ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline: February 15, 2019

This anthology is designed to survey the use of counterterrorism laws and their effects on civil liberties, particularly freedom of expression. The editors for the volume will be Dr. Téwodros Workneh and Dr. Paul Haridakis of Kent State University. We are seeking chapter proposals for inclusion in a book proposal we are submitting to Routledge.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States as well as other terrorist-related incidents in different parts of the world have caused profound changes in political, economic, and social relations globally. Nations have aggressively sought a wide range of mechanisms to proactively curb potential threats, such as strengthening controls on immigration, financial transactions, and regulation of communication systems. While arms of executive branches such as law enforcement bodies and even militaries are commonly part of the anti-terrorism apparatus, the most conspicuous common denominator across nations has been the rise of what came to be known as counter-terrorism laws. Today, more than 45 countries in the world have enacted legislation that specifically is designed to address terrorism concerns. Counter-terrorism laws usually empower states to expedite prosecution of alleged offenders by bypassing standard criminal jurisprudence processes. Critics argue that counter-terrorism laws are prone to be misappropriated by state actors who routinely use such laws in non-terrorism domestic contexts. As a consequence, laws designed to combat terrorism are being applied domestically in contexts not involving terrorism—such as governmental efforts to quash political dissent or restrict other forms of citizen expressive activities.

The recent prominence of counter-terrorism laws across the world has had significant implications to the study of global terrorism from social scientific perspectives (e.g., legal and policy perspectives), especially in terms of determining what constitutes (and doesn’t) an expression of terrorism. Evidence from different parts of the world indicate many journalists, media practitioners, activists and everyday citizens who disseminate alternative or critical political discourse are experiencing various forms of harassment, persecution, intimidation, and even legal prosecution under broadly framed terrorism charges sanctioned by state-sponsored counter-terrorism legislation. For example, in Ethiopia, the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation of 2009 has been used to prosecute several bloggers and journalists who were accused of writing about opposition groups designated by the government as terrorists. In the United States, despite its strong tradition of First and Fourth Amendment constitutional rights of free speech and privacy, the FBI has routinely used, provisions of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 to demand information about U.S. citizens including journalists’ sources. Saudi Arabia has aggressively used its anti-terrorism law to criminalize a wide range of peaceful expression that has subjected several individuals to different forms of retribution including capital punishment.

Broadly framed, this call for proposals is concerned with how global counter terrorism laws have conditioned communication patterns, especially in terms of individual and institutional political speech. Almost all counter-terrorism laws incorporate language that affects communication, communication systems, media and/or media practitioners, an individual expression. In many instances, these laws define alleged terrorist speech, delineate the use of communication systems to disseminate said speech, and designate parameters to prosecute terrorists and networks of terrorism. At the same time, journalists, activists, and everyday media users across the world continue to experience varying degrees of state-sponsored harassment as a result of the broad interpretation of counter-terrorism laws that conflate terrorist expression with freedom of speech. In the midst of the rise of populist politics, nationalist political movements, and the retreat of the democratic order globally, the question about freedom of speech in the era of counter-terrorism frameworks is urgent. It is against this backdrop that we ask: What happens when a state-sanctioned legal framework aimed at protecting the public from terrorist activity, mostly perpetrated from foreign adversaries, is used internally against citizens? What are some of the consequences of using counter-terrorism laws that are prone to conflate freedom of expression with terrorist acts?

Manuscript submissions may address the following themes through a case study approach. Contributors shall focus on a given nation state and can explore one or a combination of the following thematic areas in addition to other related themes with the above scope in mind:

▪ Counter-terrorism laws and self-censorship

▪ The discourse/rhetoric of counter-terrorism laws

▪ Counter-terrorism laws and surveillance

▪ Country case studies of litigation focusing on counter terrorism laws

▪ Counter-terrorism laws and media practitioners

▪ Public communication in the age of counter-terrorism laws

▪ Counter-terrorism laws in democracies

▪ Counter-terrorism laws in autocracies

▪ Internet governance and counter-terrorism laws

▪ Counter-terrorism laws and privacy in digital platforms

▪ Journalism ethics and counter-terrorism laws

Deadlines

If you would like to contribute, please submit an abstract of 250-300 words to Dr. Téwodros Workneh (tworkneh@kent.edu) by February 15, 2019.

Submission components

▪ Title of chapter

▪ Author name/s, institutional details

▪ Corresponding author’s email address

▪ Keywords (no more than 5)

▪ A short bio (Maximum 100 words)

Additional guidelines

Commissioned chapters will be around 7,000 words. Accepting an abstract does not guarantee the publication of the final manuscript. Once the book proposal is approved, all chapters will be subject to a double-blind reviewing process.

