ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies

Two posts available in digital media studies/media studies/cultural studies at Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer/Lecturer levels

The School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in Makhanda, South Africa, is consistently ranked among the best in Africa. With two positions opening, this is a time of transformation.

We are looking for two experienced colleagues at Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer/Lecturer level in the areas of digital, media and/or cultural studies.

Candidates from within our field as well as related disciplines are warmly encouraged to apply.

Feel free to peruse our website (www.ru.ac.za/jms ) and contact Prof Anthea Garman (a.garman@ru.ac.za ), Prof Lorenzo Dalvit (l.dalvit@ru.ac.za ) or Dr Priscilla Boshoff (p.a.boshoff@ru.ac.za ) to find out more about us.

Documents about the posts and application forms and instructions are available at https://www.placementpartner.co.za/…417

If you have any questions about the application or are experiencing challenges on the system, please contact Ms Ntosh Gongqa on +27 (0)46 603 8616 or submit your application to jobs-red@ru.ac.za

Application closing date: 30 November 2020

Thematic issue of the scientific journal "Comunicologia" (Catholic University of Brasilia, Brazil)

Deadline: February 1, 2021

The public-health crisis caused by Covid-19 accelerated the process of migration towards online technology and the digital restructuring of social relations – notably concerning work and affective relationships.

Thus, not only the structural deficiencies in accessing technologies of digital information and communication (TDIC) but also a deficiency in technological literacy itself were evidenced in an unprecedented way. This acceleration in the use of TDIC, combined with the growing social and political discredit of scientific research, as well as the economic crisis, require a renewed intellectual effort in the light of theoretical and methodological perspectives that dare to radically re-articulate the relations between media, culture, technology, and education.

In this sense, the thematic number of Comunicologia “New theoretical perspectives on culture, technology, and education” invites the submission of articles with a robust theoretical component which propose to analyze:

– The role of the media in scientific literacy and the dissemination of information about (but not limited to) Covid-19;

– Cultural actions and the alternatives developed for culture as a profession;

– Reconfigurations of the use of TDIC in cultural and educational institutions (such as in museums, libraries, movie theatres, public and private schools, among others);

– The colonization of everyday life by digital information and communication technologies;

– The haphazard migration of education to virtual environments;

– The resignification of work relations in times of working from home. "Comunicologia" welcomes submissions from holders of Master’s or PhD degrees, especially those from Communication and Media Studies and related academic fields.

Submission deadline: February 1st, 2021

Publication: July 2021

The manuscript can be submitted in English, Spanish or Portuguese.

Please, note that no payment from the authors will be required. Guidelines for authors can be found at the journal website: https://portalrevistas.ucb.br/…ons

Further information: bolsista.ppgeucb@gmail.com

Dossier editors:

• Dr Lília Abadia (Associated researcher at the Pos-graduate Program in Education at the Catholic University of Brasilia and the National
• Post-Doctoral Program at CAPES-Brazil)
• Dr Gianlluca Simi (Researcher at Migraidh / Sérgio Vieira de Mello Chair Federal University of Santa Maria).
• Dr Carlos Ângelo de Meneses Sousa (Professor at the Pos-graduate Program in Education at the Catholic University of Brasilia - UCB; and researcher at the UNESCO Chair in Youth, Education and Society - UCB).

December 3, 2020

Virtual Conference

The use of automation in journalism is encroaching more and more on what many would consider to be journalists’ core professional roles, such as the identification of story leads, verification, and decisions about which stories are shown, and with what prominence. Automation has also started to play a role in the creation of news texts, initially by helping to generate natural language—the written word—but now also in the production of news videos.

The proportion of consumers who watch online news videos each week has increased substantially—from 24% in 2016 to 67% in 2020 (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism / Digital News Report 2020). Over the same period, there has been an increase in the use of automation in news video production.

This online event brings together researchers (including Irene Costera Meijer, Nick Diakopoulos, Michael Koliska, Sally Stares, Kim Schrøder, and Neil Thurman) technology-providers (Wibbitz), and publishers (PA Media, Deutsche Welle, and Conde Nast) to explore what audiences want from online news video, and whether automation can help deliver.

For registration, conference program and the full list of speakers, please visit the event website:

https://sites.ifkw.lmu.de/video-automation/

August 25-27, 2021

Örebro, Sweden

Deadline: January 30, 2021

Our conference theme is  “Bringing research together.”

