ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

July 4-5, 2019

City, University of London/Loughborough University, London Campus

Deadline: June 3, 2019

About the conference

In an age of increasing media concentration and commercialisation, how can we envision a role for the media in development and for democracy? How can networked communications be better used by social movements, civil society and other marginalized groups who encounter difficulties in having a voice in the public sphere? How can ICTs (information and communication technologies) be used for development? How are feminist NGOs and women’s groups at present making use of communication tools and technologies to shape policy and pursue social change at a global and local level? What are some of the theoretical frameworks on communications and social change that we need to revisit? What are the more appropriate methodologies to study communication for social change (CSC) in the digital era? These are some of the many questions that these workshops, which will be held at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense) and at City, University of London, ahead of the 2019 IAMCR (International Association in Media and Communication Research) conference in Spain, seek to address. Our keynote speeches will be delivered by professors Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Mellichamp professor of Global Studies and Sociology at University of California Santa Barbara; Thomas Tufte, current Director for the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London; Toby Miller, professor in Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University; Ana Carolina Escosteguy, professor of gender and media at the Federal University of Santa Maria (Brazil); senior lecturer in Latin America Studies, Thea Pitman, of the University of Leeds and professor of Communications Jair Vega Casanova, Universidad del Norte in Colombia.

Our workshops invite research proposals which aim to address the role of the media and communications in social change, for the benefit of social and economic development of countries and of local contexts and inserted within wider debates on democratization of these societies. Our concerns here include the role of communications and new technologies (ICTs) for sustainable development, the use of participatory approaches in community, indigenous and social movements, the relationship between participation, empowerment and gender, particularly in relation to media and how communication tools can be used for activism and political engagement.

Our research also examines community radios and tvs and the use of media by marginalized and underrepresented groups, the development and support of community-based media organizations, the benefits of alternative forms of journalism, the role of NGOs in development and the use of media by international organizations and social movements. We also invite theoretical contributions in the field of communication and social change (CSC), gender, media and development, policy advocacy and activism through communications. The workshops are organized by Dr. Carolina Matos, senior lecturer in Media and Sociology, Department of Sociology, City, University of London, and by Adilson Cabral, associate professor in Social Communications at UFF.

Call for extended abstracts

We invite extended abstracts for our following four panels:

1) Communication for development and the role of the state in sustainable communications (chairs: Gabriel Kaplún and Amparo Cadavid);

2) Media activism and marginalized populations (chairs: Andrea Medrado and João Paulo Malerba);

3) Media, social movements and questions of gender (chairs: Carolina Matos and Eliana Herrera Huerfano);

4) Media, nationalisms and populisms (chairs: João Feres and María Soledad Segura).

Extended Abstract submission deadline - 3rd June 2019

Maximum word limit - 500 words

Please include names and affiliations of all authors. Please indicate who will be giving the paper if successful and which panel the paper is intended for.

Abstracts should be submitted by email to Associate Professor Dr. Adilson Cabral, Social Communications, UFF, Brazil and Dr. Carolina Matos, Senior lecturer in Media and Sociology, City, University of London

Keynote speakers

Professor Thomas Tufte

Abstract title: Continuity and change in the Latin American experience of communication for social change: From Radios Mineras to Midia Ninja (with Jair Vega Casanova)

This presentation will review the legacy of communication for social change in Latin America, identifying recurrent features and considering emerging challenges in the context of the current societal challenges. First, the review will unpack the core milestones of the communication for social change debate as seen in conferences, publications and meetings that have had a key influence on the research and practice of the field. Secondly, it will review key references that have informed the Latin American research and practice and discuss how they have established themselves as a paradigmatic alternative to the dominant Anglo-Saxon approaches. Finally, the presentation will address how the Latin American legacy connects with global research and practice into communication for social change.

Bio: Professor Tufte is an internationally leading scholar in the field of communication for social change. His expertise and experience lie in critically exploring the interrelations between media production, communicative practices and processes of social and structural change. Tufte has worked in approximately 30 countries worldwide and has collaborated with a broad range of both local, national and international development organizations. Current projects focus on civil society development and participatory communication in Brazil, and storytelling and community development in post-peace agreement Colombia.

Jair Vega Casanova

Bio: Sociologist, Vega Casanova has a Master’s Degree in Politics – Economic Studies, and currently is a graduate PhD student in Communications at Universidad del Norte. He is also a professor at the Department of Social Communications and researcher at PBX: Communication, Culture and Social Change Research Group, from the Universidad del Norte. Issues of research, consultancy and publications are inscribed in the relationship between communications, culture and social change, and are emphasized in the research lines: 1) Communication, participation and social construction of health and 2) Studies of gender, diversity and citizenship. Publications are found in: http://uninorte.academia.edu/JairVega. Vega Casanova has been involved in consultancies with C-CHANGE-FHI, PAHO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, Population Communication International, Fundación Bernard van Leer, Fundación Friederich Ebert, CHECCHI and Company Consulting Colombia, Communication for Social Change Consortium, Fundación Imaginario and The Communication Initiative (www.comminit.com/la). He has also been editor of the journal Investigación & Desarrollo.

