ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Special issue of the Journal of Language and Politics

Issue edited by Benjamin De Cleen, Jana Goyvaerts, Nico Carpentier, Jason Glynos, Yannis Stavrakakis and Ilija Tomanić Trivundža

The entire issue can be accessed via https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/15699862/20/1

This special issue of the Journal of Language and Politics considers the past, present and future of discourse theory as a conceptual framework and interdisciplinary research practice that is deployed across a wide range of fields, including political studies, discourse studies, media and communication studies, critical management studies, and policy studies.

The focus of the special issue is on work inspired by the poststructuralist and post-Marxist discourse theory originally developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985), but one central aim of the special issue is to highlight the interdisciplinarity of discourse theory and the dialogue betweend discourse theory and other traditions.

There are eleven articles in this special issue. Following the English translation of a text by Ernesto Laclau hitherto only published in French - Politics as the Construction of the Unthinkable - the ten subsequent polemic-programmatic articles reflect on ways forward for discourse theory.

The aim being to further discourse theory, the editors' invitation to the authors, originating from different disciplines, was to critically and constructively engage with discourse theory, reflect on its strengths but also its limitations, and to propose paths for future theoretical development as well as for rigorous and innovative research practice.

Table of contents

1. An introduction to the special issue on ‘Discourse Theory: Ways forward for theory development and research practice’

Benjamin De Cleen, Jana Goyvaerts, Nico Carpentier, Jason Glynos, Yannis Stavrakakis and Ilija Tomanić Trivundža

pp.: 1–9

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20077.dec

2. Politics as construction of the unthinkable

Ernesto Laclau (translated by Marianne Liisberg, Arthur Borriello and Benjamin De Cleen)

pp.: 10–21

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20078.lac

3. Moving discourse theory forward

Benjamin De Cleen, Jana Goyvaerts, Nico Carpentier, Jason Glynos and Yannis Stavrakakis

pp.: 22–46

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20076.dec

4. Discourse, concepts, ideologies

Michael Freeden

pp.: 47–61

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20051.fre

5. Logics, discourse theory and methods

Jason Glynos, David Howarth, Ryan Flitcroft, Craig Love, Konstantinos Roussos and Jimena Vazquez

pp.: 62–78

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20048.gly

6. The political nature of fantasy and political fantasies of nature

Jelle Hendrik Behagel and Ayşem Mert

pp.: 79–94

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20049.beh

7. Critical fantasy studies

Jason Glynos

pp.: 95–111

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20052.gly

8. Doing justice to the agential material*

Nico Carpentier

pp.: 112–128

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20045.car

9. Towards webs of equivalence and the political nomad in agonistic debate

Tom Bartlett and Nicolina Montesano Montessori

pp.: 129–144

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20046.bar

10. “Symbolic photographs” as floating and empty signifiers

Ilija Tomanić Trivundža and Andreja Vezovnik

pp.: 145–161

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20050.tom

11. The (discursive) limits of (left) populism

Yannis Stavrakakis

pp.: 162–177

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20047.sta

12. Beyond populism studies

Benjamin De Cleen and Jason Glynos

pp.: 178–195

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20044.dec

September 15-17, 2021  (due to Covid-19 postponed from 23-25 September 2020)

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Deadline: March 1, 2021

The 2nd Biennial Conference on Food & Communication

Keynote speaker: CAROLYN STEEL

Food is a key means through which we construct and represent ourselves discursively. Food features as a powerful cultural signifier, often evoking associations with issues of gender, class, race and identity. Food-related activities, such as grocery shopping, meal preparation and eating, along with the public and private spaces in which these activities occur, provide the basis for many of our complex daily communicative practices. Food also is located at the core of many of the most challenging social issues of our time, often manifested in oppressive relations of inequality, and in the placement of food at the center of calls for social justice.

“We are witness to major changes in how the relationships between food systems and consumers are constructed discursively.”

Not surprisingly, food has been an important focus of research across the humanities and social sciences, from history to sociology, cultural studies, political studies and beyond. This conference extends that focus by providing an international platform that foregrounds the role of communication in the production, distribution and consumption of food. The aim of the conference is to address discourses, texts and communication evolving in relation to both widespread dissatisfaction with existing food systems and to visions for a more sustainable and regenerative future of food.

