ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Studies in World Cinema: A Critical Journal/ offers a platform to examine, rethink and reinvent the notion of “world cinema”. What do we understand by “world cinema”, and how useful or enabling is this term? Taking the world as a space of signification in which we continually reproduce its meanings, this journal opens up inquiries about films and cinematic practices that engender novel senses of the world.

The journal welcomes research on traveling cinematic tropes, transnational practices, remakes and adaptations, translation cultures, migrant and diasporic films and film cultures, postcolonial and accented cinemas, collaborations and exchanges among filmmakers, co-productions and multinational filmmaking practices and networks, and early cinematic practices. Together we aim to develop a fruitful and more enriching understanding of our world cinema.

The first two issues of the journal will be dedicated to exploring broader issues in the field of world cinema. Special attention will be given to qualifying the notion of “world cinema” and to its historical transformations and contemporary renderings. In addition to papers touching on a myriad of issues in relation to world cinema(s), cinemas of different countries and regions and/or periods, we would be particularly interested in papers touching on the following subjects:

- the ontology and meaning(s) of world cinema

- the history and transformation of the notion of world cinema

- renderings of the world in cinema and other screen media

- alternatives to world cinema: global or international cinema

- the relationship between world cinema and transnational cinemas

- the senses of the world as an expanding process of peoples and cinemas

- the discourses of difference and power relations in world cinemas

- separations of the world and cinemas (north-south, center-periphery, developed-developing, west-rest, first, second, third, and fourth)

- films which question or touch on any of the above topics

- novel cinematic practices in relation to world television and online and social media

The journal’s inaugural issue will be published in 2020, with two issues

per year.

https://brill.com/view/journals/swc/swc-overview.xml

Editor-in-chief

Savas Arslan, Bahçeşehir University, Turkey

Associate Editors

Ana Grgić, Monash University Malaysia, Malaysia

Olivia Khoo, Monash University, Australia

Jeremi Szaniawski, Emerson College, the Netherlands

Managing Editor

Emily Coolidge Toker, Harvard University, USA

Editorial Board

Dudley Andrew, Yale University, USA

Daniela Berghahn, Royal Holloway University of London, UK

Christine Gledhill, University of Leeds, UK

Dina Iordanova, University of St. Andrews, UK

Eva Jørholt, Copenhagen University, Denmark

Hamid Naficy, Northwestern University, USA

Richard Peña, Columbia University, USA

January 30-31, 2020

USI Università Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

Deadline: September 23, 2019

The term “myth” resonates widely in the foundations of European cultural and media studies, particularly in the intellectual legacy of French semiotician Roland Barthes, who described “modern mythologies” as the dominant ideologies of our time (Barthes 1957). More recently, Vincent¨Mosco emphasised how, in the last decades, the myth of the digital revolution still animates individuals and societies by providing new paths “that lift people out of the banality of everyday life” (Mosco 2004, 3). Little attention, however, has been given to the question of what makes myths of the digital age different to mythologies of the past, and also how and to which extent these myths permeate contemporary societies. This is an important gap if one considers that myths have characterised the most diverse cultures across thousands of years, from ancient Greece with its narratives of gods and metamorphosis, to contemporary Silicon Valley in which the myth of singularity envisions transcendence and immortality as the result of the development of digital technologies.

As recently suggested by Ortoleva (2019), one way to look at this question is to consider how digital technologies have become both the subject of new forms of myths and the medium through which contemporary mythologies are shaped and disseminated. The aim of this conference is to critically scrutinize the topic of “digital myths” from this twofold perspective: on the one hand, retracing the narratives by which digital media are and have been told, from the enthusiasms about the ‘digital revolution’ to the recent panics about the Dark Web, online surveillance and fake news; on the other, looking at how new forms of mythologies emerge, co-evolve and are fostered by and within the contemporary media landscape, informed by the peculiar dynamics of digital communication.

The conference invites empirical and theoretical contributions that critically assess “digital myths” from one or both these angles.

