ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS)

Are you researching the social, political, economic, media-related or cultural effects of the digital transformation? You want more freedom to pursue your project and are interested in interdisciplinary exchange?

A fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) releases you from your regular work obligations and opens up new perspectives. 

As a fellow, you can spend either six or three months in Bochum, Germany. During this period, we will finance your sabbatical leave from work through compensation (e.g. for a substitute). Alternatively, we will pay grants of up to 2.000 € per month. You can invite guests for collaboration and will receive financial support for research expenses. Individual offices and meeting rooms with modern facilities offer optimal working conditions. In addition, we will provide comfortable apartments free of charge.

Become a member of the vibrant interdisciplinary research community at CAIS.

Apply until 31 October 2023 for fellowships starting from October 2024.

The funding program is open to excellent scholars and practitioners, to all career stages, disciplines and areas of investigation, as well as to pure research and to projects that are more applied in orientation.

Find out more at https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/fellowships/

We also fund working groups and still have some open slots from mid-June to the end of August 2024. Check out our flexible funding program for groups here: https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/working-groups/

Further questions? Please contact esther.laufer@cais-research.de.

                                                                         Edited by: Jannie Møller Hartley, Jannick Kirk Sørensen and David Mathieu

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/datapublics

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence

This book addresses new challenges to the formation of publics in datafied democracies. It proposes a fresh, complex and nuanced approach to understand 'datapublics' by considering datafication and public formation in the context of audience, journalism and infrastructure studies.

The tightly woven chapters shed new light on how platforms, algorithms and their data infrastructure are embedded in journalistic values, discourses and practices, opening up new conditions for publics to display agency, mobilize and achieve legitimacy.

This is a seminal contribution to debates about the future of media, journalism and civic practices.

September 14, 2023

Online

I am pleased to invite you to the next in the series of IPRA Thought Leadership webinars. The webinar Express crisis management: the 1-hour diagnostic will be presented by Gerry McCusker on Thursday 14 September 2023 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (unadjusted). 

What is the webinar content?

The Drill Crisis Simulator is an online crisis management technology, developed by crisis management experts. Based around a custom SaaS portal, the Drill portal is an interactive, real-time crisis immersion simulator, that replicates the decision-making and publishing challenges of customised crisis scenarios to test, train and upgrade crisis management skills. The goal of The Drill is to teach the methodological steps that empower professionals to handle crisis, disaster, emergency and issues communication.

How to join

Register here at Airmeet. (The time shown should adjust to your device’s time zone.) A reminder will be sent 1 hour before the event.

Background to IPRA

IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, was established in 1955, and is the leading global network for PR professionals in their personal capacity. IPRA aims to advance trusted communication and the ethical practice of public relations. We do this through networking, our code of conduct and intellectual leadership of the profession. IPRA is the organiser of public relations' annual global competition, the Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA). IPRA's services enable PR professionals to collaborate and be recognised. Members create content via our Thought Leadership essays, social media and our consultative status with the United Nations. GWA winners demonstrate PR excellence. IPRA welcomes all those who share our aims and who wish to be part of the IPRA worldwide fellowship. For more see www.ipra.org

Background to Gerry McCusker

Gerry McCusker is an issues management specialist and the author of the book "PR Disasters." He also writes a regular blog on crisis management and PR.

Contact

International Public Relations Association Secretariat

United Kingdom

secgen@ipra.org

Telephone +44 1634 818308

I am looking for a research assistant to help gather data for an audience research project about the Netflix show Queer Eye in Germany. I am interested in why LGBTQ+ German audiences enjoy the show and whether they chat about it with their friends online or in person. 

The research assistant will be responsible for gathering data from German-resident audiences as part of a transnational study of Queer Eye audiences. Data include four focus group interviews with up to six participants as well as local trade and popular press articles about the show. 

The research assistant will be responsible for:

• Translating research materials (recruitment posts and emails, survey and interview questions)
  
• Recruiting survey respondents
  
• Selecting and inviting focus group participants in collaboration with the Principal Investigator
  
• Interviewing focus groups on Zoom
  
• Translating survey responses and interview transcripts
  
• Summarizing German news media discussions of the show
  

Applicants should have the following skills, experience, and resources:

• Fluency in German
  
• Social science interviewing experience (focus groups ideal)
  
• Strong familiarity with Queer Eye (US/English version preferred, Brazil and German version a bonus)
  
• Familiarity with LGBTQ identities, media, and culture in Germany
  
• Fast and stable internet access in a quiet space
  
• Ability to work well in a team

This RA position pays US$18 per hour, five hours a week for up to 12 weeks.

