ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

April 23-25, 2021

Online conference

Deadline: January 8, 2021

The Ludomusicology Research Group is pleased to announce the Ludo2021 Tenth European Conference on Video Game Music and Sound.

We are currently accepting proposals for research presentations.

We welcome proposals on all aspects of sound and music in games.

This year, we are particularly interested in papers that support the conference theme of ‘Where in the world is video game music? Geographies, Cultures, and Regions of Game Music’. Papers on this topic may include:

• Transculturality in game soundtracks
• Game audio production between the local and the global
• Game sound and its others
• Exoticism and orientalism in game scoring
• Postcolonial perspectives on video game musicInteractions across game-musical and cultural contexts

Presentations should last twenty minutes and will be followed by questions.

Please submit your paper proposal (c.250 words) with a short provisional bibliography by email to ludomusicology@gmail.com by January 8th 2021. We aim to communicate the programme decisions by January 22nd 2021. If you require more information, please email the organizers.

We encourage practitioners and composers to submit proposals for showcasing practice as research, bearing in mind the limits and possibilities of an online environment.

There will be no charges for attendees or presenters.

Download and share our Call for Papers!

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Hillegonda Rietveld, Professor of Sonic Culture at London South Bank University, musician and electronic music specialist, co-editor of the special issue ‘Hear the Music, Play the Game’ of G/A/M/E: The Italian Journal of Game Studies.

Markus Zierhofer, composer of The Wagadu Chronicles and founder of AudioCreatures.

Organized by: Melanie Fritsch, Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers and Mark Sweeney

Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture

Deadline: January 31, 2021

“Playfulness” is a bona fide example of a travelling concept (Bal 2002), with a complex conceptual history that ranges from anthropology and psychology (e.g., Lieberman 1977; Sutton-Smith 1997) via literary theory (e.g., Stewart 1979; Hutchinson 1983) to the interdisciplinary field of game studies (e.g., Ensslin 2014; Sicart 2014). While there are thus evidently many different ways to approach the question what it means for humans or other animals to think, perceive, and/or behave “playfully,” even a brief look at our current media culture—with its increasing erosion of the border between work and play, its subversion of the notion of distinct media and established genre conventions, as well as its promises of new forms of creative and political participation— clearly demonstrates that this question is indeed still worth asking.

For the forthcoming 2021 issue of Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture (https://www.eludamos.org), we thus invite proposals for articles exploring aspects of playfulness across media. Possible topics would include:

• Theories and case studies of playfulness from game studies and beyond
• Playful aesthetics across media forms (games, comics, films, etc.)
• Playfulness as a mode of production across the creative industries
• Playfulness as a mode of reception in participatory culture/fan cultures
• Playfulness in “serious” contexts (gamification, protests, etc.)

Please send an abstract of 300–500 words and 100-word biobibliographical note to the guest editor Jan-Noël Thon at jan.n.thon@ntnu.no by 31 January 2021. Selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full article of 5,000–6,000 words by 30 April 2021. All submitted articles will be subject to peer review.

Works Cited

Bal, Mieke. 2002. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Ensslin, Astrid. 2014. Literary Gaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hutchinson, Peter. 1983. Games Authors Play. London: Methuen.

Lieberman, J. Nina. 1977. Playfulness: Its Relationship to Imagination and Creativity. New York: Academic Press.

Sicart, Miguel. 2014. Play Matters. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Stewart, Susan. 1979. Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sutton-Smith, Brian. 1997. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

KU Leuven

(ref. ZAP-2020-182)

The fulltime professor position (open-rank) will be held within the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, a research unit within the Department of Communication Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven (Belgium). KU Leuven represents a leading academic institution in Europe that is currently by far the largest university in Belgium in terms of research funding and expenditure. The university’s mission is to provide excellence in academic education and research and to offer a distinguished service to society. Owing to KU Leuven’s cutting-edge research, KU Leuven is a charter member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and is consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in Europe.

Within KU Leuven, the Leuven School of Mass Communication Research (SMCR) represents a pioneering institution for media effects research. SMCR strives to contribute to the most advanced methodological techniques and theoretical insights in communication studies, cognitive and social psychology, sociology, and public health. The research focus lies on the use of information- and entertainment media (including social media, ICT, television, games, mobile devices), and on how these uses may harm or enhance various components of individuals’ wellbeing. We have a strong expertise in explaining the processes through which various forms of media use affect physical, psychological and social wellbeing in the long run, and the conditions under which these processes occur. Therefore, a series of advanced methods are applied, including longitudinal survey studies, daily diary studies and content analysis. Issues studied in recent years include alcohol and drug use, sexuality and sexism, aggression, risk taking, depression, self-harm, (positive) body image, sleep, mental wellbeing, health information seeking, self-esteem, parental mediation, and nutrition.