Abstracts and questions should be addressed to Dr. Tewodros Workneh at tworkneh@kent.edu or Dr. Paul Haridakis at pharidak@kent.edu

MA Program at University for Peace

San Jose, Costa Rica

Deadline: February 28, 2019

The University for Peace, established by the General Assembly of the United Nations is seeking visiting lecturers to teach courses within the MA in Media and Peace program of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies for the academic year 2019-2020. Visiting lecturer-ships are available for the following courses and will be held on the dates mentioned below.

• Introduction to Media and Peace: 30 October-19 November 2019
  
• Global Structures and Cultures, Media and Conflict: 25 November-13 December 2019
  
• Censorship, International Law and Media 13-31 January 2020
  
• Conflict, Media Technoculture and Peace: 3-21 February 2020
  
• Culture Wars, Peacebuilding and Media Representations: 15 April-05 May 2020
  

For detailed description of the courses, see further below.

Appointment will be on the basis of a short-term, full-time contract for the three-week duration of the courses. The University for Peace will cover the financial costs of your travel: ticket in economy class, hotel accommodations and a daily allowance amount of US$55.00 to cover meals, personal transportation and miscellaneous expenses. The honorarium for the course will be US$4,500.00. Please be aware that in accordance with the Income Tax Law of the Republic of Costa Rica, the UPEACE will withhold from the amount to be paid (US$4,500.00) 15% (fifteen percent).

Interested applicants are requested to review the attached course descriptions and determine the course for which they want to be considered as a lecturer based on their relevant academic expertise and/or equivalent professional experience. They are then invited to apply for the positions to the following persons (copying both):

Dr. Saumava Mitra (Coordinator, MA in Media and Peace): mailto:smitra@upeace.org

Dr. Heather Kertyzia (Head, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies): mailto:hkertyzia@upeace.org

Emailed applications must include

1) a detailed curriculum vitae (Max. 5 Pages)

2) a cover letter mentioning which course the applicant is applying to teach, and describing briefly how their relevant experience and expertise in the topic area makes them a suitable candidate (Max. 2 Pages)

3) a teaching statement which clearly states examples of pedagogy as they might be used in the course (Max. 2 pages)

Please include the words ‘UPEACE Media Visiting Lecturer’ in the subject line of the email. Successful applicants will demonstrate exceptional research and pedagogic expertise in the topic area of the relevant course and/or up-to-date outstanding practical and training experience in the intersectional area of Media and Peacebuilding.

Emailed applications must reach by 11: 59 PM Central Standard Time, February 28, 2019.

About the Department

The Department of Peace and Conflict Studies of the University for Peace offers a range of postgraduate programs in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict transformation, gender studies and peace education. Since its inception in 1980, it has also been home to cutting edge research and pedagogy at the cross-disciplinary area of Media and Communication Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies. In the academic year 2019-2020, the department is re-launching its MA in Media and Peace as a full-fledged postgraduate program. This program is a revitalization of the MA in Media, Peace and Conflict that was previously offered by the department and extends the current Specialization in Media, Peace and Conflict offered within the MA in Peace and Conflict Studies program. For more information see www.upeace.org.

About the University

The University for Peace is renowned for its globally inclusive research and pedagogy in the broad area of Peace and Conflict. Home to the departments of Peace and Conflict Studies, Environment and Development, and International Law, it attracts a global body of students drawn from every continent of the earth every year. The University was established as a Treaty Organization of the United Nations with its own Charter in an International Agreement adopted by the General Assembly in Resolution 35/55 in December 1980. Its mission is "to provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace and with the aim of promoting, among all human beings, the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress, in keeping with the noble aspirations proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations". For more information see www.upeace.org.

For informal inquiries about the visiting lecturer-ships, contact the program coordinator at smitra@upeace.org

University for Peace Media and Peace MA 2019-2020: Courses open for visiting lecturers

The list below outlines the five courses of the Media and Peace MA Program for which we are seeking visiting lecturers. Dates when the courses will be held are mentioned in brackets beside the title of the course. Applicants are requested to kindly make sure that they are available to travel to Costa Rica and teach these courses on these dates before applying as dates of the courses are non-negotiable and re-scheduling is not possible. MA courses offered at UPEACE are intensive and consist of five three-hour sessions per week during the three week period. Typically, final assignments by the students are due within the course period or shortly thereafter.