Potential topics may include but are not limited to:

- Predictions and vision about digital futures

- The time and temporalities of digital myths

- The spaces and geographies of digital myths

- The myth of a globally connected society in the digital age

- Digital networks and democracy: threat and promises

- The myth of the “digital revolution”

- The role of digital media and social media in the construction of the social imaginary

- Urban legends and popular beliefs in the digital age.

- Community, participation, interactivity as myths of the “digital society”

- Platformization and the logic of digital media platforms

- Digital media and moral panic

- Media and myths from a media archaeology perspective

- “Low intensity myths” in the contemporary media system

- Media representations of digital technologies

- Myths on the analogue/digital transition

Confirmed keynote speakers:Peppino Ortoleva (University of Turin)

Organisational board:

• Gabriele Balbi (USI, Switzerland)
• Luca Barra (University of Bologna, Italy)
• Paolo Bory (USI, Switzerland), Simone
• Dotto (University of Udine, Italy)
• Giuliana Galvagno (University of Turin, Italy)
• Simone Natale (Loughborough University, UK)

Submissions should include an abstract (approximately 500 words), a short biographical note of the author/authors (100 words for each speaker) and should be sent to rethinkingdigitalmyths@gmail.com by September 23, 2019.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent to authors by October 7, 2019.

A 200 Chf (approx. 200 USD - 180 euros) registration fee will be applied (lunches and coffee breaks included).

Special Issue of the Journal Communication, Capitalism & Critique 2019-06-26, , edited by Christian Fuchs

Deadline: July 15, 2019

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique is a Marxist journal of media and communication studies. Its special issue “Digital/Communicative Socialism” asks: What is digital/communicative socialism? The special issue will publish peer-reviewed contributions that explore perspectives on digital/communicative socialism in respect to theory, dialectics, history, internationalism, praxis, and class struggles.

Marx and Engels saw socialism as the movement for a society that is based on the principles of equality, justice, and solidarity. They distinguish different types of socialism, of which communism is one, whereas reactionary socialism, bourgeois socialism, and critical-utopian socialism are others. Rosa Luxemburg summarises the history of socialism: 

“Socialism goes back for thousands of years, as the ideal of a social order based on equality and the brotherhood of man, the ideal of a communistic society. With the first apostles of Christianity, various religious sects of the Middle Ages, and in the German peasants’ war, the socialist idea always glistened as the most radical expression of rage against the existing society. […] It was in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that the socialist idea first appeared with vigor and force […] the socialist idea was placed on a completely new footing by Marx and Engels. These two sought the basis for socialism not in moral repugnance towards the existing social order nor in cooking up all kinds of possible attractive and seductive projects, designed to smuggle in social equality within the present state. They turned to the investigation of the economic relationships of present-day society”. 

Marx and Engels argue that socialism is grounded in the antagonistic class structure of capitalism that pits workers against capitalists. In the 19th century, the socialist movement experienced a split between reformist revisionists and revolutionary socialists. After the First World War, the Communist International and the Labour and Socialist International were created. After the collapse of the Second International, there was an institutional distinction between Socialists and Communists. Whereas reformism dominated the Socialist International, Stalinism became dominant in the Communist International. The notion of “socialism” became associated with social democratic parties and the notion of “communism” with communist parties. From a historical point of view, both Stalinism and revisionist social democracy have failed.

With the rise of neoliberalism, social democracy turned towards the right and increasingly adopted neoliberal policies. When Tony Blair became British Prime Minster in 1997, his neoliberal version of social democracy influenced social democracy around the world. The crisis of capitalism and the emergence of new versions of socialist politics (Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Podemos, Syriza, etc.) has reinvigorated the debate about socialism today. 

tripleC’s special issue explores perspectives on the digital and communicative dimensions of socialism today.