Professor Toby Miller

Abstract: Title “Against Communication for Development”- Seven decades of rhetoric and finance in the field of communication and development or social change—choose your era and language for the propaganda term of the day—have done little other than reinforce existing oligarchies, oligopolies, inequalities, and international ‘security' priorities across much of Latin America. This paper will unpack some of the theoretical and political problems of that language, locating them in the first efforts of the Social Science Research Council and connecting them to the work of third-sector, corporate, and military priorities.

Bio: Toby’s areas of expertise include cultural studies and media studies. He has published forty books, has written numerous articles, and is a guest commentator on television and radio programmes across the globe. In 2004, Miller became a full-time professor at University of California, Riverside (UCR). As of December 2008, he chairs the new Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the UCR. Preceding his professorship at UCR and Loughborough University London, Miller was a professor at New York University.

Professor Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Abstract: Populism is a governance crisis. Its character differs in different market economies. It refers to temporary control of executive state power with partial support of social and market forces. Support is performance conditional. Scenarios include plutocracy (pluto-populism), New Deal, continuing instability. Rebalancing processes depend on rapport de forces, including the role of media. The governance crisis is part of longer cycles than populism itself. As to populism rhetoric and policy, the soup is not eaten as hot as it is served. Rightwing populism promotes nostalgic nationalism, but growing connectivity is a longer wave than populist agitation.

Bio: Jan Nederveen Pieterse is Mellichamp Professor of Global Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in globalization, development studies and cultural anthropology. He was previously at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and the University of Amsterdam. He holds a part time chair at Maastricht University. He currently focuses on new trends in twenty-first century globalization and the implications of economic crisis. He has been visiting professor in Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Thailand. He is on the editorial board of Clarity Press, the Journal of Global Studies and e-global, and is associate editor of the European Journal of Social Theory, Ethnicities, Third Text and the Journal of Social Affairs. He edits book series on Emerging societies (Routledge) and New trends in globalization (Palgrave Macmillan).

Professor Ana Carolina Escosteguy

Abstract: The topic of my lecture is about the linkages between media studies and gender issues in Brazil. The perspective assumed is historical, stressing the singularities of the theoretical debates associated with Brazilian feminism and their impact on media studies research. I do not take into account the current metaphor of the "waves" of feminism since it erases the uniqueness of our historical, sociopolitical and cultural context. In this way, I identify the changes that the research and its categories were going through in the period of 1970 to 2015. A possible new strand may then be building and is still in progress. In the opening strand (1970/1980), the systematic use of woman category stands out; in the second (1990), although the term gender is triggered in media studies, it functions more as a label without theoretical density; in the third (2000-2015), it is the critique of post-feminism that emerges, evidencing the first convergence between South and North, in terms of media studies and feminist scholarship. Finally, the last one is drawn from the feminist spring (2015) and the horizon opened by the explosion of feminisms driven by the new digital media. However its development is still uncertain given the growth of conservatism and even the persecution of feminists and LGBTs activists.

Bio: Ana Carolina D. Escosteguy is a national leading scholar in the field of media and cultural studies. She has studied at University of São Paulo and is currently Professor in Federal University of Santa Maria. She is also a Researcher of CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) since 2002. Author of Cartografias dos estudos culturais: Uma versão latino-americana, published by Editora Autêntica in 2002, among many other articles.

Dr. Thea Pitman

Abstract: There has been much academic debate about the relationship of indigenous communities to new media technologies, specifically with respect to the way that the former might appropriate the latter and the terms in which they might do so, with a significant number of critics arguing that the concepts and lexicon of the traditional practice of weaving may offer the most appropriate trope. However, such arguments typically remain at the level of theory, providing little or no evidence of the way in which real indigenous communities speak of the way they appropriate new technologies and what might motivate their choices. This paper explores the poetics and underlying politics of indigenous appropriations of new media technologies by contrasting the online presence of two highly prominent, prize-winning projects of indigenous internet appropriation: the web portal Índios Online, run by a group of different indigenous communities in north-eastern Brazil, and the homonymous website of the Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca (ACIN) of the Nasa community in south-western Colombia.