Introduction to Media and Peace [30 October -19 November 2019]

This course will draw on theories and prior knowledge from both Media and Communication studies and Peace and Conflict Studies to identify the areas where ideas, concepts, theories and practices of the two disciplines merge and can help augment each other. It will particularly aim to provide students with a clear understanding of how media and conflict, communication and peace, are inter-related with each other. It will also apply this knowledge through student-led analysis of real world examples of contemporary conflicts and peacebuilding efforts. The course will ideally culminate in student projects of case study analyses of media’s role in a particular conflict-affected context or type of social conflict.

Global Structures and Cultures, Media and Conflict [25 Nov-13 Dec 2019]

This course will build a critical understanding of how political-economic and socio-cultural inequities in the macro structures that govern media in today’s globalized world, form obstacles to peace, and fuel conflict in and between societies. Including the influential and still-relevant debate surrounding the New World Information and Communication Order (1980) of the UN General Assembly, this course will focus on the continuities and changes before and since in the political and economic structures that underlie global media. It will focus on understanding how globalization, media structures and contemporary conflicts are inter-related and influence each other. A special focus within this broader discussions will be to create understanding of what role news media and journalism has traditionally played in reporting and representing conflict in ways that have been detrimental to peace-related goals of the international community.

Censorship, International Law and Media [13-31 January 2020]

Taking advantage of synergies between the fields of International Law and Human Rights on one hand, and Media and Peace on the other, this course will offer a critical analysis of the relationship between law and media around the world. It will include topics such as legal and illegal censorship of news and other media in different national contexts, as well as the international rights to communication and freedom of expression, enshrined in regional and international legal frameworks. Specific sessions will describe how national and international media-related legal structures and policies can encourage or discourage processes of conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and humanitarian advocacy.

Conflict, Media Technoculture and Peace [3-21 Feb 2020]

This course will focus on the emerging techno-cultural forces in the ‘new’ digital media environment and relate these to issues of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. It will focus on citizen journalism as well as other user-generated content to explore how conditions of peace and conflict can be affected by them in different contexts. These intersections between ‘new media’ and peace will include discussions of privacy and surveillance in an online environment, cyber-wars and cyber-terrorism on the one hand and potentials for global civic engagement and empowerment of the dis-enfranchised through digital media tools and platforms, on the other. Ideally, the students will be encouraged to build their own digital media-based communication product aimed for conflict transformation or social justice as the final student project for this course, with the option to instead critically analyze existing examples of digital platforms and communications from a peacebuilding perspective.

Culture Wars, Peacebuilding and Media Representations [15 Apr-05 May 2020]

The course will focus on introducing students to the theories of critical cultural studies and identity politics as it applies to media representations of peacebuilding processes and contemporary conflicts. The course will focus on existing research and real-world examples to show how different types of media, can perpetuate conflicts in societies and between societies through visual and textual representations that underscore racial, gender-related and cultural differences. It will also build critical knowledge of how media is currently used in humanitarian communication that aims to bring down boundaries between groups with different identities and how it can be improved for peacebuilding purposes. Ideally, the course will culminate in a choice for students to critically analyze a humanitarian campaign or to create a media campaign for a humanitarian purpose, of their choice.

Murat Akser and Victoria McCollum (eds.)

Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-78661-063-8.

The volume outlines the history of alternative media use and the ways in which it has become a tool for the critics of the neoliberal economic system in Turkey. The collection concentrates on social media use within social movements and applies interdisciplinary approaches and research methods, ranging from cinema and visual arts to sociology, political science, content analysis and ethnographic study.

May 2-3, 2019

Istanbul

Deadline: March 15, 2019

Üsküdar University Communication Faculty is hosting the sixth International Communication Days on 02 - 03 May 2019. This year’s symposium title is “Digital Transformation”. Since 2014, International Communication Days is being held annually with invited guests. In the previous symposiums, scholars discussed topics as “Digital Addiction” and “Digital Culture” and its effects on public opinion was noteworthy. This year, as invited papers, poster presentations will take place at the symposium.

In addition to the digital communication technologies that marked the era, the media sector and communication sciences have undergone significant changes and transformations. On the one hand, media professionals have been trying to adapt to the new era in which production, distribution and administration are surrounded by digital technologies. On the other hand, academicians have been searching new theories and methodologies in order to analyze and interpret the changing era. In Digital Transformation Symposium, the era of digitization will be discussed in several dimensions with the participation of academicians and media professionals. Thus, while developing a new vision for scientific field, it is aimed to display the requirements of the era in communication education by probing the experiences, education, job opportunities and processes in the digital world.

