ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

International Journal of Games and Social Impact (IJGSI), special issue

Deadline: June 1, 2024

Games often offer their players strong emotional experiences. Love is a profound human experience that affects all aspects of our lives. Indeed, many games include love as part of their narrative and/or gameplay. Nevertheless, is this truly love? Unlike other media, in which the audience reads about or watches a love story unfold, in games players take on an active role in the execution of the love story.

This raises concerns as to the ability of games to simulate love. Can a player love a (virtual) character? If not, what does this mean for the capacity of games to afford love? If yes, how does this change our understanding of love? Game Studies have approached the concept of love from multiple perspectives: philosophical inquiries (Leino 2015, Dicken 2018), game design challenges (Grace 2020), feminist and queer analyses (Salter 2020, Youngblood 2015), and sociological studies (Burgess and Jones 2020, Bopp et al. 2019, Karhulahti and Välisalo 2021). Yet, despite the multitude and resonance of the existing scholarship, love in games remains an underexplored and fascinating topic that interests both game players and creators alike.

For this issue of the International Journal of Games and Social Impact (IJGSI), we are accepting full papers that are related, not exclusively, to one or more of the following aspects:

• Meaning of love in games
  
• Love relationships between human players and NPCs
  
• Representation and poetics of love in games
  
• Queer and feminist approaches to game love
  
• Close reading of games featuring love
  
• Love as a mechanics and design challenge
  
• History of love in games
  
• Games as spaces for humans to fall in love
  
• Roleplaying and love in games
  

We welcome submissions relating to any type of game: digital, online, VR, tabletop, board games, LARP, etc.

Full papers must be submitted electronically after registering on the platform, respecting the guidelines established in the Submissions section.

Publication timeline

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts are referred through a double-blind peer-review process. Dates are indicative – to be confirmed.

Submission deadline for full-papers: 01-06-2024 

Notifications of reviews sent to authors: 30-06-2024

Submission deadline for final full-papers:  15-07-2024

Publication of full-papers in special issue: 01-10-2024

Special issue Editor

Renata Ntelia (School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln)

To potential Authors

Please submit your proposals via the IJGSI website, according to the format standards for publication: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijgsi/about/submissions

About the International Journal of Games and Social Impact

The International Journal of Games and Social Impact (IJGSI) is a semiannual open-access publication for games research and critique on social change, inclusion, education and Human Rights. IJGSI was established in Lusófona University, by the Games and Social Impact Media Research Lab (GLOW) to research, discover, and foster links between games studies in academia and civil society through educational and knowledge exchanges.

This Journal is supported through Hei-Lab (https://hei-lab.ulusofona.pt/; https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/05380/2020) and CICANT (https://cicant.ulusofona.pt/; https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/05260/2020) research units as a strategy to foster multidisciplinary, fundamental, and applied research approaching the intersections between games and human activities. IJGSI is also supported by the FILMEU (https://www.filmeu.eu/) alliance.

Source: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijgsi/about

ECREA book series in European Communication Research and Education

Deadline: February 12, 2024

With this call, we invite authors to submit a short abstract for a book chapter in an edited volume with the working title Alternative media across European Media Systems. Conceptual cornerstones, methodological challenges, and systemic conditions. The selected abstracts will form part of an extended book proposal for the open access ECREA book series in European Communication Research and Education. The book aims to move beyond purely empirical single country case studies and abstracts with comparative, conceptual, and/or methodological contributions will be valued. Abstracts submitted must be based on original work not previously published. Please note: The extended book proposal is one among three candidates for the open access publication, and acceptance of an abstract is thus not a guarantee of publication.

Background and aim

Across European countries, the past decade’s dropping levels of media- and political trust and sweeping populist election victories have coincided with the rise of what have been labeled “alternative media”, “hyperpartisan news”, or “interlopers” to name a few. Broadly, these terms refer to and reflect a renewed scholarly interest in media actors that, in different ways and to different extents, challenge institutional news media. Accordingly, there has been a recent flux of studies exploring these actors’ content, sourcing practices, media criticism, users, and producers. While these studies have offered important empirical insights, this book aims to further advance this emerging research field conceptually and methodologically and develop systemic perspectives that are applicable across dissimilar national media- and political contexts to provide grounds for better linking and integrating future empirical studies. To this end, we call for contributions that address conceptual, methodological, and systemic challenges, organized in three subsections.

