becomes present, absent, useful, avoidable, or irrelevant in people's understanding of place.

The issue therefore connects audience studies with research on local journalism, news deserts, media systems, platforms, information inequalities, participation/engagement, place, and community. It also moves beyond the local newspaper by inviting work on radio, television, magazines, public service and community media, digital-native outlets, newsletters, podcasts, messaging applications, creators, and mixed local information ecosystems. Internationally comparative research is particularly encouraged, as are studies of underrepresented territories, media systems, and publics.

Scope and possible themes

We invite theoretical and empirical contributions addressing at least two of the following dimensions: audience relationships, local information conditions, and consequences for journalism and public life. Possible themes include:

• Local news avoidance, passive non-use, weak news habits, fatigue, alienation, distrust, and constrained access;

• Perceived local informedness, information sufficiency, uncertainty, and the relationship between subjective informedness and objective knowledge;

• Trust, relevance, representation, and whether audiences perceive local news as made for people like them;

• News deserts, underserved and marginalized communities, rural and peripheral regions, urban neighbourhoods, minority-language publics, diasporic populations, and inequalities within apparently well-served markets;

• Audience practices across newspapers, radio, television, magazine, public service, community and Indigenous media, digital-native outlets, newsletters, podcasts, social platforms, and messaging applications;

• Relationships among journalism, municipal communication, civic organisations, activists, businesses, influencers, interpersonal networks, search engines, and AI-mediated interfaces;

• Algorithmic visibility, incidental exposure, search, notifications, and the conditions under which local journalism is encountered, missed, misattributed, or decontextualised;

• Consequences for local knowledge and perceptions of place, civic engagement, accountability, belonging, access to services, media literacy, newsroom innovation, policy, and democratic life.

Approaches. We welcome qualitative, quantitative, computational, ethnographic, experimental, participatory, historical, and mixed-methods research, as well as theoretical interventions and systematic comparative work. Single-country studies should offer conceptual innovation, distinctive evidence, or wider comparative relevance. Studies combining audience evidence with content, organisational, infrastructural, or policy analysis are especially welcome.

First-stage submission: extended abstracts

Prospective authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of 800-1,000 words and not exceeding two A4 pages, including references. Extended abstracts should be formatted in Times New Roman, 12-point font, single-spaced, with standard margins. The title and authors’ names, affiliations, and contact details are excluded from the word count. The abstract should state: (1) the research problem and conceptual contribution; (2) research question(s) or central argument; (3) method or analytical approach; (4) empirical context and data, where applicable; (5) expected findings or argument; and (6) explicit fit with the Special Issue. Please also include the article title, author name(s), affiliation(s), corresponding author's email address, and three to five keywords.

Send abstracts to pj@ubi.pt and alba.diez.gracia@usal.es by 20 November 2026. Authors will be notified by 18 December 2026.

Full manuscripts and review

Selected authors will be invited to submit a full manuscript through Journalism's electronic submission system by 30 June 2027. Full articles must not exceed 8,000 words, including references, tables, figures, charts, and all other elements. Invitation following the abstract stage does not guarantee publication. All manuscripts will be screened for quality and scope and will undergo the journal's standard double-blind peer-review process, with at least two external reviewers. Guest Editors will not act as reviewers. No more than one article per person, whether single-authored or co-authored, may appear in the collection. The planned collection will comprise approximately twelve research articles and may include an editorial introduction.

Indicative timetable

• Call for extended abstracts launched: 1 October 2026
  
• Extended abstract submission deadline: 20 November 2026
  
• Notification of abstract decisions and invitations to submit full manuscripts: 18 December 2026
  
• Confirmation of participation by invited authors: 8 January 2027
  
• Full manuscript submission deadline: 30 June 2027
  
• First-round peer review: 1 July–15 September 2027
  
• Revised manuscript submission deadline: 15 November 2027
  
• Further review and final decisions: 16 November 2027–15 January 2028
  
• Online First publication: from February/March 2028 onwards

Guest Editors

• Pedro Jerónimo, University of Beira Interior, Portugal, pj@ubi.pt

• Alba Diez-Gracia, University of Salamanca, Spain, alba.diez.gracia@usal.es

• Joy Jenkins, University of Missouri, United States, joyjenkins@missouri.edu

June 3, 2026

Glasgow, Scotland

Deadline: January 29, 2027

Deadline:

Co-sponsored by the Communication History Division and the Activism, Communication and Social Justice Division

DATE: Thursday 3 June 2027, 8.30am-5pm

VENUE: Civic House, 26 Civic Street, Glasgow G4 9SH

Reparation has regained visibility in the public domain in recent years as a way to address the dehumanising pasts associated with historical harms inflicted through genocide, enslavement and colonialism. This preconference explores how media have harmed people and what reparative approaches to communication and research in communication studies might look like, i.e. approaches that acknowledge past harms while reorienting how humans relate to and understand one another as communities across the world grapple with uncertain futures. It examines the intersection between reparation and communication through the role of communication and communication studies in inflicting and repairing historical harms as well as the role of media in framing global reparation activism.

