ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 12, 2020

Palais du Pharo, Marseille, France

Submission Deadline: February 14, 2020

https://www.clarin.eu/ParlaCLARIN-II

Submission page: https://www.softconf.com/lrec2020/ParlaCLARIN2

Parliamentary data is a major source of socially relevant content. It is available in ever larger quantities, is multilingual, accompanied by rich metadata, and has the distinguishing characteristic that it is spoken language produced in controlled circumstances which has traditionally been transcribed but is now increasingly released also in audio and video formats. All these factors require solutions related to structuring, synchronization, visualization, querying and analysis of parliamentary corpora. Furthermore, approaches to the exploitation of parliamentary corpora to their full extent also have to take into account the needs of researchers from vastly different Humanities and Social Sciences fields, such as political sciences, sociology, history, and psychology.

A successful first edition of the ParlaCLARIN scientific workshop held at LREC 2018 (https://www.clarin.eu/ParlaCLARIN) and a follow-up developmental ParlaFormat workshop held by CLARIN ERIC in 2019 (https://www.clarin.eu/event/2019/parlaformat-workshop) resulted in a good overview of the multitude of the existing parliamentary resources worldwide as well as tangible first steps towards better harmonization, interoperability and comparability of the resources and tools relevant for the study of parliamentary discussions and decisions.

The second ParlaCLARIN workshop therefore aims to bring together developers, curators and researchers of regional, national and international parliamentary debates that are suitable for research in disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. We invite unpublished original work focusing on the compilation, annotation, visualisation and utilisation of parliamentary records as well as linking or comparing parliamentary records with other datasets of political discourse such as party manifestos, political speeches, political campaign debates, social media posts, etc. Apart from dissemination of the results, the workshop also aims to address the identified obstacles, discuss open issues and coordinate future efforts in this increasingly trans-national and cross-disciplinary community.

Objective

Due to Freedom of Information Acts that are supported by the United Nations and set in place in over 100 countries worldwide, parliamentary debates are being increasingly easy to obtain, and have always been of interest to researchers from a wide range fields in Humanities and Social Sciences both for the potential influence of their content, and the specificities of the formalized, often persuasive and emotional language use in this context. As a consequence, there are many initiatives, on the national and international levels, that aim at compiling and analysing parliamentary data. CLARIN-PLUS survey on parliament data has identified over 20 corpora of parliamentary records, with over half of them being available within the CLARIN infrastructure (https://www.clarin.eu/resource-families/parliamentary-corpora).

Given the maturity, variety, and potential of this type of language data as well as the rich metadata it is complemented with, it is urgent to gather researchers both from the side of those producing parliamentary corpora and making them available, those making use of them for linguistic, historical, political, sociological etc. research as well as those linking or comparing them with other datasets of political discourse such as party manifestos, political speeches, political campaign debates, social media posts, etc. in order to share methods and approaches of compiling, annotating and exploring parliamentary and other political language data in order to achieve harmonization of the compiled resources, and to ensure current and future comparability of research on national datasets as well as promote transnational analyses.

Keynote

The keynote talk will be devoted to the Manifesto Project (https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu)

Topics of interest

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Creation and annotation of parliamentary data in textual and/or spoken format
• Annotation standards and best practices for parliamentary corpora
• Accessibility, querying and visualisation of parliamentary data
• Text analytics, semantic processing and linking of parliamentary and other datasets of political language data
• Parliamentary corpora and multilinguality
• Studies based on parliamentary corpora
• Studies comparing parliamentary corpora with other types of political discourse

Submissions & Publication

We accept submission of long papers (up to 8 pages), short papers (up to 4 pages) and demo papers (up to 4 pages) to be presented as a long or short oral presentation at the workshop. The papers of the workshop will be published in online proceedings.

When submitting a paper from the START page, authors will be asked to provide essential information about resources (in a broad sense, i.e. also technologies, standards, evaluation kits, etc.) that have been used for the work described in the paper or are a new result of your research. Moreover, ELRA encourages all LREC authors to share the described LRs (data, tools, services, etc.) to enable their reuse and replicability of experiments (including evaluation ones). For contact data, stylesheets, up-to-date details on submission and the workshop itself, please consult the workshop website.

