ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Weizenbaum Institut

Founded in 2017, the Weizenbaum Institute researches the effects of advancing digitalisation on our society. With its recommendations for action, it helps to ensure that the digital transformation is sustainable, self-determined and responsible. The Weizenbaum Institute is supported by a network of seven partners, including Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin University of the Arts, the University of Potsdam, the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS) and the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB). The institute is financed by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the state of Berlin. It is located in Berlin.

For our third-party-funded research group “Local Digital Public Spheres” at the Weizenbaum-Institut e.V. we are looking, at the earliest possible date, for 3 research associates in social science (m/w/d) with 29.25 hours per week (75%). The position is initially limited until 31 December 2028. Further employment up to a total duration of four years will be sought and is dependent on further funding approval.

The Team

The junior research group “Local Digital Public Spheres” is funded as part of the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Emmy Noether program. It investigates how contemporary local public spheres are formed under conditions of digitalization and globalization, as local issues and events often gain national or even international attention. The project investigates digital discourses on places which have gained public notoriety in the fields of (a) illiberalism and backlash against plural societies and (b) industrial transformations and environmental concerns. It further investigates how residents respond to such public attention and organize around these issues locally. The group employs a mixed-methods design of computational (text-as-data, network analysis) and qualitative approaches (interviews, ethnographic field work) to investigate six local digital public spheres in three countries (Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom). Based on this empirical data, it will develop a theory of the spatial dimension of digital public spheres. You can take a closer look at the team and their work here.

Your tasks

• Conceptualization and execution of a doctoral dissertation in the research group’s fields of study (e.g., local public spheres, political discourses, mobilization and protest, local communities and social cohesion) and utilizing project data
  
• Conducting qualitative and/or mixed-methods fieldwork for one of the three countries of study (Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom), including qualitative interviews with local stakeholders and citizens
  
• Working with the team of two other PhD students and the research group leader on cross-case analyses and theory building in the field of study
  
• Regular publication and presentation of research results at national and international conferences and workshops
  
• Organization of events and activities for the research community and the broader public
  
• Participation in the events and program of the Weizenbaum Institute and - as an associated member - of the Collaborative Research Center 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces”
  

Your profile

• Master’s degree in the social sciences (e.g., communication studies, sociology, political science, human geography), area studies, or a related field
  
• Very good knowledge of qualitative research methodologies and willingness to conduct fieldwork
  
• Excellent proficiency in the national language of the case study you intend to work on (i.e., Polish, German, or English) and very good understanding of the respective political and cultural context
  
• Interest in interdisciplinary social scientific research, particularly in the areas of public spheres, digital transformations of society, and/or spatial theory
  
• Basic knowledge of quantitative and/or computational methodologies and interest in developing mixed-methods approaches to the analysis of local digital public spheres
  
• Excellent English skills and very good communication, presentation, and academic writing skills
  
• Enjoy working in a team
  

Your chance

• Exciting tasks: Work in a committed, innovative, and scientific environment
  
• Optimal conditions: Compensation depending on qualifications up to EG 13 (TVöD Bund), including annual bonus, company pension plan, and subsidy for the Deutschlandticket
  
• Work-life balance: We offer mobile working, flexible working hours, and 30 days of vacation per year (based on a 5-day week), plus paid time off on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.
  
• Central location: Work in the center of Berlin
  
• Personal development: Regular professional development opportunities
  

Severely disabled applicants with equal qualifications will be given preference. We value diversity and welcome all applications - regardless of gender, nationality, ethnic or social origin, religion, disability, age and sexual orientation. The Weizenbaum Institute expressly encourages women and people with a history of migration to apply.

Please submit your application, consisting of a motivation letter, your curriculum vitae (including a list of publications, conference presentations, or other academic activities, if applicable), university degree and other relevant certificates, and a writing sample (e.g., a student paper or master’s thesis) in English or German addressed to Dr. Daniela Stoltenberg, in our application portal until 2nd January 2026. Please indicate clearly for which country case studies you are applying. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Maite Vöhl from our HR team (personal[at]weizenbaum-institut.de) at any time. We look forward to receiving your documents.