Scholars are invited to explore the cultural and discursive construction of food. This may include analyses of political and policy texts on food sovereignty, food security, food safety and nutrition, food waste, sustainability and climate change; texts produced by the food industry, including advertising, packaging, labeling, menus, social media and other means of food marketing; consumer and media narratives on “the pleasures of the table”; and texts promoting gastronomic tourism, to name just a few.

Today, cumulative food-related crises and controversies have become central to ongoing attempts to address the health of the global population and the planet. As a result, we are witness to major changes in how the relationships between food systems and consumers are constructed discursively.

“In response to these issues, scholars are welcome to explore narratives about the emergence of alternative solutions to current food practices, and new imaginaries about the future of food.”

1 Food as cultural signifier / text / medium, including food as:

• Expression of cultural identity
• Cultural capital
• Object of commodity activism
• Expression of cultural appropriateness
• Expressions and critiques of cultural appropriation
• Basis of ritual and community bonding

2 Representations of food, including:

• Journalistic and documentary coverage of the food and agricultural industries
• Food as the focus of entertainment media (narrative cinema, reality TV, celebrity programs, etc.)
• Food in social media
• Commercial communication about food (advertising, PR, lobbying, industry narratives)
• Political discourses (e.g., food safety, sovereignty, security; sustainability; regenerative agriculture; access to food; food deserts; animal welfare; etc.)
• Scientific and technical communication

3 Public knowledge (and lack of knowledge) about food, including:

• Food literacy (health, nutrition, safety and risk, etc.)
• Environmental impacts (e.g., waste, pollution, climate change)
• Cultural origins, history, appropriation

4 The mediation of food activism:

• Communication for direct action (protest, demonstration, petition, boycott, etc.)
• Commodity activism (through promotion strategies and consumer choices)

5 Imaginaries about the future of food, including:

• New sources (e.g., insects, algae, in vitro meat)
• Genetic engineering of plants and animals
• Hydroponics
• Aquaculture
• Transparency, traceability, blockchain, etc.
• Food during and after COVID-19
• Visions of alternative cultural, political and economic futures of food production, distribution and consumption

Abstracts of 300-500 words and queries can be submitted to: foodandcommunication@fdv.uni-lj.si

Abstracts may also be submitted via the web page below where further information can be found.

www.foodcommunication.net

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in early April 2021.

Associated costs Fee

Fee for conference attendance is 120 EUR. Food is included.

An optional conference dinner costs 35 EUR (three courses of local dishes and local wine). Dinner will take place on Thursday evening, September 16th, 2021 at Gostiln na gradu.

Travel and accommodation costs will need to be covered by participants themselves.

The conference will take place in-person if traveling is possible, with some remote/online coverage. If traveling is not possible for some participants due to health concerns related to COVID-19, we will make it possible for those individuals to participate remotely (online).

We kindly ask participants that submitted their abstracts last year, when the conference was cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic, to resubmit.

Dr. Andreja Vezovnik, University of Ljubljana, Chair of Local Committee and contact person

Dr. Ana Tominc, Queen Margaret University Edinburgh, Chair of Program Committee

Moment

Deadline: March 1, 2021

Critical studies of men and masculinities, in Hearn’s account (2002; 2008), have been rapidly developing as of the 1980s. Met with great suspicion at first, the field is now widely accepted within the critical gender studies, especially along with Connell’s pioneering studies on “hegemonic masculinity” and “masculinities” (Connell, 1987; 1995; 2000; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). There is no doubt that the criticisms and discussions of feminist and LGBTQIA+ studies have played a considerable part in the expansion of the field. Not to mention Coles’ “multiple dominant masculinities” (2007; 2008) and Anderson’s concepts “inclusive masculinity” and “orthodox masculinity” (Anderson, 2009; Anderson and McCormack, 2018), all of which have made significant contributions to the field.

