ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

IE University’s School of Human Sciences and Technology

IE University’s School of Human Sciences and Technology (https://www.ie.edu/…gy/) invites qualified applicants for a full-time, tenure-track faculty position in Corporate or Marketing Communication beginning September 2021, in Madrid.

The new faculty member will be expected to provide intellectual leadership within HST (and, more broadly, across IE University) in their areas of expertise, and to contribute to a collegial atmosphere and a diverse, inclusive campus life. Applicants with international academic experience are especially encouraged to apply.

Our faculty are expected to present their work in international venues and to publish in peer-reviewed journals. In this case, relevant journals might include, but are not limited to Public Relations Review, Corporate Communications, Journal of Business Communication, Journal of Business Ethics, or Management Communication Quarterly.

Teaching requirements for this position are the standard for research active institutions. The successful candidate will teach and advise students in one or more of the following HST programs:

• Bachelor in Communication and Digital Media. https://www.ie.edu/…on/
• Master in Corporate and Marketing Communication. https://www.ie.edu/…on/
• Master in Visual and Digital Media. https://www.ie.edu/…ia/
• Master in Customer Experience and Innovation. https://www.ie.edu/…on/
• Master in Digital Marketing. https://www.ie.edu/…ng/

IE University (https://www.ie.edu/ ) is an internationally recognized institution originally founded as a business school. The university is comprised of schools of Business, Human Sciences & Technology, Law, Global and Public Affairs, and Architecture & Design.

We are among the most international institutions of higher education with approximately 85% of our students coming from outside Spain and typically over 120 countries represented on campus. Our Madrid campus is situated in the financial district of this vibrant, cosmopolitan capital city of over 5 million people.

In 2021, we will open the doors to our new undergraduate Learning Tower – a vertical campus which will be one of the 5 towers occupying the skyline of Madrid. Our Segovia campus is located in the historic quarter of this World-Heritage city, 30 minutes by high-speed train from Madrid.

Qualifications:

• The successful candidate will have a Ph.D. in Communication or related discipline as well as positively evaluated teaching experience at the university and/or graduate level.
• He/She will have an active research agenda in either corporate communication or marketing, advertising, branding, and public relations.
• HST takes an interdisciplinary, humanistic approach to the study of communication and media.
• A candidate with an interest in cultural approaches to technological platforms and social media, public interest and social change communication, or corporate and media ethics would be a particularly good fit.

Application instructions:

Applications should include a cover letter, curriculum vitae, research and teaching statement and three confidential recommendation letters.

Please submit your application by March 24th, 2021 via Interfolio at: http://apply.interfolio.com/…204

For general enquiries about the application, contact Sara Flores, Recruitment Coordinator sara.flores@ie.edu , specific enquiries can be made to Prof. Begoña González-Cuesta begona.gonzalez@ie.edu .

Keele University

Application closing date 08/03/2021

Start date June 2021

Salary: Grade 7, £33,797 -£41,526 per annum

Fixed Term: 24 months full-time

The Research Assistant post is part of an AHRC funded project entitled “#ContestingIslamophobia: Representation and Appropriation in Mediated Activism”. The project aims to investigate the dynamics of online hate speech as well as counter-narratives against Islamophobia, and examine what political potentials and/or limitations they offer. The RA will be involved in the second stage of the project which will be to carry out both quantitative and qualitative content analysis (of both Tweets, mainstream media and activist websites) and semi-structured interviews (with key activists). As the project focuses on Twitter, there may be some liaison with our computer scientist, but the role mainly requires a knowledge and experience of traditional methods in the social sciences, particularly experience of working with media texts. The post holder will also oversee the project website, write blog entries and have the opportunity to contribute to other dissemination activities.

The successful candidate will have a PhD (or close to completion) in an appropriate subject area such as Social Science or Media Studies, and experience of undertaking independent research using quantitative and qualitative methods. Experience of using computer packages in the social sciences, such as SPSS and Nvivo, would also be useful.