The School adheres to the highest academic standards and strives towards publishing its research in top academic journals (e.g., Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, New Media & Society). For this research, prestigious grants from multiple funding agencies are attributed yearly and SMCR’s excellent research has been awarded on a yearly basis by different international and interdisciplinary organizations. SMCR staff is involved in various national and international multidisciplinary research projects, primarily of fundamental nature but also with societal relevance

Website unit

Duties

• Research

You will be expected to develop a research program, aim at excellent scientific output of international level, and support and promote national and international research collaborations in the broad field of health communication and in the context of the School for Mass Communication Research. Your research focuses on the development of innovative theory and advanced research techniques in this field. You have a strong background in predominantly quantitative research methods and have demonstrated research excellence in various ways (e.g., top ranked ISI publications, awards, societal impact etc.).

With this vacancy we aim to further strengthen and expand the research at SMCR. We are looking for a candidate with a strong experience in research in communication and the advancement of health and wellbeing in society. Specifically, your research may encompass one of the following subdomains of health communication: (1) effects of media use on various health (e.g., addiction, suicide,…) or societal issues (e.g., hate speech, sustainability,…), and ways of responding to these effects with communication and intervention, (2) the development and testing of mediated promotion and intervention campaigns aiming to advance public health or societal wellbeing, (3) health information seeking and effects (e.g., resistance to health information, public service announcements,…), and/or (4) technological perspectives on health communication (e.g., effects of VR on health outcomes, potential of mHealth in health promotion, artificial intelligence,…).

Your research may focus on the (strategic) uses or effects of different types of media including but not limited to, social media, entertainment media, television, news media, apps, video games, blogs, websites, serious games, virtual reality etc.

In close collaboration with SMCR staff, you contribute to the existing lines of research and set up your own program through the acquisition of research funding.

• Education

The Department of Communication Science, consisting of two research groups SMCR and IMS, organizes the Bachelor and Master of Communication Science, the (English) Master in Digital Media and Society, and is involved in the Master’s program of Business Communication and Journalism. Your teaching will contain several courses at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level and will include theoretical and methodological courses on communication science in general and health communication in particular. You have experience in lecturing large groups and you have a broad employability due to in-depth and detailed knowledge about the social sciences, media sociology and media psychology. You supervise students working on their masterthesis and PhD students.

Your teaching is expected to meet the KU Leuven standards regarding academic program level and orientation and to be in keeping with the educational vision of KU Leuven. Commitment to the quality of education as a whole is naturally understood.

• Service

You provide scientific, social and internal services. This is reflected, among other things, in a constructive contribution to education and research, as part of a team's collective projects (e.g. through participation in meetings, teacher days, information sessions, recruitment activities, exchange programs).

Profile

Applicants hold a Ph.D. degree in communication sciences, social sciences, psychology, public health or an equivalent diploma. We seek a scholar with a broad theoretical- and interdisciplinary interest and a strong background in quantitative research methods, whose research relates to and complements the current research lines at SMCR with a strong health communication profile. The successful candidate has an excellent research record as evidenced by more than one dimension, e.g., the quality of his/her PhD research, high-level publications in the important journals of our field (i.e., ICA journals) and related fields, research impact (e.g., citations) and acquired research funding. We value professional behavior and collegiality, and will encourage the candidate to collaborate with SMCR researchers as well as with interdisciplinary research groups and centers within KU Leuven. The candidate has a large international network and is eager to further develop this within the context of SMCR.

Applicants have demonstrated excellent teaching skills which preferably include experience in teaching large groups of students.

The official administrative language used at KU Leuven is Dutch. If you do not speak Dutch (or do not speak it well) at the start of employment, KU Leuven will provide language training to enable you to take part in administrative meetings. A thorough knowledge of English is required.

Offer

We offer a full-time employment in an intellectually challenging and international environment. You will work in Leuven, a historic and lively city located in the heart of Belgium, within 20 minutes from Brussels, and less than two hours from Paris, London and Amsterdam. Depending on your experience and qualification, the position will be filled at one of the levels of the Senior Academic Staff (Tenure Track Professor, Associate Professor, Full Professor). Junior researchers are appointed as assistant professor on the tenure track for a period of five years; after this period and a positive evaluation, they are permanently appointed (or tenured) as an associate professor. The anticipated starting date for this position is September 1, 2021.