Submission page: https://www.softconf.com/lrec2020/ParlaCLARIN2

Important Dates

• Paper submission deadline: 14 February 2020
• Notification of acceptance: 13 March 2020
• Camera-ready paper: 2 April 2020
• Workshop date: Tuesday 12 May 2020

Organizing Committee

• Darja Fišer, University of Ljubljana and Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
• Franciska de Jong, CLARIN ERIC, The Netherlands
• Maria Eskevich, CLARIN ERIC, The Netherlands

The workshop is supported by the CLARIN research infrastructure. To contact the organizers, please mail clarin@clarin.eu (Subject: [ParlaCLARIN@LREC2020]).

Programme Committee in alphabetical order:

• Kaspar Beelen, The Alan Turing Institute, UK
• Andreas Blätte, The University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
• Francesca Frontini, Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier, France
• Maria Gavriilidou, ILSP/Athena RC, Greece
• Henk van den Heuvel, Radboud University, The Netherlands
• Klaus Illmayer, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
• Bente Maegaard, CLARIN ERIC, The Netherlands
• Monica Monachini, National Research Council of Italy, Italy
• Laura Morales, Sciences Po, France
• Jan Odijk, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
• Maciej Ogrodniczuk, Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
• Petya Osenova, IICT-BAS and Sofia University "St. Kl. Ohridski", Bulgaria
• Maria Pontiki, ILSP/Athena RC, Greece
• Sara Tonelli, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy
• Simone Paolo Ponzetto, University of Mannheim, Germany
• Stelios Piperidis, ILSP/Athena RC, Greece
• Tamás Váradi, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
• Tanja Wissik, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
• Tomaž Erjavec, Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
• Identify, Describe and Share your LRs!

Describing your LRs in the LRE Map is now standard practice in the submission procedure of LREC (introduced in 2010 and adopted by other conferences). To continue the efforts initiated at LREC 2014 about “Sharing LRs” (data, tools, web-services, etc.), authors will have the possibility, when submitting a paper, to upload LRs in a special LREC repository. This effort of sharing LRs, linked to the LRE Map for their description, may become a new “regular” feature for conferences in our field, thus contributing to creating a common repository where everyone can deposit and share data.

As scientific work requires accurate citations of referenced work so as to allow the community to understand the whole context and also replicate the experiments conducted by other researchers, LREC 2020 endorses the need to uniquely Identify LRs through the use of the International Standard Language Resource Number (ISLRN, www.islrn.org), a Persistent Unique Identifier to be assigned to each Language Resource. The assignment of ISLRNs to LRs cited in LREC papers will be offered at submission time.

Edited by Hilde C. Stephansen and Emiliano Treré

Bringing together contributions from leading scholars in sociology, media and communication, social movement and critical data studies, this book stimulates dialogue across separate traditions of research on citizen and activist media practices and stakes out future directions for research in this burgeoning interdisciplinary field. Framed by a foreword by Nick Couldry and a substantial introductory chapter by the editors, contributions to the volume trace the roots and appropriations of the concept of media practice in Latin American communication theory; reflect on the relationship between activist agency and technological affordances; explore the relevance of the media practice approach for the study of media activism; and demonstrate the significance of the media practice approach for understanding processes of mediatization and datafication. Offering both a comprehensive introduction to scholarship on citizen media and practice and a cutting-edge exploration of a novel theoretical framework, the book is ideal for students and experienced scholars alike.

Purchase here (paperback, hardback and eBook editions available from Routledge): https://bit.ly/2tkh6kX

Access book abstracts, endorsements and download a free PDF version of Chapter 1: http://citizenmediaseries.org/published_volumes/citizen-media-and-practice/

Hilde C. Stephansen is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster, London.

Emiliano Treré is Senior Lecturer in Media Ecologies and Social Transformation in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University. He acts as the vice-chair of the 'Communication and Democracy' section of ECREA.