Part I: Conceptual cornerstones

An increasing number of different concepts are currently employed to study similar groups of media outlets. While the proposed book builds on the term “alternative media”, which is currently most widely established in the European context, other related terms include “political media”, “populist media”, “hyperpartisan news”, “parasitic news”, and “junk news”. This raises the pertinent question about whether or not we are studying the same thing. Moreover, the field has over recent years undergone a development from focusing mainly on progressive left-wing cases to focusing also on populist and/or right-wing cases. This raises a number of questions, such as whether our understanding of these media can and should be neutral or normative, how they reshape our understanding of established journalistic terms like balance, quality, and representation, whether and how to distinguish democratic from anti-democratic cases, bias from misinformation, and partisanship from extremity, and whether and how alternative media with different ideological leanings and goals can and should be studied within the same theoretical framework(s). This part of the book calls for contributions that address these or related conceptual questions and/or reflect on the different roles alternative media can play as actors of misinformation, interlopers on the journalistic field, correctives of mainstream media, voices of marginalized groups, parts of populist and anti-systemic movements etc., and how to conceptualize the role of these media from different democracy-theoretical perspectives.

Part II: Methodological challenges

Alternative media research can be a controversial field to navigate and engaging with this object of study raises methodological challenges and ethical dilemmas that should not be, but are currently, left to the Q&A sessions at conference panels. The book calls for contributions that shed light on and discuss these issues. As examples, how do you recruit research participants among users and producers of media characterized by sometimes hostile relations to established research? How do you balance building trust with participants and maintaining a critical perspective on the phenomenon under study? Does research on alternative media risk marginalizing or mainstreaming specific points of view and should this be a concern? And how can and do scholars deal with (the risk of) public backlashes to their research? For this section, the book also calls for contributions that reflect on challenges and potentials relating to different methods that can be used for studying alternative media. These can include but are not limited to network analysis; content analysis (qualitative, quantitative, manual or automated, topic modeling etc.); and user and producer studies (interviews, surveys, tracking, data donation, diaries, etc.).

Part III: Systemic conditions

Many studies on alternative media and related concepts are single-country case studies. This ties the empirical insights to the specific media- and political contexts, making it difficult to transfer and compare results across national or regional contexts. Moreover, most European studies focus on Nordic or Central media systems, leaving understudied the Western, Southern, and Eastern European contexts. This part of the book invites contributions that seek to develop media- and political systemic perspectives that can be applied and allow comparison across dissimilar contexts, e.g. by shedding light on the different mainstreams new media-political actors challenge in different European media systems and what different contexts mean for the roles these actors play in the media- and political systems they enter.

How to submit

Abstracts should be approximately 200 words. Please send your abstract to: miriam.brems@cc.au.dk. Deadline: 12 February.

Editors:

• Miriam Kroman Brems. Aarhus University, Denmark.
  
• Tine Ustad Figenschou. Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.
  
• Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk. Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.
  
• Eva Mayerhöffer. Roskilde University, Denmark.
  

June 17-28, 2024, Nijmegen (Netherlands)

June 10-14, 2024 (online)

We are thrilled to inform you that the 3nd edition of our flagship event, the Summer School in Social Research Methods (3SRM), held in-person in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 17 – 28 June, and 10-14 June online, is now ‘live’ on the www and that registrations are now open! Please find below all info on this unique event; feel free to disseminate as you see best.

In addition, you’ll also find here below some short info on:

-       The Konstanz Methods Excellence Workshops (komex), organized by the University of Konstanz (Germany) in collaboration with MethodsNET, 22 February - 1 March (online and in-person)

-       Our three Launch events (30 October – 2 November), including our Launch Conference, in-person in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) + hybrid, as we scale up MethodsNET as a global membership-based association. Save the dates!

