ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

November 6-7, 2020

Rhode Island, Rhode Island (USA)

Deadline: September 7, 2020

While we are in the midst of the global health pandemic, with the consequent economic crisis and increased calls for social justice, the Northeast Media Literacy Conference would like to invite the media education community to submit academic presentations on the effect of the pandemic on best practices as well as the impact of the physical isolation and remote engagement on the future of media education.

We define media education as including any learning process (formal/informal/connected learning/third space) that involves either analyzing media or/and producing media. In contrast to educational technology, online or blended learning, we look for proposals highlighting the process of media practice to enhance learners’ abilities to access information and tools; analyze media representation, revealing the power dynamics behind systems, structures and concepts; create meaningful media messages; reflect on media use; be socially responsible and advance society toward the common good.

We welcome proposals, using qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and critical cultural approaches, from multidisciplinary educators around the world who have experience in teaching media education during this pandemic. Following a peer reviewed process, the accepted proposals will be scheduled to engage in a real time video conference presentation as an intercultural dialogue. The dialogue would be the basis of a larger discussion at the conference regarding the future of media education as a result of the pandemic. Presenters will be encouraged to submit full papers as chapter proposals (4,000-6,000 words including references using APA style) of an upcoming edited book. All submissions must be original work and have not been previously published. (Note: acceptance to the conference does not guarantee acceptance as a chapter for the edited book).

To submit a proposal, please complete this proposal by September 7. Notifications will be sent by October 1. If you have any questions or would like to brainstorm an idea, feel free to reach out to the associate editors:

Usha Raman, University of Hyderabad, India usharaman@uohyd.ac.in

Igor Kanižaj, University of Zagreb, Croatia ikanizaj@fpzg.hr

Grace Choi, Columbia College Chicago, U.S.A. grchoi@colum.edu

For more information: http://www.northeastmedialit.com/

Frontiers in Communication

Deadline: October 10, 2020

https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/15553/evidence-based-science-communication-in-the-covid-19-era

For science communication to be effective and inclusive, we need to understand and apply what works and why. Decades of social and behavioural science research provides us with a breadth of relevant evidence, alongside decades of lessons learned from experimenting with certain approaches in practice.

The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 was a drastic reminder about the importance of science communication. Policy-makers and researchers, communication practitioners and affected citizens have seen that measures to contain the spread of the virus will only be socially accepted if the communication between such stakeholders is effective. Weighing economic interests against public health concerns, and safety issues against data privacy concerns, has required regulatory trade-offs under conditions that have been described as ‘post normal science’. That is, the situation has called for urgent decisions with values in dispute while the stakes are high and facts uncertain.

These reflections are deeply embedded in the bigger picture of discussing the overall goals and taken-for-granted practices of science communication. In particular, the pandemic has provided a stark reminder of how important it is for science communication to more effectively put public interests at the heart of how scientific knowledge is produced, shared, and applied.

Initiatives such as the "Science of Science Communication" (SOSC, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23674/communicating-science-effectively-a-research-agenda) and "Evidence-based Science Communication" (EBSC, https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00078) aim to combine professional experience from practice with the best available evidence from systematic social research, suggesting ways to address research/practice disconnects. Submissions will be expected to explicitly engage with specific aspects of the arguments/findings presented in SOSC and/or EBSC publications (with quotations/citations for particular aspects).

This Research Topic will address questions associated with the development and application of SOSC and EBSC in two consecutive Research Topics. This first Research Topic provides a space for theoretical, conceptual and methodological challenges and solutions to be discussed. A second Research Topic, coming soon, will gather together case studies and synthesis reviews of SOSC and EBSC in action. Contributions to the first series of articles (the ‘Debate’) are particularly welcome on the following topics:

