ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline: August 5, 2019

Within the framework of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development and its Working Group on Freedom of Expression and addressing Disinformation, UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector (CI) launches a new Request   For  Proposals (RFP).

The initiative encourages researchers to put in proposals to conduct a research report on the various efforts being taken around the world to counter the abuse of broadband for the dissemination of what diverse actors may define as disinformation. 

The research should analyse the different modalities of responses based on empirical data from all parts of the world, with the findings presented mainly at a level of generality which extrapolates key trends. 

Overall, the research should seek to provide insights that can stimulate creativity and innovation in tackling problems in broadband use while reinforcing freedom of expression and sustainable development, as well as help set agendas for future research. 

The study should also aim to provide useful resources for stakeholders including governments, courts, regulators, educators, companies, academia, media, civil society organizations and others. 

To this end, the research should include a “gap analysis” through reviewing studies, surveys, and other research about this phenomenon. It should give an assessment of the different modalities of response to disinformation, at a general level, and in    terms of the costs, benefits and risks of each modality from the point of view of freedom of expression and ICT contribution to sustainable development.  Based on this, the study should recommend proposals for the way ahead.

 The framing of this project is founded on the universal right to freedom of expression, and the importance of ensuring that measures concerning disinformation do not impact negatively on the essence of this right. 

UNESCO invites interested researchers, institutions, research consortia, entities and organizations to submit proposals which should include comments on the Terms of Reference, detailed description of the research methodology, description of the proposed team, including updated CV, deliverables, timeline requested funding, and what the researchers can offer in terms of promotion of the final study. To ensure that experience is covered internationally, consortia of researchers from different countries are encouraged. Proposers may wish to suggest outcomes that can be scaled in terms of differing budget options. 

The research should be produced over a maximum of six months, with an interim report due mid-way. The outcome should be a publishable report in mother-tongue level English, of approximately 100 pages, plus references, and including a 12-page Executive Summary for translation. Oversight and final editing will be by a working group of Broadband Commissioners as well as external experts in the field. The final document will be published by the Broadband Commission under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

UNESCO, therefore, invites interested researchers and organizations to submit their proposals, according to these Terms of Reference, by email to before noon (CET), 5 August 2019 to J.Hironaka@unesco.org(link sends e-mail). 

October 25-26, 2019

 Sapientia University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Deadline: July 15, 2019

Continuing our series of conferences dedicated to rethinking intermediality in contemporary cinema and visual culture, we propose to initiate a discussion around aspects of intermediality that may unfold from the perspective of the picturesque.

The much-debated notion inherited from the art theories of the late 18th century originally denoted both an aesthetic quality (something pleasing to the eye situated between the serenely beautiful and the awe-inspiring sublime) and a particular visual impression (something that looks like a picture in nature). It anticipated and later became deeply entangled with many of the ideas of Romanticism, of modernity and postmodernity by shifting the appeal of images from knowledge to imagination, sensation and mood, by applying the frame of art to life, or the frame of one art to another, and emphasising the abstract aesthetic value of a kind of pictured vision. Photography appropriated it as a strategy of so-called pictorialism and popular culture perpetuated it in various forms of spectacularization from the early dioramas and panoramas to today’s ubiquitous digital screens through which we continually reframe our lives in picturesque images.

The picturesque emerges therefore not only as a transversal concept in art history or visual culture, but also essentially connected to issues of intermediality and in-betweenness that we would like to bring into focus. In a “beautifully circular” dynamics (Rosalind Krauss), in a “conjunction of nature, picture, eye” (Geoffrey Batchen) a given moment of the perceptual array is connected to recognizable patterns in a picture which always reveals the form of one medium perceived in another (e.g. painterly tableaux in photography, film, installation art, photographic frames in film, photos that look like film stills, etc.). As such, the picturesque directs our attention to the sensuous aspects of intermediality and their relevance in our so-called postmedia age, when the “photographic”, “the cinematic” or the “painterly” can be seamlessly merged through digital technologies.