Finally, please note that registrations are now also open for another top pedagogy training event endorsed by MethodsNET: the 28th Summer School in Social Science Methods, which will take place in Lugano (Switzerland) and online from 8 to 23 August. More on this in a further newsletter.

Best regards,

Benoît Rihoux [sending this message], Derek Beach, Levi Littvay, Cai Wilkinson, Anka Kekez and Bruno Castanho Silva, members of the MethodsNET Executive Board [currently being constituted, and which will be publicly announced when we launch our full digital platform – stay tuned!]

Click here to be kept informed if you haven’t yet opted in for our low-traffic emailing list

World-class methods courses – and so much more

Registrations to our flagship event are now open! The 3rd edition of the Summer School in Social Research Methods (3SRM) is hosted again at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 17 - 28 June (in-person) + 10 – 14 June (online)

This is the most pluralistic methods training event worldwide, covering the whole span of methodological traditions, including innovative/emerging topics. If you want to bring your research to the next level, the 3SRM is the place to be. It is a unique venue, which comprises 46 main courses:

●      7 pre-week 1 online courses (10-14 June, 5-day format) on software + other specialized topics

●      38 in-person PhD-level interactive courses spanning the full range of social scientific methods, taught by top pedagogues and enabling multiple useful week 1 – week 2 sequences (intensive 5-day format for each course):

o   5 Foundational courses

o   9 Interpretive/Qualitative Approaches courses

o   5 Case-based/Comparative Approaches courses (4 one-week courses and 2 two-week courses)

o   11 Statistical Approaches courses

o   8 Big Data courses

●      … and each main course fee gives access to a full weekly package also comprising:

o   an optional Morning Cross-cutting short course

o   a choice of Late afternoon optional Supplemental short courses

o   a ‘Methods Café’ to link up with diverse top methods experts

o   … and lunch vouchers

All information on how to register via the institutional host (RSS) website. Registrations are first come, first served, with lower fees for students and PhD researchers. Note the 10% or 15% discounts which can be obtained based on different criteria, including ‘early bird’ registration before 1 April With these respective discounts, at (PhD) student rates, you can get your full weekly training package for 629€ or 594€ (in-person courses), and access to a full 1-week online course for 419€ or 396€.

Additional benefit: by registering to at least 1 course (in-person or online), you receive free MethodsNET membership for the whole of 2024.

Welcome to your Summer School & see you (again?) in Nijmegen… or online! See also these testimonies from 2023.

Limited spots left for #KOMEX2024!

The Konstanz Methods Excellence Workshops (komex) are organized by the University of Konstanz in collaboration with MethodsNET. Komex offers excellent, inclusive, and sustainable PhD-level methods training. Dates: Feb 22 - 23 (short courses) and Feb 26 - Mar 1, 2024 (compact & main courses).

The event’s hybrid format combines in-person and online options, covering a spectrum of quantitative and qualitative methods all at budget-friendly rates.

Browse the komex courses: 7 qualitative courses (4 online, 3 in-person) and 10 quantitative/software/foundational courses (3 online, 7 in-person). Tailored to fit your schedule: choose from short (2-day), compact (3-day) or main (5-day).

Register here: tinyurl.com/komexreg. Stay updated with komex: on X @komex_methods or on BlueSky @komex.bsky.social

As part of the process of scaling up MethodsNET into a membership-based association: do take a good note of these upcoming opportunities for you and your colleagues in 2024 still:

…soon launch of our full website, stay tuned: we are working full steam on the scaling up of MethodsNET as a membership-based association delivering much more services to meet your needs. Within the next 2 months, we will launch the brand-new MethodsNET website, along with more info, a call for members and for partner institutions, and calls for the Launch events (see below). You will be personally informed - and invited.