• General conceptual aspects of effective knowledge exchange between research and practice
• How issues of social inclusion (broadly defined, including dimensions such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, social class and intersectionality) can be addressed more effectively with SOSC/EBSC
• How and why to effectively integrate theoretical or empirical evidence into practice
• How science communication research can effectively address evidence needs that are being encountered in practice, including reviews or commentaries highlighting research gaps from a communication practice point of view
• Ways of determining the practical relevance of different types of science communication evidence and advice, including the role of issues such as methodological rigor and generalizability
• Systemic barriers to SOSC/EBSC such as closed access publishing and institutional competition criteria for career promotion
• Models for co-creating evidence between science communication research and practice, such as funding schemes incentivising collaborative research
• How evidence can be used to determine and compare the effectiveness of different activities in practice
• How evidence can be used to reflect on, critically assess and compare established and potential communication goals
• Arguments for / against integration of SOSC/EBSC within research funding programs, especially including those primarily aimed at natural, physical, engineering or medical sciences
• Ways for research funding organisations to specify the communication goals for funded research projects and/or institutional funding, including monitoring of the compliance with these prescriptions
• Arguments for / against (and ways to implement) research-funding organisations to determine and/or specify the communication competency among applicants, for instance by means of accreditation / certification

• Reflection on a potential lack of methodological expertise in science communication to design robust social research, and the related implications
• Opportunities and challenges for teaching and training of science communication, including the role of social science methods in curricula and the nature and extent to which evidence comprises the content of science communication curricula (as compared to anecdotal advice).

The accepted abstracts will be shared among the authors of the special issue to encourage cross-references and collaboration.

Learning from best practice: Contributions from science communication practitioners are particularly encouraged. We would highlight the submission option of 'Perspective' articles, which can be short (e.g. 500-700 words) and do not require academic citations.

Submission Deadlines:

Abstracts until 10 October 2020;

invited manuscripts until 22 February 2021

Stuart N. Brotman

The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded the online world of work at home to record levels. Our most personal and confidential data is being collected from multiple digital devices and stored, disseminated, and sold to governments and commercial organizations, often without our knowledge, consent, or control. We are all now in privacy’s perfect storm, which includes recent efforts by the European Union and in the United States to set new legal boundaries. Stuart N. Brotman offers a thoughtful guide to achieving better digital privacy protection in these turbulent times.

His book, Privacy’s Perfect Storm: Digital Policy for Post-Pandemic Times, is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939282489.

October 16-17, 2020

Ghent, Belgium

Deadline: August 15, 2020

UPDATE: Our conference is going ahead, online. We will continue to adapt to the changing world. Based on abstract submissions Screening Censorship Conference will continue to adjust to circumstances, and implement best practices of virtual attendance to ensure the safety and comfort of delegates, presenters and attendees. The new deadline for abstracts is August 15, 2020. For more information, please contact (daniel.biltereyst@ugent.be ) and/or Ernest Mathijs (ernest.mathijs@ubc.ca).

Throughout the history of film and cinema, censorship has existed everywhere–in all kinds of shapes, colors, and dimensions. The act of restricting the free production, circulation, screening and consumption of movies was never unique to authoritarian regimes. Age restrictions, film cuttings, bans, industry discouragements, and other types of censorial interventions also occurred in countries where media freedom and the freedom of speech were and are highly regarded principles.

Censorship has had far-reaching implications on filmmakers, distributors, exhibitors, and audiences across generations, and across genres. Hard, strict institutional censorship often came alongside implied or ‘suggested’ forms of soft censorship, including, importantly, the self-censorship or audiences disciplined into particular viewership positions.

Today, soft and hard censorship co-exist in even more fluid forms. The acts of banning, regulating, trimming, and tailoring films for ‘harmless’ consumption, by bureaucracies, pressure groups and activists, are frequently embedded within wider debates about media use. But film nonetheless remains a ‘banner issue’, a point of reference for what constitutes screen censorship.

Keynote participations will be a combination of live, virtual and recorded addresses.