Bio: Thea Pitman is Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. She works in the field of Latin American digital cultural production, and digital cultures more broadly conceived, with a particular interest in questions of race, ethnicity and gender. Her major publications in the field include Latin American Cyberculture and Cyberliterature (Liverpool University Press, 2007) and Latin American Identity in Online Cultural Production (Routledge, 2013), and she has chapters on digital culture in The Cambridge Companion to Latina/o Literature (2016), The Cambridge Companion to Latin American Poetry (2018), and Online Activism in Latin America (2018), amongst others.

Workshops Schedule

City, University of London - 4th July 2019 from 9am to 8pm (submissions open until 15th April 2019)

9.00 - Opening - key speaker

Thomas Tufte and Jair Vega Casanova, moderated by Carolina Matos

10.00 - Panel 1: Communication for Development and the role of the State for the sustainability of the communication system

guests: Gabriel Kaplún, Amparo Cadavid + 2 approved presentations with the call for expanded abstracts

11.30 – Panel 2: Media activism and marginalized populations

guests: Andrea Medrado and João Paulo Malerba + 2 approved presentations with the call for expanded abstracts

Keynote speaker: Thea Pitman

13.00 – lunch

14.00 – Panel 3: Media, social movements and questions of gender

guests: Carolina Matos, Eliana Herrera Huerfano + 2 approved presentations with the call for expanded abstracts

Keynote speaker: Ana Carolina Escosteguy

16.30 - Panel 4: Media, nationalisms and populisms

guests: João Feres, Maria Soledad Segura + 2 approved presentations with the call for expanded abstracts

18.00 - Closure - key speaker

Toby Miller, moderator: Adilson Cabral

Cultural presentation

Loughborough University London Campus, 5th July 2019 (Olympic Park, Stratford)

9.30 – Jan Nederveen Pieterse talk - respondent Oscar Hemer

11.00 - Network event from Redecambio, with Amparo Cadavid

13.00 - Lunch and end.

Contact and further information

Dr. Carolina Matos - carolina.matos.1@city.ac.uk

Dr. Carolina Matos, Senior lecturer in Media and Sociology and Programme Director of the MAs in Media and Communicationsand International Communications and Development. Matos work is in the field of media, gender and development. She teaches on the UG and PG programmes at the Department of Sociology, City, University of London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, 44020-7040-4172.

Associate Professor Dr. Adilson Cabral - acabral@comunicacao.pro.br

Adilson Cabral is Professor of the Social Communications course at UFF, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with speciality in Publicity and Propaganda, Cabral teaches on the Postgraduate programme in Media and Everyday Life (PPGMC). He has a post-doctorate in Communications from the University of Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, and is also coordinator of the EMERGE – Centre of Research and Production in Communications and Emergency and a researcher of COMUNI.

Edited by Thomas Hanitzsch, Folker Hanusch, Jyotika Ramaprasad, and Arnold S. de Beer

Columbia University Press

How do journalists around the world view their roles and responsibilities in society? Based on a landmark study that has collected data from more than 27,500 journalists in 67 countries, Worlds of Journalism offers a groundbreaking analysis of the different ways journalists perceive their duties, their relationship to society and government, and the nature and meaning of their work.

Challenging assumptions of a universal definition or concept of journalism, the book maps a world populated by a rich diversity of journalistic cultures. Organized around a series of key questions on topics such as editorial autonomy, journalistic ethics, trust in social institutions, and changes in the profession, it details how the practice of journalism differs across the world in a range of political, social, and economic contexts. The book covers how journalism as an institution is created and re-created by journalists and how they experience their profession in very different ways, even as they retain a commitment to some basic, widely shared professional norms and practices. It concludes with a global classification of journalistic cultures that reflects the breadth of worldviews and orientations found in disparate countries and regions. Worlds of Journalism offers an ambitious, comparative global understanding of the state of journalism in a time when it is confronting a series of economic and political threats.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Hanitzsch is chair and professor of communication in the Department of Communication and Media at LMU Munich. His publications include The Handbook of Journalism Studies (second edition, 2019).

Folker Hanusch is professor of journalism in the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna, where he heads the Journalism Studies Center, and adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology. He is editor in chief of Journalism Studies.

Jyotika Ramaprasad is professor in the School of Communication at the University of Miami. Her books include Contemporary BRICS Journalism: Non-Western Media in Transition (2017).

Arnold S. de Beer is professor of journalism at Stellenbosch University. His publications include Global Journalism: Topical Issues and Media Systems (2009).

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/worlds-of-journalism/9780231186438

Order here and save 30%: http://www.worldsofjournalism.org/fileadmin/WorldsJournalism.pdf

ECREA regional ICSI section conference

October 14-16, 2019

Tilburg University, Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg, the Netherlands

Deadline: June 9, 2019, midnight (CET)

Website: http://www.icsi2019.nl/

Keynote presentations:

• Jeffrey Treem, associate professor of Organizational Communication & Technology, University of Texas at Austin
• Marjolijn Antheunis, professor of Communication & Technology, Tilburg University

Two-day conference and parallel sessions (Oct 14-15) for all participants. One-day (Oct 16) workshop for young scholars and senior respondents.