Application portal

Deadline for panel paper abstracts: January 15, 2026 (5pm UTC)

Panel Convenor: Nico Carpentier, CULCORC, Charles University, Prague,  Czech Republic. 

Submission to be sent to: nico.carpentier@fsv.cuni.cz 

Dear all, 

I plan to submit a panel proposal for the IAMCR 2026 conference, which  will take place in Galway (Ireland), from 28 June - 2 July 2026. The  theme of this year's conference is "Peripheries and Connections: Media,  Communication and Transformation", with panel and paper submission  deadline of 3 February 2026. More about the conference can be found (as  you know) at https://iamcr.org/galway2026. 

This panel proposal, which originates from my work in MeDeMAP (a  European research project), will be entitled “Participation, Knowledge  and Communication: An Intersection of Transformative Forces”; the  abstract is below. 

With this call for papers (for this panel) I want to invite interested  scholars, activists and artists, from a diversity of locations and  affiliations, to join me in this panel proposal. In order to allow time  for the panel selection process, proposals should reach me, at  nico.carpentier@fsv.cuni.cz, on or before 15 January 2026, 5pm UTC. 

Proposals need to include (1) an abstract between 500 and 800 words, (2)  a title, (3) an author list with names, affiliations and email  addresses, and (4) a note confirming that at least one author will be  present in person at the IAMCR conference (if the panel is accepted). 

The panel “Participation, Knowledge and Communication: An Intersection  of Transformative Forces” incorporates theoretical and empirical  research papers which scrutinise the intersection of three key concepts  and the multitude of practices they cover. First, participation, defined  here as the rebalancing of power imbalances (see, e.g., Pateman, 1970),  or, as the sharing of power, with its promises of empowerment, is  central to our understanding of political processes in a variety of  societal fields (also moving beyond politics). Participation has the  capacity to validate ordinary people and the decentralisation of  decision-making processes. Knowledge, in its very Foucauldian meaning,  is seen the assemblage of the discourses that are constructed as  truthful renderings of social reality. To use McCarthy (1996: 2)  definition: “knowledge refers to any and every set of ideas accepted by  one or another social group or society of people, ideas pertaining to  what they accept as real.” Finally, communication is approached here as  the interpreting and sharing of meaning, through the exchange of  signifying practices, structured through discourses and ideologies. Also  knowledge and communication, are deeply political practices, structured  through power relations, and part of discursive-material construction  processes, always located in particular geographies. 

This panel is particular interested in how these three notions  theoretically and empirically intersect, and how these intersections  allow us to (re)think societal transformations, in a diversity of  centres and peripheries. For instance, this panel aims to open up  discussions about situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988), and its capacity  to feed into participatory processes, but also how participatory  processes can bring out a diversity of voices which otherwise would be  silenced by hegemonic knowledge and communication practices. Similarly,  the panel is interested in collaborative-participatory knowledge  production and communication processes, which disrupt the traditional  centres and hierarchies of knowledge production. Equally important are  alternative-participatory communication practices, which allow for the  generation of new knowledges, or for the re-articulation of existing  hegemonic knowledge frameworks. Through an articulation of different  critical perspectives, this panel aims to deepen our reflections on how  these three notions intersect, and how they can support (or disrupt)  social change processes and societal transformations. 

Slavko Splichal

A new book by Slavko Splichal, titled The Gig Public, was recently published by Anthem Press. The book explores the rise of the “gig public” in the age of performative publicness, highlighting challenges in sustaining meaningful discourse, the impact of new technologies and AI on public engagement, and the emergence of the will to visibility within the context of capitalism and algorithmic governmentality.

Read open access version HERE.

Contents:

Introduction: The Gig Public – Rethinking Publicness in the Age of AI

1-From Collective to Counter: Understanding the Evolving Territories of Publicness

2-Paradigm Shifts: Habitual and Contractual Foundations of Publics

3-The Gig Public: Redrawing the Boundaries between Public and Private Realms

4-Invigorating Publicness in the AI World: Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies

Today the Global Media & Internet Concentration Project released its report on market, policy and technological developments in a swathe of communication, internet and media industries in Germany:

-  The Germany report was prepared by: Lukas Barbutev, Dr Hendrik Theine, Dr Tobias Mast and Josefine May Spannuth

This follows editions we have already published on the state of media and internet concentration in Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Norway the United States and many more, with the end goal a library of regularly updated reports for all of the nearly 40 countries that make up the GMICP.