As we all know, gender identities could be inclusive as well as dismissive, just as is the case with any other identity category, and reproduce themselves through not only universalities but also partialities. Likewise, as argued by Slootmaeckers (2019) regarding “competing masculinities”, “technologies of the self” indicate the productive forces whereas “technologies of othering” indicate the destructive forces in identity construction.

Political strategies of marginalization, domination, and discrimination inextricably contain elements of oppression and consent based on heteronormative motives and the sustainability of patriarchy, just like all discriminatory discourses such as nationalist, homophobic, misogynist, and speciesist discourses.

Othering strategies of “masculinities” not only marginalize the cluster of “men” that they are within but also dominate the subject positions other than the “masculine subject”, strengthening the systems of power. They secure and maintain their positions in each and every critical phase of the construction of male subject’s identity from infancy to childhood and adulthood through such discourses as being a “good” boy, a “good” father, and an “ideal” husband and brother, all of which rely on family, government and laws, the fundamental elements of gender.

The current pandemic has revealed even more the circumstances created and sustained by masculinities. Criticizing men and masculinities seems to be even more significant today when male domination, heterosexism, and discrimination and violence against women, LGBTQIA+, animals, and nature have increased to a great extent. Reflecting on alternatives and emphasizing the possibility of other masculinities is now of utmost importance.

As Moment Journal, we ask “Where are men and masculinities headed to?” in current circumstances.

The suggested themes for the Masculinities issue include -but are not limited to:

• Men, masculinities and health
• Men, masculinities and the body
• Men, masculinities and sports
• Masculinities at work
• Masculinity and violence
• Norms and codes of masculinity
• Masculinity discourses
• Masculinity studies
• Cultures of masculinity
• Spaces of masculinity
• Relationships between men
• Homophobia, transphobia and masculinities
• Heteronormativity and masculinities
• Patriarchy, male dominance and masculinity
• Gedagogies of masculinities
• Gender regime and masculinities
• Masculinities and sexuality
• Representations of masculinity in the media
• Masculinities in series and films
• Masculinities in social media
• Masculinities in literature
• Life cycles of men
• Socialization of men
• Ideals of masculinity
• Sons, fathers and masculinities in family
• Militarism, nationalism and masculinities
• Men, masculinities and change
• Alternative masculinities
• Feminism and masculinities
• Masculinity theories
• Social movements regarding masculinities

You can submit your papers to https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/moment until March 1, 2021.

Unfortunately, we do not accept papers out of the theme.

Theme Editors:

Emek Çaylı Rahte & Mehmet Bozok

SUBMISSIONS | AUTHOR GUIDELINES

References:

Anderson, E. (2009). Inclusive Masculinity: The Changing Nature of Masculinities. New York: Routledge.

Anderson, E. & McCormack, M. (2018). Inclusive Masculinity Theory: Overview, reflection and refinement. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(5), 547-561. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2016.1245605

Coles, T. (2008). Finding Space in the field of Masculinity: Lived Experiences of Men’s Masculinities. Journal of Sociology, 44(3), 233-248. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783308092882

(2007). Negotiating the Field of Masculinity: The Production and Reproduction of Multiple Dominant Masculinities. Men and Masculinities, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X07309502

Connell, R. (2005 [1995]). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

(2000). The Men and The Boys. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.

(1987). Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Connell, R. and Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender and Society, 19(6), 829-859.

Slootmaeckers, K. (2019). Nationalism as competing masculinities: homophobia as a technology of othering for hetero- and homonationalism. Theor Soc, 48, 239–265 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-019-09346-4

May 5-8, 2021

Online conference (hosted from Siegen, Germany)

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 31, 2021

The 4th International Geomedia Conference

The phrase “off the grid” is commonly understood to refer to the voluntary decoupling from established infrastructure networks such as electricity, water or gas supply. The implication is one of material independence and a self-sufficient lifestyle. Going “off the grid” means making yourself invisible by rebuking the social and technological structures that normally organize our lives. It is entering, or returning to, uncharted territory. The grid from which you disappear is often imagined like a web that we are woven into, at once providing security – of cultural connectivity, opportunities to work, or societal participation – while also limiting individual, political or technological agency.