The conference theme targets how business administration is one discipline, but too often is discussed, researched, taught, and indeed conferenced in silos. Together, we are researchers in marketing, accounting, organization, and so on. Yet, together, more importantly, we are business and management researchers. The conference theme ‘bringing research together’ is therefore about tearing down the silos of business administration and starting to think more holistically about the firm, its context, offerings, and performance. None of the individual subject areas matter without the other. Put more strongly: none of us matter without the rest of us.

Bringing research together is also about tearing down boundaries between research, teaching, and business. The conference theme poses us to think about: How we are relevant, yet independent; what we need from industry; what industry needs from us; and, how can we bring our research into teaching and practice.

Bringing research together furthermore gives us the opportunity to meet as researchers, teachers, and practitioners among the Nordic countries. Recent developments have brought relevance to the actual meeting of academics; to discuss research, teaching, and business practice with peers, as well as to socialize. Let’s make NFF 2021 a time to reunite and meet new friends!

To submit your abstract to NFF 2021:

• Complete your abstract following provided author guidelines
• Select a track that fits your abstract
• Submit HERE no later than January 30, 2021

For each step of the process, from track calls to abstract and final paper submissions, we follow guidance within the Nordic countries regarding the current Corona pandemic. Our idea – supported by the NFF board – is to postpone up to August 2022, rather than go digital. Your interest to participate – through track calls, abstracts, and later paper submissions – is vital for any decisions made and we dearly look forward to welcoming you in Örebro!

February 11–12, 2021

Virtual conference

Deadline: December 22, 2020

The symposium is arranged under the theme of Workplace Communication.

The symposium will be held virtually via Zoom. The symposium is free of charge.

The plenary speakers are:

- Assistant Professor Emma Christensen (Roskilde University) and Professor Lars Thøger Christensen (Copenhagen Business School): “Examining the (Re)presentational Voice”

- Professor Samantha Warren (University of Portsmouth): “Using Instagram in a participant-led field study: Reflections on the politics of organizational communication and identity”

The symposium features six thematic panel sessions, two of which are open for presentations.

These are:

• Perspectives to responsibility in organizational communication (See https://sites.univaasa.fi/vakki2021/perspectives-to-responsibility-in-organizational-communication/)
• Terms and conditions – working with terminology during a pandemic

Please submit your abstract by December 22, 2020 to symposium@vakki.net.

Registration for the symposium’s keynotes and/or thematic panel sessions opens on December 17, 2020.

The 2nd Call for Papers and further information is available on the symposium's website:

https://sites.univaasa.fi/vakki2021/en

Best regards

Members of the VAKKI-committee

Edited by: Paolo Ruffino

The edited collection maps the current trajectories of independent game development, at a time when game makers engage with videogame production in a myriad of different ways, ranging from full-time employment to brief and casual investments of time and resources.

The book focuses on four key thematic areas (cultures, networks, techniques and politics), which open up questions surrounding gender inclusivity, creative freedom, funding and publishing strategies, labour, precarity, and social practices taking place in the new contexts of production of the videogame industry. The collection includes a section of geographically specific case studies, with contributions from Latin America, Finland, Australia, United States and the United Kingdom. A final afterword by Bart Simon from Concordia University makes the point on what ‘indie game studies’ have achieved so far, and points at future challenges.

It has been a great pleasure and honour to be responsible for the curation of this collection. It has given me the opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant authors who have been researching videogame production over the past 10-15 years. I would like to thank the authors for their invaluable contribution, and Routledge for their support throughout the publication.

I hope that the book will be useful for scholars, researchers and students interested in independent videogames and game production studies. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about the publication.

For more information:

https://www.routledge.com/Independent-Videogames-Cultures-Networks-Techniques-And-Politics/Ruffino/p/book/9780367336202

Table of Contents

1. After Independence

Paolo Ruffino (University of Liverpool, UK)

Part I: Cultures

2. Decoding and Recoding Game Jams and Independent Game-making Spaces for Diversity and Inclusion

Aphra Kerr (Maynooth University, Ireland)

3. Queering Indie: How LGBTQ Experiences Challenge Dominant Narratives of Independent Games

Bonnie Ruberg (University of California Irvine, USA)