Academic keynote speakers:

• Professor Richard Maltby (Flinders University, Australia)
• Professor Linda Williams (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

Professional keynote speakers:

• Manuel Mozos (filmmaker, Portugal)
• Rachel Talalay (film director/producer, US/Canada)

From the long tradition of investigating film censorship onwards, this conference aims at reflecting upon recent changes in policies, strategies and practices of film censorship, both in the past and in today’s media landscape. Amongst the many questions, this conference asks:

• What are film history’s lessons from censorship?
• What are the contours of censorship today?
• Is censorship still a useful concept? How has it changed?
• How do new or renewed sensitivities influence censorship today, in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, ageism, ableism? 
• How do censorships compare, across time, space, genre, and technologies?
• What is the role of social media in debates about censorship? How do we define film censorship in times of massive content moderation on social media platforms?
• How does film censorship work on different screens: in the theatre, on television, on in-flight, mobile, across multitudes of digital screens?
• What are the ‘aesthetics’ of censorship today and what is the function of pastiche, subversion, ‘just joking’, and other kinds of boundary-challenging work?
• What do recent controversies and provocations reveal about the evolution of censorship?
• What is the relationship between incidents and interventions in production culture, artistic integrity, and censorship?
• What is censorship’s relationship with ‘hardcore’ and explicit material, past and now? If censorship is not always a simple matter of repression from above, but of conflicting discursive constructions arising from below, how do we account for the history of the emergence of hard-core pornography beyond thinking of it as the liberalization of censorship?

Screening Censorship also invites reflections on the changing research environment:

• What are the tools for studying censorship today?
• How have digital technologies affected the study of censorship?
• What is the influence of new film and cinema historiography in exploring practices of distributing, screening, consuming and audience’s experiences of film and screen censorship?

Screening Censorship aims to showcase academic and industry voices on the issue of the shifting practices of censoring films on the different screens. The four keynote addresses confirmed for the symposium reflect that goal. The conference//is organized in tandem with the 47th International Film Fest Ghent (FIAPF accredited, Variety’s top-50 must-attend), and aims to examine how film and cinema censorship, as a concept and as a practice (ad hoc and post hoc), functions 20 years into the 21st Century.

Screening Censorship welcomes contributions for 20-minute presentations from scholars, artists and practitioners whose work pertains to topics and themes of film and screen censorship. We are seeking abstracts for individual papers and panels of three or four contributors on topics including, but not limited to:

• Theories, concepts, and discourses on film censorship, control, discipline, silencing, content moderation
• New film censorship policies, strategies, tactics, practices
• The aesthetics of film censorship, subversion, pastiche
• Activism and resistance
• Film censorship, audiences and reception
• Institutions and power
• Comparison, entangled history, histoire croisée
• Film censorship and the museum: archives, heritage, platforms
• Artistic integrity, interventions, re-use
• Film censorship cases, controversies, panics
• Digital tools and new methods for doing film censorship research today

Please send *abstracts of 300 words and a 100-word biography  to Daniel Biltereyst (daniel.biltereyst@ugent.be ) and Ernest Mathijs (ernest.mathijs@ubc.ca) by August 15th, 2020, and address any queries to the same addresses. Abstracts should be submitted following this order: (a) author(s); (b) affiliation; (c) email address; (d) title of abstract; (e) body of abstract; (f) bibliography. E-mails should carry the subject line: /Screening Censorship/ Abstract Submission.

Conference sponsored by Digital Cinema Studies (DICIS, FWO Flanders) in collaboration with The Centre for Cinema and Media Studies (UBC). Conference website: www.censorship-symposium.org

Deadline: September 30, 2020

Call for Chapter

A new edited collection on true crime in 21st century American visual and audio media invites proposals for chapters.

This new book seeks to present original scholarship on the structure, themes and consumption of true crime in today’s visual/audio media landscape.

From sober documentary film through ‘binge-worthy’ streaming of podcasts and television series, true crime appears in a wide variety of styles and attracts an equally varied array of responses. This book hopes to reflect as many approaches as possible.

While the central focus will be on American films and series of the21st century, the collection would also benefit from discussions on the global reach and/or influences of such media, so proposals on such topics are welcomed.