Please email a cover letter describing your interest, skills, and experience; a CV; and the names of two recommenders to: 

Professor Katherine Sender: ksender@cornell.edu

This position will remain open until filled. 

October 23-24, 2023

Jakarta (Indonesia)/online

Deadline: September 15, 2023

https://www.atmajaya.ac.id/id/pages/iccomac-berita/

 Effective communication has become vital for individuals and organizations in the rapidly evolving digital era. We are acutely aware of the challenges posed by the dynamic digital landscape. Exploring the symbiotic relationship between traditional communication fundamentals and contemporary digital technologies is necessary for academics and practice. By examining the integration of foundational communication theories with cutting-edge digital platforms, we can seek to offer insights and strategies to enhance communication practices in the digital age. 

Communication is the cornerstone of human interaction and the linchpin for the growth and prosperity of societies. Over the past few decades, we have witnessed a paradigm shift in communication, with the advent of digital technologies redefining how individuals, groups, and organizations connect and engage. The pressing need to revisit and blend the timeless fundamentals of communication with the limitless possibilities digital platforms offer becomes essential. Therefore, we must underscore the indispensability of blending traditional communication fundamentals with digital advancements. By embracing the symbiosis between the timeless principles of effective communication and the innovative tools of the digital era, communication academics, and professionals can navigate the complexities of modern communication landscapes and foster meaningful connections that shape a more informed and cohesive global society. As we evolve in this digital age, this conference is a guiding beacon for communication scholars and practitioners seeking excellence in their craft. 

Theme:  “Revisit Communication: Integrating the Basics with Digital” 

Date:

Monday-Tuesday, 23-24 October 2023

Venue:

The conference will be held in a hybrid mode, onsite at Unika Atma Jaya, Jakarta, Indonesia, and online at Zoom. 

Objectives:

1. Provide updated research, enhanced marketing and corporate communication practice, and media on solutions to today’s communication issues.

2. Understand how communication fields are affected by current changes due to various issues such as pandemics, crises, and technology to manage presence, trust, and credibility.

3. Discuss how these innovations have affected organizations and media and what has shifted regarding ethics and values.

Speakers:   

1.        Prof. Reiner Janz, Westphalian University of Applied Science, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

2.      Prof. Fabien Liénard, University of Le Havre, Normandy, France

3.      Prof. Eun-Ju Lee, Seoul National University, South Korea (ICA President)

4.      Prof. Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University, US (Former ICA President)*  

Parallel Session

A.  Paper Topics:

The 7th International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communication is the locus for scholars, educators, and practitioners seeking to promote and advance knowledge by blending basic and digital. The topics can be in the following area:

a.     Corporate Communication

b.     Marketing Communication

c.     Media

d.     Special issues

 B.  Deadline Date:

• Abstract Submission Deadline: September 15, 2023
  
• Notification of Abstract Acceptance: September 20, 2023
  
• Final registration: October 10, 2023
  
• Full Paper Submission Deadline: October 10, 2023
  

 Submit your abstract to:  http://bit.ly/7thICCOMAC_2023

C. Contributions

This conference will consider theoretical and empirical papers, working papers, and extended abstracts for review, and ideas for special session proposals will be welcomed.

Prizes will be awarded for the best paper in four categories (corporate communication, marketing communication, media, and special issue) as judged by experts. 

Publication:

-        Journal (selected paper only)

-        Proceeding 

Registration Fee

- Paper Presenter IDR 1.000.000 (75 USD)- on site

-        Paper Presenter IDR 700.000 (50 USD) - online

Participant

- Undergraduate/Postgraduate Students (with identification): IDR 250.000 (15 USD)

-        Early bird special by October 1, 2023: IDR 150,000 (10 USD)

-        Public: IDR 250.000 (15 USD), early bird special by October 1, 2023 is IDR 200,000 (12 USD)

Transfer to

A.Nawang Sasmita 

Bank Mandiri 

#122 000 301 7376 (IDR) 

Paper Template

click here

Contact

Secretariat:  email secretariat-iccomac@atmajaya.ac.id

Organised by the CRC Media of Cooperation, University of Siegen

September 18-22, 2023

University of Siegen

https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/de/veranstaltungen/more-than-data-summer-school/

Keynote: Gabriele Colombo (Density Design Milano): “Unfolding data: lists, catalogues, supercuts and other visual formats for digital research”  

