ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

September 15-16, 2020 (online)

Deadline: June 19

How can journalism serve its publics when mediated political discourse appears dominated by fact-averse bombast and bluster? How can political and governmental communication mark out, conserve and develop an impartial information terrain as a civic tool in democracy? What are current notions of responsible journalism and ethical communication, and how does theory mirror practice? What particular issues present in conflict-affected, divided societies, and with what implications?

Scholars of Journalism, Political and Governmental Communication meet in this innovative conference, to consider leading-edge developments in both their respective fields, with opportunities for dialogue between them to foster mutual insight and collaboration. Selected papers from the conference will be gathered and presented for publication as an edited collection to a major international academic publisher.

It is expected that topics will include (but by no means be limited to):

• Roles of news in conflict including Peace Journalism.
• (Lack of) trust in news and public communication.
• ‘Fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ environments, and their implications for journalism and communication.
• New innovative forms of journalism and communication including public and community journalism.
• Ways to evaluate impact by journalist training and education.

Email expressions of interest to : Jake.Lynch@sydney.edu.au

Booking information

Information on how to register for the conference will be made available shortly.

Abstract Submission Deadline: 19th June 2020

Find more details at the conference page here: https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/about-us/research-events/2020/responsible-journalism/

Submit an abstract to jake.lynch@sydney.edu.au by June 19th 2020

Later, selected presenters will be invited to contribute to an edited collection to be offered to Routledge for publication in their Research in Journalism series.

For any questions, please contact Prof Jake Lynch at: jake.lynch@sydney.edu.au

Edited volume

Deadline: May 29, 2020

Women make up half of all gamers and female participation in gaming increases with age. Yet the role of women in historical or archaeological video games has been significantly understudied. The proposed volume will address this gap in the field and provide a more comprehensive and more nuanced treatment of women in historical and archaeological video games than has so far been available.

Abstracts for proposed submissions are invited on topics such as:

• How are women portrayed in historical and/or archaeological video games?
• Why are they portrayed in these ways?
• Are these portrayals authentic and/or accurate? Does this authenticity/accuracy matter?
• What do female characters allow a video game to do that male ones don’t?
• What types of stories do historical or archaeological video games tell using their female characters?

Abstracts and any questions should be sent to Dr Jane Draycott by Friday 29th May 2020 . For more detail on the volume’s aims and principles, and for a full timeline for submissions see below.

Call for Papers:

Edited by Jane Draycott and Kate Cook

In 2018, Creative Assembly’s Total War: Rome II was updated to include playable female characters, and this update triggered a huge backlash and wave of review-bombing. Some players objected to the update on the grounds of historical inaccuracy, an objection that Creative Assembly.

When challenged about what a certain section of the gaming community perceived to be ‘historical inaccuracy’, the company argued that the game was intended to be historically authentic, not historically accurate, and that, in any case, female generals would only spawn under certain very specific circumstances. Yet, as a number of ancient historians pointed out on social media, and a number of games journalists picked up and included in their coverage of the fracas, this in itself was historically inaccurate because there are numerous examples from ancient Graeco-Roman history of female involvement in martial activity, ranging all the way from the individual combatant to the general and/or admiral, examples which are not confined to mythology (e.g. the Amazons, the goddess Athena/Minerva etc.).

Women make up half of all gamers and female participation in gaming increases with age. With the notable exception of Christian Rollinger’s recently published Classical Antiquity in Video Games: Playing with the Ancient World (2020), to date video games have been understudied in Classics, Ancient History, and Archaeology, and the role of women in these video games even more so. Consequently, the subject of women in historical and archaeological video games is an untapped resource, and the aim of this edited volume is to contribute both to Reception Studies, and to Video Game Studies, and provide a more comprehensive and more nuanced treatment of women in historical and archaeological video games than has so far been available. The volume will examine the following issues:

• How are women portrayed in historical and/or archaeological video games?
•  Why are they portrayed in these ways? 
• Are these portrayals authentic and/or accurate? 
• Does this authenticity/accuracy matter? What do female characters allow a video game to do that male ones don’t? 
• What types of stories do these video games tell using their female characters? 

The volume’s scope includes video games set in historical periods (e.g. the Assassin’s Creed franchise), video games that are not set in the past but incorporate aspects of historical or archaeological activity (e.g. the Tomb Raider franchise), and video games with fantasy or science fiction settings that include some aspect of classical reception. Additionally, the volume will contain case studies focused on individual female characters of all kinds, both playable and non-playable. Bloomsbury has already expressed an interest in publishing the volume as part of the Imagines: Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts series. 

People interested in contributing to the volume are asked to submit a 500-word abstract and selective bibliography. If your abstract is accepted, you will be invited to submit a first draft which will be subjected to collective peer review by other contributors, with chapters disseminated between contributors for both individual and group discussion, and you will then revise it based on their recommendations.