We would also like to address the controversial aesthetics of the intermedial picturesque that foregrounds instead of a sublime Gesamtkunstwerk-like effect the sheer visual pleasure of imageness, and to highlight its range in this respect from the decorative and the playful to the contemplative. Keeping in mind the potentially “troublesome” aspects of “pretty” images (Rosalind Galt), we encourage proposals to consider their “politics” as well, which can either align with what John Ruskin described as the “heartlessness of the picturesque” (i.e. delighting in images of ruin and decay), or can imply a reflexive acknowledgement of their underlying tensions between art and life (by engaging Raymond Bellour’s and Laura Mulvey’s “pensive spectator”).

Accordingly, we invite proposals to explore the variety of intermedial strategies that generate visual pleasures associated with the picturesque in a broad sense, and to uncover their intricate relations of in-betweenness.

We suggest the following topics (but welcome any relevant approach to the issues outlined in the CFP):

• The tableau vivant as a visual attraction between high art and popular culture, and in-between painting, photography, sculpture, theatre and film
• Synaesthetic pleasures: picturesque impressions in conjunction with tactility, soundscape and music
• Picturesque landscapes in slow cinema, slow TV and experimental films
• Media reflexivity and the picturesque in contemporary documentary and essay films
• Moving image installations and the immersiveness of picturesque images
• The picturesque world and the ruins of civilization: nature versus culture in images of the anthropocene
• Painterly images and remediations in heritage films and bio-pics
• Gender and postcolonial perspectives of the picturesque intersecting with intermediality
• The picturesque in-between the analogue and the digital, the natural and the artificial
• Theorising what “looks like a picture” today
• The intermedial visual pleasures of VR
• The picturesque and the spectacular in video games

Confirmed keynote speakers:

STEVEN JACOBS (Department of Art History, Ghent University), an art historian specialized in the relations between film and the visual arts. His research interests include the visualization of architecture, cities, and landscapes in film and photography. He is the author of: The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock (2007), Framing Pictures: Film and the Visual Arts (2011), The Dark Galleries: A Museum Guide to Painted Portraits in Film Noir (2013, with Lisa Colpaert) as well as the co-author of Screening Statues: Sculpture and Cinema (2017), and The City Symphony Phenomenon: Cinema, Art, and Urban Modernity Between the Wars (2018).

LAURA MULVEY (Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck, University of London), one of the most influential film theorists of our time. Her major works include: Visual and Other Pleasures (1989/2009), Fetishism and Curiosity: Cinema and the Mind’s Eye (1996/2013), Citizen Kane (BFI Classics series 1992/2012), Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image (2006), together with groundbreaking articles on narrative film, feminist film theory, the aesthetics of stillness in the moving image, etc. She is also an avant-garde filmmaker who co-wrote and co-directed with Peter Wollen and Mark Lewis several experimental essay films.

Submission of proposals:

We invite proposals both for individual papers and for pre-constituted panels. Panels may consist of 3 speakers.

Deadline for the submission of proposals: July 15, 2019.

Please fill in one of the SUBMISSION FORMS:

INDIVIDUAL SUBMISSION: https://goo.gl/forms/9rvw9Ne6yCL090o33

PANEL SUBMISSION: https://goo.gl/forms/bMxYFJqvqCIpb3ja2

The official language of the conference is English. The time for presentations is limited to maximum 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute debate.

Conference fee (which includes participation, conference buffet and banquet): 120 EUR, special fee for participants from post-communist/communist countries: 70 EUR.

A selection of papers based on the conference presentations will be published in our department’s international, peer reviewed journal (Acta Universitatis Sapientiae. Film & Media Studies) indexed in several international databases.