York University

Discipline/Field: Diasporic Media

Home Faculty: Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

Home Department/Area/Division: Communication Studies

Affiliation/Union: YUFA

Position Start Date: July 1, 2020

Department of Communication Studies, Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

The Department of Communication Studies invites applications for a professorial stream tenure-track appointment in Diasporic Media at the Assistant Professor level, to commence July 1, 2020. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. All York University positions are subject to budgetary approval.

A PhD in Communication Studies or cognate fields is required. Candidates must show excellence or promise of excellence in teaching, scholarly research and publication and service.

Applicants should have an ongoing program of research and specialize in one or more of the following areas: immigrant, migrant and/or refugee experience; forced movement of populations; global, translocal and/or local diasporic media practices and/or communities; community activism; decolonial and anti-racist approaches; and/or multicultural media policy. Candidates with a social justice and equity approach are preferred.

The successful candidate must be suitable for prompt appointment to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. The position will involve graduate teaching and supervision, as well as undergraduate teaching. Pedagogical innovation in high priority areas such as experiential education and technology enhanced learning is preferred.

York University has a policy on Accommodation in Employment for Persons with Disabilities and is committed to working towards a barrier-free workplace and to expanding the accessibility of the workplace to persons with disabilities. Candidates who require accommodation during the selection process are invited to contact the Chair of the Search Committee at comnsrch@yorku.ca.

York University is an Affirmative Action (AA) employer and strongly values diversity, including gender and sexual diversity, within its community. The AA Program, which applies to women, members of visible minorities (racialized groups), Aboriginal (Indigenous) people and persons with disabilities, can be found at http://acadjobs.info.yorku.ca/ or by calling the AA line at 416.736.5713.

Applicants wishing to self-identify as part of York University's Affirmative Action Program can do so by downloading, completing and submitting the form found at: http://acadjobs.info.yorku.ca/affirmative-action/self-identification-form/.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens, Permanent Residents and Indigenous peoples in Canada will be given priority. No application will be considered without a completed mandatory Work Status Declaration form which can be found at http://acadjobs.info.yorku.ca/affirmative-action/work-authorization-form.

Applicants should submit their application package, including a signed letter of application, an up-to-date curriculum vitae, a statement of research and teaching interests, teaching evaluations and three confidential letters of reference, through the online application system at apply.laps.yorku.ca beginning on Friday, January 17, 2020.

Applicants may direct questions to Professor Anne MacLennan, Chair of the Department of Communication Studies, Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, comnsrch@yorku.ca.

The deadline for receipt of completed applications is February 14, 2020.

Posting End Date: February 14, 2020

Charles University in Prague

The Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University in Prague calls for candidates for the following PhD projects (each supported by a scholarship), for its English-language PhD programme in Media and Communication Studies:

• Leadership in the 21st century – failing political leadership and decline of traditional political parties, permanent campaigning, politics, and marketing tools

The Ph.D. project should focus on these topics, methodologically it can be approached from different angles. Theoretically, it should be rooted in the political marketing theory and political communication theory. The research can either focus on a specific case study or do a more comparative approach. This PhD project can also be submitted to the Czech-language PhD programme in Media Studies.

Proposed supervisor: Anna Shavit, anna.shavit@fsv.cuni.cz

• Social constructions and representations of homelessness

This PhD position involves research related to the social construction of homelessness. Research in this area is expected to be driven by a post-structuralist approach and can focus on the social/discursive construction of identities, practices and affects, around homelessness. The research can be located in a variety of social fields and actors, such as mainstream and/or alternative media, the state and its institutions, civil society, the arts, and homeless individuals.

Proposed supervisor: Vaia Doudaki, vaia.doudaki@fsv.cuni.cz

• Discourses and practices of othering

This PhD position involves research in the broad area of othering. It is expected to be driven by a post-structuralist approach, focussing on the construction and practices of othering through, e.g. the media, the arts, politics, or activism. Projects in this thematic area can examine, for instance, the discourses and practices that create (old and new) ethnic, political, cultural others, in specific contexts and/or at different times, or how these practices can relate to social struggle and resistance.