We are exploring the possibility of organising a workshop to discuss submissions that takes place entirely online. All initial communication will take place online over email and/or via Skype, Zoom or an equivalent platform.

While the scope of the edited volume will be focused primarily upon Graeco-Roman antiquity, there are no firm chronological or geographical parameters in place, and diverse approaches to the material (e.g. interdisciplinary approaches; multidisciplinary approaches; the incorporation of gender studies, queer studies, disability studies etc.) are welcome and encouraged. Early career researchers (including PhD students) are particularly encouraged to apply.

Timetable:

Given the current circumstances, requests for alternative deadlines or schedules during the writing period will be considered very sympathetically.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: Friday 29th May 2020

Applicants informed of outcome: Friday 19th June 2020

Deadline for submission of first draft chapters: Friday 28th August 2020

Peer reviewed chapters returned to contributors with feedback and recommendations for revisions: Autumn/Winter 2020.

Deadline for submission of revised chapters: Spring/Summer 2021.

The volume will then be submitted to Bloomsbury.

Contact:

For more information, or to submit an abstract, please email Dr Jane Draycott at the University of Glasgow at Jane.Draycott@Glasgow.ac.uk

Cooperative Research Center "Media of Cooperation" - University of Siegen

https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en

The University of Siegen is an innovative and interdisciplinary university with almost 20,000 students, about 1,300 scientists and 700 employees in technology and administration. With a wide range of subjects ranging from humanities and social sciences to economics and natural and engineering sciences, it provides an outstanding teaching and research environment with numerous interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects. The University of Siegen supports a wide range of opportunities to combine work and family life. It has therefore been certified as a family-friendly university since 2006 and offers a dual career service.

At the University of Siegen, as of 1 July 2020 the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1187 „Media of Cooperation“ offers six Short-Term Scholarships to promote the work of early-carrier researchers. The duration of the scholarships is 6 months. A longer-term collaboration with the goal of a doctorate within the CRC is envisaged.

The basic amount of the scholarship is based on the maximum rate of the DFG (1.365,- EUR). In addition, an allowance for material expenses and, if applicable, a child allowance will be paid. The allocation of the fellowships is subject to the release of funds by the DFG.

CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation“ 

The CRC is an interdisciplinary research network consisting of 15 projects and more than 60 scientists from the fields of media studies, science and technology studies, ethnology, sociol-ogy, linguistics and literature studies, computer science and medicine as well as history, edu-cation and engineering. It has been funded by the DFG since 2016.

The CRC investigates the emergence and dissemination of digitally networked, data-intensive media and understands these as cooperatively accomplished conditions for cooperation. The research of the partici-pating subprojects focuses on data practices that are explored in the situated interplay of me-dia practices, infrastructures and public spheres.

The newly established short-term fellowship program of the CRC provides national and inter-national doctoral students the opportunity to further develop their research project in the CRC, to get to know participating researchers and to exchange ideas with them. The research pro-jects of the scholarship holders should be thematically related to the subprojects of the CRC, so that their work can be supported by the principal investigators and their teams. Scholarship holders are assigned to the newly established Integrated Research Training Group (MGK) of the CRC and benefit from its structured training program. The CRC offers scholarship holders an international environment for interdisciplinary media research as well as an extensive pro-gram of events and training in ethnographic, digital, sensor-based and linguistic methods.

Further information on the CRC’s research agenda and subprojects can be found at https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en.

Your Profile 

− Relevant, above-average degree in one of the disciplines participating in or related to the CRC, preferably in media and cultural studies, sociology or in the field of socio- or business informatics, human-computer interaction or information systems (equivalent to a Master’s degree, Magister, Diplom or Lehramt/Staatsexamen Sek. II)

− Individual research project in one of the above-mentioned disciplines within the subject area of the CRC. Ideally, you can assign the project to one of the subareas of the CRC – infrastructures, publics or praxeology

– Interest in methods of media research, the analysis of data practices and an affinity for working in an interdisciplinary research environment

– Willingness to participate in the international event program of the CRC and the MGK

– Very good written and spoken English language skills

Your Tasks

Expectations of successful candidates:

– Regular participation and involvement in the events and the training program of the MGK (colloquia, workshops, summer schools, methodology workshops, interdisciplinary groups)

– Presentation of preliminary results of the individual research project within the MGK collo-quium

Equal opportunities and diversity are promoted and actively practiced at the University of Siegen. Applications from women are highly welcome and will be given special consideration in accordance with the federal state equality law. We also welcome applications from people with different personal, social and cultural backgrounds, people with disabilities and those of equal status.

For further information contact Dr. Timo Kaerlein (Tel.: +49 271/740-5251)

E-Mail: timo.kaerlein@uni-siegen.de

Please send your application documents (letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, copies of cer-tificates, 3-page outline of a project idea plus bibliography) by 15 May 2020 to Dr. Timo Kaer-lein, Herrengarten 3, 57072 Siegen, Germany. Alternatively, you can also send your applica-tion in a single PDF file by e-mail (max. 5 MB) to timo.kaerlein@uni-siegen.de .