You can contact the organizers at this e-mail address: 2019.picturesque@gmail.com

For further information and updates see the official website: http://film.sapientia.ro/en/conferences/the-picturesque-visual-pleasure-and-intermediality

October 19-20, 2019

Pissouri Village, Cyprus

Deadline: July 25, 2019

The Symposium aims is to promote the debate on the effective participation of the citizen in the democratic system of government, which involves the citizens informing about social, political, economic, religion, cultural and environmental events. Nowadays we observe in the private and public life both the dominance of traditional and new media, which in some cases construct contradictory information, especially regarding the political life of the country. This Symposium aims is to analyze the Media and Democracy from different points of view, which could be summarized in the following topics:

• The importance of new media and the momentum that they have acquired,
• The role of social networks in democracy
• Media Representations of Brexit.
• “New” and “Old” media in the democracy countries.
• Fake News and Democracy
• The ideology and propaganda role.
• Citizen Mobilization and Political Activism in the Local, National or European Parliament Elections.
• Nationalist Movements to the Media industries.

Regarding the abstract submission, All proposals should be sent 

in English, in .doc or pdf format, through the form here: https://symposium2019mediademocracy.blogspot.com

Proposals should include:

1. Contact Info

2. Title, keywords and abstract (250-300 words).

The abstract should present the aim/objectives of the work, the methodological approach, the results, and the conclusion.

Proposals should focus on the topics indicated above.

3. A short biographical statement.

Language of the Symposium: English

The Scientific Committee of the Symposium will announce in advance which proposals have been accepted for presentation at the Symposium.

Deadline & Dates:

• 25 July 2019 – Deadline to submit abstracts
• 10 August 2019 – Notification of accepted proposals
• 3O September 2019 – Deadline for full paper submission
• 19-20 October 2019 – Symposium

Fees:

The registration fee is €80, covering access to all sessions, coffee break, and conference material.

This symposium is organized by Cyprus University of Technology, and is

funded generously by Pissouri Council and Pissouri Repatriated Association.

A formal application email should be sent to euripides.antoniades@cut.ac.cy

November 15, 2019

Wroclaw, Poland

Deadline: August 30, 2019

There are still a few free places left for the workshop Towards development of mediatization research III organized by the Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, University of Wroclaw and Academia Europaea Wroclaw Knowledge Hub which will take place on 15 November 2019 in Wroclaw, Poland.

This year's workshop will be lead by Professor Andreas Hepp and will focus on digital media and datafication.

We invite media researchers working in the area of mediatization to participate in the seminar. There is no conference fee.

Idea of the meeting is a closed specialization seminar devoted to selected aspects of research on mediatization, in a formula proven in the previous editions, i.e.:

• participants work on different types of materials (articles, works in progress, proposals, theses, reports etc.) under the guidance of the edition leader;
• meeting is preceded by substantive preparation by the leader and all participants on the basis of materials circulated to all participants in advance;
• during the meeting all participants focus on group discussion and expert feedback (presentations and speeches are limited to a minimum);
• seminar is preceded by an introductory lecture by the leader.

Schedule:

August 30, 2019: submissions

Please submit a proposed topic and short description (5 sentences) of your paper (article, work in progress, proposal, theses, report etc.) with information about your affiliation to email address: katarzyna.kopecka.piech@gmail.com.

First come, first served: complete submissions consistent with the topic of this year's workshop will be qualified according to the order of submissions until the places are exhausted.

October 15, 2019: submission of materials for discussion by all participants

October 15 - November 14: preparation for the workshop by the leader and all participants

November 15, 2019: workshop in Wroclaw

Information on previous editions is available on the following websites:

Towards development of mediatization research I. Workshop with Professor Göran Bolin, 11.12.2017

https://acadeuro.wroclaw.pl/event/towards-the-development-of-the-mediatization-research-the-workshop-with-professor-goran-bolin/

http://dziennikarstwo.uni.wroc.pl/instytut/wydarzenia/wydarzenia/seminarium-towards-the-development-of-the-mediatization-research/

Towards development of mediatization research II. Workshop with Professor Johan Fornäs, 13.12.2018

https://acadeuro.wroclaw.pl/event/towards-development-of-the-mediatization-research-ii/

http://dziennikarstwo.uni.wroc.pl/en/institute/gallery/events/towards-development-of-the-mediatization-research-ii/ 

/The%20workshop%20is%20organized%20with%20the%20support%20of%20the%20Academia%20Europaea%202019%20Hubert%20Curien%20Fund%20(www.ae-info.org).