The following list is a guide to the variety of true crime content the book will consider:

• Legal Procedures (including police procedural, courtroom practices, appeals, probation services)
• Injustice Narratives (including false confessions, wrongful imprisonment as well as general criticisms of the American justice system)
• Organized Crime (history of the mafia, political corruption, gangster celebrities)
• Interviews with Convicts (including high profile cases, serial killers)
• Victims (including support and reconciliation programs)
• Unsolved crime (including missing persons, ongoing investigations)
• Crimes made sensational (including property violations, neighbor disputes, traffic stops)

A list of possible approaches: 

• Documentary styles and aesthetics (including re-enactment, docudrama)
• Character creation and/or sensationalist narrative practices including: the presentation of law enforcement, prosecutors, defense teams and/or the legal system in general the presentation of crime victims and their families the presentations of race, gender and sexualities
• The social purpose of true crime documentaries
• Transmedial and /or transglobal responses to American true crime narratives
• Production practices and ethics
• Finance, marketing and/or distribution practices and experiences

Routledge has expressed interest in the project (Approx. 12 chapters of 6-8,000 words each).

Please send a 300-400 word abstract of your proposed chapter and a 100-word author bio statement to George S. Larke-Walsh at george.larke-walsh@unt.edu by September 30th 2020.

Tampere University

Tampere University and Tampere University of Applied Sciences create a unique environment for multidisciplinary, inspirational and high-impact research and education. Our universities community has its competitive edges in technology, health and society. www.tuni.fi/en

The Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (CoE GameCult) is a leading centre in the study of games, play and game cultures (see: https://coe-gamecult.org). As a joint initiative of Tampere University, University of Turku and University of Jyväskylä, it brings together over 40 researchers from the humanities, social sciences and technical sciences, who are jointly engaged in the inquiry of game cultures. Bringing together leading game research teams, the CoE GameCult aims to integrate the multidisciplinary research carried out in game culture studies, and to develop original theoretical and empirical approaches that are crucial for understanding, anticipating and influencing the direction and impact games have on contemporary and future developments in culture and society

Based on a long research history and successful collaboration of the three universities, the CoE GameCult has started its operation in January 2018, in the Academy of Finland’s Centres of Excellence program, and (subject to a successful mid-term evaluation) will continue up to the end of eight-year period, the end of year 2025.

In the CoE GameCult, the interconnected dimensions of game cultures are addressed through four integrated themes that organise the research work carried out in the CoE: Theme 1: Meaning and Form of Games (coord. University of Jyväskylä, prof. Raine Koskimaa), Theme 2: Creation and Production of Games (coord. Tampere University, assoc. prof. Olli Sotamaa), Theme 3: Players and Player Communities (coord. Tampere University, prof. Frans Mäyrä), Theme 4: Societal Framing of Games (coord. University of Turku, prof. Jaakko Suominen).

In this fall 2020 a call for 2-4 Postdoctoral Research Fellow or University Researcher (senior researcher) positions are available in the Tampere University Game Research Lab team, in the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences. The new researcher positions advertised in this call are particularly related to the Tampere University-led research themes 2 and 3.

Job descriptions

The researchers hired into the Centre of Excellence will be capable of independently pursuing high quality research in their area of specialization, and of multidisciplinary collaborative work with other CoE researchers and other research partners. Filling of both postdoctoral or senior researcher positions will be based on consideration of the overall skills profiles of CoE research teams, and the number and length of researcher service contracts will be subject for negotiation.

The successful applicants will have both strong research profiles in games, player or game culture studies, well formulated individual research agendas, as well as evidence of capabilities for interdisciplinary collaboration and teamwork.

The more specific skill profiles that CoE is particularly looking for are experts in:

• various game cultural forms
• game production studies
• critical game design research
• new forms of work, focusing on the changing relations between play and work
• gaming communities and various player subcultures and diverse player groups
• player experiences, player motivations and social play, or play in society
• games as sites of identity politics and resistance

Particular emphasis will be put on multidisciplinary skill profiles, and for candidates who show evidence or promise for bridge building between two or more, currently disconnected research fields related to games, play, game players, design and development of games and research of those societal and cultural contexts.