The grid also speaks to the geographic coordinate system, an all-encompassing global structure which makes it possible to accurately locate any point on earth. This unified grid represents a dominant ordering principle for everything “locatable”. It is part of the technological infrastructure of many platforms, services and applications which fall under the definition of geomedia, most prominently the Global Positioning System (GPS). In this regard, “off the grid” is a move away from such Cartesian notions of space towards a situated relational account of (quotidian) practices carried out with, through, or in relation to, geomedia.

Going off the grid has also been seen as a form of renunciation of the conveniences of the late capitalist (media) world in order to lead a supposedly slower, less stressful and eventually less superficial life – as inspired by the transcendentalism of the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. But with so many people relying on the grid for purposes of work and entertainment in recent times, what does this mean for our relation to geomedia? What does going off the grid look like now? This presupposes, of course, that there is ipso facto a grid – an infrastructure – which one can connect to freely at any time. But a great number of people do not get to choose to decouple from the grid – a fact that speaks to questions of access to the socio-material infrastructures underpinning geomedia and associated communities and practices.

Arguably, practices of surveillance and countersurveillance concern the implicit or even involuntary participation in corresponding infrastructures. Here, optimization for a range of tasks and activities routinely involves a certain kind of surveillance; a default setting in the running of all kinds of media platforms used for navigation, video streaming or online gaming. In this, surveillance is wrapped up with profit-seeking practices, and the extraction of value from the ‘data fumes’ of platform users, who enter a form of “cooperation without consensus” as they stream movies, hire taxis, host videoconferences, ride public transport, or go on dates. In these various iterations, surveillance might look different, and/or be practiced in distinct ways to traditional forms of state or corporate surveillance, increasingly dependent on technological protocols and standards that not only underpin the grid but also govern our use of geomedia. One consequence is that the relation between private and public spheres is transformed, and introduces new questions of governance, exploitation and marginalization. It is of crucial importance, who is online, and who is offline might as well not exist. Yet these optimization processes are also subject to countermeasures that constitute new modes of existence – from anonymous accounts and the use of VPNs, to location spoofing, and other tricks and techniques to hide, erase, or obfuscate user activity and location.

Yet the grid is not all-encompassing, nor all-powerful. Whilst countersurveillance efforts resist, fight back and oppose, alternative geomedia projects imagine the grid differently – sometimes even plotting its demise. From community broadband initiatives, to independent media organizations, post-capitalist streaming platforms, and citizen science projects; there is a continued, concerted effort to build alternatives to state-based, or company-owned geomedia, operating at various scales from the hyper-local to the global. Through these efforts, organizers and participants question the foundations of our collective social and technological infrastructures, redefining what it is to care, share, distribute, cultivate or reallocate funds, resources, opportunities and ideas – bringing new geomedia, and new imaginaries of hope (or perhaps fear), into existence.

Keynote Speakers:

• Caren Kaplan – University of California at Davis, USA
• Nanna Verhoeff – Utrecht University, Netherlands

• A.N. Other - tbc

Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to:

• Politics, philosophy and ethics of going off grid
• Grid as Network, Grid as Default (Geomedia and Infrastructure)
• Physical Geography/Relational Geography
• Inhabiting Digital Geographies (VR, hybrid spaces)
• Geomedia in the Global South
• Urban and Rural Geomedia
• The ‘geo’ in Geomedia, the ‘media’ in Geomedia
• Governing Geomedia (smart city, sensor media, infrastructures, surveillance & countersurveillance)
• Geomedia Activism
• Digital detox, rationing, quarantine and isolation
• Geomedia Histories

Geomedia 2021 welcomes proposals for individual papers as well as thematic panels in English.

Individual paper proposals: The author submits an abstract of 200–250 words. Accepted papers are grouped by the organizers into sessions of 5 papers according to thematic area.

Thematic panel proposals: The chair of the panel submits a proposal consisting of 4–5 individual paper abstracts (200-250 words) along with a general panel presentation of 200–250 words.

Discussion forum: The chair of the discussion submits a general panel presentation of 300–450 words along with the names of the discussants and their respective fields of expertise. Please include your local time zone to aid our scheduling efforts.