Proposed supervisor: Vaia Doudaki, vaia.doudaki@fsv.cuni.cz

• Discursive constructions of the environment

This PhD position consists out of research into the discursive construction of the environment, climate and/or human-nature relationships, driven by a discourse-theoretical (or other post-structuralist) framework, that allows for attention for the workings of contingency, hegemony, materiality and discursive struggle. The research can be located in variety of social fields, including media, the arts and/or museums.

Proposed supervisor: Nico Carpentier, nico.carpentier@fsv.cuni.cz

• Alternative constructions of the home

This PhD position consists out of research into alternative and counter-hegemonic constructions of the home, driven by a discourse-theoretical (or other post-structuralist) framework, that allows for attention for the workings of contingency, hegemony, materiality and discursive struggle. The research can, for instance, focus on anti/non-sedentarist constructions, mobile home constructions, involuntary homes (e.g., prison), or lost homes (e.g., after disaster or displacement).

Proposed supervisor: Nico Carpentier, nico.carpentier@fsv.cuni.cz

APPLICATION

Interested candidates should submit their applications, using in the online application system, which will be open from 1st January to 30th April 2020. Interest in a particular PhD project should be mentioned in the motivation letter, together with a more developed proposal on the PhD project.

All relevant information, including the link to the online application system, can be found at here and here.

For general questions, please contact for the Centre of PhD Studies cds.iksz@fsv.cuni.cz. For questions about particular projects, please contact the proposed supervisors.

Doors Open Day for PhD Study in Media Studies - 10. March (Tuesday) at 16:00 at the Institute of Communication Studies (Smetanovo nabrezi 6, Praha 1, 110 00).

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new report on the broadcasting of the Paralympics in the UK.

Free to download from: http://pasccal.com/pasccal-project-report/ or direct download: http://pasccal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/BU-3-Paralympic-Report-6.4.pdf

This report details the findings of the AHRC project entitled ‘Re-presenting Para-sport bodies: Disability and the cultural legacy of the Paralympic Games’. The project explored media constructions of disability through Paralympic sport and the impact on public attitudes and perceptions of disability. This report provides data and recommendations drawn from the first funded academic project to examine the implications of the rapid commercialisation of the Paralympic Games and the increasing visibility of disability in the media; influenced by the success of Channel 4’s entry as the United Kingdom’s official Paralympic broadcaster in 2012.

Through an integrated methodological approach, we provide a joined-up evidence base that captures the intentions and practices of Channel 4’s (C4) broadcasting of the Rio 2016 Paralympics; the influence of this on the content of Paralympic coverage and mediated forms of disability representation; and the wider impact on public attitudes toward disability. This approach allowed us to examine the important and influential relationship between Paralympic production practices, progressive social change and cultural legacies.

The report demonstrates the important cultural impact of the Paralympic Games and the extent socially progressive forms of disability representation can and do effect positive social change with respect to disability awareness. We argue that both the quality and quantity of Paralympic coverage by C4 has been an important vehicle in progressive forms of disability representation marked by greater inclusion, education, and visibility of disability. Here, we highlight some of the complexities and contradictions in the Paralympic legacy with respect to issues of inclusion and exclusion, empowerment and disempowerment, and forms of marginalisation. Through the report we provide a number of empirically-driven insights for progressive and sustainable Paralympic cultural legacies.

Hanne Bruun

This book explores how the television industry is adapting its production culture and professional practises of scheduling to an increasingly non-linear television paradigm, a testing ground where different communicative tools are tried out in a volatile industry.

Based on four case studies the book argues that a new television paradigm is being produced from within the multiplatform television organisations themselves in order to adapt to changing viewer habits and the tensions between digital and broadcast television. Drawing on a unique genre and production studies approach that cuts across the humanities and sociology in television studies, chapters cover in-depth studies of:

• The communicative changes to the on-air schedule as a televisual text phenomenon in the digital era, and how the conceptualisations of the audience are changing in scheduling and curation for multiplatform portfolios
• The changing production culture of scheduling in companies for their multiplatform portfolios
• The dilemmas of curation in multiplatform portfolios.