…and save the date(s) of our Launch events: these will be held in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) from 30 October to 2 November 2024: a ‘Training to trainers’ event (Wednesday 30/10), the MethodsNET Launch Conference (Thursday 31/10 full day & Friday 1/11 morning), and a ‘Methods Innovation Workshops’ event (Friday 1/11 afternoon & Saturday 2/11 morning). Save the dates, as the respective Organizing Committees are composing the program and timetables. There will be plenty of ways to get involved. Online participation will also be possible. Much more info on these events when we launch our new website (NB the URL will remain unchanged). 

Click here to be kept informed if you haven’t yet opted in for our low-traffic emailing list

Contact: info@methodsnet.org

Website: https://www.methodsnet.org

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/methodsnet/

Department for Media and Communication Studies Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden

Deadline 31 January 2024

The Department for Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University offers a thriving and multidisciplinary research environment with a particular focus on contemporary datafied and media-saturated societies from a critical-cultural and often historical perspective. The research at the department shares a particular focus on the Baltic and East European region. The department is based at the School of Culture and Education and is a member of the Postgraduate School for Critical Cultural Theory. 

Current research projects conducted by faculty members at the department include among others:

• Anticipating and mediating future classrooms (PI: Michael Forsman) 
  
• A Sea of Data: Mediated temporalities of the Baltic Sea (PI: Lars Lundgren)
  
• Media trust and social imaginaries (PI: Fredrik Stiernstedt)
  
• Photographic Realism in the Age of Digital Media (PI: Patrik Åker)
  
• Post-migrant voices in the Baltic Sea region (Sweden, Germany, Estonia) (PI: Jessica Gustafsson
  
• Social Media Surveillance and Experiences of Authoritarianism (PI: Göran Bolin)
  
• The Digital Welfare State (PI: Anne Kaun)
  
• Vernacular fiction and digital publication platforms: An ethnography of contemporary Indian book worlds (PI: Per Ståhlberg)
  
• What is news? (PI: Sofia Johansson)

We are happy to offer several visiting research fellow positions for the academic year 2024/25. The fellows – holding a PhD – will each receive a one-time scholarship of 35.000 SEK contributing to travel and accommodation. The fellows can choose the length and timing of their stay during the academic year 2024/25 but should stay at least one month. Fellows are expected to present their current work during one higher seminar at the department. Södertörn University has a number of guest research apartments close to campus and we are happy to put fellows in touch with the housing unit at the university. However, we are not able to assist further in finding housing in Stockholm.

In order to apply please submit a short CV (max 2 pages) and a description of project that they will be working with during their stay (max 1 page) through this application form https://forms.office.com/e/YZG0k8DYxx

Timeline:

Deadline for applications: 31 January 2024

Notification of applicants: 1 March 2024

Start of the visiting fellowship period: September 2024 – June 2025

June 26-27, 2024

Queensland University in Brisbane, Australia

Deadline: February 1, 2024

Organisers: Axel Bruns, Jessica Walter, Daniel Kreiss and Anja Bechmann

Funding: Prof. Bruns’s Australian Laureate Fellowship project, The Independent Research Fund Denmark, and the European Digital Media Observatory.

Please submit your 500 word abstract at: https://lnkd.in/dPmpF5Hi

Event Information

In recent years, scholars around the globe have increasingly sounded alarms about the threats to democracy posed by media and technological change. Researchers have analysed the relationship between mis- and disinformation, political and state propaganda, the growth of a new class of social and political influencers, and deepening partisanship, growing populism, and increasing polarisation. 

Despite the insights this work has already generated, the relationship between media, propaganda, mis/disinformation, and polarisation and power is either not well understood or conceptual models are subfield-specific. However, it is increasingly clear that political actors and movements wield media, propaganda, and mis/disinformation in pursuit of social, political, economic, or cultural power. Polarisation is often a tool in the service of people pursuing power, or the inevitable by-product of struggles over power. 

This two-day postconference brings together current and emerging conceptual and applied theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the relationship between power, propaganda, and polarisation. Day One reviews and challenges our conceptual frameworks for understanding the relationship between power and patterns of information and social interaction, while Day Two takes stock of the current methodological toolkit for the study of power, propaganda, and polarisation.