Special issue of Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 

Deadline: September 9, 2019

Edited by Jacob Johanssen (St. Mary’s University, jacob.johanssen@stmarys.ac.uk)

For psychoanalysis, sexuality, how it is both individually thought about and lived and how it is culturally constructed, is key to understanding both the human psyche and social change. Freud believed that the sexual behaviour of an individual, from the earliest stages of development onwards, provided key insights into how they related to others and themselves in life more generally. While Freud stressed that there is no ‘normal’ sexuality and heterosexuality was a myth, his particular theories of female sexuality were nonetheless critiqued by feminist thinkers. Initially for Freud, the symptom itself was a distorted or covered manifestation of sexual activity which related to conflicts. Those ideas were developed by post-Freudian psychoanalysts in numerous ways. It is psychoanalysis that fundamentally contributed to the theorisation and understanding of the role that sexual desires and fantasies play in our (un)conscious forms of relating to ourselves and others. While psychoanalytic schools have come to understand sexuality in different ways, other disciplines such as queer theory, cultural studies and philosophy have grappled with and drawn on those conceptualisations of sexuality. Particular notions that are often taken for granted in every day discourse – perversion, fetishism, voyeurism – were (and are) developed by psychoanalysts. The call for papers for a special issue of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society takes psychoanalytic theories of sexuality / sexualities and how they were adapted/critiqued by other disciplines as a starting point for analysing contemporary networked media, online spaces and digital phenomena.

In the past two decades, the Internet and networked devices have not only transformed societies but also human agency and subjectivity. How we communicate and relate to others has been shaped by our engagement with and immersion in digital media, devices and platforms. Social media in particular can be seen as enablers of unprecedented levels of human communication and cooperation which result in a sense of recognition and security for individuals, at the same time users have become data points which are commodified, surveyed and tracked by companies, governments and other entities. Contemporary online communication is also often marked by strong levels of hatred, aggression and polarisation which are characterised by the symbolic, and sometimes physical, destruction of the other. This proposed special issue of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society places a specific focus on sexualities in contemporary online spaces. Sexualities have become more flexible and fluid thanks to technology as they are facilitated through hook up apps like Tinder, or Grindr. In reproductive terms, devices connected to the Internet such as fertility and health check apps have also become available. The Internet facilitates an informative and pleasurable engagement with sexualities, be it through online content, or communities around sexual identities for example. Subjects reveal aspects about their sexualities online more than ever before. At the same time, much of mainstream pornography has been critiqued as depicting women as oppressed, sexualised objects aimed to satisfy a male gaze. Clinicians have also noted that pornography can impact young people’s sexual development in harmful ways. Perhaps somewhat related to the widespread engagement with some forms of pornography, women are discussed in certain online spaces (such as forums on Reddit or 4chan) in highly misogynistic terms. Such language is often inspired by right-wing discourse and imagery which has gained increasing visibility online. The #MeToo movement on the other hand has made use of social media for activist purposes in order to resist and expose the widespread sexual assault and harassment conducted by men. It has attracted criticism for some of the methods and narratives deployed which have led to false accusations for example.

It is safe to say that the representation of and engagement with sexualities has exploded due to digital technologies. There is scope to interpret such aspects in depth through psychoanalysis in combination with other approaches.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Psychoanalytic approaches to sexuality
• Psychoanalysis and other conceptualisations of sexuality (e.g. Foucauldian, Deleuze-Guattarian, queer theoretical)
• Clinical perspectives on sexuality and digital media
• Repression and its status today
• Pleasures, unpleasures – Eros and the death drive
• #MeToo and activism against sexualised violence
• The Alt-Right and online misogyny
• Online pornography
• Livestreaming and camming
• Hook-up apps
• The Internet of Things (fertility devices, sex toys, sex robots, etc.)
• Social media
• Games and gaming cultures
• Virtual reality and forms of simulation

Please send abstracts of no longer than 500 words to Jacob Johanssen (jacob.johanssen@stmarys.ac.uk) by 09 September 2019. Accepted full papers will be due in February 2020. The special issue will be published in December 2020.