Situated at the intersection of the humanities and sociology in media production studies, this book will be of key interest to scholars and students of television studies, media production studies and cultural studies and to researchers and media professionals and management in the television industry.

For more information visit: www.routledge.com/9780367226756

University of Nottingham

The School of International Communications at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) invites applications for our Visiting Scholars programme. This position includes visa, transportation, accommodation, and a research stipend. The Visiting Scholar residency is 2-3 months in duration (exact date range chosen by the Scholar), and there are two positions: the first will be held during Semester 1 (Oct. 1, 2020 – Jan. 15, 2021), and the second will be held Semester 2 (March 1, 2021 – June 30, 2021).

The aim of this award is to foster research collaboration with members of staff in the School. During the residency, the scholar will undertake their research and collaborate with one or more members of IC staff on a research project (proposed by the Visiting Scholar) that will result in a publication and/or a grant application. They will also deliver one lecture for our School’s UG and PG students and will give one presentation to the wider University on their research as part of our Invited Speakers programme. There are no further teaching or administrative responsibilities.

The award is competitive, and will be based on the proposed research proposal and the applicant’s CV. Applicants should have already been awarded their PhD degrees and have expertise relevant to IC, which includes media and communication studies, cultural studies, film and television studies, game studies, etc. (see: https://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/internationalcommunications/know-our-people/know-our-people.aspx).

For further details and application instructions, please check our website - https://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/internationalcommunications/call-for-visiting-scholars.aspx

The Velvet Light Trap Issue #87

Deadline: January 31, 2020

Historically, media studies scholars have shied away from sports-related media texts due to a variety of perceived challenges: the sheer volume of texts (there’s always something on), their inaccessibility (the texts are ephemeral and controlled by corporate archives), the ambivalence of sports cultures (at once masculine and mainstream), and more. Additionally, other fields have long dominated sports scholarship, with communication studies and sociology shaping the academic discourse and asserting their own approaches. To mitigate these challenges, media studies scholars have applied alternative approaches to understanding sports media, such as critical-cultural analyses that account for sports media constructions of difference via gender, sex, and race—and athletes’ abilities to contest those differences. There have also been deft examinations of the media industries’ economic and ideological dependence on sports; historiographical accounts that mine a wealth of underexplored repositories and sources; and audience studies that foreground the reception and consumption of the sports genre.

While these studies placed sports media squarely in the foreground, others have used sports as a case study to illuminate broader trends in media studies. For example, scholars have recently revealed the key role sports broadcasts played in the innovation and diffusion of color television, while others have considered the pivotal role broadcasting, licensing, and franchising rights played in the conglomeration and consolidation of cable networks and providers. Others have addressed gaps in audience and fan studies by engaging with under-studied sports fan cultures.

Velvet Light Trap #87 seeks to deepen media studies understandings of sports. Given our current era of destabilization (of texts, genres, technologies, industries, distribution models, franchises, policies, etc.), sports undoubtedly remains a stimulus of—and, at times, barrier to—change in the media industries. As such, we invite a variety of media scholars—not just those who specialize in sports media—to reconsider and engage with sports in new and dynamic ways, asking, for example: How have production, distribution, exhibition, and reception of sports media changed over the last century and how are those changes reflected in the wider media ecology? What is the afterlife of sports media and how have those practices impacted scholarship, pedagogy, and future production practices? Where do radio and podcasting fit into the history of sports broadcasting? How are new media technologies (streaming platforms, video games, etc.) responding to, reacting against, or complementing linear sports channels and networks?