Applicants are asked to specify in their application, which one, or which ones, of the above skill profiles they most closely identify with.

Requirements

The postdoctoral position is intended for recently graduated researchers, so that they may gain further experience and advance their careers. The senior researcher position is intended for more experienced, early to mid-career researchers. A successful candidate should have evidence of original research related to games, play and/or game cultures in society more generally, and a PhD degree in game studies, humanities, social sciences, design studies, or other games-related subject area. We expect a competence to pursue independent scientific work and adequate teaching skills. You should be fluent in spoken and written English. We appreciate experience of studying and working abroad and contacts to international research community.

We are looking for versatile and independent researchers with a solid background in games and play related research, and the ability to supervise MA and PhD students would be considered an advantage. The position will involve some teaching duties.

We offer

The positions will be filled for fixed-term periods, ranging 1-4 years. The planned starting date is January 4, 2021 or earlier, as mutually agreed. A trial period of six (6) months applies to all our new employees.

The salary will be based on both the job requirement and the employee's personal performance in accordance with the Finnish University Salary System. In this system, the position of a Postdoctoral Research Fellow is placed on the job demand levels 5-6, and the University Researcher (senior researcher) on levels 5-7 (teaching and research staff category). A typical starting salary of Postdoctoral Research Fellow is around €3500 and €4500, and the salary of a University Researcher will typically range between €4000 and €5000 a month.

We offer a wide range of staff benefits, such as occupational health care, flexible working hours, excellent sports facilities on campus and several restaurants and cafés on campus with staff discounts. Please read more about working at Tampere University. For more information on Finland and Tampere, please check these sites, for example: Tampere University, InfoFinland and This is Finland.

Study of games is recognized as a leading-edge research area of Tampere University. We offer a world-class research environment in internationally recognized research groups. We have strong collaborative networks and offer great opportunities for researchers to develop their careers in an international setting.

How to apply

Please submit your application through our online recruitment system. The closing date for applications is 13 September 2020 (at 23.59 EEST / 20.59 UTC). Please write your application and all accompanying documents in English and attach them in PDF format.

Applications should include the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae according to TENK guidelines (DOCX)
• List of publications according to Academy of Finland guidelines
• Motivation letter (max 2 pages) in which you set out the reasons why you are applying for the post and why you are particularly suited to it
• A research plan (max 3 pages), outlining your proposed research within the CoE research themes
• The names, positions and contact details of two referees who can support your application

For more information, please contact:

Professor, CoE Director Frans Mäyrä, frans.mayra@tuni.fi (tel. +358 50 336 7650)

Associate Professor, CoE Team Leader Olli Sotamaa, olli.sotamaa@tuni.fi (tel. +358 50 420 1472)

Nordicom Review Special Issue (open access)

Deadline for abstract submissions: November 1, 2020

Note of acceptance: 20 December 2020

Deadline for full paper submissions: 1 May 2021

Special issue editors: Pernilla Severson (Linnaeus University), Sara Leckner (Malmö University), Carl-Gustav Lindén (University of Helsinki)

Media development as an academic field focuses on research questions spanning from technical, economic, and political issues to the social and the cultural spheres. Media development has implications for society in many ways. Since all media today are more or less digital, research has approached digital media by exploring “new” methods, like digital methods (Rogers, 2019) but also as action research methods (Deuze & Witschge, 2020; Wagemans & Witschge, 2019). Action research in, as well as for, media development is part of a transformation where media research is more and more considered to solve societal problems.

Often, action research is practiced in local settings, interacting with stakeholders within a shared place and space and who have a shared concern for issues related to this. Both the local and the digital seem to have stimulated the application and appropriation of more normative projects characterised by the methods and sometimes also ideological foundations that action research utilises. In this realm, several applied projects touch upon research and development and innovation projects, innovation themes in the creative industries, and social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

It seems as though local digital media projects – spanning from business models to technologies like artificial intelligence – aim to create and solve media organisations’ problems through collaboration between researchers, media organisations, and audiences. These kinds of projects exist on other levels too, for example in applied projects from the EU, Vinnova, and so forth.