The ICSI Regional Conference is the 6th bi-annual meeting of the Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction section of ECREA, the European Communication Research and Education Association. This year’s conference is hosted by Tilburg University, Department of Communication and Cognition, and will be held in Tilburg, the Netherlands.

The title of the conference refers to the two main themes we want to address in this conference.

First, in this conference we want to connect scholars from the different sub-disciplines of interpersonal communication and social interaction. Amongst us are scholars who study workplace interaction, communication in interpersonal relationship, impression management, and interpersonal health communication. Connecting our insights from different fields may inform our own research, provide creative ideas for future research, and help theory development. For example, patient-doctor interactions may mirror employer-employee communication and research on online dating may inform how employees become successful brand ambassadors.

Second, our title reflects the fact that our mediated and unmediated interactions are increasingly connected and integrated. We can no longer consider online communication as separate from offline communication. This raises question as to how to combine different online and offline communication channels in our daily interactions. For example, how do we strategically employ different communication technologies to attain our work and private goals? Can we establish an interpersonal relationship with a device like Amazon’s Echo and can Google Pixel indeed take care of our mobile conversations? How do online support communities help us in our daily lives? As advanced communication technologies increasingly become part of our everyday experience, we are forced to revisit and connect theories of online and offline social interaction.

The ICSI Regional Conference 2019 provides an opportunity to share our ideas, theories and research about interpersonal communication and social interaction across our different specializations. We call for paper and panel proposals from any communication or communication-related discipline and methodology that address the conference themes, including, but not limited to, papers that intersect and/or interconnect with the following topics:

• (Mediated) workplace meetings
• Social interaction and social media in the workplace
• Virtual teams
• Interpersonal health communication
• Modality switching in interpersonal communication
• The role of emotions in interpersonal communication
• Social interaction with conversational human agents, personal assistants & chatbots
• Employee ambassadorship & professional identity
• Impression management & formation in online dating
• Social interaction in interpersonal relationships
• Professional and personal boundary management
• Communication competence and skills in workplace & health settings
• Connecting customers & organizations
• Interpersonal communication and social support
• Privacy and ethical issues in studying interpersonal communication in different fields

Abstract Submission

We welcome abstract submissions as well as clearly framed, thematic panel proposals. If you want to submit a panel proposal, please send an abstract of the overall panel theme as well as a short description of each panelist and their presentation (3-5 participants). We also welcome other ideas for special sessions or workshops.

Please submit an abstract of maximum 300 words for individual/co-authored papers or a panel proposal of maximum 600 to the submission system. The submission deadline is June 9, 2019, midnight (Central European Time).

Please submit your proposals via the following link: http://www.icsi2019.nl/

We will get back to you with information on acceptance of papers and panels and with a preliminary program and practical information at the end of June.

Young Scholars Workshop

We kindly invite Ph.D. students and junior faculty to participate in the young scholars workshop held on the third day of the conference, on Wednesday, October 16th, 2019 at Tilburg University. During the workshop, participants and senior faculty members will discuss the papers submitted by the participants and talk about methodological and theoretical issues in communication research. The workshop provides also an opportunity to discuss research career issues and career development with senior scholars. The workshop is included in the main conference fee.

You can sign up to the workshop and submit a summary of your paper via the submission system. The summaries should not exceed 300 words. The deadline is June 9, 2019, midnight (Central European Time).

Please submit your proposals via the following link: http://www.icsi2019.nl/

Please note, that all accepted participants are expected to submit a 1,000 to 1,500-word paper of their work before the event in September and to give a short presentation of their work during the workshop. We invite all Ph.D. students and junior faculty with relevant projects to participate and get feedback on their research from senior scholars in the field, as well as to network with international peers.

Contact information

Conference organizers: Alexander Schouten, Anu Sivunen, and Karyn Stapleton

Conference website: http://www.icsi2019.nl/

Organizer email: ecrea.icsi@gmail.com

Edited by: Tanja Thomas, Merle, Marie Kruse and Miriam Stehling

In contemporary media cultures, media are part of the most important sites where collective representations and narrations of a post‐migrant civic culture are (re‐)negotiated. At the same time, they offer powerful resources and instruments for civic participation and collaboration. Media and Participation in Post‐Migrant Societies addresses an important shortcoming in the research on participation in media cultures by introducing a special focus on post-migrant conditions to the discussion – both as conceptual refinements and as empirical studies.