To facilitate scientific onboarding and accelerate research in the first phase a starting grant of 100.000 euro is offered to new professors without substantial other funding (e.g., ERC).

KU Leuven welcomes international scholars and their family and provides practical support with regard to immigration and administration, housing, childcare, learning Dutch, partner career coaching,…

Interested?

For more information please contact Prof. dr. Kathleen Beullens, tel.: +32 16 32 32 19, mail: kathleen.beullens@kuleuven.be or Prof. dr. Stef Aupers, tel.: +32 16 37 23 07, mail: stef.aupers@kuleuven.be or dean prof. dr. Steven Eggermont, tel: +32 32 32 38, mail: steven.eggermont@kuleuven.be. For problems with online applying, please contact solliciteren@kuleuven.be.

You can apply for this job no later than February 22, 2021 via the online application tool

KU Leuven seeks to foster an environment where all talents can flourish, regardless of gender, age, cultural background, nationality or impairments. If you have any questions relating to accessibility or support, please contact us at diversiteit.HR@kuleuven.be.

Comunicação e Sociedade - Vol. 40 

Deadline: January 29, 2021

Editors: Felisbela Lopes (CECS, University of Minho, Portugal), Rita Araújo (CECS, University of Minho, Portugal) and Peter Schulz (University of Lugano, Switerzland)

Health communication is an interdisciplinary scientific area that gathers Communication Sciences and Health Sciences, namely Medicine both also Public Health, Nursing, and Psychology (Zoller & Kline, 2008). Even though there are several definitions of Health Communication, behavior change is often pointed out as one of its main goals. Indeed, Health Communication aims at involving, capacity-building, and influencing individuals and communities (Schiavo, 2014).

According to the World Health Organization (1998), Health Journalism is an area within Health Communication, such as interpersonal communication, media advocacy or organizational communication. But it is also a Journalism specialization. In fact, although one can understand Health Journalism as a small part of journalism, it has its specificities, just as economic, political or sports journalism. Hallin and Briggs (2014) argue that medical and health journalism is, to a certain extent, different than other kinds of journalism, since health journalists often reveal more didactic and instrumental conceptions of their role. This “hybrid” character of health journalism is one of the characteristics that makes this an interesting object of study for journalism studies (Hallin & Briggs, 2014).

In the past few decades, the emergency of infectious diseases and the increase of chronic diseases reinforced the role of health journalism, since the media have a central social role in portraying these stories. Recent global outbreaks, such as Influenza A (2009) or Ebola (2014), and the Covid-19 pandemic we are experiencing right now, demonstrate the need to invest in Health Journalism and Health Communication. These can be essential tools in fighting pandemics, contributing to informed and health-capacitated audiences and influencing both individual and collective behaviors. Indeed, Health Journalism and Health Communication may have a significant impact in lay people, especially within a public health crisis setting, contributing to health promotion and disease prevention.

This volume of Comunicação e Sociedade focuses on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and aims at gathering researchers from different geographies in thinking about Health Journalism and Health Communication within a global health crisis. Nowadays, the diversity of media platforms, the change in habits of media consumption, or the increase of fake news and disinformation bring renewed challenges to the fields of Health Journalism and Health Communication. Therefore, it is important to understand what is being done, both nationally and internationally, to deal with these challenges and to reinforce the role of journalism and communication applied to health.

Paper proposals should focus one of more of the following topics:

• Health Communication and the Covid-19 pandemic;
• Health Journalism and the Covid-19 pandemic;
• Relationships between media and news sources within a pandemic;
• What impact does confinement have on journalism?
• Covid-19 and disinformation/fake news;
• The importance of health literacy within public health;
• The role of Health Journalism and Health Communication in behavior change.

KEY DATES

• Deadline for submission: January 29th 2021
• Notification of acceptance: april 30th 2021
• Deadline for complete and translated article: june 30th 2021
• Publication: December 2021

LANGUAGE

Articles can be submitted in English or Portuguese. After the peer review process, the authors of the selected articles should ensure translation of the respective article, and the editors shall have the final decision on publication of the article.

EDITION AND SUBMISSION

Comunicação e Sociedade is a peer-reviewed journal that uses a double blind peer review process. After submission, each paper will be distributed to two reviewers, previously invited to evaluate it, in terms of its academic quality, originality and relevance to the objectives and scope of the theme chosen for the journal’s current issue.