Please note that risks to confidentiality and unauthorized access by third parties cannot be ruled out when communicating by unencrypted e-mail. Information about the University of Siegen can be found on our homepage: www.uni-siegen.de .

Trine Syvertsen (University of Oslo, Norway)

Social media and smartphones are criticised for being addictive, destroying personal relationships, undermining productivity, and invading privacy. In this book, Trine Syvertsen explores the phenomenon of digital detox: users taking a break from digital media or adopting measures to limit smartphone and social media use. Based on studies, documents, media texts and interviews with media users, Syvertsen discusses how media industries intensify the quest for attention, how companies and governments team up to get everybody online, and how the main responsibility for managing online risks and problems are placed on the users' shoulders. She provides a rich account of how users reduce their online engagement through time-limitations, restrictions on smartphone use, productivity apps, and use of analogue media. Syvertsen shows how digital detoxing has much in common with other forms of self-help such as mindfulness, decluttering and simple living and places digital detox within a culture of self-optimisation. But digital detox is also about sustaining face-to-face conversations, better work-life-balance, a deeper connection with nature and more meaningful interpersonal relationships. With a wealth of examples, analyses and stories, Digital Detox is a valuable guide to why digital detox and disconnection has become a topic, how it is practised, what it says about the state of media industries and how people express resistance in the 21st century.

Dear ECREA colleagues:

A team of researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid (Patricia Nuñez, Javier Sierra, Luis Mañas and Natalia Abuín) are carrying out a comparative research about the transition to online teaching in Communication Studies in Spain, Italy and Portugal during the COVID-19 pandemic. The questionnaire and the answers are completely anonymous.

Here, you can find the spanish, portuguese an italian questionnaires.

Spanish: https://forms.gle/DCJCDVTnMb5cpSQe7

Portuguese: https://forms.gle/Sj92DGzJCpFL1JURA

Italian: https://forms.gle/v8C4DiHFgZbarabv5

November 12-15, 2020

University of Tyumen, Russia

Deadline: May 15, 2020

25th DiscourseNet Conference on Global Dispositives

https://discourseanalysis.net/en/DN25

25th DiscourseNet Conference on Global Dispositives (#DN25, November 12-15 2020) deals with the processes of social change that are discursively driven and supported by technological infrastructures and new cultural, economic and political relations. In the context of globalization, they affect transformations in all social domains – from economy to culture, including media and education, (digital) technology, industry and environment, politics and governance.

Global Dispositives can be recognised in popular examples of social change. First of all, the global political and economic projects, i.e. the discourses evolving around the Belt and Road Initiative, new infrastructural development of the Arctic region, Eurasian Economic Union but also on small-scale and in semi-official or informal organisations such as the Three Seas Initiative, Visegrad Group or countries within the mini-Schengen integration project. Secondly, global dispositives can be tied to discourses of technology, security and warfare. Examples are not only projects such as the Internet itself (or rather the entire World Wide Web), but also discourses bound up to its structural changes like the implementation of 5G internet technology, balkanization of the internet, various concepts of IoT or surveillance etc. And finally, the discourses tied to the consequences of various kinds of transitions such as the transforming regulations of global migration (based on causes such as war or environment), an emerging post-liberal global trade system based on nationalism(s), global political upheavals and new struggles over postnational identities (especially among youth cultures). The DN25 on Global Dispositifs aims to attract researchers who explore (inter)cultural, economic, technological and political processes of global change on various levels, from a range of disciplinary perspectives in the broad field of discourse studies.

Hosted by the Cultural Trends Lab, situated at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (University of Tyumen, Siberia, Russia) and organised in cooperation with China Media Observatory (Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland) and the School of Government and Public Affairs (Chinese University of Communication, Beijing, China), this conference endeavors to devote special attention to Belt and Road Initiative as a unique example of a global dispositive. The launch of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI, previously known as One Belt, One Road) in 2013, promised new imaginaries of a multipolar world and an alternative model of globalisation. It came into play in the form of cross-country mega infrastructure projects, new regulating mechanisms and bilateral agreements. These material infrastructures, together with their legal, political and economic dimensions, cultural and educational interconnections, and new media and telecommunication standards represent a chain of social ensembles which create completely new setting. However, integrating processes often ensue discursive struggles and conflicting narratives regarding a number of social changes in important fields such as economy and trade, progress and technology, geopolitical cooperation and competition, domestic and foreign culture, political and national systems. Although some aspects of it have been investigated in specific disciplines such as political economy, media and communication, anthropology, linguistics, human geography, area and (inter)cultural studies, the dialogue across these disciplines rarely takes place. Therefore, there is a strong need for BRI and other global dispositives to be mapped and described from the perspective of social sciences and humanities. One of the aims of this conference would be to develop on theoretical and methodological interdisciplinary approaches which will help grasp some of the issues of global dispositives. Furthermore, we want to reflect on media discourses dealing with BRI as an alternative globalisation model. Critical, affirmative and neutral perspectives should be discussed in both national and regional contexts. The perspectives take place in the broad spectrum from imaginaries to strategies or political doctrines. The question about the representation and positioning is of course connected to the interests of the various actors within the discourses which correspond and define respective dispositifs.