The CARICOM Reparations Commission and the African Union recently launched a partnership to demand formal apologies, financial compensation, and debt relief from former European colonial powers for the transatlantic trafficking in enslaved people. Both prior to and in the wake of #BlackLivesMatter, racial justice activists in the United States, Europe and Australia advocated for reparations to address the legacy of enslavement and colonialism and ongoing systemic racism and racial inequalities. Journalists have a responsibility to report on these calls for reparation but frequently have been caught up in fierce contestations over history as part of ideological ‘culture wars’.

Media institutions, especially in the Minority World, have in different ways confronted their own implication in historical injustices through official apologies, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes, or specific reparative initiatives such as The New York Times’ 1619 Project and The Guardian’s Cotton Capital Project. Such critical moments in media reckoning call for closer attention to the modes of repair being undertaken, to how media reform intersects with goals of racial and reparative justice, to how mainstream media have framed these initiatives, and to the implications of these initiatives for audience trust.

Aside from media institutions, attention has turned to academia’s historical harms and its complicity in perpetuating harms in the present. #RhodesMustFall protests drew attention to the different ways in which the lack of post-Apartheid racial transformation at the University of Cape Town inflicted pain on Black students and staff. Student encampments highlighted the role of universities in contributing to the genocide in Palestine. The death of Professor Jason Arday raised questions about the complicity of both universities and media in ongoing racial harms. Fields such as media and communication studies have reflected on the way in which our own disciplinary pasts have dehumanised, silenced and harmed particular groups of people through academic scholarship, canonical texts and scholarly practices.

Calls for reparation are made amid significant global uncertainty. The rise of populism and disinformation on digital platforms, the growing influence of far-right media, and the mounting rhetoric against DEI initiatives have challenged reparative projects —and academia itself— through increasingly polarised political discourses. Social media have been instrumental to those advocating for reparation but have also caused harm through hateful content targeting marginalised communities. Harms of the past are perpetuated in the present through algorithmic practices, AI’s distortion of Indigenous knowledges and misinformation, and big tech data extraction practices in the Majority World. 

The aims of this pre-conference are to examine the intersection between reparation and communication through (1) the role of communication and communication studies in inflicting and repairing historical harms; and (2) the role of media in framing global reparation activism. We encourage scholars to discuss how communication itself might be turned towards repair through emerging concepts such as ‘reparative media’ and ‘media reparations’ and ‘algorithmic reparations’, which could offer ways of rethinking epistemic injustices.

We invite contributions that:

-explore the conceptual dimension of the intersection between reparation and communication

-examine the role of communication in inflicting or repairing historical harms

-discuss reparatory justice in relation to journalism, media institutions, social media platforms or artificial intelligence

-provide reparatory histories of media institutions, communicative practices or publics

-interrogate the role of media and communication studies in inflicting or repairing historical harms

-investigate the role of legacy and social media in framing global reparation activism

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

A 350-word abstract and a 150-word bio should be submitted to communicationreparation@gmail.com by 29 January 2027. Participants will be notified by 26 February 2027 on the outcome of their submissions. We expect to have space for 15-20 papers as part of this pre-conference.

REGISTRATION FEE

The conference registration fee is USD 25. You do not have to be an ICA member or register for the main conference to attend this pre-conference.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

David Cheruiyot (School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Australia)

Khadijah Costley White (School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, US)

Wendy Willems (Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)

The organisers are grateful for the financial contribution of the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science towards the costs of this preconference.

June 2, 2026

King's College London

Deadline: February 1, 2026

We're excited to announce our ICA 2027 pre-conference, "Centring Creators across Intersecting Ecosystems: Labour, Agency, and Collaboration," taking place on June 2, 2027, at King's College London!

We're bringing together researchers, creators, and industry professionals to critically rethink creator and influencer cultures beyond the conventional creator-platform relationship. Our goal is to explore how creators operate within complex, intersecting ecosystems of platforms, governance, communities, brands, agencies, institutions, and cultural industries. How do these relationships shape their labour, agency, identities, opportunities, ethics, and inequalities? And what can we learn by bringing different disciplinary and professional perspectives into conversation?

We especially encourage submissions from early-career researchers, MA and PhD students, and scholars working across disciplinary boundaries, including those whose research intersects with creator cultures but may not identify primarily as creator or influencer studies scholarship. Beyond traditional papers, we welcome panels, roundtables, creator-researcher dialogues, participatory sessions, posters, and creative formats that foster meaningful exchange between academic and practitioner communities.

Important dates

• February 1, 2027: Submission deadline (23:59 GMT)
  
• March 1, 2027: Notification of decisions
  
• April 1, 2027: Preliminary programme announced
  
• June 2, 2027: Pre-conference at King's College London!
  

*A limited number of scholarships are available to support participation*

Full CFP, submission guidelines, and scholarship details:

https://kingsdh.net/2026/10/13/call-for-papers-centring-creators-across-intersecting-ecosystems-labour-agency-and-collaboration/

We look forward to bringing different corners of the field together in London!