We welcome submissions that push the boundaries of current sports media literature and/or use sports media as key case studies, exploring any of the following themes:

● National broadcasting and industrial histories

● Early film histories and the continuing theatrical exhibition of sporting events

● Sports as a key media market sector

● Identification and identity politics (race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, nationality)

● Place and space [localism with franchises and coverage; (trans)nationalism with Olympics]

● Changing role of agents and agencies

● Franchising, ownership, and management

● Publicity, promotion, and marketing

● Activism and community engagement

● Ephemerality and textual analysis

● Distribution, exhibition, and transnational flow of sports media

● Archival perspectives, footage libraries, and audiovisual asset management

● Regulation (copyright, retransmission rights, horizontal integration)

● Labor, compensation, and ecological concerns

● Production techniques

● Genre analysis (non-fiction, narrative, & documentary)

● Pedagogical applications

● Video games (licensed games and eSports)

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words, formatted in Chicago Style. Please submit an electronic copy of the paper, along with a separate one-page abstract, both saved as a Microsoft Word file. Remove any identifying information so that the submission is suitable for anonymous review. Quotations not in English should be accompanied by translations. Send electronic manuscripts and/or any questions to vltcfp@gmail.com by January 31.

About the Journal:

TVLT is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal of film, television, and new media. The journal draws on a variety of theoretical and historiographical approaches from the humanities and social sciences and welcomes any effort that will help foster the ongoing processes of evaluation and negotiation in media history and criticism. While TVLT maintains its traditional commitment to the study of American film, it also expands its scope to television and other media, to adjacent institutions, and to other nations' media. The journal encourages both approaches and objects of study that have been neglected or excluded in past scholarship.

Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Texas at Austin coordinate issues in alternation, and each issue is devoted to a particular theme. TVLT's Editorial Advisory Board includes such notable scholars as Hector Amaya, Ben Aslinger, Caetlin Benson-Allott, Aymar Jean Christian, Lisa Dombrowski, Raquel Gates, Dan Herbert, Dolores Inés Casillas, Deborah Jaramillo, Meenasarani Murugan, Safiya Noble, Debra Ramsay, Bob Rehak, Bonnie Ruberg, Neil Verma, and Avi Santo. TVLT's graduate student editors are assisted by their local faculty advisors: Mary Beltrán, Ben Brewster, Jonathan Gray, Lea Jacobs, Derek Johnson, Shanti Kumar, Charles Ramírez Berg, Thomas Schatz, and Janet Staiger (emeritus).

ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, Germany

Position: ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellow Media, Communication and Information

Duration: 1 month (either between April and June 2020 or between October and December 2020)

Salary: 3,000 euro + 1,500 euro budget for direct costs

Contract: Fee contract

Application deadline: February 6, 2020 (23.59 CET)

The ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, offers a thriving interdisciplinary research environment in the areas of media, communication and information. Involved disciplines include communication and media studies, computer science, cultural studies, educational science, studies in religion, and history. The ZeMKI invites applications from excellent researchers in the field of media, communication, and information.

As a ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellow, the selected candidate will delve into the versatile research activities at the interdisciplinary centre with over 60 members. Applicants should demonstrate experiences and a strong interest in collaborative research which is embraced at the ZeMKI in various ways and contexts. The selected candidate is expected to contribute to these research activities in the area of media change and transforming communications in the form of a research paper submitted to the peer-reviewed “Communicative Figurations” working paper series and a lecture in the ZeMKI Research Seminar.

Applicants must have a PhD or other doctoral degree in a relevant discipline by the application date.

We offer a lump sum allowance of 3,000 Euros plus up to 1,500 Euros for research related expenses.

To apply for this post, please send your application documents via e-mail to zemki-fellowship@uni-bremen.de. The closing date for receipt of applications is February 6, 2020 (23.59 CET). We are unfortunately unable to accept any late applications.

Download the application checklist here.

Download the call for applications as PDF here.

Further information on the ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellowship can be accessed here.

Special Issue of Problemi dell'Informazione

Deadline (extended): January 20, 2020

Edited by:

• Maria Francesca Murru, Università degli Studi di Bergamo mariafrancesca.murru@unibg.it
• Francesca Pasquali, Università degli Studi di Bergamo francesca.pasquali@unibg.it

Description

The special issue 3/2020 of Problemi dell’Informazione aims to explore and critically discuss how local journalism is trying to redefine its identity against the economic, cultural and technological challenges of the contemporary mediascape. Although the tensions currently affecting the local media are partly coinciding with those observed at the national level, relevant differences are likely to be found in the potential ways out and the concrete repercussions that these shared structural conditions have on the way of operating, of intercepting audience and reaching economic sustainability. The crisis that has affected journalism in recent times is part of the wider digital revolution and has manifested with a constant erosion and fragmentation of the audience, a huge decline of advertising investments and a wider questioning of the credibility of journalistic mediation and trust in professional authority. However, as pointed out by Zelizer (2015), the use of a unitary concept such as "crisis" risks to overlook not only the diversity of underlying political, technological, occupational, ethical and social issues but also the potential variety of solutions and ways out.