In the context of forces which drive the global cultural scene, this conference wants to consider the role of the in-between regions or rather those regions outside the global centres in the contemporary culture. Within the scope of the Cultural Trends Lab’s central project ‘Elsewhere’ (which concentrates on mapping digital streams of culture emerging both autonomously from and partly depending on the models of the centres), this conference is interested in all those contributions discussing, investigating and researching the digital forms of culture and sociality preferably outside the global centres. The idea of culture in transit regions as an element of both the New Silk Road or Arctic region is indivisible from the discussion about the existing and new telecommunication infrastructures and data flows. However, new cultural and social practices of digital and non-digital domains (or the actors that will shape such practices) continue to merit the discussion.

We welcome all contributions that investigate phenomena tied to the digital transformation, people’s cultural understandings of global political-economic imaginaries (such as the BRI) by utilising the conceptual and analytical toolkits of discourse studies, e.g. power, subjectivity, critique, identity, context, language use etc. As the field of discourse studies are inherently interdisciplinary, we invite authors from disciplines as varied as media and communication studies, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, ethnography, cultural and political studies or law. Furthermore, we also invite guests outside of academia, such as activists, NGO and public intellectual scene representatives, to contribute to our topics. Likewise, we seek to provide a forum for discussing methodological and theoretical questions.

Covid19 disclaimer

We are well aware of the Covid19-pandemic. However, we hope and believe that by mid November the danger will be over. Also, we do not want to stop 'doing science'. In case of a different, unwanted, development, we will be able to offer alternatives concerning either the time or the format of the event (e.g. online). We therefore invite you to send in your paper, panel and poster proposals. We will take into account all the recommendations of the authorities and health experts.

https://discourseanalysis.net/en/DN25

The list of possible topics includes (but is not constrained) to the following:

• (Inter)cultural connectedness
• New communication infrastructures
• Digitization, digitalization, digital transformation
• Technologisation of society
• Discourses of Imaginaries
• History of Digital Technology and Imaginary
• Chinese-European Media
• Critical approach to suffering in digital age
• Education in the Digital Age
• Environmental Sustainability and Development of Global Periphery
• Apparatuses of global political economy
• Ethnographic approach to transcultural phenomena
• Global media analysis about BRI
• Cultural traditions across media changes
• Intercultural communication in polycentric world
• The physical traces of BRInfrastructure
• Dispositives of New Digitality
• Ideological and political constructions
• From anthropology to ethnography of global dispositifs
• Gender and class
• Transnational identities
• Subjectivities in a global context
• Cultural and discursive political economy
• (Re)Standardization of the societies
• Centre and periphery discourses
• New global constellations
• Social role of material infrastructure
• The governance of the internet in the age of its balkanization/sovereignty
• Political and economic alliances and ruptures
• Global gaps and digital divides, global exclusion and invisibilities

All abstracts fitting one or more of the aforementioned themes are welcome. We also invite interesting panel proposals and presentations relevant to the overall conference topic. Check the Ideas page on our website for inspiration:

https://discourseanalysis.net/en/DN25

Preliminary list of special guests, keynotes and topics:

University of Tyumen (UoT), Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (SocGum), Cultural Trends Lab (CTL), DiscourseNet Association (DNA), Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), China Media Observatory (CMO), China University of Communication (CUC), School of Government and Public Administration (SoGaPA)

Globalised spaces of academic discourse - Johannes Angermuller, Open University Milton Keyes, UK DNA

Chinese-European Media - Zhan Zhang, Università della Svizzera Italiana /USI, Switzerland CMO

History of Digital Technology and Imaginary - Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera Italiana /USI, Switzerland CMO

Global media analysis about BRI - Zhou Ting, Communication University of China, China CUC

Critical approach to suffering in digital age - Benno Herzog, Valencia University, Spain DNA

Economic Expert Discourses in Globalised Societies - Jens Maeße, Giessen University, Germany DNA

Ethnographic approach to Transcultural Phenomena - Jaspal Naveel Singh, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR China DNA

Philosophy of Globalisation - Igor Chubarov, University of Tyumen, Russia SocGum

Dispositives of New Digitality - Jan Krasni, University of Tyumen, Russia DNA, CTL, SocGum

Abstracts and Registration

Please submit your 250 word abstracts at the conference registration service on dn25.sciencesconf.org. Keep the following important dates in mind:

Deadline for uploading abstracts for DN25: May 15th, 2020

(If you need to plan your trip in advance, please contact us for a faster review of your abstract. Deadline for those who do not need visa will be extended)

Notification of acceptance for abstracts: June 20th, 2020

(If you need visa, please let us know so we would take care of it earlier)

Registration will be complete upon payment.