Digital Transformation Symposium is a peer-reviewed scientific event. Both nationally and internationally recognized scholars in communication field will be invited as keynote speakers.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Digital transformation in print media
  
• New Media
  
• Digital transformation in television and radio
  
• Cinema in the age of digital transformation
  
• Digital marketing communication
  
• Digital transformation in public relations
  
• Digital transformation in advertising
  
• Digital transformation in visual communication
  
• Virtual Reality
  
• Hyper-reality
  
• Augmented Reality
  
• Artificial Intelligence
  

Submitted abstracts will be peer reviewed by the members of Scientific Committee and the accepted papers will be published in the abstract booklet before the symposium. Then, authors may prefer to have their papers included in full paper booklet or in the special edition of Faculty of Communication’s Academic Journal Etkileşim. In that case, their work will be reviewed by the Etkileşim journal’s Editorial Board. Abstracts and poster presentations should be sent to the Organization Committee before 15 March 2019. Accepted papers will be announced by 30 March 2019.

See more here.

Nordicom Review Special Issue (open access)

Deadline for full papers: May 31, 2019

Special issue editors: Aske Kammer (IT-University of Copenhagen), Carl-Gustav Lindén (University of Helsinki), Jonas Ohlsson (Nordicom) and Helle Sjøvaag (University of Stavanger).

The past few years have seen a dramatic upsurge in paywalls being erected across the news media landscape. Online news content that was previously circulated for free is now available only to those who are willing to pay for it. The paywalls are an industry response to two interacting market forces: the gradual decline in printed newspaper sales and the increasing dominance of global networking platforms such as Google and Facebook on national and local advertising markets. In order for commercially funded news media outlets to survive, online audience revenue seems to be the most viable way forward.

The implications of what appears to be a fundamental shift from “free-for-all” to “subscribers-only” access to online news, are plentiful. As a research area, it raises important questions regarding such diverse topics as digital business models and digital media policy, journalistic processes and journalistic content, news media audiences and news media use, and – indeed – the democratic function of commercial news media at large. What happens with news media products and what happens with news media audiences when paywalls are erected? What happens with those that chose not to pay? And how does this metamorphosis of the private news media sector affect the role and scope of public service media?

Against the backdrop of these rather fundamental questions, Nordicom invites the international research community to submit articles to a special issue of Nordicom Review devoted to the implications of online news media paywalls.

The special issue will have an inter-disciplinary scope and the editors welcome contributions on themes including, but not limited to:

• Newsroom organization, newsroom processes and editorial decision-making in a paywall environment
  
• Strategies on converting print subscribers to digital subscribers
  
• Policy approaches to advancing online business models for commercial news media
  
• Digital business models for commercial news media
  
• Paywall solutions and pricing
  
• Comparisons of paid-for news media and ad-financed news media
  
• News audience analyses
  
• News content analyses
  
• The impact of user-data in paywall setups
  
• The paywall phenomenon in relation to democratic theory
  
• Comparisons between reader-financed and ad-financed news
  

The deadline for full paper submissions is on May 31, 2019. All manuscripts should be submitted to editors@nordicom.gu.se. The preliminary time of publication is Winter 2019/2020. Nordicom Review adheres to a double-blind reviewing policy.

About Nordicom Review

Nordicom Review is an international peer-reviewed open access journal published by Nordicom (Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research) at the University of Gothenburg. The publication of Nordicom Review is supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom Review is indexed by SCOPUS. For more information, please visit http://www.nordicom.gu.se.

Contact

Jonas Ohlsson, PhD, assoc. professor

Editor-in-chief, Nordicom Review

Director, Nordicom

Jonas.ohlsson@nordicom.gu.se

+46 31 786 6125

View this CFP on Nordicom’s website: http://www.nordicom.gu.se/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/call-papers-nordicom-review-special-issue-2

European Society for Periodical Research Conference 2019

September 11-13, 2019

Athens (Greece)

Deadline: March 31, 2019

The subject of the 2019 European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit) Conference will be the visual culture of periodical literature, viewed in its broadest sense and in a comparative context. This approach is intended to encompass all visual aspects of periodicals, including typography, covers, format, illustration, fine and avant garde art, cartoons, advertising copy, photojournalism, fashion, portraiture, illustrated travel accounts and ethnographic studies, religious imagery, propaganda and all other dimensions of the visual culture of the printed page. Of particular interest are the development and use of new print technologies for the reproduction of images, the juxtapositions or interactions of imagery and text (at the level of the page or the opening, the issue or the series), the evolution of visual tropes/memes (for example in propaganda and advertising), innovation in design, the emergence of new markets, studies of reader reception of and engagement with visual cultures, the formal (legal) or informal (editorial) regulation of the printed image, and the influence of periodical illustration on art and photography more broadly and on the use of imagery in the daily press in particular.