4. Virtually Indie: On the Characteristics of Independent Game Development for Virtual Reality Headsets

Paweł Grabarczyk (IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

Part II: Networks

5. Network or Die? What Social Networking Analysis Can Tell Us About Indie Game Development

Pierson Browne and Jennifer Whitson (University of Waterloo, Canada)

6. Strange Bedfellows: Indie Games and Academia

Celia Pearce (Northeastern University, USA)

Part III: Techniques

7. The Conditions of Videogame Production: The Nature and Stakes of Creative Freedom in Stiegler’s Philosophy of Technicity

Patrick Crogan (University of the West of England, UK)

8. Boutique Indie: Annapurna Interactive and Contemporary Independent Game Development

Felan Parker (University of Toronto, Canada)

9. Game Production Studies: Studio Studies Theory, Method and Practice

Casey O’Donnell (Michigan State University, USA)

Part IV: Politics

10. Game Workers Unite: Unionization Among Independent Developers

Jamie Woodcock (The Open University, UK)

11. Playing with Risk: Political-Economy, Independent Games, and the Precarity of Development in Crowded Commercial Markets

Nadav Lipkin (La Roche University, USA)

Part V: Local Indie Game Studies

12. Playful Peripheries: The Consolidation of Independent Game Production in Latin America

Orlando Guevara-Villalobos (University of Costa Rica)

13. The Melbourne Indie Game Scenes: Value Regimes in Localized Game Development

Brendan Keogh (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

14. Modes of Independence in the Finnish Game Development Scene

Olli Sotamaa (Tampere University, Finland)

15. The Rebels Across the Street: IndiE3 and the Strategic Geography of Indie Game Promotion

John Vanderhoef (California State University, Dominguez Hills, USA)

16. Freedom from the Industry Standard: Student Working Imaginaries and Independence in Games Higher Education

Alison Harvey (York University, Canada)

17. Afterword: The Cultural Conditions of Being Indie

Bart Simon (Concordia University, Canada)

Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a “CARGC Postdoctoral Fellowship.” This is a one-year position renewable for a second year based on successful performance.

Description

The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) produces and promotes scholarly research on global communication and public life. As an institute for advanced study dedicated to global media studies, we revisit enduring questions and engage pressing matters in geopolitics and communication. Our vision of “inclusive globalization” recognizes plurality and inequality in global media, politics, and culture. Our translocal approach fuses multidisciplinary “area studies” knowledge with theory and methodology in the humanities and social sciences. This synthesis of deep expertise and interdisciplinary inquiry stimulates critical conversations about entrenched and emerging communicative structures, practices, flows, and struggles. We explore new ways of understanding and explaining the world, including public scholarship, algorithmic culture, the arts, multi-modal scholarship, and digital archives. With a core commitment to the development of early career scholars worldwide, CARGC hosts postdoctoral, doctoral, undergraduate, and faculty fellows who collaborate in research groups, author CARGC Press publications, and organize talks, lectures, symposia, conferences, and summer institutes.

CARGC postdoctoral fellows work on their own research, typically a book manuscript, and collaborate with staff and postdoctoral, doctoral and undergraduate fellows. They may design and teach one undergraduate course during their second year. They present a CARGC Colloquium and publish one CARGC Paper with CARGC Press. Fellows are provided a stipend of $55,000, a research fund of $3000, health insurance, a workspace, computer and library access.

CARGC Fellows integrate primary sources and regional expertise in theoretically inflected, historically informed, comparative, translocal and transnational analyses of media, technology, geopolitics and culture. Candidates challenging normative paradigms and incorporating non-Western theories, sources and contexts, are especially welcome. Ongoing research groups focus on theory and history in global media studies, geopolitics and the popular, digital sovereignty, and radical media and culture. We recommend that applicants read our 5 year-report to familiarize themselves with our mission and priorities.

This is a residential fellowship. CARGC strives to be an inclusive community of scholars driven by intellectual curiosity and exchange, and rooted in the life of the Annenberg School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the city of Philadelphia. To foster mentoring and collaboration at all levels, we expect fellows to be fully engaged in the life of the center. Typically, postdocs are therefore expected to work at our beautiful sixth floor premises—CARGC’s “World Headquarters”—on the Penn campus at least four days a week. However, the final determination of the residency requirement for the 2021-2022 academic year will be made in the coming months based on university policy related to COVID-19.