In the intellectual realm, the socialist debate has e.g. resulted in the vision of the renewal of a class-struggle social democracy (by Jacobin-editor Bhaskar Sunkara in the book The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequality) or the vision of fully-automated luxury communism (formulated by Novara Media’s Aaron Bastani in the book Fully Automated Luxury Communism). Such contributions show that for a renewal of socialism, we need intellectual and theoretical foundations that inform class struggles in digital/communicative capitalism. There were earlier contributions to the discussion of computing and socialism, such as André Gorz’s notion of post-industrial socialism, Radovan Richta’s work on the role of the scientific and technological revolution for democratic communism, Autonomist Marxism’s readings of Marx’s “Fragment of Machines”, Fernando Flores’ and Stafford Beer’s roles in Chile’s Project Cybersyn during the Allende presidency, Norbert Wiener’s and Joseph Weizenbaum’s reflections on a humanistic instead of an imperialistic and instrumental use of cybernetics and computing, etc. 

The special issue seeks contributions that address one or more of the following questions:

Theory: 

What is socialism today? What are the communicative and digital dimensions of socialism today? What is communicative/digital socialism? What theoretical approaches and concepts are best-suited for understanding digital/communicative socialism today? Does it or does it not make sense to distinguish between digital/communicative socialism and digital/communicative communism? Why or why not?

Dialectic: 

What are the contradictions of digital capitalism? How does digital/communicative socialism differ from and contradict digital/communicative capitalism?

History: 

What lessons can we draw from the history of socialism, communism, social democracy and Marxist theory for the conceptualisation and praxis of digital/communicative socialism today?

Internationalism: 

Socialism is a universalist and internationalist movement. What are the international(ist), global dimensions of digital/communicative socialism today?

Praxis and class struggles: 

What strategies, demands and struggles are important for digital/communicative socialism? How can socialism today best be communicated in public? What class struggles are there in the context of communication and computing? What are the roles of communication and digital technologies in contemporary class struggles for socialism? What is the role of social movements, the party and trade unions in the organisation and self-organisation of digital and communication workers’ class struggles for socialism? How should socialist class politics, unions and strikes look like today so that they adequately reflect changes of the working class and exploitation in the age of digital capitalism? What is a digital strike and what are its potentials for digital socialism? 

Submission

Abstracts can be submitted per e-mail to christian.fuchs@triple-c.at, using the form published at https://triple-c.at/files/journals/1/CfP_Form_Socialism.docx

Please do not make submissions that omit a completed form.

Submission deadline is Monday, July 15, 2019. 

Feedback on acceptance/rejection will be provided at latest until July 31, 2019.

The deadline for the submission of accepted papers is October 13, 2019. The maximum length of full papers is 8,000 words. Articles should in the first stage of submission (October 13) not be longer than 7,000 words so that there is space for additions as part of the revision process. 

All accepted articles will be peer-reviewed and published in a special issue of tripleC. 

The special issue will be published open access. There are no APCs.

September 10, 2019 

National University of Ireland, Galway 

Deadline: July 1, 2019

Free Event 

Punk Scholars Network invites proposals for presentations as part of  our postgraduate symposium on subcultures and aesthetics at National  University of Ireland, Galway. This symposium will explore how  subcultures connect to aesthetics and create what Pierre Bourdieu calls  the space of possibles, a space for radical politics to be formed  through the means of artistic productions. From do-it-yourself methods  of street art to the shock-effect of Dadaist and punk attitudes in  different time-places, the close relationship between subcultures and  aesthetics continues to reflect the turbulences of our political  atmosphere. From music and literature to cinema and other art forms,  this symposium will offer a platform for postgraduate students who wish  to share their research, explore critical approaches and analyse the  complexities of the relationship between subcultures and aesthetics. 

This is also a great opportunity for those of you who would like to  bring academic research and subcultural environments together, share the  potential contradictions that may arise from this togetherness and  explore alternative research methods. Representatives of the Punk  Scholars Network have kindly agreed to attend the symposium as panel  discussants. 