This role could be initially undertaken remotely with meetings over the internet, however, the successful candidate would be expected to work on site at Keele once it is safe enough to do so.

Informal enquires can be made to Professor Elizabeth Poole, Principal Investigator on the project via e.a.poole@keele.ac.uk.

Project Lead: Prof. Alexander Gerber

This first in-depth empirical analysis of the research field in science communication was conducted for the German Federal Ministry of Research. Its main parts are published openly here – without any access fees or book charges: E-book download [PDF, 1 MB].

This study of Science Communication Research (SCR) triangulates a bibliometric and content analysis of approx. 3,000 journal papers with a multi-stage panel study and a review of grey literature spanning four decades. Quantitative findings from the journal analysis (e.g. about disciplinary contexts or topics, research methods, data analysis techniques used) were considered by a panel of 36 science communication researchers in a multi-stage series of qualitative interviews. These experts represent the international and disciplinary diversity of the research field, including past and present editors of the most relevant journals of science communication, and the majority of the most often cited science communication scholars.

We are planning to do further deep-dives into specific aspects of this hugely comprehensive material, which includes dozens of expert interviews and thousands of publications content-analysed. For any suggestions about such specific research questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Doxa Comunicación

Deadline: May 31, 2021

Description and Thematic Areas: Research in the field of communication has been characterised by its multidisciplinary approach; resulting in multiple schools, traditions, and approaches, and therefore, in a series of objects of study and research results with great diversity and, on occasion, a high level of dispersion as one of its main features.

On the other hand, there has been a key transformation in this field in recent decades with an exponential increase in scientific production and greater international collaboration between authors. Changes in communication education have had a lot to do with this change, with a highly significant increase in the educational offering together with changes in the regulation of access to teaching careers in Spain, which have influenced, and continue to influence, research development.

Accordingly, this monograph reflects the new challenges and opportunities research is facing in the field of communication and, specifically, the challenge of consolidating a unique identity, which are reflections we consider necessary. This is a panorama in which issues such as education, specialisation, globalisation, gender differences/perspectives, and ethical debates, among others, take on special relevance.

Nor should we lose sight of the structural aspects that determine the evaluation or funding criteria, nor the regulatory framework, which ultimately influence research development in this field. At the same time, this monograph aims to focus on the new trends observed in communication research that aspires to consolidate themselves as objects of study. This approach is carried out from a three-fold perspective: concepts, media and approaches.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Scientific publication in communication: Does it have a unique personality, or is it an imitation of other disciplines?
• The role of academic journals in communication research
• Research in specialised areas of communication
• Teaching in the communication field and its investigation
• Ethical debates in communication research
• Communication research beyond the Anglo-Saxon realm: perspectives and contexts from the southern part of the world– Latin America, Africa, and other geographical areas
• Gender differences and perspectives in communication research
• Structural constraints of research. Policy, evaluation, funding and other factors
• Challenges and weaknesses in communication research
• Prospects and emerging approaches in communication research: new concepts, new media, and new theories.

DEADLINE: Article submissions will be due on March 31, 2021, with notifications of acceptance before September 30, 2021. Issue editors: Jesús Díaz (UNIR, Spain), Salvador Gómez (UVa, Spain) and Francisco Segado (UCM, Spain).

Doxa Comunicación is a free, open access scientific journal following the BOAI Declaration. All content is uploaded to freely accessible national and international databases and repositories.

Authors must register and upload their files through the journal platform here: https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/doxacom/information/authors (check to change language)

Submissions by email will not be accepted. Authors must register on the platform and complete all the metadata required in the submission process. Authors must ensure that their manuscripts are anonymous (deletion of the digital traces of authorship that appear in the document properties is recommended.