Facilitators: Aikaterini Mniestri, Elena Pilipets & Julia Bee (University of Siegen)

Schedule: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WaIMGGHtNz4Hf_Vz315dwB9TuIgkrQzcL_SWS9qKOQo/edit#heading=h.apvedllq5fr8

Registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5LuJJDeWWPn3hRLA1YiuEhMeiersyD5RnvQBbJDBfqwt7Gw/viewform

Situating and positioning oneself as a researcher has a long tradition in feminist and ethnographic methodologies, but how can we rethink the notion of positionality in digital media research, when engaging with media through their data? How can we contextualize the data we are working with and acknowledge our own position(s) as researchers? Which voices, perspectives, but also biases do collaborative methods and visualization practices bring about, and how can we reflect them? We suggest that accounting for positionality and situatedness are key aspects of the ethical implications of studying online environments through multimodal data—visual, textual, and numeric.

The one-week summer school organized by the Collaborative Research Center, “Media of Cooperation”, University of Siegen, invites graduate students and postdoc researchers interested in the intersections of digital methodologies, data feminism, (visual) social media, and platforms. Our main theme, “More Than Data: Positionality and Situatedness in Digital Research”, encourages conceptual and methodological discussions that challenge the narratives of ‘impartiality’ through experimentations with situated data analysis and visualization. The summer school is practice-based and brings together conceptual inputs, methodological trainings, and sprinted group projects. Through the integration of ethnographic investigations and digital methods, we explore diverse possibilities for reflection of what positionality means in relation to environments equally co-generated by human and non-human actors. We seek to capture the nuances of subjugated knowledge through context-sensitive approaches, providing a collaborative space for rethinking digitally mediated hierarchies, binaries, and biases. 

Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on how different forms of positionality and embodiment can be made visible and critically re-imagined in the process of obtaining, visualizing, and interpreting online-ethnographic and visual platform data. A blend of research practice and critical reflection, the summer school features keynotes by Celia Lury (Warwick) and Gabriele Colombo (DensityDesign/ Politecnico di Milano), one workshop, and two practical tracks intended to meet the needs of question-driven positional mapping and ethical data storytelling. 

Track One 

Mapping the Misappropriation of Images of Trans Bodies  

The track led by facilitator Aikaterini Mniestri will enable participants to access curated networks of trans content creators on YouTube through a platform-embedded understanding of online ethnographic data. We will collaboratively develop a situated mapping of text and visual data to understand the web of positionalities of human and non-human actors involved. This track will inform an understanding of how these actors are implicated in the appropriation of images of trans bodies outside of their original setting. Participants will learn 

- how to work with reverse image searching tools and image-based artificial intelligence to track images across the web

- how to engage with misappropriated images to map out their ‘second life’ away from their creators 

- how to use this methodology in their own research with the help of a situational mapping template - designed as the core output of this project

This template will help participants identify human and non-human actants in the field. Additionally, it will help them explore ethnographic data from different perspectives, thus unveiling the precarity faced by LGBTQ+ creators. At the same time, this template will highlight the responsibility of the researcher to handle sensitive data with care and encourage a critique of institutional actors who distort the meaning behind images of gender transition and affirmation.  

Track Two 

#letztegeneration meets #klimakleber: Mapping TikTok Imaginaries of Climate Activism and Climate Change Denial

Engaging with the social moving image on TikTok, particularly the intersections of aesthetic strategies and activist tactics, this track, facilitated by Elena Pilipets and Julia Bee, focuses on the contemporary online imaginaries of climate activism and climate change denial. The hashtags #letztegeneration and #klimakleber or ‘climate stickers’—a term coined by the German media to describe climate activists who glue themselves to the cities’ streets as a form of protest—will be at the heart of our investigation.

In line with feminist and intersectional approaches (Ahmed 2004; D’ignazio and Klein 2020; Sundén and Paasonen 2020), we attend specifically to the entanglements of embodied performance, gestures, and speech, asking: How does TikTok engagement contribute to both climate catastrophe denial and the mobilization against climate activism? Which affective intensities and associations stick or fail to stick onto activists’ bodies? What spaces of critique and political intervention may they allow against the background of social media debates around feminism, sexism, and racism? And to which extent can we identify the potential for tactical reclaiming? Facilitators will combine TikTok video metadata with experimental visual methods of collage and ethical fabrication. The crafting and collective interpretation of situated data visualizations with particular attention to the body’s performative (and contested) nature will guide our exploration throughout. Participants will learn 

- how to work with dynamic visual content and make sense of related engagement (video captions, stickers, effects, sounds, time of posting, hashtags, engagement metrics, etc.)