Mini-workshop: The chair of the workshop submits a workshop outline of 300–450 words. Please include the expectations and/or requirements the participants should fulfill in order to join the workshop. Please include your local time zone to aid our scheduling efforts.

Conference timeline

• October 31st 2020: Submission system opens
• January 31th 2021: Deadline for all papers and proposals
• February 25th 2021: Notes of acceptance and registration opens
• March 15th 2021: Last day of registration

Conference website

Information about registration, conference programme, venue, social events and practical arrangements will be posted continuously on the conference website starting September 1st: www.geomediastudies.com.

Contact: You can reach us at info@geomediastudies.com.

University of Sheffield, UK

The Department of Sociological Studies at The University of Sheffield wishes to recruit a Lecturer and a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Society, starting on 1 June 2021 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The positions are open to candidates with expertise in digital media as they relate to core sociological issues (such as inequality, diversity, identity, everyday life or work). We particularly welcome applications from people with expertise in race and digital media or Chinese digital and social media.

Successful candidates will play a key role in contributing to the Department’s portfolio, maintaining its high standards of teaching through delivering modules in Digital Media and Society on BA and MA programmes in this area. They will have a PhD in a relevant discipline, expertise in digital media and society and experience of teaching in this area. They will be able to provide evidence of excellent digital media and society research.

The Department of Sociological Studies is committed to understanding society and social change, and to research and teaching that improves people's lives, especially those of the most vulnerable. We are proud to be one of the top social science research departments in the UK, with an international reputation for excellence in research and teaching across Sociology, Social Policy, Social Work and Digital Media and Society. To find out more about our Digital Media and Society research, visit: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/socstudies/research/digital-media-and-society.

Job Reference Number: UOS027412

Contract Type: Open Ended

Working Pattern: Full-time

Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences

Department: Department of Sociological Studies

Salary: Lecturer Grade 8: £41,526 - £49,553 per annum with potential to progress to £55,750 per annum through sustained exceptional contribution.

Senior Lecturer Grade 9. £52,560 - £59,135 per annum with potential to progress to £68,529 per annum through sustained exceptional contribution.

Closing Date: 1st March 2021

Interview Dates: Thursday 25 and Friday 26 March 2021.

To find out more go to: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/jobs

February 15, 2021

Online meeting

Hosted and organised by InnoPSM: AHRC Research Network on Innovation in Public Service Media Policies (https://innopsm.net/) and its event- and work-stream on Envisioning Public Service Media Utopias

Date: Monday, 15 February 2021

Time: 16:00-18:00 (British Time)

Where? Zoom (you will receive a Zoom link plus access data at latest one day before the event per e-mail)

Registration via Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-service-media-in-challenging-times-connectivity-climate-and-corona-tickets-137997106059

In this talk, Prof Graham Murdock will analyse public service media in the challenging times we live in.

The institutions and animating ideals of public service broadcasting have been under continuous pressure for the last four decades. Advocates of marketisation have argued long and hard that they are no longer relevant or needed in a world of digital abundance and infinite choice, pointing to the increasing migration of young people to on-line platforms. These arguments continue to gain traction. A new proposal for an alternative future must place relations between broadcasting and the internet at the centre of argument. Discussions around how these relations might be organised has been underway for some time but recent developments have invested them with new relevance and urgency. 2020 was marked by a global pandemic, an accelerating climate crisis, and an explosion of direct action across the political spectrum. The processes driving these events are still unfolding presenting Public Service Media with both new challenges and new opportunities. The talk will open a conversation of how we might respond.

About our speaker:

Graham Murdock is Emeritus Professor of Culture and Economy at Loughborough University. He has written extensively on the political economy of broadcasting, the idea of a digital commons, and on the politics of risk, most recently in relation to the climate emergency. He has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Auckland, California at San Diego, Mexico City, Curtin, Bergen, the Free University of Brussels, and Stockholm and taught widely across China. His work has been translated into 21 languages.

Respondents: Alessandro d’Arma, University of Westminster; Minna Aslama Horowitz, University of Helsinki; Klaus Unterberger, Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) Public Value; Christian Fuchs, University of Westminster

February 3, 2021

Online seminar

The Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King's College London has the pleasure of hosting a research seminar on Wednesday 3rd February 2021.