These reports are rich with insights into growth and concentration trends within media and communication sectors in these countries, as well as key regulatory developments.

 Finally:

-  Please review any of our reports and the underlying data sets here.

-  We invite other researchers to contribute their expertise to our efforts – please reach out to us here.

 June 4, 2026 (8:30 - 12:00 PM (UTC+2)

Cape Town, South Africa (in-person only) 

Deadline: December 15, 2025 (12:00 CET)

Organised with the ICA divisions Children, Adolescence and Media and Communication Law and Policy, the DFC welcomes original research studies addressing the theme of children’s rights in the digital environment, from all disciplines, employing empirical methods, relevant theory, and contributing to children’s rights in the digital environment, especially Global South perspectives.

In the pre-conference, scholars and practitioners will explore how research can inform policy, regulation and design with children in digital environments, framed by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General comment No. 25 on Children’s Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment. 

More info: https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/events/ica-preconference/call-for-submissions

March 19-20, 2026 

Hybrid: Lublin, Poland & Online

Deadline: January 20, 2026

Organizers: Institute of Social Communication and Media Science

Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin 

Polish Communication Association, Mediatization Section

This year the keynote speech will be given by Professor Martin Johannes Riedl, representing School of Journalism and Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Resuscitated at the deathbed? GenAI as challenge and opportunity for journalism

For more information please visit the conference website: https://www.umcs.pl/en/ms-cfp.htm

Forms of participation: personal and online; languages of the conference: English and Polish; conference site: Institute of Social Communication and Media Science, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Głęboka Street 45.

Accompanying event: Workshop: From data to interpretation: NLP techniques in digital discourse analysis (onsite event).

Important dates:

• Abstract submission: 20 January, 2026 
  
• Abstract acceptance: 30 January, 2026
  
• Conference program announcement – first draft: 6 February, 2026
  

Conference fee for the personal and online participation: PLN 200 (PTKS/Polish Communication Association members: PLN 150; plus 60-100 PLN [for the Workshop participants, depending on their number); 

The conference concept:

Mediatization and Artificial Intelligence: Values, Principles, and Practices of AI-zation?

When observing the constant deepening of the mediatization process, one can ask what comes after mediatization? Is this term still relevant or should we look for an alternative, such as 'AI-zation', to describe and explain the transformations driven by Large Language Models witnessed by people in different fields and sectors of their private and public lives? These questions concern the accelerators, obstacles and disruptors introduced by AI technologies and the kinds of transformations or breakthroughs they bring about when human dependency on media is considered. At the same time, we may feel lost when trying to determine the principles that should organize the media and AI worlds, and the values that they should reflect. In particular, discussions about the AI-related principles and values face us with the problem of obsolescence, need for updates or new rules and ideals, as well as their commonality and applicability in different societal and national contexts.

When asking these questions, we would like to invite media and communication scholars, as well as researchers interested in technology, the humanities, psychology, and other disciplines, to discuss the topics, we believe, will help us to consider the current and future stages of media- and AI-related phenomena wisely and visionary.

The list of expected topics includes, but is not limited to:

• What comes after deep mediatization? Does AI technologies introduce the next phase of mediatization (AI-zation)?
  
• What are the features, principles and consequences of human-machine communication, especially in the current era of LLMs proliferation?
  
• Which values are of paramount importance and should be preserved first in human-machine communication?
  
• Are generative AI tools merely intermediaries in media communication, or are they the authors, creators and broadcasters of messages? To what extent can they be perceived as having agency and/or subjectivity?
  
• Given the vast application of generative AI tools, can we trust media materials, including journalistic content, in terms of their veracity and factuality?
  
• What can technological approach to mediatization teach us about human-machine communication? Is AI technology similar to any other invention, e.g. the internet, or is it a game changer unlike anything we have ever seen before?
  
• What role do machine participants play in the meaning-making process, and who or what do they represent? The European and national laws and regulations on AI (e.g. AI Act 2025) and the ethics of human-machine communication?
  