Questions or inquiries? Feel free to reach out to the organizing team at creatorcon@kcl.ac.uk.

With excitement,

Tom Divon (on behalf of the organizing team)

Deadline: November 22, 2026

The Children, Youth and Media section invites proposals from its members to organise and host the 2027 Mid-Term Conference. The section welcomes proposals from institutions or research groups within the section to host this event. In a context of rapid technological and sociocultural change, the conference seeks to reflect on how research on children, youth and media can remain relevant, responsive and socially meaningful. The section is particularly interested in proposals that foster theoretical, methodological and disciplinary innovation through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Interested members should submit an extended abstract of their proposal by 22 November 2026, 23:59, to ecreacymcom@gmail.com.

More information here: https://cymecrea.wordpress.com/2026/09/28/call-for-organizers-2027-mid-term-conference-of-ecreas-children-youth-and-media-section/

On behalf of the ECREA CYM Management Team,

Silvia Rusiñol-Romero

November 13 , 2026

Aarhus, Denmark

Aarhus University is celebrating the launch of the Public Tech Media Lab-Aarhus on November 13 at 14:00-16:00 at the  Lille Auditorium, Incuba Katrinebjerg (5510-104, Åbogade 15, 8200 Aarhus N).

 This is an open invite to all, and we hope to welcome academic colleagues, industry practitioners, students, and anyone else interested in learning more about the network and our plans to forge closer academic-journalism industry ties across Europe. The panel has the title “Translating Research into Innovative Public Interest Journalism”.

Here, we will bring together speakers from each of the fields we are trying to unite within the PTML-A network. This is a hybrid event which you can join in person or online via this page, which also include more details on the event, the speakers, and the PTML-A concept: https://cc.au.dk/en/news-and-events/events/event/artikel/friday-lecture-translating-research-into-innovative-public-interest-journalism 

October 4-6, 2027

Guadalajara (Mexico), Hanover (Germany) and online

Deadline: January 31, 2027

Language: English and Spanish

Critical times challenge society to its core. They raise questions and tensions around who belongs to the society and which values will shape its future trajectories. Experiences of crises compel us to revisit past and present practices and to imagine alternative future societies we want to live in. Despite global dependence on Big Tech infrastructures leaving little leeway for alternative data practices and meanings, digital data have become indispensable for navigating the uncertainty of critical times. Today, these data come under threat, e.g. of loss or discontinuation of recording. At the same time, decisions about what data are kept, deleted, made visible, or hidden increasingly shape how crises, conflicts, and everyday forms of distress are experienced and governed. That concerns data about public health, precarious labour, and environmental degradation, as well as governmental and activist records of violence.

Organizations such as truth commissions, governments, universities, alternative media, and civil society groups, all work with digital data to document various forms of harms and social suffering, sometimes not even acknowledged as a societal crisis. These data are crucial to design and manage public policies, to support social movements, to sustain collective memory, and to articulate critical narratives that include testimonies of crisis victims and survivors.

Data Power 2027 invites empirical, methodological, and conceptual engagement with the critical role data play in both provoking and tackling current societal crises, including but not limited to the following questions:

• How can data be preserved when they come under threat, and what alternative data practices, initiatives, and forms of resistance are emerging in critical times?
  
• How do AI and automated decision-making reshape societally critical data practices and infrastructures and what is the role of infrastructural and data sovereignty in preserving situated local meanings?
  
• What social tensions arise between remembering and forgetting in digital societies and what does it mean for the contemporary struggles for social justice?
  
• How can different critical perspectives on data (e.g. human rights, environmental defense, and journalism) be brought together to navigate critical times?
  
• How can NGOs, alternative media, social movements, and academia create shared spaces for acting upon data for exchanging their unique experiences, conceptual frameworks, and methodological tools?
  
• How can data about various situations and experiences of crises be analyzed, visualized, and communicated without reproducing the violence they document?
  
• What ethical protocols are needed when designing visual interfaces, maps, dashboards, archives, or narrative platforms based on sensitive data?
  

We also invite interdisciplinary contributions on cross-cutting topics including issues of data power, in/equalities and in/justices, methodological reflections, participatory research, and reflections on academic knowledge production in critical times.

We welcome contributions in different formats in English or Spanish:

• Individual paper presentations
  
• Closed panels of max. 5 papers
  
• Workshops and Making & Doing sessions
  
• Art-based presentations
  
• Collaborative formats with field experts
  

If you have questions or ideas for further presentation formats, please get in touch.

The Data Power 2027 conference will take place in Guadalajara (Mexico), Hanover (Germany), and online. 

Presenters in Guadalajara will have the option to present in either English or Spanish. Please add both an English and Spanish abstract to the submission form if you wish to present in Spanish. 

Submission guidelines

Please submit your abstract (max. 300 words) for individual presentations by 31.01.2027 using this submission form. You will be prompted to specify your preferred location for participation.