Eligibility

We welcome applications from scholars with PhDs awarded by an institution other than the University of Pennsylvania between May 1, 2019 and May 1, 2021. The appointment typically starts on August 15.

Submitting Your Application

A complete application consists of:

• Cover Page – include your name and contact information, dissertation supervisor name and contact information, defense date (if degree not awarded), and 100-word abstract of your project.
• Research Proposal (not to exceed 1000 words) – include research questions, topic significance, theoretical framework, methodological design, clear description of primary sources and necessary language skills, and work plan with projected date of manuscript completion and publication.
• Statement of institutional fit (not to exceed 250 words) – explain how your project aligns with CARGC’s mission, fits with one or more CARGC research themes listed above, and contributes to the field of global media and communication studies. Please refer to our 5-year report for more information https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/cargc5-center-advanced-research-global-communication-celebrates-five-year
• CV (not to exceed two single-spaced pages, minimum font size 11) – list degrees, peer-reviewed publications, academic non-peer-reviewed publications, public scholarship, invited talks, conference papers, other relevant qualifications, specific research and language skills.
• Project bibliography (not to exceed one single-spaced page, minimum font size 11) – include primary and secondary sources.
• Letters of recommendation – three are required, including one from the dissertation supervisor, stating unequivocally expected date of Ph.D. defense (if degree not yet awarded).
• Up to two publications (not to exceed 50 pages in total) – published peer-reviewed articles preferred.

Timeline

All materials except reference letters must be sent as a single PDF document to cargc@asc.upenn.edu by February 1, 2021. Because of the volume of applications, we are unable to read drafts of submissions. Incomplete or late applications will not be considered. Applicants should arrange for their letters of recommendation to be sent to the same address by the same date. We expect to contact finalists for phone interviews by mid-March and make final decisions shortly thereafter.

Additional Information

If you have additional questions, please email us at cargc@asc.upenn.edu. Do not contact CARGC staff individually.

The University of Pennsylvania is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability , veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. For more information, go to http://www.upenn.edu/affirm-action/eoaa.html.

VIEW ONLINE: https://bit.ly/32EMPMa

Edited by: Daniel Jackson, Danielle Sarver Coombs, Filippo Trevisan, Darren Lilleker and Einar Thorsen

Featuring 91 contributions from over 115 leading US and international academics, this publication captures the immediate thoughts, reflections and early research insights on the 2020 U.S. presidential election from the cutting edge of media and politics research.

Published within eleven days of the election, these contributions are short and accessible. Authors provide authoritative analysis – including research findings and new theoretical insights – to bring readers original ways of understanding the campaign. Contributions also bring a rich range of disciplinary influences, from political science to cultural studies, journalism studies to geography.

As always, these reports are free to access.

The report can be found on https://www.electionanalysis.ws/us/ alongside our previous reports on UK and U.S. elections.

Direct pdf download is available at: http://j.mp/USElectionAnalysis2020_Jackson-et_al_v1 (please note, large file size!)

The table of contents is below.