We invite proposals from international researchers representing diverse  backgrounds and academic disciplines, including urban studies, cultural  studies, media studies, literary studies, film studies, queer studies,  musicology, sociology, arts and history. We also welcome proposals of  alternative forms of presentation or performance relating to the  symposium’s themes. 

Topics of interest for submission include but are not limited to: 

• Global and local subcultural scenes 
• The role of subcultures in cultural studies 
• Critical perspectives on subcultural productions 
• Music scenes, art collectives, film clubs and other collective spaces 
• Low-budget, DIY and alternative forms of art-making 
• The current state of punk discourse in academia 
• Histories of subcultures, nostalgia and collective memory 
• Punk as a discipline / Punk as a subculture 
• The politics of race and gender in subcultural environments 
• Junk and pulp fiction, thrash, cult, experimental and underground cinemas 

Keynotes by representatives of the Punk Scholars Network 

Proposals for papers should be approximately 300 words in length and 

should be sent to *t.gurbuz1@nuigalway.ie  no later than 1 July 2019 with a  short biography. 

Middlesex University

Deadline: July 10, 2019

We are seeking to expand our pool of Hourly Paid Lecturers to teach on Middlesex University's MA Novel Writing (Distance Education). Since its inception in 2015, student numbers on MA Novel Writing (Distance Education) have expanded rapidly, and weare now looking to recruit additional HPAs (Hourly Paid Academics) to our teaching pool to support the teaching of tutor-group modules and the supervision of final dissertations. All teaching is done remotely, on-line and by Skype/phone. Candidates should be published writers with experience of Higher Education teaching. Experience of postgraduate teaching or teaching online is desirable.

To apply please send your CV, along with a covering letter, to Adam Lively, Programme Leader for MA Novel WritingA.Lively@mdx.ac.uk by 5pm on Wednesday 10 July.

Shortlisted candidates will be notified by Friday 12 July and interviewed on Wednesday 17 July. At interview candidates are required to present either their passport or work visa as part of a mandatory ‘right to work’ check.

Tallinn University (TLU)

Deadline: August 12, 2019

Position starts in Autumn or early Winter 2019

Tenure: The position will be tenured

Tallinn University (TLU) seeks an internationally recognized leader in digital humanities or digital culture studies to become an ERA Chair Professor in Cultural Data Analytics.

All details about the application process and what documents are needed can be found here: https://www.tlu.ee/en/professor-cultural-data-analytics

Position includes excellent remuneration package; secured substantial research funds for the first 4 years; the possibility to create own research team and an Open Lab; cooperation networks with several external cultural and media institution; strong institutional support from the university.

Profile of the candidate

TLU has won a grant for this position from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 ERA Chair programme. The programme supports universities in their efforts to build on their reputation as leaders in research and innovation. The programme awards top researchers and their teams EUR 2.5 million over five years to establish ambitious research programmes. Estonian Research Council is expected to top it up with additional 200 000 euros from its Mobilitas scheme. After the CUDAN project ends and the position gets tenured TLU will support the Chair by its own means.

TLU has used the grant to establish a new professorship in Cultural Data Analytics (CUDAN) together with the new research team that consists of 5-7 senior researchers and at least 5 PhD students. The team will also run CUDAN Open Lab - an actual space and a cooperation platform for collaborating with external cultural and media institutions. See more about the whole CUDAN project here: http://cudan.tlu.ee

The candidate for the professorship is expected to have experience of managing research projects and/or teams in digital humanities/digital culture studies and with spearheading open stakeholder collaborations.

CUDAN ERA Chair will interconnect three TLU Schools - Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School (BFM), School of Humanities (SH) and School of Digital Technologies (DTI). The ERA Chair holder will be hired as a professor at BFM.

The applicant has to have a PhD degree in digital humanities, digital culture studies or in data analytics and at least 5 years of experience in managing research teams and/or planning and implementing research and innovation projects.