Originals must be submitted via the journal’s website. If you are accessing Comunicação e Sociedade for the first time, you must register in order to submit your article (indications to register here).

The guidelines for authors can be consulted here.

For further information, please contact: comunicacaoesociedade@ics.uminho.pt

Leeds Beckett University, UK

Leeds Business School (Leeds Beckett University, UK) is hiring 4 fully-funded PhD students starting from February 2021. The positions are based in the Sustainable Business Research Institute and prospective candidates are invited to apply for a PhD in one of the four streams

• Growth, Responsibility and Productivity
• Responsible engagement - the role of communication in society
• Capacity building in SMEs: the role and influence of women as leaders
• Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Resilience

More details on the post are available at the link below:

https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/the-graduate-school/research-degrees-at-leeds-beckett/studentships/leeds-business-school/#3.-Capacity-building-in-SMEs:-the-role-and-influence-of-women-as-leaders

The South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership

Traces of Empire in the Built Environment: Exploring the Collective Memory of Colonialism through the Photographic Collections of the Historic England Archive’ aims to use historic photographs to tease out the multiple ways in which the English built environment has been formed and reformed through its links to empire. This will include an examination of a wide range of areas, including the construction of monuments and statuary, the creation of buildings and spaces, and the work of the tens of thousands of people who travelled from the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia and found work as architects and builders in England’s cities. The photography collections of the Historic England Archive provide a unique and currently underexplored resource for exploring these themes. The Archive’s collection of 9 million images is one of the largest photography collections in the country, and provides a crucial window into the shaping of the built environment.

The studentships is funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council, supported by the South West & Wales Doctoral Partnership and co-supervised by the universities of Cardiff and Bristol.

Further details about the studentship can be found here: https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/CDA-1-Photographic-Traces.Further-Details.pdf

Details of the application process are provided here: https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/prospective-students/apply/collaborative-doctoral-award-projects-2021/

The deadline for applications is Monday 25th January 2021.

April 21-23, 2021

Online conference

Deadline: January 31 (panels)/ February 15 (abstracts)

http://connectingeuropeproject.eu/home/conference/?fbclid=IwAR0eLZ819IJN7VSqtc1iAl8smdYlfL_cGjEqXpXo5iJ3tjayxnN1Utis9yY

Migrant belonging through digital connectivity refers to a way of being in the world that cuts across national borders, shaping new forms of diasporic affiliations and transnational intimacy. This happens in ways that are different from the ways enabled by the communication technologies of the past. Scholarly attention has intensified around the question of how various new technical affordances of platforms and apps are shaping the transnationally connected, and locally situated, social worlds in which migrants live their everyday lives.

This international conference focuses on the connection between the media and migration from different disciplinary vantage points. Connecting with friends, peers and family, sharing memories and personally identifying information, navigating spaces and reshaping the local and the global in the process is but one side of the coin of migrant-related technology use: this Janus-faced development also subjects individuals as well as groups to increased datafied migration management, algorithmic control and biometric classification as well as forms of transnational authoritarianism and networked repression.

This conference pays particular attention to the everyday use of digital media for the support of transnational lives, emotional bonds and cosmopolitan affiliations, focusing also on the role digital media play in shaping local/urban and national diasporic formations. This is because it becomes increasingly important to give everyday digital media usage a central role in investigations of transnational belonging, digital intimacy, diasporic community (re)production, migrant subject formation, long-distance political participation, urban social integration and local/national self-organization.

Therefore we need to examine individual and collective user practices within the wider historical and cultural contexts of media studies, cultural studies and postcolonial cultural studies scholarship, attuned to issues of politics and power, identity, geographies and the everyday. This also creates new challenges for cross-disciplinary dialogues that require an integration of ethnography with digital methods and critical data studies in order to look at the formation of identity and experience, representation, community building, and creating spaces of belongingness.

Contributions are welcome from any field of study that engages with questions about how technology and social media usages mediate contemporary migration experiences, not only within media and communication studies, or digital and internet studies but also in neighbouring disciplines such as anthropology, postcolonial studies, gender studies, race studies, psychology, law, visual studies, conflict studies, criminology, sociology, critical theory, political theory and international relations.

Contributions that explore non-media-centric entry points by focusing on users’ digital practices and foregrounding ethnographic exploration as a uniting framework are especially welcome.

The conference is part of the ERC project CONNECTINGEUROPE, Digital Crossings in Europe: Gender, Diaspora and Belonging.

The conference is organized in collaboration with the DMM section (Diaspora, Migration and the Media) of ECREA (European Communication Research and Education).