Payment deadline: October 1st, 2020. A confirmation email will be sent after the deadline for payments has passed.

All the abstracts are vetted by a blind review. The reviewers belong to the committee selected from our 5000 members. This secures the scientific quality of the presentations.

DISCOURSENET WINTER SCHOOL No7

January 13-15, 2021

Valencia, Spain

Deadline: September 30, 2020

https://discourseanalysis.net/en/DNS7

The DiscourseNet Winter School brings together advanced MA as well as PhD students *(BA students with an own research project are also welcome) who want to pursue research on Capitalism in Global Crisis revolving around economic transformations, new authoritarianism, and resistance with respect to Discourse Studies and to discuss the methodological and theoretical challenges of their thesis projects or first ideas.

In the last decades, the economies in different countries and regions as well as the global economic power relations have changed. Three characteristics are significant: first, the US economic hegemony, expressed by a dominant position in almost all traditional leading industries, becomes step by step replaced by a tri-pole structure consisting by a rising Asian field of economic innovation (with China as regional superpower), a declining North American pole and a consolidating European pole (with Germany as regional hegemon) torn between the aspiring East and former West. Second, rising economic inequalities can be observed in all capitalist economies, including China, Russia and East/Central Europe, with the formation of a small wealthy elite on the top of economic hierarchy, shrinking middle classes splitting up between the top and bottom, and a widening array of lower classes more and more excluded from social recognition, welfare, consumption and other forms of social participation. Wealthy and innovative areas on the one hand, and declining regions disconnected from global innovations on the other hand reflect these cleavages geographically. And, finally, a forth technological revolution (catchwords: Industry 4.0, digitalisation, 5G, green economy) is currently changing global value chains, working relations and the general distribution of labour and value. These tendencies of the global economy have huge impacts on political discourses, social identities, life styles, social conflicts and the formation of new milieus.

Among diverse social, cultural and political reactions to these global transformations new forms of authoritarianism seem to be of significant analytical importance. New authoritarianism can take different forms. The narrative that the (Western) world inscribes itself within a history of progress, of political and social advances and that this process is irreversible are no longer convincing. New forms of nationalism, nativism, racism, anti-semitism, anti-feminism, chauvinism, anti-social, religious extremism, ethnocentrism and ideological responses to economic crises are threatening human emancipation. New forms of authoritarian governance arise on a plurality of social backgrounds and in a variety of forms, from nationalism, to populism and from right-wing extremism towards ideologies of economic impositions. These anti-emancipatory tendencies are not limited to specific social movements or politics. Therefore, they require an analysis of a diversity of social phenomenon, like power constellations, discourses, historic memory, economic conditions, processes of subjectivation, etc. In contrast to extremism, the approach on authoritarianism does not analyze its objects from the margins of society; and unlike populism, authoritarianism does not require an approach on hegemony. However, there are also forms of extremist or populist authoritarianism. Yet, the role of new authoritarianism for and within ongoing global transformations of the economy seems to be oscillating between a consolidation of existing power relations and a nationalist form of resistance against certain neoliberal policies.

Despite the rise of authoritarian tendencies, there is a notable amount of social movements resisting them: the feminist movement, LGBTQ movement, ecological movements, minority group movements, worker movements, refugee movements, anti- racist, anti-nationalist, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist movements, and also more authoritarian resistance. Many of these movements explicitly argue against silencing of experiences of various social groups, and do the work revealing structures of power, imagining alternatives and proposing solutions to power imbalances, exclusion, symbolic and physical violence. In this ideological work, new subjectivities are formed and existing ones redefined, new ways of expressing agency are created. Development of the digital communication infrastructure has been especially important in these processes, as online spaces have been pivotal for coordination of social action, assisting in formation of global social movements. Critical discourse studies have been especially active in critiquing the less-democratic discourses, while the analysis of resistant discourses and clashes between different kinds of discourses, as well as conditions that allow them to arise and develop, are also of significance. We welcome papers exploring these and other possible dimensions of resistant discourses.

Possible topics include:

• Race, class and gender in global capitalism
• Material resistance and counter discourses
• Forms of authoritarianism and its relation to neoliberalism in crisis
• Intersectionality, identity politics and new subjectivities
• Global political economy and economic discourses
• (Post)colonial capitalism in new global constellations
• Anti-Fascism, socialism and left-wing authoritarianism
• Old and new exclusions: migration, borders and ecologic crisis
• Ideologies and post-truth in times of technological revolutions
• Digital transformation & forms of culture and sociality in late capitalism

The aim of the Winter School is to bring young and established discourse researchers together to address practical challenges in discourse research. The event will provide a collaborative exchange and hands-on research experience in a rather informal workshop setting. Introductory workshops on the following fields of inquiry will be given by more experienced scholars from the Universities of Giessen, Moscow, Warwick and Valencia, together with guests from other international universities: Discourse; New Authoritarianism; Resistance.