More specifically the following experience is required:

• Strong academic background and international reputation in digital humanities/digital culture studies;

• Publications in international peer reviewed journals;

• Supervision of PhD students;

• Experience in formulating and managing research teams;

• Experience in planning new research projects;

• Experience in coordination of or participation in international research projects (e.g. Framework Programme, Horizon 2020);

• Collaboration with non-academic stakeholders.

The ERA Chair holder will need to reside permanently in Estonia and sign an employment contract with TLU.

The salary of the ERA Chair professor will be negotiable, but will be based on the existing experience and seniority of the candidates and equate broadly with professor salaries in Western European countries. Yet, employment in Estonia could be more beneficial due to low income tax rates (approximately 21% for this position).

TLU offers modern ergonomic working conditions and flexible schedules in a brand new campus located in the city centre. TLU employees enjoy numerous benefits in areas such recreation, health care, child care, employee training, etc. TLU allows for its professors extensive paid vacation - 65 days each year. TLU will help the newly expected professor and her/his family with the move to Estonia, relocation allowance can be negotiated.

Deadlines: The application process opened June 22nd 2019 and ends August 12th. A decision will be made in the Autumn of 2019. All the details about the process and what documents are needed can be found here: https://www.tlu.ee/en/professor-cultural-data-analytics.

See more about the CUDAN Open Lab: http://cudan.tlu.ee

CUDAN team is happy to respond to any questions and at any time about the position. Please contact us at cudan@tlu.ee.

The 11th International Media Readings in Moscow ‘Mass Media and Communications-2019’

October 17-19, 2019

Moscow, Russia

Deadline: August 15, 2019

http://www.moscowreadings.com

moscow.readings@mail.ru

Languages: English, Russian

Organizer: Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University

In partnership with: IAMCR Digital Divide Working Group, IAMCR PostSocialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group, UNESCO, chair in communication, National Association of Mass Media Researchers

Local organizing and program committees are headed by Professor Elena Vartanova, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education, President of the National Association of Mass Media Researchers

The process of media digitalization has significantly influenced communication practices and media systems in both national and global contexts. Today, there is a clear shift towards digital communication, with new channels, platforms, players, distribution and delivery opportunities constantly developing. As an effect of these processes, we can observe changes in media production and media consumption; growing popularity of digital media compared to the traditional media, and the gradual shift of the latter towards digital formats (digital broadcasting, appearance of online versions of print media, etc.); transformations in audience behavior and the growing need for media and digital literacy; changes of media policy and regulation instruments, logics and formats, and many other effects. There also remain some challenges that many countries across the world are facing today: the problem of digital exclusion and digital inequalities, unequal digital engagement of various social/cultural/ethnic groups, information security issues, deprofessionalization of the journalistic work, fake news/post-truth challenges, etc.

Questions for discussion

• Communication in the digital age: practices, tendencies, challenges;
• Mobile media and communication;
• News media as gatekeepers, critics and facilitators;
• Mass media and audience: a shift from mass communication to more fragmented and individualized forms of media;
• Fake news / post-truth challenges;
• Media literacy in the digital age;
• Digital natives: media consumption and media production practices;
• New players and actors in digital communication;
• Digital inclusion / social inclusion: correlations and interdependencies;
• Digital inequalities in the societies across the globe;
• Multicultural/multiethnic societies and digital engagement;
• Policies against divides, distrust and discrimination;
• Information security in the digital age;
• Coverage of EU elections-2019 in the traditional and digital media

Special sections

• ‘Digital, social and cultural divides: interrelations and interdependencies’ organized by IAMCR Digital Divide Working Group;
• ‘Media and communication in post- and neo-authoritarian societies: global trends, local formats’ organized by IAMCR Post-Socialist and Post-Authoritarian Communication Working Group;
• ‘Fifteen years of ‘Comparing Media Systems’ book: theoretical legacy in the new digital world’ (in celebration of 15 years of ‘Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics’ book by Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini, first published in 2004)

Submissions to the special sections should be sent as regular submissions. Please add a note in your abstract saying that this submission should be considered by a particular special section (title).