The contributions of this book provide diverse analyses of the conditions, possibilities, but also constraints for participation and the role of media communication in the reshaping of civic culture in post‐migrant societies.

Read more and buy here.

December 16-17, 2019

University of Leeds

Deadline: June 28, 2019

Political Studies Association ‘Media and Politics Group’ Annual Conference

School of Media and Communication

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.

CMRC Conference in Collaboration with SIMAGINE:

January 8-11, 2020

The Center for Media, Religion, and Culture University of Colorado Boulder

Deadline: June 10, 2019

Confirmed Featured Speakers: Ann Laura Stoler, Catherine Walsh, & Glenn Coulthard

The question of borders and the practice of bordering persist in a world destined for encounters and confrontations. This persistence today bears resemblance to long-standing legacies of coloniality, modernity, and globalization, but it also foregrounds new narratives, aesthetics, and politics of exclusion and dehumanization. Talk of walls, fortresses, boundaries, and deportation has never been a political or philosophical anomaly, but rather a reflection of a particularistic social imaginary, a linear compulsion of epistemic assumptions that sees the world through the logic of hierarchy, classification, difference, and ontological supremacy. This foreclosure is a widely shared and accepted social imaginary, as demonstrated in current scholarship in the critical humanities and social and political sciences: a foreclosure that has also defined institutions and disciplines of knowledge production which continue to marginalize other knowledge systems and intellectual traditions and refuse to acknowledge their viability and legitimacy in the academy. Disciplinary walls and intellectually demarcated canons within the Western and Westernized university in the Global North and South have generally produced narrow curricula and models of learning that reproduce selective systems of thought, discourses and practices.

The tenacity of this normalized worldview requires urgent new imaginaries: a decolonial perspective not only to call out the ontological instability of Western theory, but also to establish a sense of epistemic hospitality capable of liberating and re-centering other ways of knowing and dwelling in the world. This contestation of physical and cognitive borders has found its most ardent proponents in recent movements such as #RhodesMustFall, Standing Rock, Idle No More, Undocumented and Unafraid, #Whyismycurriculumsowhite, Arab Uprisings, Black Lives Matter, and #MeToo, among others. At the heart of this decolonial injunction is a desire by absented voices to reclaim the right to self-narrate, to signify, and to render visible local histories, other temporalities, subjectivities, cosmologies, and struggles silenced by Western and Westernized accounts of the world.

The fields of art, religion and the media have not yet come under historical scrutiny about their own epistemic and existential imaginaries and whether they reify or disrupt dominant structures and legacies of knowledge production? Drawing from a variety of intellectual traditions and

established academic disciplines, these fields risk carrying the same blind spots, the same foreclosures, the same ontological foundations, and the same centered claims to universality.

What can a decolonial critique then do to avoid a zero-sum epistemology? And how can we develop new decolonial imaginaries as an invitation to undo the Eurocentrism of our paradigms, challenge the verticality of our pedagogical designs, and achieve an ethics of interpretation, an epistemic justice whereby theories from the South or from ‘the margins’ in the North are not treated merely as local or subjective? The decolonial attitude challenges us to avoid embracing singular universalities, and rethink altogether the hierarchies of global-local and of universal-particular that underlie this world’s inequality.

This will be the ninth in a series of successful international conferences held by the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture in Boulder. The previous meetings have brought together an interdisciplinary community of scholars for focused conversations on emerging issues in media and religion. Each has proven to be an important landmark in the development of theory and method in its respective area and has resulted in important collaborations, publications, and resources for further research and dialogue.

The 2020 conference is organized in conjunction with SIMAGINE, an international and interdisciplinary research consortium bringing together partners from the USA, the UK, Europe and South Africa; it is hosted by the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and dedicated to the study of social imaginaries between secularity and religion in a globalizing world. SIMAGINE has organized conferences on ‘Religion, Community, Borders’ leading to a special issue of the open access Journal for Religion and Transformation in December 2019. In 2018 the consortium published the volume Social Imaginaries in a Globalizing World.