- how to trace and contextualize patterns of ‘repetition with variation’ in speech and embodied performances of TikTok climate activism and climate change denial

- how to re-imagine these patterns through collaborative mapping that moves beyond linear narratives, allowing for networked fabulation instead

Resulting analytical artefacts—such as grids, maps, drawings, montages, and blurs—will support the process of participatory media-native storytelling (Bee 2020; Pilipets 2023). We will use digital methods tools in combination with analog methods of mapping and collage as well as online collaborative platforms, such as Figma or Hotglue. Participants will receive walkthrough documents with tool installation guidelines and further helpful information in advance.

Note that this is an on-site event only; book your accommodation in Siegen in advance. The event is partly self-catered. Participation is free. Please register below:

Links

Registration https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5LuJJDeWWPn3hRLA1YiuEhMeiersyD5RnvQBbJDBfqwt7Gw/viewform

Schedule https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WaIMGGHtNz4Hf_Vz315dwB9TuIgkrQzcL_SWS9qKOQo/edit#heading=h.apvedllq5fr8

Contact

Elena Pilipets

elena.pilipets@uni-siegen.de

Journal of Advertising (Special Issue)

Submission deadline: March 31, 2024

On behalf of the guest editors, I’m excited to share the latest Call for Papers from the Journal of Advertising for the Special Issue "Surveillance and Ethics in Advertising". Detailed information can be found here.

Developments in digital technologies have greatly transformed the landscape of advertising around the world. The technical possibilities and low costs of collection and processing of consumer data have led to the domination of the landscape by digital data-driven advertising (e.g., personalized advertising, social media advertising, computational advertising, programmatic advertising, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered advertising).

Given the centrality of consumer data in advertising practices and increasing amounts of surveillance both online and offline, this special issue seeks to publish innovative papers that examine the theoretical and managerial implications of surveillance and ethics in advertising. Our hope is to stimulate further research in this area. This special issue also responds to broader calls for a more diverse and contemporary development of advertising theory. We encourage submissions from multidisciplinary research teams bringing together different perspectives on the topic, as well as (comparative) research focusing on non-WEIRD countries (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic). 

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical frameworks to study (new) ethical & surveillance questions
  
• Consumer perspectives on and perceptions of surveillance
  
• Consumer vulnerability, stereotyping, and social sorting
  
• Privacy concerns and privacy cynicism related to surveillance and ethics
  
• Transparency and information asymmetry
  
• Consumer empowerment, agency, and autonomy
  
• Impact of surveillance on consumer well-being
  
• Chilling effects and its implications for advertisers
  
• Industry perspectives on surveillance and ethics
  
• Consensual advertising models
  
• Ethics-washing
  
• Environmental impacts of dataveillance
  
• The role and responsibilities of the tech industry
  
• Ethical questions related to the affordances of new technologies
  
• Power relations between stakeholders
  
• Fairness in data-driven advertising and algorithmic persuasion
  
• Technological solutions (e.g., blockchain)
  
• Regulatory solutions (e.g., blacklists)
  
• The regulatory perspective on surveillance and ethics
  
• New methods to study surveillance and ethics (e.g., data donation studies, computational approaches)
  

Any questions about the Special Section can be sent to the guest editors: Drs. Claire M. Segijn, Joanna Strycharz, and Sophie C. Boerman at surveillanceJA@gmail.com.  

Please consider contributing to this Special Issue and help spread the word among your colleagues.

Full link to call: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/journal-advertising-surveillance-ethics-advertising/?utm_source=TFO&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JPG15743

November 23-24, 2023

University of Basel (Switzerland)

Deadline: September 29, 2023

Written sources, photographs, and other still images, as well as audiovisual materials are at the core of historical media research. This two-day workshop aims to gather and discuss sources used in research projects in Swiss universities or dealing with Swiss media to share methodological insights, provide practical tools, and discuss difficulties related to archival access and preservation. More specifically, each participant is invited to:

1.     “Bring” her/his source, if possible, in its original material dimension

2.     Explain and discuss the source in elevator pitch style (max. 7’)

3.     Make clear which are the stories that can be told thanks to the source

4.     Conclude with one methodological / archival question in relation to the source

We invite scholars, archivists, and curators to submit a 100 word abstract with the source they want to discuss and addressing the 4 points mentioned above. The abstracts should be sent to annekatrin.weber@unibas.ch by 10 September 2023 and notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 29 September 2023.