This issue stems from the belief that this historical moment is propitious to give local journalism the analytical attention it deserves. The empirical and theoretical acquisitions on the subject are still scarce, especially if compared to those concerned with national and global journalism (Nielsen, 2015). The gap is worth filling especially now that the challenges and opportunities implied by the complex and contradictory scenario together constitute an incredibly fruitful starting point to deeply focus on the present and the future of local media.

The disruptive and innovative character of the digital revolution has not yet fully unfolded, and this is particularly visible in the never-ending emergence of new formats and contents. Digital storytelling, immersive journalism, data visualization, are some of the new paths that are taking root and that promise to deploy new ways of representing reality and constructing shared meaning. The combination of mass and interpersonal communication that currently characterizes the contemporary media ecosystem brings new opportunities for participatory involvement of the audience in the various stages of ideation, production, and circulation of news. New inquiries are then necessary to map the variety of participatory platforms initiated by local newspapers and to explore their effects on community belonging, social cohesion and civic activism of interest-based communities. The connection with social media platforms and the new economy of attention introduced by algorithmic mediation, brings a wider reconfiguration of disintermediation and remediation dynamics of public discourse. Among the many challenges that journalism must face, one of the most relevant has to do with how to manage the competition and the cooperation with a plurality of collective subjects (from public administration bodies to private companies and civil society organizations) that are now autonomous in the production and dissemination of news. But there is also the necessity to negotiate the grounds of journalism’s credibility in a discursive space that appears as increasingly crowded and polyphonic. Moreover, local media need to find a way to address the wider cultural and political processes that are currently leading to a redefinition of the sense of place. Geo-social (Hess, 2013) and hyper-local are some of the labels that the most recent academic research has adopted to describe how local media are trying to restructure the relationship with its geographical area of reference. What is at stake is the taken-for-grantedness of the same definition of “local media” and the questioning of what makes “local” a still relevant perspective on the world. Finally, we cannot speak of the geographical bearing without putting into play the role of watchdog carried out by local journalism and its social functions in giving citizens a voice, triggering their civic engagement and their sense of belonging. The deeper implications of such a complex scenario cannot imply but a broader redefinition of the social functions traditionally carried out by local media, especially concerning the liveliness of the public sphere and the well-being of the communities. We invite proposals that address this multifaceted phenomenon focusing on topics that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Audience
• Professional identities and organizational cultures
• Local and hyper-local media
• Social and civil functions of local journalism and impact on the public sphere
• Participatory/citizen journalism, community media
• Emerging trends in digital storytelling, immersive journalism, data visualization

The acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee the publication of the article, which will be under blind peer review.

Submission of proposalsExtended deadline for abstract submission is January 20, 2020.

Abstract: 250 words maximum (references not included)

Full papers will be due on 20 April 2020 and will undergo a double-blind peer review procedure.

Papers: length between max 8000 words maximum (including notes and references).

Papers in English and Italian are accepted.

The abstracts must be sent to probleminformazione@mulino.it or via the platform available at the address: https://submission.rivisteweb.it/index.php/pdi

There are no APC (Article Processing Charge) for authors.

The Journal

Problemi dell'informazione is an Italian journal of Media and Communication Research and an international academic refereed journal published by Il Mulino in Italy. It was first published in 1976, aimed at providing a debate venue for scholars in the field of journalism and media system.

Principal Editor: Carlo Sorrentino.

Here (https://www.mulino.it/riviste/issn/0390-5195) its national and international board.

Problemi dell'Informazione is A-class rated journal by ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems) in Sociology of culture and communication (SPS/08).