The conference will feature keynote lectures and keynote conversations, as well as thematic panels and artistic performances. We invite papers and panels from across disciplines, intellectual traditions, and geographic locations that engage with these questions and beyond. Possible topics could include but are not limited to:

• Borders, Bordering, Border Zones between the Imaginary and the Real
• Modernity, Secularity, Religious Legacies and Universality
• Social Imaginaries and (the Critique of) Anthropocentrism
• Coloniality and Decolonial Epistemologies
• What Counts as Critical Theory and Decolonial Critique?
• What Counts as Religion in the Decolonial Imaginary?
• Big Data, Algorithmic Culture, and (De)Coloniality
• Decolonial Intersectionalities
• Decolonial Feminisms
• Decolonizing Race, Ethnicity, and Identity
• Decolonial Pedagogy, Methodology, and Praxis.
• Media, Religion, and Theoretical Provincialism
• Media, Arts, and Decolonial Theory
• Media, Religion, the Other, and the Subaltern
• Religion, Theology, and Social Imaginaries
• Social Imaginaries and (the Critique) of Neoliberalist Globalization
• Geopolitics of Knowledge Production
• Language, Publishing, and Boundaries of Learning
• Imagination and Worldview Education: Interreligious Dialogue
• Queering the Archives

Abstracts of 300-350 words should be submitted to cmrc@colorado.edu by June 10, 2019.

Please include your email address and university affiliation in your submission.

For questions, email Nabil Echchaibi, Associate Director: nabil.echchaibi@colorado.edu or Stewart M. Hoover, Director: hoover@colorado.edu.

For more information, visit http://cmrc.colorado.edu.

November 6-8, 2019

Oslo, Norway

Deadline: August 15, 2019

The conference will take place in Oslo on November 6, 7 and 8th 2019 in connection with UNESCO’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists  at OsloMet University and The Freedom of Speech Foundation (Fritt Ord) , Norway.                          

The conference is organized jointly with the The Fritt Ord Foundation and with support from The National Commission for UNESCO and the research group Digital Journalism.

Safety for journalists, including digital safety, is a matter of public concern that is wide-ranging. It is vital for those who practice journalism, for their families and for their sources. It  is  essential  for  the  wellbeing  of  media  institutions,  civil  society,  academia  and  the  private sector more broadly. If we value the free flow of information for citizens, their governments and their international organisations, then the safety of journalists is central (Getachew Engida, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO).

Electronic  communications  of  news  media,  critical  bloggers,  and  other  individuals  or  organizations  disseminating  information  have  become  targets.  The danger emanates from various sources ranging from State-based actors to third parties. There is digital surveillance  that  goes  beyond  international  standards  on  privacy  and  freedom  of  expression. There is hacking of data and disruptive attacks on websites and computer systems. More extremely, some media actors are being killed for their online journalism. From 2011-2013, 37 of the 276 killings of journalists condemned by the UNESCO Director General were killings of journalists whose primary platforms were Internet-based. Many, if not most, of the other journalists who were killed also used digital tools in their daily work, which may have exposed them in various ways. (Jennifer R. Henrichsen et.al. Building digital safety for journalism: a survey of selected issues. 2015). 

Journalists need to know more about the dangers of digital attacks such as hacking and surveillance, and should take steps to protect themselves, their sources, and their work. Journalism researchers and educators need to know more about how the dangers to digital safety work in relation to journalists’ security and freedom of expression in general.

The 2019 annual conference on the Safety of Journalists will focus on digital safety but also invite papers discussing other aspects related to the safety of journalists. We invite paper presentations discussing topics such as (but not limited to) :

• Surveillance and mass surveillance
• Software and hardware exploits without the knowledge of the target
• Phishing, fake domain, Denial of Service and Man-in-the-Middle attacks
• Intimidation, harassment and forced exposure of online networks
• Disinformation and smear campaigns
• Confiscation of journalistic work product
• Data storage and mining
• Education and training
• Legal issues and policy making
• Culture and gender issues
• Working conditions and media production
• Source protection and the digital era
• Hate speech, defamation and libel
• Impunity
• Journalist roles and fixers
• NGOs and the safety of journalists

The conference will be organised as a mixture of key note speakers, working groups, panels and paper presentations.

Paper presentations:

If you want to participate with a paper, an abstract of maximum 500 words and a short bio focusing on possible earlier experience with research/practice in the field of safety of journalists/digital safety should be sent to safetyofjournalists@oslomet.no  before August 15, 2019. Please include your full name, institutional affiliation, and email. There is no registration fee and the participants are expected to cover their own costs for travel and accommodation.

A limited number of scholarships to cover flight and/or accommodation is available for Ph.D. students and researchers from low-income countries. Applications for scholarships should be submitted with the abstract together with a short CV.

The best papers will be considered for a forthcoming peer reviewed publication.

July 1-2, 2019

University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Campus Francisco Negrão de Lima (Maracanã)

Abstract submission deadline: May 26, 2019

Please send your extended abstracts of max 4 – 6 pages to cphd2019@gmail.com. Your abstract can be in English, Portuguese or Spanish.

The international seminar "Participatory Communication and the Struggle Over Human Rights" aims to bring together researchers, activists, and institutions to discuss how the right to participatory communication can extend and deepen the recognition of human rights.