Keynote on Thursday 23 November: Friedrich Balke (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) on “Death ships. The dark side of the oceanic turn”. 

The workshop is the annual meeting of Media History | CH, a research network for media historians in Switzerland which brings together scholars from different fields with research interests in media history, archivists, and curators from museums to advance the study of media history in Switzerland (for more information: https://mediahistory.ch/).

Political Communication

Deadline: September 15, 2023

Special Issue Editors: Hossein Kermani, University of Vienna, Taberez A. Neyazi, Sophie Lecheler,

Computational propaganda is a global phenomenon prevalent in both democratic and non-democratic nations. Despite receiving considerable academic attention in recent years, our understanding of its operation across various understudied contexts and platforms remains limited. Most existing research primarily focuses on Western democracies as well as influential actors such as China and Russia, with Twitter and Facebook often being the focus of existing literature. This emphasis on Western contexts and a limited number of platforms in the study of computational propaganda results in a significant knowledge gap, particularly regarding theory development, which consequently overlooks the experiences of the Global South. In the burgeoning field of Computational Political Communication (CPC), we have the opportunity to shed light on this pervasive issue from new perspectives. Building upon the previous special issue on Political Communication that explored different aspects of CPC (Theocharis & Jungherr, 2021), we seek to enhance our understanding of the networks, actors, strategies, methods and practices of computational propaganda in understudied contexts and platforms.

This special issue will attempt to redefine the theoretical frameworks and methodological tools deployed in the study of computational propaganda, particularly those capable of uncovering the intricacies of this phenomenon from a global perspective. We aim to advance this line of inquiry by curating a collection of papers that enhance our theoretical, methodological, and empirical understanding of computational propaganda in contemporary societies around the globe.

Theoretically, this symposium aims to investigate how digital techniques, in conjunction with offline manipulative strategies, have been utilized by propagandists to influence public opinion in understudied contexts. This exploration involves examining the complex interplay between identity politics, digital media, and political actors. Also, the symposium seeks to understand how citizens respond to and engage with computational propaganda and analyze its impact on understudied platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok, and other local social media.

Methodologically, the symposium intends to understand computational propaganda by employing qualitative, quantitative and/or computational methods, thereby providing a comprehensive understanding of how computational propaganda operates in practice in diverse contexts.

Empirically, the symposium aims to shift the focus of political communication scholarship beyond mainstream contexts such as Western democracies and engage with a fresh scholarship from contexts that are currently underexplored, like Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as well as South and Southeast Asia. Our goal is to uncover the unique nuances and emerging perspectives of computational propaganda in these regions of the Global South, an area often remains on the periphery of such discussions. This involves unpacking innovative strategies that are not unique to these regions but are also being exported to other contexts.

We welcome submissions of around 5,000 to 8,000 words maximum, including tables, figures, notes, and references.

Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract to cppc.symosium@gmail.com via email no later than September 15, 2023. Selected abstracts will be notified by October 15, and expected to submit full papers by April 15, 2024. Full papers must comply with the journal’s submission guidelines and should be no longer than 30 pages, inclusive of abstract, tables, references, and figures. The symposium will include three to five finished articles to be published in 2024.

Extended abstracts should not exceed 1,000 words, excluding references. They should discuss the problem the study aims to address, the key concepts and theories informing the research, and elucidate how the submission brings a novel perspective to the topic of computational propaganda in understudied contexts and platforms. The abstracts must clearly state the research questions and hypotheses, describe the methods and data collection procedures, and provide a summary of expected findings.

Raquel V. Benítez Rojas

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.1201/9781003379119/future-digital-communication-raquel-ben%C3%ADtez-rojas

It cannot be denied that the communication process has undergone multiple and profound changes, since those paintings in the Altamira caves when prehistoric men tried to indicate the appropriate place for hunting to their peers.

One of those evolutionary changes in the communication process centuries later has been digital communication and within it a fact that has been breaking many structures strongly, such as the metaverse.

In this book, the reader will find eleven detailed studies on this communicative fact that cover much more than its initial association with lost worlds in a universe almost impossible to imagine. Conceived as a study of various aspects related to it, you can find articles ranging from the genesis of the object of study, the development of interpersonal relationships, educational, and linguistic aspects, and even those related to the physical aspects of personal representations through the avatars.

The editor would like to invite the reader to enjoy this investigative book with great didactic content to delve into its reading understanding that the metaverse is a creature with a soul and a heart that does not stop growing, for better or for worse.