1. Introduction: Daniel Jackson, Danielle Sarver Coombs, Filippo Trevisan, Darren Lilleker and Einar Thorsen

Policy and Political Context

2. The far-too-normal election

Dave Karpf

3. One pandemic, two Americas and a week-long election day

Ioana Coman

4. Political emotion and the global pandemic: factors at odds with a Trump presidency

Erik P. Bucy

5. The pandemic did not produce the predominant headwinds that changed the course of the country

Amanda Weinstein

6. Confessions of a vampire

Kirk Combe

7. COVID-19 and the 2020 election

Timothy Coombs

8. President Trump promised a vaccine by Election Day: that politicized vaccination intentions

Matthew Motta

9. The enduring impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the 2020 elections

Gabriel B. Tait

10. Where do we go from here? The 2020 U.S. presidential election, immigration, and crisis

Jamie Winders

11. A nation divided on abortion?

Zoe Brigley Thompson

12. Ending the policy of erasure: transgender issues in 2020

Anne C. Osborne

13. U.S. presidential politics and planetary crisis in 2020

Reed Kurtz

14. Joe Biden and America’s role in the world

Jason Edwards

15. President Biden’s foreign policy: engagement, multilateralism, and cautious globalization

Klaus W. Larres

16. Presidential primary outcomes as evidence of levels of party unity

Judd Thornton

17. A movable force: the armed forces voting bloc

Amanda Weinstein

18. Guns and the 2020 elections

Robert Spitzer

19. Can Biden's win stop the decline of the West and restore the role of the United States in the world?

Roman Gerodimos

Voters

20. A divided America guarantees the longevity of Trumpism

Panos Koliastasis and Darren Lilleker

21. Cartographic perspectives of the 2020 U.S. election

Ben Hennig

22. Vote Switching From 2016 to 2020

Diana Mutz and Sam Wolken

23. It’s the democracy, stupid

Petros Ioannidis and Elias Tsaousakis

24. Election in a time of distrust

John Rennie Short

25. Polarization before and after the 2020 election

Barry Richards

26. The political psychology of Trumpism

Richard Perloff

27. White evangelicals and white born again Christians in 2020

Ryan Claassen

28. Angry voters are (often) misinformed voters

Brian Weeks

29. A Black, Latinx, and Independent alliance: 2020

Omar Ali

30. Believing Black women

Lindsey Meeks

31. The sleeping giant awakens: Latinos in the 2020 election

Lisa Sanchez

32. Trump won the senior vote because they thought he was best on the economy – not immigration

Peter McLeod

33. Did German Americans again support Donald Trump?

Per Urlaub & David Huenlich

Candidates and the Campaign

34. The emotional politics of 2020: fear and loathing in the United States

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen

35. Character and image in the U.S. presidential election: a psychological perspective

Geoffrey Beattie

36. Branding and its limits

Ken Cosgrove

37. Celtic connections: reading the roots of Biden and Trump

Michael Higgins and Russ Eshleman

38. Kamala Harris, Bobby Jindal, and the construction of Indian American identity

Madhavi Reddi

39. Stratagems of hate: decoding Donald Trump’s denigrating rhetoric in the 2020 campaign

Rita Kirk and Stephanie Martin

40. Campaign finance and the 2020 U.S. election

Cayce Myers

41. The Emperor had no clothes, after all

Marc Hooghe

42. Trump’s tribal appeal: us vs. them

Stephen D. Reese

News and Journalism

43. When journalism’s relevance is also on the ballot

Seth C. Lewis, Matt Carlson and Sue Robinson

44. Beyond the horse race: voting process coverage in 2020

Kathleen Searles

45. YouTube as a space for news

Stephanie Edgerly

46. 2020 shows the need for institutional news media to make racial justice a core value of journalism

Nikki Usher

47. Newspaper endorsements, presidential fitness and democracy

Kenneth Campbell

48. Alternative to what?A faltering alternative-as-independent media

Scott A. Eldridge II

49. Collaboration, connections, and continuity in media innovation

Valerie Belair-Gagnon

50. Learning from the news in a time of highly polarized media

Marion Just and Ann Crigler

51. Partisan media ecosystems and polarization in the 2020 U.S. election

Michael Beam

52. What do news audiences think about ‘cutting away’ from news that could contain misinformation?

Richard Fletcher

53. The day the music died: turning off the cameras on President Trump

Sarah Oates

54. When worlds collide: contentious politics in a fragmented media regime

Michael X. Delli Carpini

55. Forecasting the future of election forecasting

Benjamin Toff

56. A new horse race begins: the scramble for a post-election narrative

Victor Pickard

Social media

57. Media and social media platforms finally begin to embrace their roles as democratic gatekeepers

Daniel Kreiss

58. Did social media make us more or less politically unequal in 2020?

Dan Lane and Nancy Molina-Rogers

59. Platform transparency in the fight against disinformation

Valerie Belair-Gagnon, Bente Kalsnas, Lucas Graves and Oscar Westlund

60. Why Trump's determination to sow doubt about data undermines democracy

Alfred Hermida

61. A banner year for advertising and a look at differences across platforms

Markus Neumann, Jielu Yao, Spencer Dean and Erika Franklin Fowler

62. How Joe Biden conveyed empathy

Dorian Davis

63. The debates and the election conversation on Twitter

G.R. Boynton and Glenn W. Richardson

64. Did the economy, COVID-19, or Black Lives Matter to the Senate candidates in 2020?

Heather K. Evans and Rian F. Moore

65. Leadership through showmanship: Trump's ability to coin nicknames for opponents on Twitter

Marco Morini

66. Election countdown: Instagram's role in visualizing the 2020 campaign

Terri L. Towner and Caroline L. Munoz

67. Candidates did lackluster youth targeting on Instagram

John Parmelee

68. College students, political engagement and Snapchat in the 2020 general election

Laurie L. Rice and Kenneth W. Moffett

69. Advertising on Facebook: transparency, but not transparent enough

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Patricia Rossini, Brian McKernan and Jeff Hemsley