Information about submission guidelines: https://www.doxacomunicacion.es/pdf/enmonogrnuevastendenciaseninvestigacindelacomunicacin_1.pdf

Problemi dell'Informazione - Italian Journal of Media and Journalism Studies

Deadline: March 31, 2021

Special issue - Marco Bruno e Gaia Peruzzi (editors)

We live in a deeply mediatized world, where public sphere and social and political dialogues are inconceivable, or better inexistent, without media. In democratic systems, the political decision-making processes are somehow tied to the collective perceptions of social issues, therefore the role played by media, in particular news media, has become strategic. Media directly participate not only to the agenda setting and current debates, but, in a deeper perspective, to the construction of social categories and the explanation of social facts. By steadily shaping, framing and giving public visibility to some social groups, media accustom citizens to perceive some distinctions as ordinary, usual, “natural”; thus, they create identities and borders. By emphasizing some distinctions in comparison with “us”, they create the Other. By lighting the fire underneath a kind of diversity and its point of view, they affect social stereotypes and promote the change of mentalities.

In recent years, some relevant studies have provided original and unexpected perspectives useful to understand the power of media in societies by investigating their role in building the categories of minorities, vulnerability and social empathy. In particular, Lynn Hunt has reconstructed the way in which popular media have contributed to the “invention” of the idea of human rights in the passage from the modern age to the contemporary one. According to this author, media stimulated the audience to assume the points of views of the different characters of drama, primarily of the weakest ones, and, consequently, to take in account the human pains of torture and social injustices and to imagine more equal opportunities for all human beings. Another milestone of the literature on this topic is the last work of Roger Silverstone, where is reflect on the role played by media in the formation of the social, civic and moral space. The knowledge of the Other and the relationship with the same increasingly happen inside the mediapolis, the space where people coming from differing places can make a reciprocal appearance.

The construction of the otherness, that is of all the problematic and vulnerable identities, is a completely mediated process, which has completely revolutionized the collective construction of all the categories of morality (proper distance, dignity, respect, hospitality, justice).What is common in these arguments is that media narrations and public dialogues on minorities are recognized as founding steps in the civilizing processes.

To complete this essential review, it is necessary to mention Luc Boltansky and his work Distant Suffering. Morality, Media and Politics. He investigated the change in human morality derived from the new habit of watching scenes of pain and suffering on the media screens, and the ambiguous relationships between these sentiments, human empathy and solidarity policies.

The theoretical framework on media and diversity that we have outlined is the background within which to study information media as well. The role of journalism in the face of diversity has been investigated mainly with respect to the dimension of news content and representations of otherness. Very often the differences taken into consideration are those relating to the different cultural background and the consequences of migratory phenomena. Scientific reflection on other conditions of diversity is rarer, such as those attributable to issues of gender, sexual orientation and disabilities. Similarly, in the studies on journalism and information pluralism has always been understood in a political or at the most cultural sense; less frequently, on the other hand, in terms of a more general tension towards the inclusiveness of the aforementioned diversities and belonging but also, for example, with respect to the multiple forms of social marginality.

Diversity, as a theme for information media, also represents a challenge to professional practices and conditions, starting with pluralism and inclusion policies in editorial offices. In recent times, this debate has found ample space in the US context, also following the MeeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. In this context, another area of investigation, almost unexplored in our country, is the application of inclusion policies and practices to journalistic contexts and professions that are beginning to be widespread in other areas (think of the experiences of diversity management and inclusion in business contexts). Another relevant issue is the issue of the differentiation of contents, authors, themes and languages in relation to different social actors and audiences, which constitutes a significant challenge for journalistic practices undergoing profound change, also in reference to the effects of digitization, hybrid formats and languages, and the economic crisis.