Confirmed keynote speakers

• Prof. Dr. Mark Deuze, University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
• Dr. Massimo Ragnedda, Northumbria University Newcastle (Great Britain)

Other keynote speakers to be confirmed

Registration form should include:

1. Full name;

2. Name of institution;

3. Position, title;

4. Phone number, e-mail;

5. Abstract (between 300 and 500 words) in .doc or .docx in English or Russian

Registration form and abstract should be sent by e-mail to moscow.readings@mail.ru before 15 August 2018

Registration fee

Moscow Readings conference does not have conference registration fee, although all costs (travel, accommodation, visa, etc.) will have to covered either by the home institution or by the presenters themselves. We are sorry to say that we do not provide any grant support or any other financial assistance to conference participants either.

Publishing opportunities

Best papers will be considered for publication in peer-reviewed Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 10. Zhurnalistika, the leading journal in media and communication fields in Russia. The journal is included into the database of the best Russian journals RSCI (Russian Science Citation Index), basing on the Web of Science platform. Best papers will also be considered for publication in World of Media.

Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, international peer-reviewed journal published in Russia. Both issues should be out in 2020. Information on other publishing opportunities will be available shortly.

Contact details

Contact email: moscow.readings@mail.ru

Phone number : +7 (495) 629 52 76

Postal and visiting address: 125009 Mokhovaya street 9, Moscow, Russia

Contact person: Anna Gladkova, secretary of the Moscow Readings organizing committee

Deadline: June 30, 2019

The editors are in talks with John Benjamins Publishing Company (Amsterdam) and plan to publish the edited volume in the Benjamins’ Discourse Approaches to Politics, Culture and Society series (edited by Jo Angouri and Andreas Musolff). This book series is peer-reviewed and indexed in Scopus.

Discourse Analysis and Conflict Studies

Interest in the broad subject of conflict studies by linguists and language scholars has increased over the years with the growing incidents of conflicts, wars and political violence around the world. There have also been increasing and interesting studies that applied linguistic and discourse approaches to the study of violent protests, activism and political struggles. These studies have given significant insights to the role of language use or discourse in conflict initiation and conflict resolution. From these burgeoning studies, it is clear that there is a strong connection between how what is said or written and how conflict may develop and escalate.

Discourse theorists generally believe that oral or written discourse produced by different people vary with recognizable patterns, depending on their social domains of life (see, for example, Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). The work of a discourse analyst is to analyze these patterns and identify their significance and consequences. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) for example, shows how language works in sociocultural and political contexts, focusing on power relations and ideological perspectives reflected in discourse texts, and their wider implications for the society.

Hence, a critical discourse study of subtle texts such as news reports (or “fake news”), editorials, propaganda, social media publications, etc. in the form of writing, visual or multimodal/video streaming will be very important in contemporary times.

This collection of essays will aim to show the synergy between discourse analysis and conflict studies by showing how topics in conflicts studies and conflict resolution may be researched using methods and approaches in discourse analysis (e.g. CDA, multi-modal discourse analysis, conversation analysis, pragmatics, argumentation, rhetoric etc.)

This study will attempt to cover all conflict-related topics within the fields of political science, international relations, sociology, media studies, applied linguistics etc., which will include:

• Terrorism and extremism
• Conflict and war
• Political crisis
• Ethnic violence/sectarian crisis
• Activism and violent protest
• Hate speech and verbal war (in the media and the Internet etc.)
• Conflict resolution techniques
• Discourse and peace processes
• Etc.

Contributors are invited to submit chapter proposals (about 200 words) not later than 30th June 2019. Kindly send Abstracts or questions as email attachment to Innocent Chiluwa: innocent.chiluwa@covenantuniversity.edu.ng

Editors: Veneti, Anastasia, Jackson, Daniel, Lilleker, Darren G. (Eds.)