Our keynote speaker Ngai-Ling Sum from the Lancaster University will provide a lecture on

“The Cultural Political Economy of Hope/Fear: Ordoliberal Authoritarianism and the Case of China”

Participants from the disciplines and fields of sociology, political sciences, literary and cultural studies, media and communication, education, geography, philosophy, linguistics and related areas in the social sciences and humanities are all invited.

Applicants are expected to send in proposals which include an abstract with one’s project (no more than 250 words) as well as an academic CV. The abstract will consist of a title and a description of the proposed research project or presentation.

Proposals should be sent in by the 30th of September 2020. We will inform you on 15th of October if you are accepted or not.

In case of acceptance, each participant will be asked to send in a 10-page version of the research project by December 31st 2020. These longer texts should delineate the research object, lay out the research questions, situate the project in the field, and reflect on the preferred methods. These versions will be circulated among the participants prior to the event and will be used by the commentators. Each participant will get two comments on their paper by two experts. During the Winter School, the students will not present their entire papers but elaborate on specific points, practical problems and methodological challenges of their projects. If they wish, the participants can stay the weekend after and join in the social activities with the organisers in the Valencia region.

The DiscourseNet Winter School is free of charge. In case of equal quality of the application, DiscourseNet members will be considered first. If you want to join DiscourseNet, please write a message to membership@discourseanalysis.net including your name, email address and professional status (e.g. PhD student, professor, independent researcher). There are places for up to 25 participants. The working language is English.

The Winter School is organised by members of the DIPE (Discourse, Ideology, and Political Economy) research group within DiscourseNet. DiscourseNet is an interdisciplinary and international association of discourse researchers existing since 2007.

To apply for the Winter School and for any inquiries or questions, please contact:

DNWinterSchoolValencia@gmail.com

Organisation

Johannes Beetz, University of Warwick (UK) | Benno Herzog, University of Valencia (Spain) | Jens Maesse, University of Giessen (Germany) | Ksenia Semykina, Higher School of Economics, Moscow (Russia) | Jan Krasni Tyumen State University (Russia)

Special Issue of Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies

Deadline (EXTENDED): June 1, 2020

Synoptique is inviting submissions for an upcoming special issue entitled “Porn and Its Uses.” Responding to the genre’s marginal status in the academy and beyond, this special issue seeks to explore how pornography can be (re)framed as useful—pedagogically, politically, aesthetically, and libidinally. Broadly framed, this may refer to pornography as both a difficult object of interest and as a method for critically analyzing the most pressing questions in our current moment.

Pioneering explorations of the genre within academia have treated pornography as a vibrant cinematic institution (Lesage, “Women and Pornography,” 1981), an oppositional grass-roots practice (Waugh, “Men’s Pornography, Gay vs. Straight,” 1985) and an instrument to gauge the organization of pleasure and control (Linda Williams, Hard Core, 1989). In 1996, an issue of Jump Cut dedicated a special section to the study of pornography. This seminal publication, edited by Chuck Kleinhans, curated articles, conference reports and even a sample syllabus in order to reframe the genre as a tool for analyzing issues of censorship, national cultures, gender and race. This issue of Synoptique seeks to recapture that intellectual impulse in the wake of recent academic forays that have placed pornography in the context of labour (Heather Berg), affect (Susanna Paasonen) and critical race studies (Mireille Miller-Young), among others.

The theme of this special issue cheekily gestures towards the serviceability of the genre beyond (but certainly not excluding) the happy ending broadly associated with porn. The titular “uses” of pornography expand on a key intervention from Haidee Wasson and Charles Acland’s introduction to Useful Cinema to ask how porn, broadly defined, maintains the “ability to transform unlikely spaces, convey ideas, convince individuals, and produce subjects in the service of public and private aims” (Acland and Wasson 2011, 2). As porn studies proliferates across numerous monographs and edited collections, university curricula, international conferences, podcasts, a dedicated scholarly journal and more, we are interested in porn’s usefulness while at the same time complicating and questioning the impetus to instrumentalize knowledge. How do we continue to shape a field that embraces knowledge traditionally deemed intellectually and morally suspect while responding to the porn industry’s political and economic stakes?

Under this broad inquiry, and abiding by the journal’s mandate to challenge traditional paradigms in media scholarship and publication, we are inviting scholars and practitioners alike to submit academic and creative pieces that testify to porn’s usefulness. In order for the journal to include the widest spectrum of voices possible, including those implicated in the industry, the editorial team will, under request, publish material anonymously or pseudonymously.