Article length: 6-8,000 words

About the journal

Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by Palgrave (https://www.palgrave.com/gb/journal/41282). It explores the intersection between psychoanalysis and the social world. It is a journal of both clinical and academic relevance which publishes articles examining the roles that psychoanalysis can play in promoting and achieving progressive social change and social justice.

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society benefits a worldwide community of psychoanalytically informed scholars in the social and political sciences, media, cultural and literary studies, as well as clinicians and practitioners who probe the relationship between the social and the psychic. It is the official journal of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society.

Deadline: August 1, 2019

South Korea’s ethnoscape has undergone dynamic change. It is peculiar as it has both a postcolonial history with Japan and a neocolonial relationship with the United States. These histories shape complex views of who belongs and who is valued vis-a-vis racial, ethnic, and national others. One major site of the construction of difference is popular culture. Popular and online media in South Korea construct difference through the celebration of the desirable otherness of Whites and biracial White-Koreans (Ahn, 2015), the joining of Southeast Asian women and their multi-ethnic children in the paternal nation-state through the loss of their difference (Oh & Oh, 2016), and marginalized, outcast others, who are rendered irredeemably different. With this in mind, the purpose of the book is to animate postcolonial impulses by drawing together local theories developed in the South Korean context that focuses on the mediated construction of ethnicized, racialized, and nationalized difference in the local cultural terrain.

Previous literature on ethnoracial differences in Korea explains that differences are due to (1) Korea’s myth of ethnic homogeneity (2) Confucian preferences for “civilized” societies, (3) internalization of the racial logics of the US, and (4) a lack of distinction between race, ethnicity, and nation. While each is informative and useful, they are partial explanations and do not adequately explain the ways difference is mediated and discursively constructed, e.g., Western racial hierarchies are not merely mapped onto Korean cultural logics of difference nor are there simple binaries of Koreans versus others.

By bringing together media scholars of Korean popular culture located in and outside Korea, the project aims to map the ways in which ethnic/racial/national difference vis-a-vis Koreanness is represented and constructed at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and nation. Thus, I seek contributions that analyze the discourse of multiculturalism and ethno/racial/national/regional difference.

As an interdisciplinary project, I am interested in contributions, which include fields such as Communication Studies, Media Studies, Korean Studies, Asian Studies, Sociology, Literature, Performance Studies, and Ethnic Studies. Though it is interdisciplinary, I limit the methods to critical qualitative inquiry in order to maintain a focused epistemological vantage point. Finally, I accept original, unpublished submissions that are written in English. Areas of interest might include but are not limited to:

• Mediated constructions of desirable otherness

• Mediated constructions of assimilated otherness

• Mediated constructions of marginalized otherness

• Mediated constructions of multiple assimilations

• Mediated constructions of ambivalent otherness

• Self-mediated constructions of belonging in the imagined nation

• Self-mediated rejection of the imagined nation

If interested in contributing, please submit a 250-400 word extended abstract and CV to David C. Oh (doh@ramapo.edu) and a 100-word bio by August 1, 2019. Please include (1) your purpose, (2) justification, (3) proposed method, (4), if available, tentative findings, and (5) references. Final manuscripts should be 7,000-8,000 words, which includes all elements of the paper – title page, body essay, references, and, if necessary, tables and figures. Final book chapters will be due June 1, 2020.

Social Studies

Deadline: November 1, 2019

The journal Social Studies is announcing a call for papers for a monothematic issue with a working title Media representations and narratives of masculinities across Europe. The editors of the issue are Inês Amaral and Sofia José Santos (University of Coimbra).