70. Detecting emotions in Facebook political ads with computer vision

Michael Bossetta and Rasmus Schmøkel

Popular culture and public critique

71. On campaigns and political trash talk

Michael Butterworth

72. It's all about my "team": what we can learn about politics from sport

Natalie Brown-Devlin and Michael Devlin

73. Kelly Loeffler uses battle with the WNBA as springboard into Georgia Senate runoff

Guy Harrison

74. Made for the fight, WNBA players used their platform for anti-racism activism in 2020

Molly Yanity

75. Do National Basketball Association (NBA) teams really support Black Lives Matter?

Kwame Agyemang

76. The presidential debates: the media frames it all wrong

Mehnaaz Momen

77. Live... from California, it's Kamala Harris

Mark Turner

78. Who needs anger management? Dismissing young engagement

Joanna Doona

79. Meme war is merely the continuation of politics by other means

Rodney Taveira

80. Satire failed to pack a punch in the 2020 election

Allaina Kilby

81. Election memes 2020, or, how to be funny when nothing is fun

Ryan M. Milner and Whitney Phillips

Democracy in crisis

82. Social media moderation of political talk

Shannon McGregor

83. The speed of technology vs. the speed of democracy

Ben Epstein

84. The future of election administration: how will states respond?

Jennifer L. Selin

85. How the movement to change voting procedures was derailed by the 2020 election results

Martin P. Wattenberg

86. From "clown" to "community": the democratic potential of civility and incivility

Emily Sydnor

87. Searching for misinformation

David Silva

88. Relational listening as political listening in a polarized country

Kathryn Coduto

89. QAnon, the election and an evolving American conservativism

Harrison Lejeune

90. President Trump, disinformation, and the threat of extremist violence

Kurt Braddock

91. The disinformed election

Saif Shahin

92. Election 2020 and the further degradation of local journalism

Philip Napoli

Special issue of New Media & Society, Volume 24, 2022

Deadline: December 30, 2020

Guest editors (ordered alphabetically by last name)

• Scott W. Campbell, Constance F. and Arnold C. Pohs Professor of Telecommunications, Dept. of Communication and Media, University of Michigan
• Adriana de Souza e Silva, Professor, Dept. of Communication, North Carolina State University
• Leopoldina Fortunati, Professor, Dept. of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics, University of Udine
• Gerard Goggin, Professor, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University

Overview In recent decades mobile communication has become central to how people navigate and experience everyday social life. As mobile phones diffused globally in the 1990s, scholars began investigating changes in how people relate to distant and proximal others, as well as the physical surroundings. Among the first was Rich Ling, a sociologist with one foot in industry and the other in academia. Throughout his career as a researcher with Norway’s Telenor Group and a faculty member at universities around the world, Rich Ling has contributed to the foundation of the emerging field of Mobile Media and Communication.

In light of Ling’s approaching retirement as an endowed professor at Nanyang Technological University, this special issue pays tribute to his scholarly contributions as we look to the future of mobile communication research. It is no stretch to suggest that Rich Ling is one of the most prolific and influential scholars of mobile communication. He wrote the first single-authored book on the social consequences of mobile communication, The Mobile Connection (2004, Morgan Kaufmann), which remains one of the most heavily cited volumes on the subject. His second book, New Tech, New Ties (2008, MIT Press) reveals how the ritualistic use of mobile media facilitates cohesion in the intimate sphere of friends and family. He extended this analysis in his subsequent book, Taken for Grantedness (2012, MIT Press), which offers a broader theoretical framework explaining how mobile communication has become embedded in the social structure. Along with these and other books, Ling has also published hundreds of journal articles, book chapters, and industry/policy reports on the uses and consequences of mobile media and communication.

In addition to his own scholarship, Rich Ling’s influence in the field is evident through his leadership, serving as editor of many volumes, editor of Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and founding co-editor of the journal Mobile Media and Communication. Ling is also recognized for being a generous mentor, providing opportunities for new generations of scholars to become active in the field. As such, Rich Ling’s contributions not only shape the past but also strongly influence the future of mobile communication scholarship.