We are inviting submissions from scholars of all disciplines, on topics such as (but not limited to):

• pornography as visual, textual, and auditory genres
• historical approaches to pornography
• porn studies as academic field: methods, frameworks, ethics
• porn and/as pedagogy, in and out of the classroom
• porn studies and postcolonial and/or critical race theory
• porn as site of feminist, queer and trans interventions
• archives and material cultures of pornography
• pornification and the mainstreaming of pornography
• porn in the context of celebrity studies
• pornography’s audiences and fan cultures
• pornography's digital cultures and economies
• porn and sex work in legislative contexts
• anti-pornography discourses

Essays submitted for peer review should be approximately 5,500-7,500 words and must conform to the Chicago author-date style (17th ed.). All images must be accompanied by photo credits and captions.

We also warmly invite submissions to the review section, including conference or exhibition reports, book reviews, film festival reports, thought pieces and interviews related to the aforementioned topics. All non-peer reviewed articles should be a maximum of 2,500 words and include a bibliography following Chicago author-date style (17th ed.).

Creative works and interventions in the forms of digital video, still imagery, creative writing, and other multimedia forms are also welcome. These works will be hosted or embedded on the Synoptique website, and/or otherwise linked to in the PDF version of the journal. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions regarding your submission ideas for the non-peer reviewed section.

All submissions may be written in either French or English.

Please submit completed essays or reports to the Editorial Collective (editor.synoptique@gmail.com) and the issue guest editors Rebecca Holt (reba.s.holt@gmail.com), Darshana Sreedhar Mini (mini@usc.edu), and Nikola Stepić (nikola.stepic@concordia.ca) by June 1. We will send notifications of acceptance by June 30.

Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies

www.synoptique.ca

Special Issue of New Media & Society

Deadline: May 22, 2020

Over the last three decades, researchers have increasingly understood the existence of multiple and complex digital inequalities that vary in breadth and depth and involve evolving nuances, assigning a multi-faceted nature to digital inclusion and flagging up a complex terrain of hurdles to it (Blank and Groselj, 2014; Borg and Smith, 2018; Brandtzæg et al., 2011; Katz and Gonzalez, 2016; Mubarak, 2015; Tsatsou, 2011; 2012; 2017; van Deursen et al., 2011; van Deursen and van Dijk, 2014; Witte and Mannon, 2010).

It is widely acknowledged that barriers to digital inclusion are connected with social exclusion and associated social capital and social stratification trends (Clayton and McDonald, 2013) and that those vulnerable and at high risk of social exclusion are also those in greatest need of digital inclusion (e.g., Acharya, 2016; Alam and Imran, 2015; Chadwick, Wesson and Fullwood, 2013; Fisher et al., 2014; Helsper and Eynon, 2010; Menger, Morris and Salis, 2016, Seale et al. 2015, Tsatsou, Youngs and Watt, 2017). Vulnerability, namely the ‘susceptibility to physical or emotional injury or attack’ (Ståsett, 2007, p. 51), is not a new concept and, while we ought to acknowledge that all humans and populations are potentially subject to conditions of vulnerability, there are some groups, which persistently face conditions of vulnerability, such as ethnic minorities/refugees, elderly, people with disabilities, homeless people, one-parent households, unemployed people, Gypsy-travelers, and others. To shed light on vulnerability in the context of the forces and significance of digital inclusion, intersectionality is a key notion. Coined by Crenshaw (1989) in feminist and gender studies, the notion of intersectionality points to interlocking systems of power and oppression and how they impact those most marginalized in society, acknowledging the multidimensionality of people’s experiences, namely the ‘intersectional experience’ (p. 140) within and outside the digital realm.

This special issue seeks to offer broad and case-specific, theoretical and empirical accounts that shed light on major dimensions, complexities and intersectionality patterns in the digital inclusion of those who find themselves at the margins of social inclusion and most vulnerable to existing and emerging societal challenges. In this sense, this issue aims to constitute a timely and diverse collection of studies of vulnerable people’s digital inclusion that will present original insights into the factors, significance, intersectionality patterns, and policymaking challenges concerning the digital inclusion of those who are vulnerable in socio-demographic, economic, geographic, political or other terms.

We invite papers that focus on one or more vulnerable populations and/or contexts and either offer an overarching (conceptual or empirical) account or delve into a specific case study. Suitable papers will make a distinct contribution to the exploration of the status and role of digital technologies in the lives of vulnerable population groups or communities in today’s society, drawing expertise and insight from the fields of digital media studies, social computing, community informatics, information systems, sociology, social psychology, and cultural studies. In light of the current COVID19 pandemic, in particular, we invite papers that examine questions of factors, significance, intersectionality or policy challenges in the context of the pandemic and in consideration of today’s heightened necessities for and dependencies on digital inclusion, especially for those most vulnerable.