• Originality and creativity in media production in the face of generative AI application. Affective artificial communication (e.g. AI-driven emotion recognition, relationships and intimacy in the age of AI, technological forms of empathy, affective computing).
  

Accompanying event: Workshop: From data to interpretation: NLP techniques in digital discourse analysis (onsite event): Kamil Filipek, Michał Błaszczykowski, Center for Artificial Intelligence and Computational Modeling.

The aim of the training is to familiarise social communication researchers with modern natural language processing methods used to analyse texts obtained from digital platforms. Participants will learn how to prepare data, select appropriate analytical techniques (e.g. embedding models, classification, topic analysis) and interpret results in the context of discourse theory. The training also aims to develop competencies that allow for critical assessment of both the potential and limitations of NLP methods in communication research.

On behalf of Scientific and Organizational Committee

Ewa Nowak-Teter, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University

Karolina Burno-Kaliszuk, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University

Dr hab. Ewa Nowak-Teter, prof. UMCS

University of Zurich, Switzerland

The Media & Internet Governance Division (Prof. Dr. Natascha Just) of the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich invites applications for an open position of Senior Research and Teaching Associate/Postdoc (80%). Start of employment: 1 February 2026 / upon agreement.

The Media & Internet Governance Division studies media policy and media economics in the convergent communications sector. Alongside research on traditional mass media, the division focuses on Internet Governance and Platform Studies. The successful applicant will work on dedicated topics that align with the division's research program. 

Further information and application details: https://jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancies/senior-research-and-teaching-associate-postdoc-position-media-internet-governance-division-ikmz/995cf26d-8973-49eb-8f1e-385950f00513

Review of applications starts immediately, but the position will remain open until a qualified candidate is found.

Please contact Alena Birrer, MA (a.birrer@ikmz.uzh.ch) if you have any further questions.

December 12, 2025 and January 5, 2026

Online

The ECREA Ukraine Task Force, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Institute for Media and Communication, invites researchers in media, communication, and related fields to two practical webinars on submitting successful abstracts for conferences. The webinars will take place on December 12, 2025 and January 5, 2026 and will be led by Roman Horbyk, Research Lecturer at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), Director of the WarDS Lab, Visiting Researcher at Uppsala University (Sweden), and Chair of the ECREA Ukraine Task Force. 

These webinars are designed to help prepare successful submissions and get accepted to international conferences in Europe. In particular, they will prepare you for submitting to ECREA 2026 in Brno, Czech Republic (September 2026).

Topics include:

• What an ideal ECREA conference abstract looks like

• Key elements: research problem, originality, theory, method, contribution

• How to avoid common mistakes and attract reviewers’ attention

• How to adapt your idea to the specific sections and working groups of ECREA

• Working with academic English: terminology, clarity, conciseness, scholarly logic

• Live analysis of examples and Q&A

• Preparing your submission with a view toward a successful conference presentation
• Opportunity to receive individual mentoring from Roman Horbyk after the webinar: consultation on your abstract and recommendations before final submission

Format and Participation

Both webinars will take place online (Zoom).

Participation is free of charge and available through registration. Registered participants will receive the Zoom link and other details in advance. 

Working language: Ukrainian.

June 25-26, 2026

The University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense (Denmark)

Deadline: February 15, 2026

Digital entertainment has moved from the margins of leisure to the centre of everyday life. It unfolds across fragmented temporalities, hybrid spaces, and shifting sensory environments, becoming woven into the rhythms through which people navigate work, leisure, relations, care, rest, or exercise through different modes of engagement (attention, distraction, intention…). Yet despite its ubiquity, entertainment remains undertheorised in media studies, overshadowed by approaches that focus on platforms, industries, or traditional media formats. Much of this scholarship explains how digital media function, but is not concerned with what entertainment feels like and does in lived experience, or how emerging formats—from short-form video to ambient gaming—reshape everyday life.