Struggle Over Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified by the member countries of the United Nations (UN) on December 10, 1948, including Brazil. The document inspired legislation and international treaties in defense of the fundamental rights and freedom, including the right to freedom of speech. The Declaration, art. 19, highlight that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

After 70 years, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the concept of human rights and its implementation is (still) challenged. This raises questions about the nature of the challenges of human rights, and, particularly, of the right to communication.? After all, communication, especially (but not only) digital, is a key in the democratic process. What are these challenges, in general, and in relation to communication-related rights? How are the human rights struggled over? What is the role of citizen participation in these struggles themselves (e.g., through activism) and how is citizen participation the object of these struggle? How are the struggles over the right to communicate connected with (the affirmation of other) fundamental human rights, such as those in relation to education, health, and housing?

Participatory Communication

Brazil is particularly relevant to these debates. In 2018, Brazil also has completed 30 years of the Federal Constitution (CF), most known as Citizen Constitution. It was approved after decades of military dictatorship in the country. Nowadays, the CF was changed more than 100 times, which removed political and social rights that had previously been approved. The recent political changes in Brazil only threaten to further increase the levels of violence, and racism … However, the Law of access to information was approved in 2011, ensuring that any citizen can request public information directly to public institutions. Do these (relatively) new legal provisions contribute to broadening the right to communicate and make it more inclusive and participatory?

But we do not want to focus exclusively on Brazil. Latin America, as a whole, faces a critical situation, with, for instance, the murder of social leaders in many of the Latin American countries. In Brazil, the council Marielle Franco, a defender of human rights, was killed in 2018 and political violence is increasing, especially in rural areas. In Colombia, the peace agreements between the government and the guerrilla groups are ruptured and the conflicts are growing all around the country. Venezuela faces a conflict about the legitimacy of its leadership, putting the entire continent on alert. Central America suffers critical situations due to the high levels of violence and the migratory crisis, involving citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – who attempt to escape these high levels of violence in their countries of origin – and the governments of the United States and Mexico.

Thus, in this seminar, we welcome proposals, that explore the following issues (among other issues):

• Advances and challenges to the right to communicate and its participatory dimensions;
• Participatory (communication) practices and interventions which extend and deepen the recognition of other human rights, as the right to education, health, and housing, etc.;
• Projects, practices, narratives that link communication, education, health, and human rights.

Thus, we especially welcome proposals in the following topics:

1) Communication and Education:

This strand addresses research that are inserted in the interface of communication and education, in a broad way, also beyond the media and formal and school education. It investigates practices, processes, narratives and communicative-educational products in their socio-historical, political, economic context, also considering subjective, artistic, ... nuances, and the relations between race, class, and gender within these practices.

2) Communication and Human Rights:

This strand highlights the relation between communication – in its media, products, and processes – and human rights in a variety of aspects. It investigates communication as a human right, articulating historic, political / economy, socio-cultural aspects at different levels (local, regional, national, continental and global).

3) Dialogic/Participatory Communication and media activism:

This strand articulates all forms of communication aimed at promoting democracy and social development. It is also concerned with participatory forms of research in the universe of dialogic communication. It discusses the trajectory of the main concepts that surround the field.

We expect to have the participation of about 50 scholars and activists, mainly from Brazil and Latin America, but the call for participation will be not limited to them.

The seminar will feature oral presentations, a Ph.D. workshop and a conversation wheel with participatory communication activists, in a two-day event. The participants will be invited to submit the papers presented during the pre-conference to the Dialogic Communication Journal (UERJ).

The event is co-organized by the Participatory Communication Research Section (PCR) of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).

Master and Ph.D. students are invited to present extended abstracts (4-6 pages) about their research and receive feedback from established researchers. The idea is provided resources to improve their research process, as well to strengthen the field of participatory communication.

Timing:

• Abstract submission deadline: 26 May 2019
• Notification on submitted abstracts: 3 June 2019
• Article submission deadline to Dialogic Communication Journal (UERJ): 01 August 2019

Submission of an abstract for the seminar:

After filling out the registration form, and sending the payment as instructed, please send your extended abstracts of 4 – 6 pages (max) to cphd2019@gmail.com. You can present your abstract in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Location:

University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Campus Francisco Negrão de Lima (Maracanã), Rua São Francisco Xavier, 524, Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro – RJ – Cep 20550-900.

Dates: 1-2 July 2019

Duration: 9h – 18h

Participation and registration: The event is open and to everyone. However, to present a paper and receive a certificate, you will need to be registered, using this form: https://forms.gle/DVkNyLNMTpR7UNB47, and you should have paid the registration fee.

