ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

University of the Arts London (UAL)

We invite applications for a PhD studentship at University of the Arts London (UAL) to work on a project on “Understanding social media disinformation and war propaganda through the historical archive”, supervised by Dr. Felipe Soares.

This project aims to understand contemporary practices of disinformation and war propaganda on social media through comparison with war propaganda from historical archives linked to the First and Second World Wars. This project will broadly explore the following question: How can we better understand and contextualise contemporary practices of war propaganda on social media through the investigation of WWI and WWII historical archives?

The PhD student will be based at London College of Communication and work in partnership with the Imperial War Museum Institute.

The studentships cover fees at the UK Home rate and a tax-free stipend at the UKRI rate for three years full time or six years part time, pro rata for part-time (2025/26 full time rate £22,780). Students with an ‘overseas’ fee status can apply but will need to cover the difference between the UK and overseas fees rate (2025/26 home rate £6620/overseas £26310), and will be required to reside in the UK until completion of the PhD.

Please review the following link for more information about the project and how to apply: https://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/fees-and-funding/phd-and-mphil-funding/ual-post-graduate-research-studentships. The deadline for applications is 12 May 2025.

April 29, 2025 (1:30 PM)

The British Association of Comparative Law warmly invite you to a discussion of Dr Irini Katsirea’s book, Press Freedom and Regulation in a Digital Era: A Comparative Study (2024), from 12.30-2pm.

This book examines the challenges for press freedom in the nascent digital news ecosystem. Drawing upon decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as from German, UK and US case law, this comparative work explores the regulation of the press in the digital era and the impact of the proliferating media laws, policies, and jurisprudence on press freedom.

Professor Jacob Rowbottom (University of Oxford) will chair the discussion between Dr Irini Katsirea (University of Sheffield), Dr Peter Coe (University of Birmingham), Emeritus Professor Thomas Gibbons (University of Manchester), and Emeritus Professor Bernd Holznagel (University of Münster). There will be time for Q&A.

Register HERE.

University of Fribourg, Switzerland

The Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, offers an International Visiting Scholarship for communication scientists in the postdoctoral phase, financed by a fund raised by the department’s founding fathers Dr. Max Gressly and Dr. Florian Fleck. The remuneration consists of CHF 5.000, permitting a stay of two to three months. The full call for applications for a stay in Fribourg in 2026 is available here: https://www.unifr.ch/dcm/en/assets/public/files/flyers/Gressly-Fleck2026.pdf. Application deadline is 30 September 2025.

October 30-31, 2025

Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden 

Deadline: May 1, 2025

Social media platforms have dramatically changed the ways that people of all ages encounter and engage with news and information, as well as manage vital aspects of everyday life. The algorithmically governed media landscape of today, likewise, not only situates media users in a ‘world of information plenty’ but shapes our daily practices and impacts on how we think, learn, and socialise. This entanglement of media technologies and everyday life is challenging for a variety of reasons, not least as the structure of platforms is ephemeral and fluctuating. This conference brings together scholars to discuss media users’ tactics to navigate news and information, time and space, relations, and identities in an increasingly ephemeral algorithmic landscape.

https://www.sh.se/english/sodertorn-university/calendar/events/2025-10-30-ecrea-audience-and-reception-studies-2025

September 25-26, 2025

University of Padova, Italy

Deadline: April 27, 2025

The conference invites researchers to investigate the multiple ways in which young people interact with, negotiate, and reinvent intimacy in a progressively digitalized world. The goal of the conference is to create a critical discussion space to reflect on the opportunities, challenges, and contradictions inherent in digital intimacies, exploring its intersections with the social, cultural, and technological dimensions of daily life. While the digital offers new possibilities for connections, self-expression, and identity construction, it simultaneously raises questions about privacy, surveillance, commodification, and inequalities.

Find the full call for papers and submission guidelines here: http://www.digitalintimacies.eu/conference

June 23, 2025

Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC), Human Sciences School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa

Deadline: May 5, 2025

CECC will be hosting a conference on Taylor Swift and the Art of Meaning-Making: Communities, Affect and Storytelling on 23 June 2025.