We invite your paper contributions on these issues. Abstracts of up to 3500 characters (plus references) are due by 1 February 2024.

The postconference will centrally address the dynamics of our destabilising contemporary social media and platform landscape – affected by the slow decline of Facebook, the rapid disintegration of Twitter, and the swift rise of algorithmic-driven platforms such as TikTok. These have created a complex digital environment of partially intersecting publics whose flows of information, discourse, and influence are as yet difficult to trace, analyse, and conceptualise both qualitatively and computationally.

Both days will feature keynotes by eminent scholars in the field, with particular attention paid to the diversity of perspectives and backgrounds represented by keynote and paper presenters. The organising team represents leading research institutions across three continents, and is committed to ensuring a broad geographical representation of participants.

The P³ postconference is supported by the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology, the DATALAB – Center for Digital Social Research at Aarhus University, and the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; it is held at the Kelvin Grove campus of Queensland University of Technology in central Brisbane, Australia. Funding for the postconference is provided by Prof. Bruns’s Australian Laureate Fellowship project, the Independent Research Fund Denmark, and the European Digital Media Observatory.

Submission Instructions

Please complete the fields below and upload a paper abstract of no more than 500 words in Word or PDF format by 1 February 2024. 

We will endeavour to inform you of the outcomes of the selection process by 1 March 2024. 

By completing this form, you consent to be contacted by us with follow-up information. We will directly contact only the submitting authors.

The postconference will charge a modest registration fee of US$50 for faculty, and US$25 for students. This supports the event coordination and catering costs.

This will be an in-person event only – unfortunately we will not be able to accommodate remote presentations or attendance.

May 2-3, 2024

Grand Hotel & Gamla Rådhuset, Jönköping

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 23, 2024

Organisers: Professor Annette Hill, Hario Priambodho, Deniz Duru

The dynamics of friction matter, for storytelling, for digital and global connections, and for media and social inequalities. The meaning of friction is multilayered: friction is an energetic spark, a form of social tension, and a sign of difference. We feel media friction in our daily lives, from the contingencies of media engagement, to the tensions of trustworthy information during conflict and crisis. And yet friction is often framed as something to defuse in mediated settings, to smooth away differences and encourage easy encounters. But, what of the sparks that friction generates?

This symposium provides a timely opportunity to understand both the creative force, and negative consequences, of frictions within media, culture and society. Key questions include:

1) What are the dynamics of friction across media, culture and society?

2) In what ways can friction generate creativity in storytelling and cultural artefacts?

3) How do media frictions make visible power and inequalities?

We invite researchers to explore the dynamics of friction across the following connected areas of enquiry:

·       frictions in storytelling for streaming series and films

·       epistemic frictions of truth claims in news, documentaries, and social media

·       social frictions in social movements, mobilisation and activism

·       political frictions in news, documentary, information, disinformation and polarization

·       gender, race, and disability frictions

·       communicative frictions within organisations and media and cultural industries

·       data frictions of AI and related technologies and data inequalities

·       mobility frictions for transnational communication and transportation of goods and services, humans and non-humans

·       global, local, transnational and postcolonial frictions

The programme for the symposium across two days includes keynote panels with invited speakers, pre-constituted panels on key themes with invited speakers, a special panel on academic publishing with Natalie Foster from Routledge and Juilia Brockley from Intellect, and open parallel panels. There will be a dedicated website, video, and podcasts of keynote panels.

Keynote speakers include Charlotte Brunsdon (Warwick University, UK, Simon Dawes (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France), Christine Geraghty (Glasgow University, UK), Joke Hermes (InHolland University, Netherlands), Annette Hill (Jönköping University, Sweden), David Morley (Goldsmiths College, UK), Dylan Mulvin (London School of Economics, UK), Kristian Møller (Roskilde University, Denmark).