Therefore, in a scenario of uncertainty and accelerated change, diversity is both a challenge and an opportunity for journalistic practice, precisely as a democratic issue, with reference to the pluralization of sensitivities and the need for full participation in the information and communication field of all members of society. Starting from this complex and multidimensional frame of reference, there are many lines of work on which the authors are invited to send contributions; among these we propose, but not exclusively:

• Media and diversity
• The social construction of the /other/ in media information
• Information and gender issues
• News media and sexual orientation minorities
• News media and disabilities
• News media, poverty and social marginalization
• Information and religious pluralism
• Diversity management in information, editorial policies and inclusion of minorities

• Journalistic practices and diversity
• Journalistic language and diversity
• Formats and tools for information and diversity

This issue is therefore open to contributions that address one or more ot these themes (as is more likely, given the “hyper-connected” nature of the crisis and its implications).

Proposals (maximum 750 words excluding bibliography) are required to illustrate the objectives of the paper, the research question and the methodology adopted. They have to be sent to https://submission.rivisteweb.it/…pdi by March 31th, 2021.

The selection of proposals will take place by *April 10th*. The deadline for submitting manuscripts is *June* 20th. Manuscripts will undergo a double blind review system.

No payment or fees are required

July 6–9, 2021

Melbourne Australia 

Deadline: February 26, 2021

Hosted by the Media and Communications Program, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne

Abstract and panel proposal submission for the 2021 Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Annual Conference is now open! The Conference will take place from 6-9 July 2021 at the University of Melbourne, with the option for delegates to attend in person or virtually for those who are unable to travel.

This year’s conference, which begins with a one-day postgraduate pre-conference, will centre on the theme of ‘Community, Authority and Power’, focusing on the wide range of ways in which communication actors, industries, practices and technologies are implicated in how power is exercised, reproduced, resisted and transformed.

We welcome submissions for papers and panels on a wide range of topics in contemporary communication, digital media and cultural studies, as well as related areas such as journalism, political and historical studies, sociology and creative practice. Further information, including speaker details, is available on the ANZCA 2021 website, which will be updated regularly in the lead-up to the conference.

Information on the event can be found here.

To submit an abstract or panel proposal for the Conference, click here.

For abstract and panel submission information, click here.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 26 February 2021.

We look forward to your submission!

ANZCA Conference Team

conference@anzca.org

Co-organized with the ECREA CEE Network

April  12-16, 2021

IUC, Dubrovnik

BLENDEND IN PERSON & ONLINE

In Central and Eastern Europe it is 30 years since the socialist regimes collapsed, and democracy was introduced. The theoretical framework of the “transition” is no longer employed, even the “consolidation” discourse and approach is over. Can we pronounce the media systems in this region of the world to have acquired a settled shape, a form/character that is durable and stable?

The thirty years of transformation have been diverse. The same original critical juncture of the fall of socialism has been differently used and shaped by different actors, countries or institutions, to produce different results. Not only is there a division of CEE into those who are now members of the EU and those who are not, but there is also a division between those who have consolidated some level of democracy and those who have consolidated some degree of authoritarian regimes.

The authoritarian backsliding is a fact that can no longer be treated as a phase in the consolidation of democracy, but must also be recognized as one type of result of the transformations. A new critical juncture will be necessary in order to re-start developments along the road to consolidated democracy.

What shaped these diverse developments? Why did some countries consolidate democracy, and others have hybrid or authoritarian regimes? How do these changes compare to the changes of other European media systems? Should we compare media systems or media cultures? We will in this course and research conference examine conditions and variables of media change from modernization to socialism, and from socialism to post-socialism. We will explore ways to study change in media systems, focusing both on the temporal and spatial frames, and will examine transformations necessary in the political, economic and cultural fields. And we will examine which combination of historical conditions from the longue durée or more recently, are responsible for certain types of outcomes of media systems.

The course includes a one day hands-on methodological workshop on the design and implementation of fuzzy set QCA and the accompanying statistical analysis, held by Dina Vozab and Antonija Čuvalo from the University of Zagreb.