Action research is an ideological approach as much as a set of methods (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003). It comes with a more or less interventionist and collaborative goal, like collaborative media (Löwgren & Reimer, 2013), participatory communication (Tufte, 2014), alternative journalism (Deuze & Witschge, 2020), and innovation and journalism (Wagemans & Witschge, 2019).

Participant-oriented action research strives for interaction and joint knowledge production where the decisive factor is that some form of social change occurs. The classical theoretical concepts worked with are those such as empowerment, participation, and the commons. At the same time, action research methods seem to be an important driver in the increasing pressure to demonstrate research impact, spurred by innovation and development using collaborative practices.

What do these intersections and boundaries of social change, innovation, and entrepreneurship mean for media scholars using action research in digital media research? And how can scholars meet and deal with the fact that action research is often criticised for the descriptive nature, lack of analysis, and low research contribution?

Hence, as with other methodological approaches, action research methods are developing. It is therefore important to discuss what such approaches mean and can be in relation to these contemporary media developments. The aim of this special issue is to invite a broad discussion of the boundaries of the field: the advantages and challenges with action research focusing on media development in the intersection of social change, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This special issue welcomes articles on all matters pertaining to developing what an action-research approach could and should mean for media development studies.

The purpose of this special issue of Nordicom Review is to define and understand action-oriented research practices in relation to media development, where media, communication, and journalism studies have discipline specificities and cultural contexts that beneficially will enhance understandings of action research. Nordic media development shows strong linkages to the welfare state and particular national culture values. In the commercial field, action research has been rebranded as design thinking and product development (Lundin & Norbäck, 2015). What does that mean in a context where action research is also mainly used as applied research, for improving media services and developing new forms of journalism through experiments and tests? Design thinking has become the main framework for developing commercial service, also in media and journalism. And how is the particular heritage of Scandinavian Participatory Design and participatory action research explored and utilised in relation to more studies now making use of action research, more or less with the ideological standpoint of empowering the weak and making social change?

Contributions to the special issue could address, but are not limited to, action research examples within media, communication, and journalism studies from various disciplines and cultural contexts, aiming to define and describe or critically discuss issues related to this.

Contributions can, for instance, focus on some of the following themes:

• Development of action research methods in digital media studies
• Collaborative development in media organisations
• New audience approaches and participatory business media models
• Inclusion and integration of less-resourced groups
• Contributions to action research theory and method building, for example, ethics.
• Critique of action research and participatory approaches in media, communication, and journalism studies.
• Innovation and entrepreneurship for local media
• Conceptual developments on action research for social change and social innovation.
• Action research as creating “real-life difference”, not always “creating solution”.

The selection of papers to be published will take place according to the following three-step procedure:

Step 1: Authors are requested to submit the title and abstract (600 words max. incl. references) of their papers along with five to six keywords and short bios (150 words max. for each author) to the special issue editors. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 November 2020, and the authors will be notified of the eventual acceptance by 20 December 2020 at the latest.

Step 2: If an abstract is accepted, the authors will be requested to submit full papers (7,000 words max. inclusive of any front or end matter) anonymised for double-blind review and formatted according to the Nordicom Review guidelines. The deadline for submission of full anonymised papers is 1 May 2021, after which a double-blind peer review will take place. Please note that an accepted abstract is not automatically an accepted article. The special issue editors reserve the right to reject articles that are not in line with Nordicom Review’s aims and scope, where the quality is insufficient, or the guidelines have not been followed.

Feedback from reviewers will be sent to authors by the end of July 2021 at the latest. The deadline for submission of revised manuscripts is September 2021. Planned publication is January 2022.