Workshops, Making & Doing sessions, arts-based presentations and collaborative formats require a 300 word abstract outlining your proposal and required resources e.g. space, tech, number of participants. These should be submitted by email to datapowerconference@proton.me by 31.01.2027.

Closed panel submissions of max. 5 papers require a panel title, brief abstracts describing the panel (max. 200 words) and each contribution (max. 300 words per paper). Please email closed panel submissions directly to datapowerconference@proton.me by 31.01.2027.

Moderate conference fees with distinction between low-GDP and high-GDP countries and in line with the previous years will be charged for the conference participation. Details will follow in due time.

Timeline

Abstract submission deadline: 31.01.2027

Decision notification: 28.02.2027

Conference: 04.-06.10.2027

Data Power 2027 conference team (Víctor Hugo Ábrego, Paloma López-Portillo, Narce Ruiz, Irina Zakharova, Friederike Bahl, Stefanie Büchner, Yana Boeva, Jo Bates, Juliane Jarke, Janaki Srinivasan) Datapowerconference.org

Comunicazioni Sociali: Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies (special issue)

Deadline: December 13, 2026

Edited by: Gaia Amadori, Daniel Fernández Galeote, Paolo Ruffino and Alessandro Soriani

Playing the Anthropocene: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ecogames

Video games have become one of the most widespread and culturally significant media of our time. Beyond their role as entertainment – and despite frequently being targets of moral panic – they increasingly serve as spaces where players encounter, engage with and make sense of broader political and social questions (Soriani et al., 2026), including climate change and the ecological crisis. Ecogames (also referred to as green games, sustainability games or climate games) constitute a conceptual umbrella term encompassing games which aim to foster sustainability-oriented attitudes and behaviours among players and/or to reduce their ecological footprint through sustainable production, distribution, and gameplay practices (op de Beke et al., 2024). They address a wide range of themes, from climate change mitigation and adaptation to resource and energy management, pollution and waste, biodiversity conservation, deforestation, sustainability, and human–nature and more-than-human relationships. Although evidence on their effects on attitudes and behaviours remains mixed (op de Beke et al., 2024), ecogames can also be approached as spaces for critical reflection and meaning-making. In this view, they allow players to raise ethical questions, imagine alternative ecological futures and explore new relationships between humans, nonhuman beings and the environment (Grattarola, 2026; Ruffino, 2024).

Ecogames are shaped by a diverse ecosystem of actors, spanning industry, academia and international organisations. At the industry level, the Playing for the Planet Alliance, launched in 2019 and facilitated by the United Nations Environment Programme, brings together game companies and trade bodies around measurable commitments. These concern both the sustainability of production, such as reducing carbon emissions, and the environmental content of games. The latter is promoted through the Alliance’s annual Green Game Jam, a challenge in which studios implement themed “green activations” in popular titles, often linked to fundraising for conservation organisations. The Alliance also makes resources available to the industry, including an annual report documenting members’ commitments and activations. Alongside this initiative, the Sustainable Games Alliance (SGA), a non-profit cooperative of developers, universities and associations, has introduced an industry standard for sustainability reporting and coordinates a network of academic researchers. Similarly, the IGDA Climate Special Interest Group, itself a member of SGA, is an open community of game developers and researchers which promotes grassroots climate action within studios and shares practical resources such as the “Environmental Game Design Playbook” (Whittle et al., 2022). Funded European programmes and academic collaborations are also contributing to this landscape, such as the Horizon-funded project STRATEGIES (Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries), which supports the sustainable transition of the game industry.

Mirroring this diverse scenario, existing scholarship spans several interconnected research strands. Systematic and scoping reviews have mapped research on ecogames (e.g. Fernández Galeote et al., 2025; Ahmadov et al., 2025), highlighting a literature long centred on serious games and gamified interventions aimed at individual attitudinal and behavioural change. More recently, this literature has broadened to include commercial entertainment titles and goals such as critical reflection, community action and speculation about the future (Blake et al., 2026). A smaller set of mapping studies has instead catalogued the games themselves, classifying their design features, purposes, and audiences (e.g. Moossdorff & Vervoort, 2026; Stanitsas et al., 2019; Fernández Galeote & Hamari, 2021; Fernández Galeote et al., 2022).

Ecocritical and environmental humanities, for their part, examine games as environmental texts that shape representations and imaginaries of nature, nonhuman life and ecological crisis (Ruffino, 2026; Chang, 2019; Aliano & Crowley, 2024). Empirical studies, in turn, investigate how gameplay relates to environmental knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours, drawing on survey-based, experimental, quasi-experimental and mixed-method designs (e.g. Ho et al., 2022; Janakiraman et al., 2021; Fernández Galeote et al., 2023).

Pedagogical research adds a further angle, investigating how playful experiences become meaningful learning opportunities. Drawing on experiential, situated and critical approaches, it examines how players engage with complex socio-ecological systems and how learning emerges from game design, user agency, social interaction and critical reflection (Dieleman & Huisingh, 2006; Marín-Rubio et al., 2026).