Speaker: Dr. Wendy Willems (The London School of Economics and Political Science)

Date & Time: Wednesday 3rd February 2021, 16:00-18:00 (GMT)

All welcome. This is a virtual seminar. Joining instructions will be sent the day before the event. Please complete registration at: Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-platform-centrism-and-digital-universalism-tickets-137222956557 (open until 1.2.2021)

Details:

The notion of affordance has regained popularity in recent years and has frequently been invoked in relation to work on digital technology, leading some scholars to refer to it as one of the ‘keywords’ in the field of media and communication studies. Linking up with wider debates in our field on the need for ‘dewesternising’, ‘internationalising’ and ‘decolonising’ knowledge production, this seminar will suggest that debates on digital affordances have been characterised by a degree of digital universalism and platform-centrism. Mobile devices and social media platforms are often treated as separate (physical or digital) objects which function independently from each other and from the environments in which they are used. However, mobile phone use has increasingly been dominated by social media apps while social media are frequently accessed via mobile devices, particularly in Global South contexts where users often rely on mobile-only internet access via subsidized/zero-rated social media data bundles. Furthermore, the affordances of mobile social media are shaped by the physical, mediated and political contexts in which they are used. Drawing on research carried out in Zambia, this seminar proposes the notion of ‘relational affordance’ to emphasize the interplay between mobile social media, users and their varied contexts. It examines three ‘relational affordances’ – infrastructure, home-based access and temporality – which help to explain the emergence of active mobile social media publics during political volatile times such as elections.

Biography:

Dr Wendy Willems is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests include global digital culture and social change, postcolonial/decolonial approaches to media and communications and urban communication. She has published articles in journals such as Communication Theory, Information, Communication and Society, Popular Communication and Media, Culture and Society. She is co-editor of Civic Agency in Africa: Arts of Resistance in the Twenty-First Century (James Currey, 2014; with Ebenezer Obadare) and Everyday Media Culture in Africa: Audiences and Users (Routledge, 2016, with Winston Mano).

Baltic Screen Media Review

Deadline: March 15, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed physical interaction among people, but it also continues to shape our relations with media and technology. Mediated and distant interaction and communication became the norm. This led to struggles for some individuals, groups, institutions, practices and services, while others blossomed and thrived. Is participatory culture, as we know it, changing as a result of the challenges of 2020?

Building on the 2020 volume of Baltic Screen Media Review, which explored the changes that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to media industries, we now call for papers on participation in the context of the pandemic and related crises.

While the pandemic has posed an incredible challenge in terms of media production, it has concurrently pushed innovation, resulting in a reinvigorated relationship between media and the audiences. Media was the window to the world for locked-down people, and via media and communication technologies people were informed, entertained and able to interact with one another. Yet, the incredible volume of data created from people’s media participation has enhanced rather than diminished the disproportionate power of already powerful platforms and corporations held over access, participation, public speech and cultural discourse.

This has been a fertile ground for new participatory practices to emerge. We as scholars of participatory culture thus need to renew our focus on not only the empirical expressions of participation, but also on how we make sense of participation and how we conceptualize the effects of macro scale changes on it. Therefore, we call for submissions that explore the concept of participation, its present state and its future from both political and sociological perspectives.

In this volume of BSMR, we will accept long (4000 – 8000 words w/o ref) and short (2000 – 2500 words w/o ref) articles and commentaries.

These articles should reflect on and explore a range of issues concerning participatory culture. We invite articles focusing on the Baltic Sea region (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Poland, Germany, Finland, etc.), but analyses of similar issues elsewhere, especially in countries of similar size and circumstances, are also welcome.

Contributions addressing topics such as (but not limited to) the following are particularly welcome:

• Participatory culture in transition
• The future of participation
• Interactive and participatory practices
• Emergence of new forms of audience engagement
• Crisis-specific participation and crisis participatory culture
• Digitalisation and the power of platforms
• Local vs global, local practices, local alternatives to platforms, local information bubbles
• The digital public sphere
• Collective identity and digital engagement

Key dates:

15.03.2021 - Submit abstracts of 200–300 words.