The course is organized by course directors from 7 European universities:

• Zrinjka Peruško, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Carmen Ciller, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Steffen Lepa, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
• Paolo Mancini, Università di Perugia, Italy
• Snježana Milivojević, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Slavko Splichal, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Miklós Sükösd, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

This year’s lecturers include:

• Carmen Ciller, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Steffen Lepa, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
• Paolo Mancini, Università di Perugia, Italy
• Snježana Milivojević, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Helmut Scherer, Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationsforschung of the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover
• Zrinjka Peruško, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Miklós Sükösd, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Lenka Vochocová, Department of Media Studies, Charles University, Prague

This 9th "slow science" IUC-CMS is an interdisciplinary research conference & post-graduate course open to academics, doctoral and post-doctoral students in media, communication and related fields engaged with the issue of media and media systems, that wish to discuss their current work with established and emerging scholars and get relevant feedback.

Invited research conference participants will deliver keynote lectures with ample discussion opportunities. In this unique academic format, student course attendees will have extended opportunity to present and discuss their current own work with the course directors and other lecturers and participants in seminar form (English language) and in further informal meetings around the beautiful old-town of Dubrovnik (UNESCO World Heritage) over 5 full working days (Monday to Saturday).

The working language is English.

Participation in the course for graduate (master and doctoral) students brings 3,5 ECTS credits, and for doctoral students who present their thesis research 6 ECTS. The course is accredited and the ECTS are awarded by the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb (www.fpzg.unizg.hr). All participants will also receive a certificate of attendance from the IUC.

Enrolment

To apply, send a CV and a motivation letter to zrinjka.perusko@gmail.com Students who wish to present their research should also send a 300 word abstract. The course can accept 20 students, and the applications are received on a rolling basis. After notification of acceptance you need to register also on this web page https://iuc.hr/programme/1077

The IUC requires a small enrolment fee from student participants. Participants are responsible for organizing their own lodging and travel. Affordable housing is available for IUC participants. Stipends are available from IUC for eligible participants, further information at https://www.iuc.hr/iuc-support.php. For information on these matters please contact the IUC secretariat at iuc@iuc.hr.

Venue Information

The Inter-University Centre was founded in Dubrovnik in 1972 as an independent, autonomous academic institution with the aim of promoting international co-operation between academic institutions throughout the world. Courses are held in all scientific disciplines around the year, with participation of member and affiliated universities.

Additional Information

For further information about academic matters please contact the organizing course director: professor Zrinjka Peruško zrinjka.perusko@gmail.com, Centre for Media and Communication Research (www.cim.fpzg.unizg.hr), Department of Media and Communication, Faculty of Political Science (www.fpzg.unizg.hr), University of Zagreb (www.unizg.hr).

Daniela Jaramillo-Dent; Arantxa Vizcaíno-Verdú; Patricia De-Casas-Moreno; Carmen Baldallo-González.

In the last decade, Instagram has evolved from a mere repository of images to a widely recognized social network, becoming an important part of the new global digital cultures. The characteristics of this platform, its configurations, features and functionalities, have given rise to media and digital phenomena of great interest. In this sense, Instagram has redefined digital phenomena such as (self)representation, digital influence and online activism, through a constant adaptation to new generations and user needs. One of the keys to its success lies in the wide availability of communicative elements that encourage interaction and creativity, adapting pre-existing formats from other platforms. These characteristics, which cement a culture of user-generated content, also create a context in which problematic uses related to the possibilities of the platform for the manipulation of information or privacy, among others, are developed.

This work explores the singularities of this network, according to the way in which 21st century issues are constructed and disseminated. From an analysis of the trending topics on Instagram, the authors describe some of its social practices, whose implications go beyond the digital sphere. Because of the novelty of its subject matter, Instagramming. Themes, topics and trends is an emerging work of interest for students, academics and media professionals.