This conference invites contributions that address the experiential, aesthetic, cultural and practice-based textures of contemporary digital entertainment. We welcome work that examines how entertainment punctuates daily routines; how sensory formats organise micro-temporalities; how emerging genres such as cozy games, reaction-loops, streamers’ para-social hangouts, ASMR, mood-playlists, or hybrid meme-aesthetics shape everyday engagement; and how entertainment logics “spill over” into other societal domains. We are especially interested in research that integrates practices and formats—showing how people use entertainment, how new genres acquire recognisable aesthetic signatures, and how users cultivate meta-awareness of styles, conventions, and genre cues.

The conference will be held at The University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense. There is no registration fee, but participants are responsible for covering their own travel and accommodation. Lunch and refreshments will be provided during the conference. A conference dinner will be organised, with separate payment for those who wish to attend.

This conference marks the official conclusion of the DiEM (Digital Entertainment Machine) project, generously funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The DIEM team is looking forward to discussing these exciting topics with you in Odense this summer!

We welcome contributions from media studies, cultural studies, game studies, aesthetic theory, film/audiovisual studies, literary theory, communication studies, and adjacent disciplines. We invite empirical, theoretical, and analytical approaches that speak to (but are not limited to) the following themes:

• Practices: rhythms, habits, ambience, transitions, sensory modulation in everyday use
  
• Formats and genres: for example short-form video, hybrid meme-genres, atmospheric and cozy gaming, slow or ambient livestreams, platform-specific micro-genres
  
• Aesthetics: visual, sonic, and bodily grammars, platform vernaculars and stylistic conventions
  
• Cultural textures: emerging taste clusters such as #cleangirl, genres such as oddly satisfying, shared imaginaries such as revenge scrolling, and other circulating moods and trends
  
• Meta-aesthetic reflexivity: how users recognise, classify, and play with evolving genres, conventions, and aesthetic cues
  
• Cross-domain pollination: entertainment logics in news, museums, education, marketing, politics and others
  

The accepted formats are papers, panels, and workshops; all will be allocated to 90 min sessions. All submissions should be in the form of a 300–500‑word abstract as a single PDF file. 

A brief bibliography may be included (not counted toward the word limit), and authors should provide a short bio (approx. 100 words/person). The conference does not use anonymous review.

There are no proceedings. Presenters will be invited to submit a paper for a special issue of MedieKultur on the theme of the conference, scheduled for publication in May 2027. 

Details regarding the journal submission process will be provided during the conference.

Important dates

Abstract submission deadline: 15 February 2026

Notification of acceptance: 1 March 2026

Conference dates: 25–26 June 2026

More here: https://event.sdu.dk/texturesofdigitalentertainment/signup 

June 10-12, 2026

Malmö, Sweden

Deadline: March 1, 2026

Welcome to the 20th anniversary of the Swedish STS Conference that will be held at the Niagara building in Malmö, 10–12 juni 2026.

It's hosted by Malmö University in collaboration with Lund University. 

The Swedish STS Conference is an open, widely advertised, biennial conference, organised since 2006. It is an interdisciplinary meeting place for researchers interested in issues related to technology and science in society as approached from social science and humanities perspectives, and while it gathers researchers at all levels of their careers, it is planned and coordinated to particularly appeal to doctoral students and early career researchers, with special sessions and events catering to the concerns of junior colleagues.

Conference theme

The theme Cross-Pollinations, Contamination, Collaboration invites contributions that address pressing global challenges such as climate change, artificial intelligence, warfare, infectious diseases and migration. The conference explores how cultures, technologies and disciplines interact in ongoing processes of exchange, how contamination shapes interdependence and accessibility, and how collaborations across boundaries can foster innovation and societal change. A particular strength of the STS field is its ability to critically examine both successes and failures of science and technology across their entire life cycle – from inception to everyday use and eventual decline.

Collaboration is central to STS practice, often requiring interdisciplinarity and engagement across the traditional divide between natural sciences and the humanities. This conference will highlight how such collaborations can generate new methods, perspectives and models for engagement, while also interrogating the values that underpin them – who participates, what counts as legitimate knowledge, and how boundaries are maintained or transgressed. Without cross-pollination, contamination and collaboration with wider society, science risks losing relevance and legitimacy. 

Conference website: Swedish STS conference 2026: Cross-Pollinations, Contamination, Collaboration | Malmö University