This conference will explore the Taylor Swift phenomenon and gather scholars working at the intersection of media, literary, cultural, and political studies to explore Taylor Swift’s role in meaning-making processes.

Anonymized abstracts of no more than 500 words (not including references), as well as a short bio should be sent to taylorswiftconference@gmail.com by 5 May 2025. Submissions from early-career researchers and Ph.D. and M.A. students are welcome.

For full details, please visit the conference website: https://taylorswiftconfere.wixsite.com/cecc

Organization: Carla Ganito, Patrícia Tavares, Cátia Ferreira, Naíde Müller, and João Simão

Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC), Human Sciences School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa

May 28-30, 2025

Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA

Deadline (EXTENDED): April 30, 2025

The 18th Biennial Communication Ethics conference and the Silver Jubilee Anniversary Conference (2000-2025) of the International Communicology Institute will explore current research on the “image" and "imagination," broadly conceived, across the human sciences.

Our focus is on the phenomenological, semiotic, rhetorical and ethical foundations of communication in the experience of embodied thinking, speaking and inscribing. We seek to explore the frontiers of natural and artificial sign-systems, encounter diverse manifestations of concrete reality and abstract surreality of human imagination, and discover future domains of conscious experience that found the art and practice of human communicating.
We welcome a diversity of scholarly and creative approaches.

Problematics that presenters may consider include, but are not limited to:

• What questions are raised by recent phenomenological, semiotic, rhetorical, and critical theories of visual and mental images, visibility and nonvisibility, presence and absence, perception and expression?

• Is there a general theory of image ethics? If so, what are its foundations and some of its value limitations (e.g., psychoanalysis, journalism, design, propaganda)?

• What does it mean to "see" oneself or another? What is a just distance from which to look?

• What social, political, economic and/or ethical contradictions have emerged with new convergences among art, media, software and the communication practices they afford?

• How is the rhetoric of visual images impacted (enhanced, limited, etc.) by networked media?

• What does artificial intelligence want from images? What do images want from AI? What constitutes personification in/of the media?

• In what ways do advertisers imagine consumers?

• What pasts, presents, and futures are depicted by the visualization of digital data?

• How can we reimagine the objectives of network and social media science?

• What histories of communicology and communication ethics have yet to be written? What futures can we imagine?

The domains of the image and imagination encompass all the Arts and Sciences of expression and perception. These include, the Arts of Media: speaking, writing, painting, printing, sculpture, performance, voice; the Sciences of Media: social and media ecology, film and video, photography, screen/digital and legacy media; and Technological Media of Artificial Intelligence: ubiquitous computing, robotics, holographics and applied algorithms. Communication ethics theory, research and application corresponds with and enriches our critical understanding of each domain.

We invite completed papers or extended abstracts of 200–500 words. We also invite panel proposals of three speakers per panel. Please include a panel title with 250-word rationale, titles and 200-word abstracts for each presentation, and contributor contact information (institutional affiliation and email).
New submission deadline: April 30, 2025.

Please visit the conference website for details.

Lenka Waschková Císařová, Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Copyright 2025, Peter Lang
Series: Frontiers in Journalism Studies, editor: Scott A. Eldridge II, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Website: https://www.peterlang.com/document/1340781

The Margins of Journalism explores the peripheral journalists and media organisations who have been overlooked in our efforts to understand a changing journalistic field. Seeing local journalists as unmapped agents of the journalistic field, this book provides a comprehensive study of local journalism in the post-socialist, post-transitional Czech media system, and conceptualises these actors as unique agents within the journalistic field. Informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, it adopts an inductive approach, presenting the stories of specific journalists derived from interviews and participant observation in the places where they work, alongside surveys of local newspapers. From these studies, this book systematically maps these peripheral, journalistic actors and their positions in the journalistic field, accounting for their relationships and the trends shaping Czech journalism to give voice to those who are not usually heard – journalists on the margins.