The book is in Spanish and is available here https://octaedro.com/libro/instagramming/

Marcos P. Dias

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526135780/

The machinic city reveals the potential of performance art to create spaces for reflection and deliberation on contemporary urban living and to speculate on the future of cities. As social and spatial interactions in the city become increasingly mediated by machines, performance art can help us reflect on the new modes of subjectivity that emerge as human and machine agency become intermingled and digital media permeates the urban fabri

Several case studies of urban art interventions are analysed and discussed as examples of the potential of the aesthetic machine of performance art, as it assembles with media, Capitalist, human and urban machines. These case studies reveal the importance of acknowledging dissensus as a constitutive factor of urban life and as a means of countering machinist determinism in present and future conceptualisations of city life.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1 A Machine To See With

2 Probing the machine of performance art

3 Rethinking machines

4 The aesthetic machine

5 Participation in the machinic city

6 Future machines

Conclusion

Author bio:

Marcos Dias is an Assistant Professor at the School of Communications, Dublin City University. He completed a PhD in Media Studies in the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2015 and also holds a MSc with Distinction in Interactive Digital Media from Trinity College Dublin. His research investigates the social and spatial impact of digital technologies in the contemporary mediated city.

September 23 – 26, 2021

Gaborone, Botswana

Deadline: May 31, 2021

SMUS Conference

23 – 26.09.2021, 

We hereby invite you to submit an abstract for the “1st International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods” (SMUS Conference) and “1st RC33 Regional Conference – Africa: Botswana” in cooperation with ESA RN21 “Quantitative Methods” 23 – 26.09.2021, organised and hosted online by the University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana.

The “Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability” (GCSMUS) together with the Research Committee on “Logic and Methodology in Sociology” (RC33) of the “International Sociology Association” (ISA) and the Research Network “Quantitative Methods” (RN21) of the European Sociology Association” (ESA) will organize a “1st International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods” (“SMUS Conference”) which will at the same time be the “1st RC33 Regional Conference – Africa: Botswana” from Thursday 23.09 – Sunday 26.09.2021, hosted by the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana. Given the current challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference will convene entirely online. The conference aims at promoting a global dialogue on methods and should attract methodologists from all over the world and all social and spatial sciences (e.g. area studies, architecture, communication studies, educational sciences, geography, historical sciences, humanities, landscape planning, philosophy, psychology, sociology, urban design, urban planning, traffic planning and environmental planning). Thus, the conference will enable scholars to get in contact with methodologists from various disciplines all over the world and to deepen discussions with researchers from various methodological angles. Scholars of all social and spatial sciences and other scholars who are interested in methodological discussions are invited to submit a paper to any sessions of the conference. All papers have to address a methodological problem.

Please find more information on the above institutions on the following websites:

“Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability” (GCSMUS):

https://gcsmus.org and www.mes.tu-berlin.de/spatialmethods

ISA RC33: http://rc33.org/

ESA RN21: www.europeansociology.org/research-networks/rn21-quantitative-methods

University of Botswana in Gaborone: www.ub.bw

If you are interested in getting further information on the conference and other GCSMUS activities, please subscribe to the GCSMUS newsletter by registering via the following website: https://lists.tu-berlin.de/mailman/listinfo/mes-smusnews

Conference Sessions:

1. Decolonizing Social Science Methodology – Towards African Epistemologies

2. Decolonizing Social Science Methodology – Overcoming Positivism and Constructivism

3. Decolonizing Methodologies and Epistemologies: Discourse Analysis and Sociology of Knowledge

4. Culturally Sensitive Approaches for the Global South – Potential New Directions of Empirical Research

5. Critical Conversations on Bagele Chilisa’s Indigenous Research Methodologies

6. Policy Analysis and Political Economy

7. Researching the History of Postcolonial States with Qualitative Methods

8. Hermeneutics ‒ Interaction ‒ Social Structure

9. Interpretative and Multi-Method Approaches to Global-South-Migration

10. Process-Oriented Micro-Macro-Analysis

11. City Networks between the Structural and the Everyday: Methods that Bridge Macro- and Micro-Perspectives for a Better Comparative Understanding of Cities