Community-oriented research shifts attention to players, with a specific focus on collaborative play, ecomodding and critical metagaming practices, exploring their potential to foster ecological reflection, sustainability discourse and climate communication (e.g. Lamerichs, 2024; Werning, 2021; McDonald et al., 2026).

Widening the lens further, industry and material studies examine the environmental impact of gaming hardware and software, focusing on the material conditions of production and consumption (e.g. Abraham, 2022) as well as the working cultures, practices, and perspectives of game-industry professionals (Eggel & Fizek, 2026).

Complementing these perspectives, analytical and design-oriented approaches provide tools for interpreting ecogames and supporting their development. The former examine ecogames’ design-related, cultural, communicative and contextual dimensions, enabling the assessment of their applications, strengths and limitations (e.g. Amadori, 2024, 2026; Kłosiński, 2025). The latter focus on how ecogames are conceived and built, identifying features that sustain engagement and learning and outlining procedures for designing and evaluating them (e.g. Bjørner & Schønau-Fog, 2024).

Taken separately, these strands illuminate only part of the picture. Putting them into dialogue is key to capturing the nuances of ecogames and the plurality of approaches that study them. This call for papers, entitled Playing the Anthropocene: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ecogames, aims to foster such dialogue and to draw the scientific community’s attention to the field. It also invites a wider conversation on ecogames as spaces where responsibility and hope for the future are cultivated and alternative horizons can be critically interrogated.

To this end, ecogames are understood in a broad sense, encompassing three complementary logics. The first is content- and goal-oriented: games and playful experiences that engage with environmental issues or seek to foster critical reflection and/or sustainability-oriented attitudes and behaviours. The second is process-oriented: games whose ‘ecological’ character lies in how they are produced, distributed and played. The third is reception-oriented: games that acquire an ecological meaning through players' (over)interpretations, even when their textual strategies contain no explicit reference to eco-themes.

This breadth calls for equally plural approaches. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, critical or design-oriented, and may draw on sociology, pedagogy, media and communication studies, game studies, semiotics and related fields. Diverse methodological traditions are welcome in exploring the cultural, educational, social and representational dimensions of ecogames.

Within this framework, possible contributions include, but are not limited to:

• Analyses of how ecogames represent environmental issues, such as climate change, biodiversity, resources and human–nature relationships.
• Studies of players, communities and playing practices, including modding, streaming and online discussion.
• Research on campaigns and "green activations" promoted by industry and non-industry stakeholders, including ambivalent cases where environmental engagement intersects with branding and corporate communication.
• Educational and pedagogical perspectives on ecogames and playful experiences, including experiential and situated learning, critical environmental literacy, sustainability education and environmental citizenship.
• Empirical studies of the relationship between play and knowledge, attitudes or behaviours, with attention to methodological design.
• Critical perspectives on sustainability in the game industry, including production practices, reporting and greenwashing.
• Regional and comparative perspectives on ecogames, including how they are produced, played, interpreted and used in different cultural, institutional and geographical contexts.

Submission details

December 13, 2026 – Deadline for abstract submission. Prospective authors are invited to submit an abstract of 300 to 400 words, accompanied by five keywords, the author' name, affiliation and contact details, and a short biographical note (max. 150 words), to the following email addresses: gaia.amadori@unicatt.it and redazione.cs@unicatt.it

December 30, 2026 – Authors will be notified of proposal acceptance.

April 30, 2027 – Deadline for submission of the full paper, if the proposal is accepted.

Submission of a paper implies that it is unpublished and not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Articles must not exceed 5,000-6,000 words in English (including references). For editorial guidelines, please refer to the section “Guide for the authors” on the Comunicazioni Sociali website: https://comunicazionisociali.vitaepensiero.it/media/c49e263.pdf

Contributions will be submitted through a double-blind peer review process.

Issue 2/2027 of Comunicazioni Sociali will be published in September 2027 and will be available in open access on the journal’s website.

References

Ahmadov, T., Karimov, A., Durst, S., Saarela, M., Gerstlberger, W., Wahl, M. F., & Karkkainen, T. (2025). A two-phase systematic literature review on the use of serious games for sustainable environmental education. Interactive Learning Environments, 33, 1945-1966.

Aliano, K. I., & Crowley, A. (Eds.). (2024). Video Games and Environmental Humanities: Playing to Save The World. Springer Nature.

Amadori, G. (2024). Gaming for ecological activism: a multidimensional model for networks articulated through video games. Games and Culture, 19, 551-570.

Amadori, G. (2026). Playing for the Planet? A Process-Centric Framework for Analyzing Ecogames in Commercial Platforms. Mediascapes journal, 27, 368-390.

Bjørner, T., & Schønau-Fog, H. (2024). A dynamic engagement model to provide ecological awareness of the climate crisis through video games. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca (Eds.), Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 129-143). Amsterdam University Press.