For questions as well as abstract submissions, please contact:

• Pernilla Severson, pernilla.severson@lnu.se(link sends e-mail)
• Sara Leckner, sara.leckner@mau.se(link sends e-mail)
• Carl-Gustav Lindén, carl-gustav.linden@helsinki.fi(link sends e-mail)

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

About Nordicom Review

Nordicom Review is published by Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg with support from the Nordic Council of Ministers. It adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy, is included in SCOPUS, and is published Open Access in association with Sciendo. Beginning with the 2020 volume, Nordicom Review is an online-only journal.

Aims and scope

Nordicom Review is an international peer-reviewed journal that provides a dedicated forum for articles contributing to a wider understanding of media, mediated communication and journalism in the Nordic region. This includes research on Nordic countries as well as research with relevance for the Nordic context.

Nordicom Review publishes original articles and book reviews on topics such as journalism, popular culture, media audiences, media history, political communication, public service media, media and information literacy, media education, and media production, structure, policy and economy.

The journal is interdisciplinary and publishes both empirical and theoretical articles. Nordicom Review welcomes contributions from a worldwide authorship.

Durham University - Department of Sociology and Social Care

Location: Durham

Salary: £33,797 to £40,322

Hours: Part Time

Contract Type: Fixed-Term/Contract

Placed On: 27th July 2020

Closes: 16th August 2020

Job Ref: 20000380

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Sociology with a particular emphasis on violence and abuse: in intimate relationships, in hate relationships, on campus, in communities. The postholder will provide dedicated assistance to Professor Catherine Donovan during her period of appointment as Head of Department. Professor Donovan is working on a range of projects with internal and external collaborators and the PDRA will provide support for these as required in line with the duties below.

The successful applicant will be expected to:

• Contribute to fostering a collegial and respectful working environment which is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect.
• Contribute to the planning and delivery of research projects.
• Conduct literature searches and write annotated bibliographies of the literature
• Actively and positively contribute to the Centres for Research into Violence and Abuse and Communities and Social Justice.
• Deal with problems that may affect the achievement of agreed goals and deadlines by discussing with Catherine Donovan and offering creative or innovative solutions.
• Write up results of research work.
• Prepare and deliver presentations on research activities, progress and outcomes to bodies supervising research in a clear and accurate manner.

Broader Responsibilities:

• Liaise with research colleagues/collaborators and make internal and external contacts to develop knowledge and understanding to form relationships for future research collaboration.
• To understand and convey specialist information which needs careful explanation through presentations, discussions and meetings which contribute to the production of research reports and publications.
• To conduct research projects under the direction of Catherine Donovan.
• To engage in wider citizenship to support the department and wider discipline.
• To work with the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder and other colleagues in the research group, as appropriate, to identify areas for research, develop new research methods and extend the research portfolio.
• To plan and manage own research activity, research resources in collaboration with others and contribute to the planning of research projects.
• To engage in continuing professional development by participation in the undergraduate or postgraduate teaching programmes or by membership of departmental committees, etc. and by attending relevant training and development courses.
• To deliver training in research techniques/approaches to peers, visitors and students as appropriate.

This post is fixed term for 2 years to provide support during Professor Donovan’s period of office as Head of Department. As such, the post-holder is employed to work on research which will be led by Professor Donovan. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in his/her own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the work, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.

Special issue of Loading

Deadline: August 14, 2020

The Kingdom Hearts franchise straddles worlds, falling between the realms of Disney and Square Enix, invoking myriad characters and franchises from both companies and finding fans not just in Japan and America, but all over the world. Despite the success of this franchise, which now extends to eight mainline instalments produced since 2002 (not to mention additional remasters and mobile game spin-offs) collectively selling 24 million units to date (Minotti, 2018), Kingdom Hearts has yet to be fully interrogated as a nexus point for game culture. As a remedy, this Special Issue of Loading seeks to investigate how Kingdom Hearts occupies a locus point between cultures, industries and fandoms. In Kingdom Hearts, we argue, games studies finds an exemplar of current debates and theories, including, but not limited to issues like: Ludo-adaptation and narratology (Punday, 2019), representation, identity and diversity (Chess, 2017; Kocurek, 2015; Malkowski and Russworm, 2017; Ruberg and Shaw, 2017) and participatory culture and fan taste cultures (Consalvo and Paul, 2019; Sharp and Thomas, 2019). In particular, we seek to find the moments of tension, synergy and unexpected synchrony enabled by the blending of Square Enix and Disney’s characters, worlds and business cultures. In doing so, we aim to interrogate the impact such transnational, transcultural and transindustrial co-productions can have on wider games culture