This special issue seeks papers that envision the future of mobile communication scholarship in the light of Ling’s contributions to research and theory. While articles should primarily raise and address questions about future scholarship in the field, they should also be, at least to some extent, grounded in some aspect of Ling’s work. Submissions can focus on different types of topics and approaches.

Articles may centrally address future directions in research questions pursued, theory, methods, or other aspects of mobile communication scholarship. We are also open to different types of manuscripts, ranging from theoretical essays, empirical investigations, critical/cultural analysis, and other forms of scholarship.

Submission Proposals of no more than 1,000 words should include a brief abstract and a clear explanation of the main argument and how the full submission would contribute to the aims of this special issue.

Please email your proposal to Future.of.Mobile.NMS@gmail.com no later than December 30, 2020. Authors can expect feedback on their proposal by February 1, 2021 and invited paper submissions will be due May 1, 2021.

Invited submissions will undergo peer review following the usual procedures of New Media & Society. Approximately 10-12 papers will be sent out for full review. Therefore, the invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee acceptance into the special issue. Full articles will need to follow the New Media & Society submission guidelines. The special issue is scheduled for publication in Volume 24 of 2022.

References

Ling, R. (2004). The mobile connection: The cell phone’s impact on society. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufman Publishers.

Ling, R. (2008). New tech, new ties: How mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness: The embedding of mobile communication into society. Cambridge, MA; MIT Press.

Edited volume

Editors:

• Dr. Shixin Ivy Zhang, Associate Professor in Journalism Studies (University of Nottingham Ningbo China)
• Dr. Altman Yuzhu Peng, Lecturer in PR & Global Communication (University of Newcastle)

This edited volume aims to contribute to the studies of complex, fluid and dynamic media-conflict relationship through the lens of China. Studies of mediatized conflict in the digital age is still very much a Eurocentric research area, which requires to be de-Westernized. As McQuail (2006) claims, ‘Western “communication science” does not offer any clear framework for collecting and interpreting observations and information about contemporary war situations’ and has ‘largely neglected were the colonial wars of post-Second World War and the many bitter conflicts that did not directly impinge on western interests or responsibilities’. In a sense, McQuail’s statement still stands today. The existing researches in media and conflict are mostly confined to the Western democracies and interests.

With China showing growing and controversial power and influence on the world’s stage, on the one hand, the East Asian power faces its own security issues due to crises in the Asia-Pacific region that have escalated and intensified such as Sino-Indian border crisis, South China Sea disputes, North Korea nuclear crisis and the Senkaku/Diaoyu-islands disputes.On the other hand, China as one of the five permanent members in the UN Security Council has more and more involvement and interests in the seemingly isolated international conflicts such as Afghanistan war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Libyan and Syrian crisis.

The media and conflict studies are multi-leveled and multi-faceted. Thus, we invite scholars to explore and study media-conflict relationship either from the view of China or conduct comparative analysis between China and other nation-states.Here media can be mass media (TV, films, newspapers, magazines, posters, etc.), digital and/or social media at local, national, regional or global levels.

International conflicts include but not limited to Sino-Indian border crisis, South China Sea disputes, North Korea nuclear crisis, the Senkaku-Diaoyu islands disputes, Afghanistan war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Libyan and Syrian crisis.

The proposed chapters can be either theoretical, empirical or comparative work. Authors are welcome to explore and address the following questions and go beyond.

1. What roles do media (both traditional and new media) play in the conflicts that directly or indirectly involve China?

2. What is the media-conflict relationship in China and in the Asia-Pacific region more broadly?

3. How is China represented in the media and what is the image and the role of China in the international conflicts?

4. What are the changes and continuity of media representation of China in the international conflicts?

5. Do Chinese media practice peace or war journalism? How?

6. How are international conflicts mediated in China within its particular historical and cultural contexts?

7. How do the local, national and global audience receive and perceive China’s role in international conflicts?

8. What are the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) on the media-conflict relationship in China?

Please send your abstracts (max. 300 words) by 1 February 2020 to Shixin Zhang (Shixin.zhang (at) nottingham.edu.cn) and Altman Peng (altman.peng (at) ncl.ac.uk).

References

McQuail D (2006) On the mediatization of war. /The International Communication Gazette/ 68(2): 107–118.