Blake, K., Arbieu, U., Castelló y Tickell, S., Gleave, A., Johnson, P., Kubo, T., Lai, S., Mameno, K., Marchini, S., Petros, C., Rodríguez-Sánchez, C., Sequeira, V., Tan, C., Zhou, K., & Veríssimo, D. (2026). How commercial video games engage with biodiversity and conservation: a systematic map of literature. ACM Games: Research and Practice, 4, 1-22.

Chang, A. Y. (2019). Playing nature: Ecology in video games. University of Minnesota Press.

Dieleman, H., & Huisingh, D. (2006). Games by which to learn and teach about sustainable development: Exploring the relevance of games and experiential learning for sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 14, 837-847.

Eggel, R., & Fizek, S. (2026). From pixels to planet: How game makers strive for planetary impact beyond the magic circle. In Abstract proceedings of DiGRA 2026.

Fernández Galeote, D., & Hamari, J. (2021). Game-based climate change engagement: analyzing the potential of entertainment and serious games. Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, 5, 1-21.

Fernández Galeote, D., Gabrielaitis, L., Guillén, G., & Hamari, J. (2025). Play, games, and gamification to support sustainability transitions: a scoping review and research agenda. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101025.

Fernández Galeote, D., Legaki, N. Z., & Hamari, J. (2022). Avatar identities and climate change action in video games: analysis of mitigation and adaptation practices. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-18).

Fernández Galeote, D., Legaki, N. Z., & Hamari, J. (2023). Text-and game-based communication for climate change attitude, self-efficacy, and behavior: A controlled experiment. Computers in Human Behavior, 149, 107930.

Grattarola, M. (2026) Glitching Objects as Temporal Mediators: Hyperobject Temporality in NORCO. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2026.

Ho, M. T., Nguyen, T. H. T., Nguyen, M. H., La, V. P., & Vuong, Q. H. (2022). Virtual tree, real impact: how simulated worlds associate with the perception of limited resources. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9, 1-12.

Janakiraman, S., Watson, S. L., Watson, W. R., & Newby, T. (2021). Effectiveness of digital games in producing environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviors: A mixed methods study. Computers & Education, 160, 104043.

Kłosiński, M. (2025). Mapping game biopolitics. Games and Culture, 20, 1030-1049.

Lamerichs, N. (2024). Sustainable fandom: Responsible consumption and play in game communities. In L. op de Beke, J. Raessens, S. Werning, & G. Farca (Eds.), Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis (pp. 543–558). Amsterdam University Press.

Marín-Rubio, K., Moldes-Rivas, V., & Casasús, P. A. (2026). Exploring Critical Utopian Gaming Pedagogy in a youth club in Barcelona. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2026.Marín-Rubio, K., Vilasís-Pamos, J., & Rubio-Campillo, X. (2026). The ecocritical dimensions of entertainment video games: A systematic review. Games and Culture, 15554120261437894.

McDonald, R., Simon, B., & Earl, M. (2026, June). For the Trees: Envisioning Sustainable Futures Through Ecomodded Minecraft. In Abstract Proceedings of DiGRA 2026.

Moossdorff, C., & Vervoort, J. (2026). Beyond awareness: Climate games as invitations to care for the future. Futures, 103760. op de Beke, L., Raessens, J., Werning, S., & Farca, G. (2024). Ecogames: Playful perspectives on the climate crisis. Amsterdam University Press.

Ruffino, P. (2024). Videogames, the anthropocene, and other problems of scale: Methodological notes for the study of digital games in times of ecological crisis. Journal of Games Criticism, 6.

Ruffino, P. (2026, forthcoming). Unplayable: Videogames for the Post-Anthropocene. MIT Press.

Soriani A., Brooks A., Meriläinen M., Serada A. (Eds.)(2026). Educating for a Videogame Culture – Volume Two: Keep on Playing, Keep on Growing. Council of Europe Publishing.

Stanitsas, M., Kirytopoulos, K., & Vareilles, E. (2019). Facilitating sustainability transition through serious games: A systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 208, 924-936.

Werning, S. (2021). Ecomodding. Understanding and communicating the climate crisis by co-creating commercial video games. communication +1, 8, 1-27.

Whittle, C., York, T., Escuadra, P. A., Shonkwiler, G., Bille, H., Fayolle, A., McGregor, B., Hayes, S., Knight, F., Wills, A., Chang, A., & Fernández Galeote, D. (2022). The environmental game design playbook (presented by the IGDA Climate Special Interest Group). International Game Developers Association.

November 17, 2026

Online

We are delighted to invite you to the online session “In-Game Purchase Literacies to Support Policy”, organised by MeLCi Lab and featuring Dr Carla Sousa, Assistant Researcher at Universidade Aberta, Portugal.

The session will explore young people’s experiences of in-game purchases and the critical literacy skills that can help them understand the commercial mechanics and business models built into video games. Carla will discuss how these skills can support informed choices and rewarding gaming experiences, and how research in this area can inform policy.