Hence, the themes addressed in this issue include, but are not limited to:

• Theorising vulnerable people’s digital inclusion.
• Vulnerability in the context of digital inclusion.
• Current state of vulnerable people’s digital inclusion and associated trends and developments.
• Value of intersectionality for the study of vulnerable people’s digital inclusion.
• Empirical insights into patterns of intersectionality among different vulnerable populations’ digital inclusion.
• Continuing or emerging factors influencing vulnerable people’s digital inclusion.
• Significance of digital inclusion for vulnerable people’s social inclusion and wellbeing.
• Research lessons and insights for policymaking on vulnerable people’s digital inclusion.
• Emerging or new necessities for and lessons on vulnerable people’s digital inclusion in the context of the COVID19 pandemic.

Special Issue Editor / Correspondence: Panayiota Tsatsou (pt133@le.ac.uk)

Important dates:

Submission of abstracts (500 words): 22 May 2020.

Notification of decision on abstracts: 22 June 2020

Submission of full papers: 31 August 2020

Notification of peer review outcome: 30 October 2020

Submission of final papers: 1 December 2020

Instructions for authors: Abstracts must be submitted to pt133@le.ac.uk. Abstracts should not exceed the limit of 500 words (word limit excludes author details and list of references).

November 2-4,2020

Oslo, Norway

Deadline: August 17, 2020

The 6th international conference on the Safety of journalists

The conference will take place in Oslo on November 2, 3 and 4th 2020 in connection with UNESCO’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists at OsloMet University and The Freedom of Speech Foundation (Fritt Ord), Norway.

Attacks on journalists is a growing problem globally and threats and violence against journalists affect freedom of expression and the public sphere in many ways. For the sixth consecutive year, the research group MEKK at OsloMet University organizes an international conference to address the safety of journalists.

This year’s conference will focus on examples of “resistance” and “resilience”, in addition to risks related to certain topics and/or working in specific geographical, social or/and political contexts. “Resistance” could mean both fighting back as well as the refusal to accept or comply with something and/or the ability not to be affected by something. The concept may also be linked to organizations in resistance. In terms of the concept of resilience, it is often assumed that a person with good resilience has the ability to bounce back more quickly and with less stress than someone whose resilience is less developed. Greater resilience is often associated with the ability to self-organise, and with social learning as part of a process of adaptation and transformation. Looking at risk, resistance and resilience opens up for discussions from different angels and concrete experiences.

The aim of the conference is to increase the knowledge about measures that can improve the situation for journalists and journalism, whether it is what the individual journalist can do to protect herself, alone or in groups, and collective and structural measures to protect journalists and put an end to impunity. Perhaps a combination of resistance and resilience can be the way forward? Perhaps a better understanding of risks helps making it possible to build collective resilience? We believe this focus can lead to useful learning across borders and contexts. Case studies of resistance and/or resilience are welcome. Furthermore, we open for deliberations of more general safety issues for journalists by inviting papers discussing topics such as (but not limited to):

• Collective action to enhance the safety of journalists
• Cross border initiatives to improve safety
• Self-education and organisation as means to make journalism safe
• The role of the UN and UNESCO in protecting journalists
• Safety training for journalists and the role of safety trainers/organizations
• Fake news and disinformation as a threat against journalism
• Media ownership and safety of journalists

For the last five years a large number of scholars and journalists have participated at the annual safety conferences at OsloMet in Norway. The conferences have been organised as a mixture of key note speakers, working groups, panels and paper presentations. As we are now facing a global pandemic crisis where travelling and gathering is difficult, and may be so for quite some time still, we have started to think of some possible alternative scenarios and solutions for the 2020 conference. We will think of possible virtual solutions for paper presentations and key notes.

As before, we prioritize scholarships for researchers coming from outside Europe and North America. This year we also include a scholarship that can contribute to the making of a virtual presentation. This scholarship is meant as a grant that can contribute to the production of such a presentation.

Virtual presentation:

We encourage researchers to partner with journalists or media projects to make virtual presentations, documentaries, journalism, storytelling etc. on “resistance”, “resilience” and the risks journalists are facing. In addition to the ordinary research papers we therefore include a call for virtual presentations (could be a movie, animation, etc.), where you are asked to describe the project, collaboration, case and planned result.

To send a proposal for a regular paper or a virtual presentation you can use this form: https://nettskjema.no/a/safety2020

Please include an abstract/description (max 250 words), short bio, and a profile picture.

The deadline is August 17, 2020.

There is no registration fee and the participants are expected to cover their own costs for travel and accommodation. A limited number of scholarships to cover flight and/or accommodation is available for Ph.D. students and researchers from low-income countries. Applications for scholarships should be submitted with the abstract together with a short CV.

The best papers will be considered for a forthcoming peer reviewed publication.

If you have any questions about the call for papers and virtual presentations, please do not hesitate to contact: safetyofjournalists@oslomet.no

Link to MEKK blog: Call for Papers