Invited Speakers for Pre-Constituted Panels include Magnus Andersson (Lund University, Sweden), Deniz Duru (Lund University, Sweden), Alexandra Bogren (Södertorn University, Sweden), Stina Bengtsson (Södertorn University, Sweden), Taina Bucher (Oslo University, Norway), Alex Frankovitch (Birkbeck University, UK), Maren Hartmann (Berlin University of the Arts, Germany),  Jamie Hakim (KCL, UK), Noora Hirvonen (University of Oulu, Finland), Aira Huttunen (University of Oulu, Finland), Elinor Mansson (Södertorn University, Sweden), Erika Polson (University of Denver, USA), Torgeir Uberg Nærland (University of Bergen, Norway, Susanna Paasonen (University of Turku, Finland), Sébastien Tutenges (Lund University, Sweden), Hans-Jörg Trenz (SMS, Italy), Hakan Sicakken (University of Bergen, Norway), Thomas Tufte (Loughborough University London, UK)

Please submit an abstract of 300 words in English by January 23, 2024 to Hario Priambodho (hario.priambodho@kom.lu.se). For further information please consult our website: https://ju.se/mediafrictionsinternationalsymposium

There is a registration fee of 1750 SEK (170 Euros) that covers food and drink for the two days and an end of symposium evening meal.

Deadline: March 28, 2024

Nominations are invited for the annual International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award, to be received no later than March 28, 2024. 

Rationale

The International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award honors internationally oriented books that advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of the linkages between news media and politics in a globalized world in a significant way. It is given annually by the International Journal of Press/Politics and sponsored by SAGE Publications.

The award committee will judge each nominated book based on the following criteria:

• the extent to which the book contributes to internationally relevant knowledge;
  
• the significance of the problems addressed;
  
• conceptual and theoretical innovation;
  
• strength of evidence;
  
• clarity of writing;
  
• ability to link journalism studies, political communication research, and other relevant fields of intellectual and scholarly inquiry.

Eligibility

Books written in English and published within the last ten years will be considered. Monographs as well as edited volumes of exceptional quality and coherence will be considered for the award. Books by current members of the award committee are ineligible and committee members will recuse themselves from discussion of books that may entail conflicts of interest, such as books authored by members of their own department or published in a series they edit. Books nominated for previous editions of the award may be nominated again as long as they meet the eligibility criteria. 

Award committee

The award committee consists of Cristian Vaccari (Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics), Frank Esser (chair of the Political Communication Division of ICA), and Annika Sehl (chair of the Journalism Studies Division of ICA).

Nominations

Nominations should be emailed to Cristian Vaccari (cvaccari@ed.ac.uk) by March 28, 2024. Self-nominations are accepted. Nominations should be accompanied by a rationale of 300-500 words, authored by a researcher, that clearly specifies why the book meets the criteria listed above. Please include links to or copies of relevant reviews in scholarly journals if applicable.

Arrangements should be made with the publishers of nominated books for one hard copy or e-book (i.e., the full book in PDF form) to be sent by March 28 to each of the three committee members at the following addresses:

Presentation

The award will be presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association and will be announced on the IJPP website. 

Past winners of the award

2023: Gadi Wolfsfeld, Tamir Sheafer, and Scott Althaus, Building Theory in Political Communication: The Politics-Media-Politics Approach (Oxford University Press 2022).

2022: Nikki Usher, News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism (Columbia University Press 2021).

2021: Allissa V. Richardson, Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism (Oxford University Press 2020).

2020: Thomas Hanitzsch, Folker Hanusch, Jyotika Ramaprasad, and Arnold S. de Beer (Editors), Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe (Columbia University Press, 2019).

2019: Maria Repnikova, Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

2018: Erik Albæk, Arjen van Dalen, Nael Jebril, and Claes H. de Vreese, Political Journalism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

2017: Katrin Voltmer, The Media in Transitional Democracies (Polity Press, 2013).

2016: Andrew Chadwick, The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power (Oxford University Press, 1st edition 2013).

2015: Rodney Benson, Shaping Immigration News (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

ECREA and Local Organising Committee of the ECC 2024 conference are happy to announce six different grants and support measures to facilitate greater inclusion of scholars at the Ljubljana conference. 