Carla’s interdisciplinary research spans psychology, games, interactive media, artificial intelligence, accessibility and digital inclusion, with particular interests in media and AI literacy, learning, equity and autonomy.

Date: 17 November 2026

Time: 14:00 (Lisbon time)

Venue: Online via Microsoft Teams

Registration: here.

Read more: here.

Details on how to join the session will be shared closer to the date.

We look forward to welcoming you. Please feel free to share this invitation with colleagues and students who may be interested.

We kindly invite you to participate in the 9th edition of the Young Media and Communication Scholars Mentoring Program of the Polish Communication Association. The Mentoring Program is addressed to Ph.D. and MA students who want to develop their research competencies under the guidance of renowned Polish researchers. Participation in the program is free of charge.

Applications (in Polish or English) will be accepted until December 15, 2026. Application form and detailed information about mentors are available here: https://www.ptks.pl/en/programs/pca-mentoring-program 

We encourage you to submit your application!

If you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact us via: mentoring.fmmik@gmail.com

DIAS

The Department of Design, Media and Educational Science and the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) seek an outstanding candidate to fill a position as tenure-track assistant professor/DIAS Fellow in Media Studies. The candidate is expected to start on 1st September 2027 or as soon as possible thereafter.

We are looking for a researcher with clear potential for research excellence who thrives in and is inspired by interdisciplinary collaboration. The ideal candidate will contribute to high-quality media research in close collaboration with colleagues in the Media Research Group while embracing DIAS's mission of curiosity-driven inquiry and interdisciplinary dialogue. The successful candidate should have a strong and promising research profile within Media Studies and a demonstrated interest in collaborative and interdisciplinary research. The candidate will hold a joint position at the department and DIAS and should be prepared to engage in multiple and diverse research environments at SDU.

Who are we looking for?

We seek an ambitious and internationally oriented scholar with expertise in Media Studies who is eager to develop their research career within the DIAS framework.

The position is open with regard to theoretical orientation, empirical focus and methodological approach. We are particularly interested in research that advances our understanding of the complex and evolving role of media in society and that contributes to contemporary debates concerning media, culture, technology and social change. We are looking for excellence in one or several of the following research areas (including, but not limited to):

• media theory, media change and digital cultures 
  
• platforms, social media, networked communication and datafication 
  
• artificial intelligence and emerging media technologies 
  
• media production, creative practice, media work and cultural industries 
  
• audiovisual, interactive and auditory media, including film, television, games and podcasting 
  
• media audiences, everyday media practices and participation 
  
• media, sustainability and societal challenges
  

We also welcome applicants whose research engages with media production and creative practices, including the cultural, technological, organisational and industrial conditions shaping contemporary media creation.

Applicants with other profiles within Media Studies are also encouraged to apply.

The successful candidate is expected to:

• develop a strong international research profile and contribute actively to collaborative research initiatives, joint publications and externally funded research projects within the Media Research Group and the interdisciplinary environment at DIAS
  
• contribute to high-quality research and publication activities
  
• engage actively in interdisciplinary collaboration across SDU
  
• contribute to attracting external research funding
  
• participate in research dissemination and societal engagement
  
• contribute to teaching, supervision and curriculum development in Media Studies at BA and MA level and, over time, to PhD supervision, while contributing to strengthen the connection between research and education
  
• contribute actively to the academic and collegial life of both the department and DIAS.
  

Qualifications

The successful applicant must:

• hold a PhD or similar qualifications within Media Studies
  
• exhibit curiosity-driven research excellence, thinking beyond traditional boundaries
  
• show potential for attracting external research funding. Experience in applying for external funding and a strong international network are considered comparative advantages
  
• have a publication record that demonstrates their excellence and broad thinking
  
• have relevant teaching and supervision experience at university level equivalent to that attained through a PhD degree, documented through a teaching portfolio
  
• be fluent in English.
  

Tenure-track programme

The position is a tenure-track assistant professorship. During the tenure-track period, the assistant professor is expected to develop qualifications corresponding to associate professor level. Subject to a positive academic assessment before the end of the tenure-track period, the assistant professor will transfer to a permanent position as associate professor without a new advertisement.

The tenure-track process includes annual follow-up, mentoring, and a formal midterm evaluation aimed at supporting the candidate’s development in research, teaching, external funding, knowledge exchange, and academic citizenship.

The position is based at the Department of Design, Media and Educational Science in Odense and includes regular participation in DIAS and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS)

DIAS at SDU is a hub for interdisciplinary excellence at and beyond the frontier of knowledge, bringing together outstanding researchers from various disciplines to foster groundbreaking interdisciplinary research and bold innovation. DIAS nurtures a collaborative and curiosity-driven environment, encouraging scholars to think outside the box and challenge conventional boundaries. The institute values open-minded exploration and an ambitious yet collegial atmosphere with a strong sense of community. Researchers affiliated with DIAS are expected to contribute actively to DIAS activities, and engage in interdisciplinary collaborations across faculties and departments, both nationally and internationally. 