01.04.2021 – Communication of acceptance of abstracts

14.06.2021 – Submit full manuscripts that will be sent for blind peer review.

This issue of BSMR will appear as Volume 9:2, published both online and in print in late 2021. BSMR embraces visual storytelling, we thus invite authors to use photos and other illustrations as part of their contributions.

The editors of the theme volume are Katrin Tiidenberg and Alessandro Nanì. All submissions should be sent via email attachment to Alessandro Nanì (nani@tlu.ee) and Indrek Ibrus (ibrus@tlu.ee).

Further info about the journal can be found at https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/bsmr/bsmr-overview.xml?language=en

May 26-27, 2021

Online conference

Deadline: April 1, 2021

#THINKClimaConference 

Organized by Pompeu Fabra University, Spain

The theme of this virtual conference is found at the intersection of climate change, denial and interest groups (such as lobbies, think tanks and any type of advocacy organization). The event aims to encourage researchers in any area of the social sciences to focus on the role of interest groups in delaying climate policies through an awareness of the complexity of climate change denial. We therefore invite abstracts (of no more than 500 words) related to this complexity promoting climate inaction and the current climate crisis pertaining, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Strategic communication, public relations and media coverage of interest groups involved in climate inaction: media representation, lobbies and think tanks’ rhetoric, discourse analysis, discursive networks, communication strategies, etc.
• Public Affairs, interest groups theory and practice connected to climate inaction: institutional relations, profiles of key pressure groups, network coalitions, the political economy of lobbies and think tanks, etc.
• Anthropocentrism and speciesism in climate inaction connected to interest groups: animal agriculture lobbies, dietary guidelines and lobbies, think tanks related to the industry, etc.
• Androcentrism and patriarchy in climate inaction connected to interest groups: toxic and new masculinities, ecomodernism, industrialism, masculine-driven techno-utopias, etc.
• Neoliberalism, the rise of far-right ideologies and interest groups: conservative narratives, right-wing populism, the making of neoliberal knowledge, the links between the rise of the far-right and climate change denial, etc.
• Other topics connected to interest groups and climate inaction: climate justice, climate change activism, environmental advocacy, the sociology of climate change denial, animal ethics and advocacy, etc.

We strongly encourage critical perspectives. The conference will be held virtually on 26 and 27 May, 2021 (full schedule TBD) and will encompass a mix of both synchronous and asynchronous presentations, including keynotes by distinguished scholars in the field of climate change denial research (TBD).

Check the full Call for Papers here: https://www.upf.edu/web/thinkclima/thinkclima-conference-may-2021

February 3 (17:00, GMT)

Online (Zoom)

iNOVA Media Lab I NOVA FCSH I Universidade Nova de Lisboa

SMART ˚ ˚ Social Media Research Techniques I #SMARTDataSprint

Open Webinar | SMART Data Sprint 2021

We are pleased to announce that José van Dijck is joining SMART Data Sprint 2021 with a keynote open to the public on the theme of a European perspective on platformization. José van Dijck is a distinguished professor at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), and a former dean of the University of Amsterdam. From 2015 to 2018, she also served as president-elect of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Van Dijck's field of research focuses on media studies and digital society. Her work covers a wide range of topics in media theory, technologies and communication, social media, and digital culture. She is the co-author and co-editor of ten books and over one hundred journal articles and book chapters. Van Dijck’s book The Culture of Connectivity. A Critical History of Social Media (Oxford UP, 2013) was distributed worldwide and was translated into Spanish, Chinese, and Farsi. Her latest book, co-authored by Thomas Poell & Martijn de Waal is titled The Platform Society. Public values in a connective world (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Van Dijck's lecture will be online (via Zoom) and open to SMART Data Sprint participants and the general public under free registration at https://bit.ly/SMARTDataSprint_keynoteJvD.

About SMART Data Sprint

SMART Data Sprint is an international event promoted by the SMART research group (iNOVA Media Lab/NOVA University of Lisbon) that provides an intense hands-on experience, driven by online data and digital methods.

More info at http://smart.inovamedialab.org/.