Pedro Jerónimo & Inês Amaral (Eds)

Journalism is facing a crisis of trust. Disinformation, political manipulation, “news deserts”, and the decline of independent media threaten access to quality information. Building Media Trust examines this global challenge and presents tangible solutions—from fostering stronger community engagement with local media to the impact of regulation and transparency in journalism. Featuring case studies from Europe, Latin and North America, and Africa, this book outlines pathways to rebuilding a more resilient and trustworthy media ecosystem.

https://labcom.ubi.pt/building-media-trust/

ISBN: 978-989-9229-26-6

Media & Jornalismo

Deadline: September 15, 2025

EDITORS:

• Juan José Sánchez Soriano - Universidad de Murcia, España; juanjose.sanchez4@um.es
  
• Rafael Ventura - Universitat de Lleida, España; rafael.ventura@udl.cat
  
• Isabel Villegas Simón - Universitat Pompeu Fabra, España isabelmaria.villegas@upf.edu
  

The research topic of this call for papers primarily focuses on studies of audience reception across various intersectionalities, including LGBTIQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, older adults, racialized communities, people with diverse body types, and women. The objective is to analyze how these social groups interpret and engage with their representation in various media formats (TV news, press, reality shows, TV series, feature films, social media, content creation platforms, etc.). Additionally, it is valuable to examine how general audiences perceive media discourses surrounding these intersectionalities. In this way, the goal is to explore both the mirror effect and the window effect within the audience. 

On the one hand, we define audiences in a broad sense, encompassing all individuals who engage with and interact with media content reflective of their time (Ha, 2020). Moreover, we propose viewing audiences not merely as passive consumers of cultural and media content, but as active agents with a crucial role in interpreting these messages (Livingstone, 2015). Therefore, it is essential to understand and explore how these audiences relate to and engage with such content, as evidenced by recent studies, such as those examining the interpretations of trans individuals regarding their representation in television series (Villegas-Simón et al., 2024). 

On the other hand, like the society in which it exists, the audience is diverse and heterogeneous (Kristensen & From, 2015). Thus, we are in a context where, historically, the representation of minority social groups has been underrepresented or often constructed through stigma and negative stereotypes (Sánchez-Soriano, 2023), as is the case with people with disabilities (Page et al., 2024) or individuals with diverse body types (Collins et al., 2024). As a result, numerous studies have focused on discourse analysis of both traditional and emerging representations (Ventura et al., 2024). However, we believe it is essential to shift the focus to the final stage of the entire media cycle: how audiences interact with these representations, examining how they engage with and respond to such content. 

At the same time, social media has allowed the emergence of new content and representations that generate seemingly more diverse discourses, but which also compete with the spread of hate speech (Miranda et al., 2024). For this reason, it is valuable to develop new research that, within the framework of intersectionality, focuses on analyzing the reception of content from any media and format, including the press, radio, and cinema, as well as social media and content creation platforms like SVODs, while focusing on the current cultural and media context. 

Topics:

• Methodologies focused on audiences and their interactions with cultural and media content. Reflections and ethics surrounding their application;
  
• Minority audiences and their media and cultural consumption, including women, LGBTIQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, older adults, racialized communities, and individuals with diverse body types;
  
• Perceptions, interactions, and responses of general audiences to content addressing diversity and intersectionality;
  
• Media literacy and intersectionality. Formal and informal learning about diversity and intersectionality through the media;
  
• Fandom and intersectionality;
  
• Youth, intersectionality, and cultural and media consumption;
  
• Digital audiences and intersectionality. Interaction, consumption, and responses to content generated on digital platforms;
  
• Meta-research focused on academic production about audiences and intersectionalities. 

IMPORTANT DATES

• Deadline for submitting articles: September 15, 2025
  
• Editors' decision: January 2026
  
• Expected publication date: April 2026
  

Media & Jornalismo (RMJ) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science (Emerging Sources Citation). Each paper is sent to two reviewers, who are invited in advance to evaluate it based on the criteria of quality, originality, and relevance in line with the aim and theme of the specific issue of the journal. 

Articles can be submitted in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. 

Manuscripts must be submitted through the journal’s website (https://impactum-journals.uc.pt/mj). Once accessing RMJ for the first time, registration is required to submit the article and track the editorial process. We recommend reviewing the Author Guidelines, Submission Conditions, and the journal's Editorial Policy. 

For more information, you can contact patriciacontreiras@fcsh.unl.pt