The grants will be awarded to scholars whose presentations have been accepted to the conference. Separate calls will open in March 2024.

• Regional inclusion - 5 grants in the form of conference fee waivers for early-career scholars from the region of former Yugoslavia 
  
• Inclusion of Ukraine-based scholars – 5 grants in the form of conference fee waivers for early-career scholars based at academic institutions in Ukraine  
  
• YECREA Early-career fee waivers and travel grants – 10 grants in the form of conference fee waivers and 5 travel and accommodation grants, both for PhD students and early-career scholars who lack funding opportunities (applicants will be allowed to combine the two grants).  
  
• ECREA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) grants – 15 grants in the form of conference fee vouchers and 5 travel and accommodation grants will be awarded to address barriers and biases experienced by underrepresented groups (applicants will be allowed to combine the two grants).  

More information on ECREA ECC 2024 grants is available at https://ecrea2024ljubljana.eu/grants/.

Special Issue for New Media & Society

Deadline: April 1, 2024

Guest Editors:

• Tom Divon, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  
• Nour Halabi, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
  
• Martin Lundqvist, Lund University, Sweden
  
• Esteban Morales, University of British Columbia, Canada
  

The world now seems more fraught with violence than ever, intricately interwoven into the fabric of our contemporary digital ecosystem. The escalating accessibility and ubiquity of digital platforms across the globe have facilitated a corresponding rise in the frequency of violence perpetrated through diverse infrastructural channels. So far, studies have observed a growing prevalence of violence executed on and through digital platforms. For example, research has emphasized that platform affordances like Feeds and DMs provide perpetrators with new avenues to exert control, intimidate, surveil, and harass women (Dragiewicz et al., 2018; Jane, 2014). Others have shown how audiovisual memes can be manipulated to expand and reproduce hate speech (Matamoros-Fernández et al., 2023), along with studies exploring the distressing psychological repercussions experienced by users exposed to content featuring real-world violence (Stubbs et al., 2022). Undoubtedly, digital environments have emerged as spaces that simultaneously sustain and expand intersecting forms of symbolic violence, including racism (Jakubowicz, 2017) and gender inequality (Cepeda, 2018). They have also become battlegrounds for countering and contesting forms of material and cultural violence, such as anti-racist efforts and police accountability (Lamont-Hill, 2018), as well as digital mobilization to advocate for differently-abled individuals (Mann, 2018).

Within this broad context, this special issue strives to enhance the understanding of the diverse forms, actors, and perceptions associated with online violence, serving as a crucial stride toward cultivating a healthier digital landscape. Specifically, as advocated by Dwyer (2017), we wish to emphasize the importance of contextualizing violent behavior and content within their respective cultural and historical frameworks. This call for contextualized understandings of violence arises at a time when addressing online harm necessitates a multifaceted approach, encompassing political, technical, and social dimensions, to effectively navigate the intricacies of local cultures. This significance is highlighted by Schoenebeck et al. (2023), underscoring the pivotal role of local culture as the foremost determinant of how individuals perceive violence on digital platforms. In this context, nuanced examinations of digital violence are indispensable for crafting fitting responses to the multifaceted ecologies of violence on social media. Therefore, our objective in this issue is to compile contributions that explore the impact, reach, and various manifestations of online violence as experienced and perceived within specific sociocultural contexts.

Underlying the goal of this call for papers is a desire to engage with scholars who are exploring violence on digital platforms as a cultural experience (Cover, 2022) that reinforces or resists existing power structures (Marwick, 2021; McCosker, 2014). Our call welcomes scholars to delve into the stickiness of mediated violence (Zelinzer, 2023), encouraging contributions on how online harm can serve as vehicles for both productive and destructive forces within contemporary cultures. We especially encourage interdisciplinary contributions that go beyond definitional or methodological issues around violence on digital platforms and emphasize its social, political, and ethical implications (Jane, 2015) on a global scale, with a particular emphasis on non-Western contexts. Accordingly, we invite submissions that address topics including, but not limited to, the following:

● Perceptions, experiences, and actors involved in the symbiotic relationship of offline and digital violence within various sociocultural contexts.