About the department and the Media Research Group

The Department of Design, Media and Educational Sciences is one of two departments at the Faculty of Humanities at SDU. The department has approximately 150 employees and houses research and teaching in a wide range of different areas, including design studies, media studies, educational science, philosophy, information studies, library science, business communication and web communication. The department is located at Campus Odense, Campus Kolding and Campus Sønderborg.   

Researchers in the department are organized in research groups that foster collaboration across job categories. The preferred candidate will join the Media Research Group, a group of 13 junior and senior members researching different aspects of media studies.

The group is a collaborative and internationally oriented research environment with expertise across film, television, games, auditory media and social media. It combines historical and theoretical perspectives with research into contemporary media industries, media use and media cultures. Members of the group collaborate on research, education and publication activities and share a strong commitment to collegiality, intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary engagement. Current research interests include digitalisation, artificial intelligence, sustainability, media industries, media audiences and the societal implications of media change. Applicants are encouraged to consider how their expertise may contribute to ongoing and future collaborations within the group.

Working at University of Southern Denmark

The International Staff Office (ISO) at SDU provides a variety of services for new employees, guests and people who consider applying for a job at the University of Southern Denmark. International staff in tenured positions will be offered Danish language training in connection with the employment and are expected to achieve Danish language competences at CEFR B2-level within 5 years from being appointed.

The University is signatory of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). We wish our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

Contact information

Further information about the position may be obtained from Head of Department, Alexandra Holsting, aho@sdu.dk, or Head of Media Research Group, Prof. Susana Tosca, stosca@sdu.dk. Information about the department and the Faculty of Humanities is available on the University of Southern Denmark website.

For further information about being a fellow at DIAS, please contact DIAS director Sten Rynning at +45 6550 2193 or via email at director-dias@sdu.dk.

For questions related to CV, diplomas etc., please contact humfak-hr@sdu.dk 

Conditions of employment

Employment is governed by the collective agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC). 

The salary comprises a seniority-based base salary and a centrally agreed supplement.

Additional supplements may be negotiated locally.

As of 1 August 2026, the annual salary for an Assistant Professor is DKK 480,224.96 (salary level 6), consisting of a base salary of DKK 417,456 and a supplement of DKK 62,768.96.

All amounts are stated before tax, before added pension (18.07%), and any additional supplements. Pension contributions are paid by SDU, and both salary components (the annual salary and the supplement) are pensionable. For further information, please see SDU’s pages on salary, taxation, and general employment conditions.

Persons employed in the position may, based on a specific individual managerial assessment, be exempted from time registration, also known as a “self-organizer”

Application

Applications must be submitted electronically and should include the following documents:

• application letter
  
• curriculum vitae
  
• certificates and diplomas
  
• complete list of publications
  
• research plan for the coming years
  
• Teaching portfolio – please read more here
  
• Documentation of experience with knowledge exchange, collaboration, and external funding, where relevant
  
• Up to 4 relevant publications. One pdf-file per publication should be attached. In case of co-authorship, a co-author statement must be submitted as part of the pdf-file. 
  

References letters and other relevant qualifications may also be included. References may also be sent directly to humfak-hr@sdu.dk 

All non-Danish documents must be translated into English.

Application and all appendices must be in Danish, English or one of the Scandinavian languages. Please always include a copy of original diploma/certificates.  We only accept files in pdf-format no more than 10 MB per file. In case you have more than one file per field you need to combine the pdf-files into a single file, as each field handles only one file. We do not accept zip-files, jpg or other image files. All pdf-files must be unlocked and allow binding and may not be password protected.

The assessment process

Applications will be assessed by an assessment committee, and the applicant will receive the part of the evaluation that concerns them. The assessment report will subsequently be forwarded to the Head of Department who will assemble an appointments committee. An interview may form part of the overall assessment of the applicants' qualifications.   

The committee may request additional information, and if so, it is the responsibility of the applicant to provide the necessary material.

If the application does not meet the requirements mentioned above, the Faculty of Humanities may reject your application without further notice. Applications received after the deadline will neither be considered nor evaluated.

Shortlisting and tests will be used in the assessment process. Please note that only a shortlisted applicant will receive an assessment. Here you can read more about shortlisting at SDU

The application deadline is 1st March, 2027 at 11.59 PM/23.59 (CET).

The University of Southern Denmark is committed to fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of personal background, and strive to reflect the diversity of society in our staff

If you are not a Danish-speaking applicant, please ensure that you use the English website to access the electronic application form to receive further information in English.

We recommend that as an international applicant you take the time to visit Working in Denmark where you will find information and facts about moving to, working and living in Denmark, as well as the International Staff Office at SDU. 

About SDU

SDU was founded in 1966 and now has more than 27,000 students, almost 20% of whom are from abroad. It has more than 3,800 employees, and 115 different study programmes in the fields of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, and engineering. Its main campus is located in Odense, but SDU is present also in Kolding, Sønderborg, Esbjerg and Copenhagen.

Apply HERE.