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Affective digital practices and the politics of emotion
• Digital diaspora
• Cosmopolitanism
• Cities and urban belonging
• Translocality and transnationalism
• Co-presence and togetherness
• Cultural capital
• Migrant visualization
• Appification of migration
• Platformization of migrant lives
• Gender and critical race
• The migration industry of connectivity
• Digital ethnography
• Transnational authoritarianism
• Networked conflicts
• Datafication and surveillance

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Submissions for panels should be submitted via e-mail to migrantbelongings@uu.nl by 31 January 2021.

Submission for panels should include a chairperson, a rationale for the panel (250 words), and the names of three speakers including their abstract (250 words) and biographical note (150 words).

Abstracts should be submitted electronically, using the online submission system by 15 February 2021.

Submissions for papers should include an abstract (max 300 words) and short biographical note (150 words) about the author including her/his current position and interest in the field of digital media and migration.

For further questions please mail: migrantbelongings@uu.nl.

The PDF of this call for papers is available here.

Palgrave Macmillan

Tuesday 15 December 2020, 17:00-18:30

Location: Online (Microsoft Teams)

Book your ticket here https://www.arts.ac.uk/whats-on/book-launch-mediating-the-refugee-crisis-sara-marino

Since 2015, media have interrogated the unfolding of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe in different and often controversial ways, either from the point of view of migration management and control, or from a more humanitarian and compassionate angle.

In her book, Sara Marino offers a more comprehensive analysis of migration governance in Europe through the lens of technological mediation and asks in what ways communication technologies have contributed to the strengthening of Fortress Europe, while providing opportunities for resistance among migrants, activists, and solidarity groups.

The author will discuss the key themes and questions emerging in her research with Professor Myria Georgiou (London School of Economics and Political Science), Dr Amanda Paz Alencar (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Dr Koen Leurs (Utrecht University).

Moderator: Dr Rebecca Bramall, Reader in Cultural Politics, School of Media, London College of Communication

Simón Peña-Fernández, Koldobika Meso-Ayerdi, & Ainara Larrondo-Ureta (Editors)

A media system based on a small number of sources, extremely hierarchical and mainly targeting a passive mass audience, has evolved towards a context where the number of media has exponentially multiplied, audiences are highly fragmented and increasingly active, with almost endless options for news consumption. This new scenario is described as a hybrid media system, where old and new media co-exist.

The first great transformation in the hybrid media system has been the confluence of a great number of actors able to generate information. The second great transformation in the hybrid media system is the empowerment of audiences. Citizens are now ready and able to generate content on an unpreceded scale, especially via social networks.

Nevertheless, the research carried out so far shows that the number of citizens who produce news or contents related to public affairs is reduced. Audiences continue to grant journalists and media the role of primary gatekeepers on the news agenda. However, they also demand to be involved and interact with the content produced by the media and journalists. The spaces for user participation created by online media and social networking platforms constitute public spaces in which citizens can share information, express their opinions and react to the opinions of others.

In a hybrid media system scenario, audiences have become active, and their voice is now more powerful. This book tries to analyze this phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

https://www.mheducation.es/active-audiences-pod-9788448620035-spain#tab-label-product-description-title

StoryFutures Academy

After the success of the work of the first cohort of 7 university projects across the UK, StoryFutures Academy's Train the Trainer initiative is announcing a second call.

StoryFutures Academy is looking to fund interdisciplinary projects (from STEM to STEAM) that address immersive storytelling challenges and explore established or emergent storytelling forms e.g. point of view, editing, spatial sound and attention, haptic engagements etc. in the content of immersive production. The funding available is up to a maximum of £17,000.

Grant awards to successful projects are subject to the acceptance of the contractual terms and conditions of the Train the Trainer scheme, outlined by StoryFutures Academy.

Please see here for the eligibility criteria and application form.

Please be mindful that the application key dates are:

Call Closes – midnight Thursday, 17th December 2020

Winners announced – Monday 18th January 2021

Launch event – Train the Trainer Cohort 1 Showcase and Cohort 2 launch, 29 January 2021

Workshop 1 for cohort (and mentors) – 25th and 26th February 2021

Workshop 2 for cohort (and mentors) – 22nd and 23rd April 2021

Bi-monthly mentor meetings – February – July 2021

Workshop 3 for cohort (and mentors), Framing the Learning – 4th June 2021

Delivery of all project outputs – July 16th 2021

Final Showcase – July 30th 2021 (tbc)