● Perceptions, experiences, and actors involved in algorithmic violence enacted within specific communities and contextual settings.

● Perpetuation and amplification of symbolic violence through digital platforms.

● Networked violence centered around attacking and revealing the identity of digital personas (e.g., doxxing as a form of violence exacted on minoritized individuals).

● Collective mobilization and contestation to counter material and symbolic violence on digital platforms.

● Escalating endorsement of violence as a method for collective mobilization.

● Digital resistance of platform and algorithmic bias.

Information for authors

Potential contributors should submit a 1,200-word abstract (excluding references), a 100-word bio, and the corresponding author's contact information to the guest editors. Feel free to consult the special issue editors about your article ideas and potential angles or approaches. After the abstracts have been selected, authors will be invited to submit a full paper. Please note that acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will go through the journal’s peer review process.

Abstract structure

The extended abstract should present a coherent narrative on online violence while highlighting how the authors respond to the special issue call. It must emphasize the distinctive contributions of the study and provide an introduction to the empirical case study being explored. Furthermore, the abstract should outline the research methods employed and provide a clear indication within the findings section of the current stage of the work, whether it is still to be completed, in development, or at the writing phase.

Extended Abstract submission: April 1, 2024

Invited submission notification: May 1, 2024

Full paper submission: November 1, 2024

For any inquiries, please feel free to contact the guest editors’ team at

violenceondigitalplatforms@gmail.com

References list:

Cepeda, M. E. (2018). Putting a “good face on the nation”: Beauty, memes, and the gendered rebranding of global Colombianidad. WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 46(1–2), 121–138. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2018.0005

Cover, R. (2022). Digital hostility: Contemporary crisis, disrupted belonging and self-care practices. Media International Australia, 184(1), 79–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X221088048

Dragiewicz, M., Burgess, J., Matamoros-Fernández, A., Salter, M., Suzor, N. P., Woodlock, D., & Harris, B. (2018). Technology facilitated coercive control: Domestic violence and the competing roles of digital media platforms. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 609–625. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447341

Dwyer, P. (2017). Violence and its histories: Meanings, methods, problems. History and Theory, 56(4), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12035

Jakubowicz, A. H. (2017). Alt_Right white lite: Trolling, hate speech and cyber racism on social media. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9(3), 41–60. https://doi.org/10.5130/ccs.v9i3.5655

Jane, E. A. (2014). “Your a ugly, whorish, slut”: Understanding e-bile. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4), 531–546. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2012.741073

Jane, E. A. (2015). Flaming? What flaming? The pitfalls and potentials of researching online hostility. Ethics and Information Technology, 17(1), 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-015-9362-0

Lamont-Hill, M. (2018). “Thank You, Black Twitter”: State Violence, Digital Counterpublics, and Pedagogies of Resistance. Urban Education, 53(2), 286-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085917747124

Marwick, A. E. (2021). Morally motivated networked harassment as normative reinforcement. Social Media + Society, 7(2), 205630512110213. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211021378

Matamoros-Fernández, A., Bartolo, L., & Troynar, L. (2023). Humour as an online safety issue: Exploring solutions to help platforms better address this form of expression. Internet Policy Review, 12(1).

McCosker, A. (2014). Trolling as provocation: YouTube’s agonistic publics. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 20(2), 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856513501413

Schoenebeck, S., Batool, A., Do, G., Darling, S., Grill, G., Wilkinson, D., Khan, M., Toyama, K., & Ashwell, L. (2023). Online harassment in majority contexts: Examining harms and remedies across countries. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581020

Zelizer, B. (2023). Sticky violence. International Journal of Communication, 17, 1383–1389.

Katharine Dommett, Glenn Kefford, and Simon Kruschinski

Journalism and Political Communication Unbound

Features unprecedented empirical data from 328 interviews with campaign professionals and consultants

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