This edited volume offers a theoretically driven, empirically grounded survey of the role visual communication plays in political culture, enabling a better understanding of the significance and impact visuals can have as tools of political communication. The advent of new media technologies have created new ways of producing, disseminating and consuming visual communication, the book hence explores the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of visual political communication in the digital age, and how visual communication is employed in a number of key settings. The book is intended as a specialist reading and teaching resource for courses on media, politics, citizenship, activism, social movements, public policy, and communication.

Buy here.

December 16-17, 2019

School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds

Deadline: June 28, 2019

Political Studies Association ‘Media and Politics Group’ Annual Conference

Keynote address by Professor Michael Saward (Warwick)

Roundtable session on ‘What makes a good political performance?’ including Prof Candida Yates (Bournemouth), Dr Lone Sorensen (Huddersfield), Prof John Corner (Leeds) and Prof Stephen Coleman (Leeds)

We are delighted to be celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the PSA Media & Politics group at the University of Leeds in December 2019. Our conference theme this year responds to the growing body of research emphasizing the performative dimensions of political communication. The deadline for abstract submission is Friday 28 June 2019 (see full details below).

The changing nature of political communication raises questions about how the relationships between the actors in the classical ‘political communication triangle’ are dynamically articulated and constructed in the media. Concerns include the intensified professionalization of politicians’ communication; increased pressures to retain and engage audiences; populist challenges to the rules of the game; the observed tendency of news to represent politics as a strategic game; and the disconnection between citizens and politicians.

Politics is performed in a variety of media forms and genres, including political drama, cartoons and comedy. The theme of the conference on ‘political performance’ allows a broad call for papers which explore the contribution of the media, political actors, and citizens to mediated performances of politics, and encourages a focus on the potential consequences of these performances.

While the main theme of this conference is politics and performance, the Media & Politics Group operates an open and inclusive policy, and papers dealing with any aspect of media and politics are welcomed. This may include areas of political communication and journalism, but also includes a broader view of the political within such areas as online media, television, cinema and media arts, both factual and fictional. In addition to academic research, the conference will also welcome practice-based work in art, film and performance related to the area of media and politics.

Deadlines and submission process:

Friday, 28 June 2019: Deadline for abstract submission. Please send abstract proposals for 15 minute papers to leedspsampg@leeds.ac.uk. These should include the following: title and name, institutional affiliation and address, and email address, together with a paper title and abstract of not more than 250 words. Proposers should also indicate whether they are current postgraduate students.

Early August. Paper proposers notified of decision by conference committee. Conference registration opens. Details of online registration to follow: £120 conference registration fee for both PSA members and non-members; £60 for students/ precariously employed.

• Friday, 4 October: Deadline for presenters to register.
• Friday, 25 October: Draft programme released.
• Monday, 16 December: Conference starts in Leeds.
• About the PSA, conference prizes and financial support

The Political Studies Association is the UK’s leading association in the study and research of politics. The Media & Politics Group is one of the Political Studies Association’s larger specialist groups.

The MPG is a welcoming and inclusive group. The conference welcomes contributions from both members and non-members of the Political Studies Association and of the Media & Politics Group.

James Thomas Memorial Prize and postgraduate travel subsidies

Full papers of a maximum of 2000 words submitted by postgraduate students will be entered into the James Thomas Memorial Prize. This annual award is presented to the most outstanding paper by a postgraduate student at the Media & Politics Group Annual Conference.

The Media & Politics Group offers a limited number of travel subsidies (up to the value of £100) to support postgraduate student participation in this event. Postgraduate students interested in applying for these subsidies should please note this in their submission.

Conference organisers: Professor Stephen Coleman, Dr Julie Firmstone, Dr Giles Moss and Dr Katy Parry, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds.

Contact: leedspsampg@leeds.ac.uk or mediaresearchsupport@leeds.ac.uk with any queries.