This special issue aims to bring together critical analysis focusing on media representations, discourses, narratives and counter-narratives of what it means to be and behave “like a man” in today’s Europe. It wishes to contribute to a comprehensive reflection on the stereotypes that underlie discourses in the mass media and in the online media, and on how cultural productions co-opt, confront, criticize, renegotiate and seek to promote gender alternatives that challenge gender inequality.

This special issue welcomes theoretical and empirical articles that use qualitative, quantitative or mixed methodologies and focus on media representations and narratives of men and masculinities, their relation to policy and legislation, counter-narratives to the stereotyped representations of gender roles, the relation between feminism and masculinities and the fallout of the MeToo movement, social media activism, digital literacy, critical media literacy and other related topics. Papers focusing on research methods with which to address these issues are also welcome.

Abstracts should be sent to the journal address (socstud@fss.muni.cz) and to the editors (ines.amaral@uc.pt and sjs@ces.uc.pt). More detailed information is available on request. The deadline for abstract submission is 1st November 2019, full papers are expected by 1st March 2020.

About the journal

Social studies/Sociální studia (print ISSN 1214-813X, online ISSN 1803-6104) is a fully open-access journal, indexed in SCOPUS and ERIH PLUS. The journal is published since 2004 at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, both electronically and in print. Starting in 2015, the journal accepts English-language thematic issues and contributions.

Website: https://journals.muni.cz/socialni_studia

Isabel Ruiz-Mora, Gisela Gonçalves & Ian Somerville (Org.)

In this book we present the latest advances made in strategic and organizational communication. Beyond traditional approaches, we propose new ways of doing and understanding communication in today’s society. We discuss situations far from the traditional path. We delve into global citizens’ problems and the way in which dialogue and participation processes are connected. The problem of evictions and the emergence of citizens as new political actors, the management of sustainability in the digital era, the development of positive communication in socially aware companies, grassroots movements in defence of public space, how resilience can shape education, the use of brands and professional associations as activists in the defence of public interests, the feminization of politics and the power of visual elements in political campaigns are some of the issues addressed in this volume.

In the book, communication is considered as the strategy to raise our voices and be heard. Strategic and organizational communication takes on an activist role to create a society that is fairer and more committed to citizens.

The diversity represented in this book, not only with respect to the authors’ nationalities, but also in the theoretical and empirical approaches, reflects one of the most salient features of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and the Organizational and Strategic Communication Section’s identity.

More here.

SComS

Deadline: July 15, 2019

www.scoms.ch

ISSN: 1424-4896

Guest Editors

Cornelia Brantner (IWAF – Institut für Wissenskommunikation und angewandte Forschung GmbH)

Helena Stehle (Universität Hohenheim)

In the digital age, calls for transparency and openness as well as for privacy and confidentiality prevail: Struggles for visibility occur simultaneously with fights for invisibility and hidden battles for power and privileges of interpretation. Concerns about a loss of digital self-determination exist just like concerns about the “right to be forgotten”. While a few years ago the idea of a “transparent user”–as the ultimate of (in)voluntary visibility–caused a broad outcry in society and scientific debate (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008), the debate is nowadays shifting towards considerations of Internet governance and regulation (Camenisch, Fischer-Hübner, & Hansen, 2015). The societally relevant aspects of visibility and invisibility in the digital age are increasingly discussed and analyzed. Visibility and invisibility become important dimensions in the description and explanation of digital communication. They encompass for example “(1) the availability of information, (2) approval to share information, and (3) the accessibility of information to third parties” (Stohl, Stohl, & Leonardi, 2016, p. 125). They can be addressed with regard to individuals and institutions (e.g., their ability to speak, their power or opinion leadership), structures and processes (e.g., in the meaning of becoming visible or making visible), as well as data and information (e.g., their accessibility or comprehensibility). Studies are, however, scattered across various fields of research in media and communication science. Therefore, the thematic section aims at gathering cutting-edge research on visibility and invisibility in digital publics. We invite submissions from different divisions in media and communication studies that present outstanding meta-analytical perspectives, new theoretical approaches, innovative methodological approaches, or lessons to be learned from empirical analyses. Submissions relating (but not limited) to the following areas and questions are invited:

• Understanding and analysis of digital (in)visibility: How can visiblity be conceptualized in the digital world? How is it connected to other concepts, e.g., transparency or attention? What aspects are included in the state of being visible in comparison to the process of becoming visible? Which theoretical concepts and methodological perspectives are useful and necessary to describe and analyze the (in)visible of digital communication? How can the invisible be made visible for research? How can the effects of the invisible, but also of the visible, be measured?
• Tensions between visibility and invisibility: What tensions between visibility and invisibility can be observed in society in general or in specific contexts? Why do they emerge? How are these tensions addressed by various actors, e.g., in interactions between journalists and audience members or in instances of cyberbullying?
• Actors, institutions, structures and processes regarding digital (in)visibility: Who is involved in creating, shaping or governing digital (in)visibility? How can structures and processes regarding (in)visibility be described? How are conditions and constraints of (in)visibility created and shaped? In what ways do processes of governance or management and intervolved power relations become visible themselves? How does the (in)visibility of information affect structures and processes in society in general or in specific contexts like media companies or other organizations? How do users deal with (in)visibility in their everyday media practices and how are they influenced by the affordances of social media or underlying societal and cultural norms?
• Sociopolitical significance and consequences of digital (in)visibility: What significance does (in)visibility have in the digital world? What positive or negative implications for sociopolitical frameworks and contexts arise from the influence of actors, technologies, processes, and practices on what users see or do not see online and how they see it? How does the visible frame the media- and non-media-related everyday life? What consequences does the (in)visibility of actors, opinions, or processes have for social coexistence, societal institutions, or foundations of democracy?

Submission guidelines

The length of the articles in the thematic section should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words (including abstract and references). All submitted papers must adhere to APA6 style (www.apastyle.org). The journal welcomes submissions in English, German, French, or Italian, but the abstract must be in English.

All submissions should be sent to the guest editors via the following email addresses: brantner@iwaf.at and helena.stehle@uni-hohenheim.de.

The submission process consists of two phases:

● In a first step, abstracts of 500 words (plus the name(s) of the author(s) and affiliation(s), title, and 3 to 5 keywords) should be submitted no later than July 15, 2019.

● In the second step, the decision for an invitation to submit a full paper will be given by August 15, 2019.

● Invited paper submissions will be due November 30, 2019. The invitation to submit a full paper does not guarantee acceptance into the thematic section. Final acceptance depends on a doubleblind peer review process.

The expected publishing date of this thematic section is December 2020. Successful contributions that are not accepted for the thematic section will be published in other issues of the journal.

Key dates

• Abstracts are required no later than July 15, 2019
• Invitation to submit a full paper will be given by August 15, 2019
• Full papers are required no later than November 30, 2019
• 1st review will be provided by February 15, 2020
• 2nd submission should be submitted by April 15, 2020
• 2nd review and notification of acceptance will be provided by June 1, 2020
• Final papers should be submitted by July 15, 2020

We look forward to receiving your submissions. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors: Cornelia Brantner (brantner@iwaf.at) or Helena Stehle (helena.stehle@unihohenheim.de).

The Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG), Faculty of Communication Sciences, Università Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano

Deadline: September 15, 2019

Profile of the Faculty and of the Institute

The Faculty of Communication Sciences is committed to research and teaching excellence in innovative communication and media areas, with strong societal and cultural import. We consider communication as a fundamental process of the organizing of social endeavours, which we approach from multiple disciplines both within the social sciences and humanities. The Faculty is embedded within a diverse, dynamic, and highly international university, fostering collaborations across faculties (Architecture, Biomedical Sciences, Economics and Informatics).

The Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) was created in 2004 within the Faculty of Communication Sciences. The Institute contributes to the teaching activities at Bachelor level, particularly by providing the area of specialization in Comunicazione e media (Communication and Media), at the Master level, by running the Master in 'Media Management and by offering Ph.D. level supervision. IMeG engages in research activities in the following areas: organizational analysis and business strategies adopted by media companies; the historical evolution of media production processes and the media use within different socio-political, economic and cultural contexts; and the evolution of media-related professions, with particular regard to journalism; the history of media technologies; digital usage among young people; and climate change communications. The Director of the Institute is Professor Matthew Hibberd.

Candidate Profile

The Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) wishes to appoint a suitably qualified and experienced candidate at Assistant Professor level to undertake academic research, service existing undergraduate module/s and to develop a new Master-level course in Digital Journalism. The successful candidate will already hold a Ph.D. and will have experience in publishing in peer-reviewed journals. S/he will have teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including coordinating and managing modules, allowing the successful candidate the opportunity to participate in both undergraduate and master-level programmes by developing specialist journalism provision. The successful candidate will take the lead role in developing a new Master's programme in the area of Digital Journalism at USI and will also help supervise doctoral student/s. IMeG currently hosts the European Journalism Observatory’s (EJO) Italian web site and the successful candidate will

have the opportunity to work with EJO colleagues. Applications will be welcome from those who have teaching and research specialisms in a range of areas across digital journalism, including practice-based teaching, especially in the following areas:

• Journalist research and practice in Switzerland and Europe.
• News Reporting and understanding of key techniques and issues used across multi-platform journalism, including key standards, issues of journalistic balance and media ethics.
• Journalism and the use of big data, artificial intelligence and algorithm processing including knowledge of recent media controversies surrounding WikiLeaks, etc.
• Social media and the use of alternative forms of journalism.

The ideal candidate will have:

• potential to research in his/her field at an international level;
• experience in teaching including managing modules;

The ability to teach and work in various languages and a commitment to service to the University and to the academic profession are a plus.

Job Description

This post offers the opportunity and resources for a young scholar of excellence to become an important member of a vibrant research group and be involved in the Institute’s research and teaching programmes.

The successful candidate will be expected to:

• promote research internationally and locally. Switzerland provides the opportunity of accessing relevant research funds provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and similar institutions;
• teach courses and hold seminars on digital journalism at different levels: Bachelor, Master and Doctoral (9 ECTS per year);
• co-ordinate an assistant’s activities and act in an advisory capacity for PhD candidates; actively participate in the work of the Faculty Council and related ad-hoc committees.

The position involves 60% research, 30% teaching, and 10% service, and will start in April 2020 or as soon as thereafter. The employment package is competitive according to international standards, including also one fully funded Ph.D. position with generous travel funds.

Residence and Language

The professor should normally take residence in Ticino (Italian-speaking part of Switzerland). The University’s postgraduate programmes are taught mainly in English, while most Bachelor classes are taught in Italian. Fluency in Italian is preferential, but is required within three years of taking up the post. B2 level of French and/or German is desirable.

Application and Required Documentation:

Applicants should submit:

• a letter of motivation addressed to the Dean of the Faculty;
• a detailed CV including a list of publications, together with documentation of relevant academic qualifications, teaching, service and professional experience;
• copies of a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 10 publications of relevance for the position;
• names and contacts of three referees.

Please send the application in digital form to concorsi.com@usi.com

Since USI aims to increase the percentage of women in research and teaching, women academics are particularly encouraged to apply.

Deadline

Applications received by 15th September 2019 will be given priority.

Please send your electronic application to the Dean of Faculty by e-mail, addressed to:

Prof. Andrea Rocci

Facoltà di scienze della comunicazione

Università della Svizzera italiana

Via Giuseppe Buffi 13

CH-6904 Lugano

E-mail: concorsi.com@usi.ch

For further information, please contact Prof. Matthew Hibberd Vice-Dean and Director of the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG). Phone 0041 586664725. Email matthew.hibberd@usi.ch.