12. Methodologies for the Investigation Spatial Transformation Processes

13. Human Centric Approaches on Urban Futures

14. Methods of Architectural Research

15. Art and Design Based-Research, Cross-Disciplinary Approaches for Material Knowledge Production

16. The Contribution of Urban Design to the Qualitative Methodology Discourse

17. Mapping for Change? Resituating 'Slow Time'. Craftwo/manship and Power

18. Applying Research Methods in Interdisciplinary Urban Sustainability Projects

19. The Role of ‘Productive Interactions’ between Researchers and Stakeholders in Creating Rigorous and Relevant Research for Urban Sustainability

20. Knowledge Creation in Informal Settlements: The Process, Ethics and Outputs of Co-Productive and Community-Led Research Methods

21. Fieldwork in the Global South – Shedding Light into the Black Box

22. Survey Data Quality in Interviewer-Administered Surveys in LMIC Contexts

23. Assessing the Quality of Survey Data

24. Digital Methods in Action: Use, Challenges and Prospects

25. Researching Climate Change Communication: Methodological Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Era

26. Money and Digitalisation in the Global South

27. Methods in Food Studies Research

28. Locating the Religious/Secular in Africa: Methodological Challenges Conveners

29. Ethical and Methodological Dilemmas of Social Research in Violent Conflict Situations

Submission of Papers

All sessions have to comply with the conference organization rules (see below). If you want to present a paper, please submit your abstract via the official conference website: https://gcsmus.org between 20.02.2021 and 31.05.2021. You will be informed by 31.07.2021, if your proposed paper has been accepted for presentation at the conference. For further information, please see the conference website or contact the session organizers.

Conference Organizers:

Gabriel Faimau (University of Botswana, Botswana) and Nina Baur (TU Berlin, Germany)

Botswana Organizing Team: Gabriel Faimau, Sethunya Mosime, France Maphosa, Godisang Mookodi, Ikanyeng Malila, Gwen Lesetedi, Latang Sechele, Esther Nkhukhu-Orlando

Rules for Session Organization (According to GCSMUS Objectives and RC 33 Statutes)

1. There will be no conference fees.

2. The conference language is English. All papers therefore need to be presented in English.

3. All sessions have to be international: Each session should have speakers from at least two countries (exceptions will need good reasons).

4. Each paper must contain a methodological problem (any area, qualitative or quantitative).

5. There will be several calls for abstracts via the GCSMUS, RC33 and RN21 Newsletters. To begin with, session organizers can prepare a call for abstracts on their own initiative, then at a different time, there will be a common call for abstracts, and session organizers can ask anybody to submit a paper.

6. GCSMUS, RC33 and RN21 members may distribute these calls via other channels. GCSMUS members and session organizers are expected to actively advertise their session in their respective scientific communities.

7. Speakers can only have one talk per session. This also applies for joint papers. It will not be possible for A and B to present at the same time one paper as B and A during the same session. This would just extend the time allocated to these speakers.

8. Session organizers may present a paper in their own session.

9. Sessions will have a length of 90 minutes with a maximum of 4 papers or a length of 120 minutes with a maximum of 6 papers. Session organizers can invite as many speakers as they like. The number of sessions depends on the number of papers submitted to each session. E.g. if 12 good papers are submitted to a session, there will be two sessions with a length of 90 minutes each with 6 papers in each session.

10. Papers may only be rejected for the conference if they do not present a methodological problem (as stated above), are not in English or are somehow considered by session organizers as not being appropriate or relevant for the conference. Session organizers may ask authors to revise and resubmit their paper so that it fits these requirements. If session organizers do not wish to consider a paper submitted to their session, they should inform the author and forward the paper to the local organizing team who will find a session where the paper fits for presentation.

11. Papers directly addressed to the conference organising committee (and those forwarded from session organizers) will be offered to other session organizers (after proofing for quality). The session organizers will have to decide on whether or not the paper can be included in their session(s). If the session organizers think that the paper does not fit into their session(s), the papers should be sent back to the conference organizing committee as soon as possible so that the committee can offer the papers to another session organizer.