This Special Issue will build on an existing project about Kingdom Hearts, but we are looking to expand its remit, especially in the areas outlined below. If these, or any other topics interest you, please do get in touch with us:

• Transmedia storytelling
• Ludology within Kingdom Hearts
• Ancillary merchandising
• Adaptation of Disney characters in Kingdom Hearts
• Music and sound in Kingdom Hearts
• Kingdom Hearts in the history of the Japanese Role-playing Game
• How Kingdom Hearts relates to current key theoretical debates in Games Studies
• Issues of representation, particularly anthropomorphism, ethnicity and sexuality
• Fan creativity around Kingdom Hearts

If you would like to submit a proposal, please send a 300 word abstract by 14 August 2020, including full contact details, to the editors at: kingdomheartstransmediaproject@gmail.com

Works cited

Chess, S., 2017. Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Consalvo, M., Paul, C.A., 2019. Real Games: What’s Legitimate and What’s Not in Contemporary Videogames. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Kocurek, C.A., 2015. Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Malkowski, J., Russworm, T. (Eds.), 2017. Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Punday, D., 2019. Playing at Narratology: Digital Media as Narrative Theory. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus.

Ruberg, B., Shaw, A. (Eds.), 2017. Queer Game Studies. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Sharp, J., Thomas, D., 2019. Fun, taste, & games: an aesthetics of the idle, unproductive, and otherwise playful, Playful thinking. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Queensland University of Technology

The QUT Digital Media Research Centre is offering a three-year PhD scholarship associated with a major ARC Discovery research project on mis- and disinformation in social media. Working with DMRC research leaders Axel Bruns, Stephen Harrington, and Dan Angus, and collaborating with Scott Wright (Monash University, Melbourne), Jenny Stromer-Galley (Syracuse University, USA), and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (Cardiff University, UK), the PhD researcher will use qualitative and quantitative analytics methods to investigate the dissemination patterns and processes for mis- and disinformation.

Ideally, the PhD researcher should be equally familiar with qualitative, close reading as well as quantitative, computational research methods. They will draw on the state-of-the-art social media analytics approaches to examine the role of specific individual, institutional, and automated actors in promoting or preventing the distribution of suspected ‘fake news’ content across Australian social media networks. Building on this work, they will develop a number of the case studies of the trajectories of specific stories across the media ecosystem, drawing crucially on issue mapping methods to produce a forensic analysis of how particular stories are disseminated by a combination of fringe outlets, social media platforms and their users, and potentially also by mainstream media publications.

Interested candidates should first contact Prof. Axel Bruns (a.bruns@qut.edu.au). You will then be asked to complete the DMRC EOI form (https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/dmrc-eois-2020-annual-scholarship-round/), by 31 August. We will assess your eligibility for PhD study, and work with you to develop a formal PhD application to QUT's scholarship applications system, by 30 October. The PhD itself will commence in early 2021. International applicants are welcome.

The DMRC is a global leader in digital humanities and social science research with a focus on communication, media, and the law. It is one of Australia’s top organisations for media and communication research, areas in which QUT has achieved the highest possible rankings in ERA, the national research quality assessment exercise. Our research programs investigate the digital transformation of media industries, the challenges of digital inclusion and governance, the growing role of AI and automation in the information environment, and the role of social media in public communication. The DMRC has access to cutting-edge research infrastructure and capabilities in computational methods for the study of communication and society. We actively engage with industry and academic partners in Australia, Europe, Asia, the US, and South America; and we are especially proud of the dynamic and supportive research training environment we provide to our many local and international graduate students.