Registration fee:

Professors/professionals: 12 USD

Students: 7 USD

Payment registration fee:

• Paypal: anabetune2@gmail.com;
• TranferWise: transferwise.com/u/anan51;
• or during the seminar

Organisers:

• Adilson Vaz Cabral Filho (EMERGE / PPGMC / UFF)
• Ana Lúcia Nunes de Sousa (NUTES / UFRJ)
• Luana Inocêncio (UFF)
• Nico Carpentier (PCR-IAMCR and Charles University)
• Marcelo Ernandez (LCD / UERJ)

University of Leicester

Deadline: June 10, 2019

Vacancy ID:593

Location:Leicester

Department:School of Media, Communication & Sociology

Vacancy terms:Full time, permanent

Salary details:Competitive

Hours per week:37.5

About the role

The School of Media, Communication and Sociology (MCS) formed three years ago from the merger of the Department of Media and Communication and the Department of Sociology. Both departments have illustrious histories, both have been central to the development of their respective disciplines. MCS has built on these outstanding intellectual legacies, and is now at an exciting phase of its development and expansion. As part of this, we are looking for two Professors who will provide academic leadership across (the disciplines that comprise) the School, and who will make a major contribution to our future as we continue to address, in our research and in our teaching, the most exciting and challenging sociological, cultural and communication issues of our time. As such we have specifically shaped the two posts as Professors of Media, Communication and Sociology. We are looking for individuals whose research, leadership and teaching can carry forward the intellectual agenda of the School as a whole, and whose expertise maps on to one or more of our research clusters or cognate areas of research.

About you

You will have an outstanding record of undertaking research to a world-leading standard, a strong track record of grant capture, and evidence of delivering excellence in teaching, ideally with external accreditation for this (e.g. Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy). With an excellent academic reputation and evidence of dynamic performance in leadership roles, you will have achieved notable recognition in your discipline. You will have a well-developed network across the HE sector both nationally and internationally, with well-established links to external bodies and organisations. You will be expected to take on a key academic leadership role within the School, and will be committed to ensuring its continued success in the future.

Additional information

For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Jason Hughes on jason.hughes@le.ac.uk

We anticipate that interviews will take place during week commencing 24 June 2019

Leicester is a leading University committed to international excellence, world-changing research and high quality, inspirational teaching. We are strongly committed to inclusivity, promoting equality and celebrating diversity among our staff and students. Our strength is built on the talent of our scholars, drawn to us by a mutual passion for discovery. We seek to embed an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit into our research culture, and to create an environment in which both disciplinary excellence and interdisciplinarity thrive.

In return for your hard work, we offer a working environment that is committed to inclusivity, through promoting equality and valuing diversity. We offer a competitive salary package with excellent pension schemes and a generous annual leave allowance. Located close to Leicester city centre, our award winning campus benefits from a wide range of cafes, a fully equipped sports centre and nursery facilities.

Apply here

University of Leicester

Deadline: June 10, 2019

Vacancy ID: 599

Location: Leicester

Department: School of Media, Communication & Sociology

Vacancy terms: Full time, permanent

Salary details: £39,609 to £48,677 per annum

Hours per week: 37.5

About the role

You will undertake research of the highest standard and contribute to high quality teaching and administration. You will be expected to make a strong contribution to the School’s reputation, building on the existing research undertaken within the School. Expertise that spans the range of disciplines represented by the School of Media, Communication and Sociology would be an advantage, but is not essential. You will be expected to contribute to raising levels of research activity, research income, teaching excellence and the overall visibility of the School. You will pursue and publish research of high quality in line with the School’s aim of producing world-leading research with meaningful impact.

About you

With experience in the delivery of teaching to both undergraduates and postgraduates, you will have a real passion for the subject matter. You will be motivated to provide the very best experience for our students using your expertise and skill to ensure all reach their potential. We are looking for someone who can network and collaborate at an international level, as well as evidence of high quality research publications.

Additional information

For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Jason Hughes on jason.hughes@le.ac.uk

We anticipate that interviews will take place during week commencing 24 June 2019

Leicester is a leading University committed to international excellence, world-changing research and high quality, inspirational teaching. We are strongly committed to inclusivity, promoting equality and celebrating diversity among our staff and students. Our strength is built on the talent of our scholars, drawn to us by a mutual passion for discovery. We seek to embed an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit into our research culture, and to create an environment in which both disciplinary excellence and interdisciplinarity thrive.

In return for your hard work, we offer a working environment that is committed to inclusivity, through promoting equality and valuing diversity. We offer a competitive salary package with excellent pension scheme, a generous annual leave allowance and an online portal that offers a range of lifestyle benefits and discounts. Located close to Leicester city centre, our award winning campus benefits from a wide range of cafes, a fully equipped sports centre and nursery facilities. Further information regarding our extensive range of staff benefits is available here.

Apply here.