The conference will draw on and enhance the current Greek Press History Workshop (ETMIET)/ Research Centre for Modern Greece (KENI), Panteion University research project on Greek twentieth-century popular print that seeks to establish the first fully-comprehensive archive of periodicals in Greece, in collaboration with the Journalists’ Union of Periodical and Electronic Press (ESPIT), and the National Library of Greece. Further dimensions that arise from the particular Greek experience, and which invite broader international comparative perspectives, include: (a) the relationships between the uses of imagery in the periodical literature of metropoles and diasporas; and (b) an exploration of the methodologies and the political economies of periodicals research, particularly under the current global circumstances of austerity for the Humanities in general.

The Conference theme itself will be illustrated with appropriate exhibitions and pop-up displays, for which a wider audience is also under consideration, including schools, in order to leave a more lasting legacy for the people of Greece.

Proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of the visual culture of periodicals, of any period or region, are invited for the 8th Conference of European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit), which will be held in Athens in September 2019. Accepted proposals will be grouped into broadly congruent thematic panels, normally with three speakers in each.

Subjects may include the following:

• illustrations
  
• cartoons
  
• formats
  
• title and font design
  
• advertising
  
• photojournalism
  
• fashion
  
• portraiture
  
• travel accounts
  
• ethnographic studies
  
• religious imagery
  
• propaganda
  
• the presence of periodicals (production, distribution or consumption) in visual culture more broadly
  
• and other dimensions of the printed image of particular interest are juxtapositions or interactions of imagery and text – either at the level of the page or the opening, the issue or the series.

In addition, we intend to organise specific workshop sessions on Greek periodicals and visual culture, consisting of panels and group proposals relating to, for example, covers, advertisements, layout etc. We also invite proposals for two atelier sessions, one for MA and PhD candidates, the other focused on a regionally-based ‘state of the discipline’ panel.

The conference will draw on and enhance the current Greek Press History Workshop (ETMIET)/ Research Centre for Modern Greece (KENI), Panteion University research project on Greek twentieth-century popular print that seeks to establish the first fully-comprehensive archive of periodicals in Greece, in collaboration with the Journalists’ Union of Periodical and Electronic Press (ESPIT), and the National Library of Greece.

The working language of the conference is English and Greek. We welcome proposals from researchers at all stages of their careers.

Proposals of around 250 words (references not included) for 20-minute papers and a short CV (no more than 200 words) should be sent to 2019esprit@gmail.com by 31 March 2019.

We also welcome proposals for joint panels of three papers. Please include a brief rationale for the panel along with an abstract and CV for each presenter.

See more: http://www.espr-it.eu/news/events/97-call-for-papers-periodicals-and-visual-culture-11-13-september-2019-athens

The International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies, volume 2

Deadline: February 28, 2019

This SPECIAL ISSUE engages with dominant paradigms and concepts for imagining liberation and fashioning hope. Traditional paradigms such as nationalism, globalism and liberalism increasingly appear to conceal rather than reveal the nature and impact of dominations. Achievements of anti-colonial, anti-racist, feminist, queer, disability and other struggles may be facing a reversal as once again dominations, marginalisations and exploitations of those constructed as racial, ethnic, religious, national, sexed/gendered ‘others’ seem to be gaining currency. The planetary ecological crisis, global financial crises, expanding social inequalities, political and religiously motivated violence contribute to a climate of systematised and institutionalised domination and oppression. In such a world, it may seem that the odds are so stacked against the disempowered that they are structurally condemned to despair. When the systems of domination are so durable and inventive, how can we enhance and redouble our efforts to bring about social justice? How should we reinvigorate our thinking on how contemporary societies may move beyond structures and systems of domination? How do we create horizons of hope envisioning a world in which our diversity is protected and valued? How do we advance efforts at the re- humanisation of the oppressed, and indeed, of the oppressor? How can we sharpen our critiques? How should critical scholarship and activism engage despair? How should hope inform critical scholarship? What kind of hope should this be?

The IJCDS invites manuscripts that look at the interrelationships of liberation, hope and despair in the contexts of:

• Achievements and failures of past struggles - Knowledge production and epistemologies
  
• Normative social formations - Affective economies
  
• Emerging centres and margins - Bodies and embodiment
  
• Social and political institutions - Faith, spirituality and religion
  
• Identities and subjectivities - Law and legislation
  
• Social movements and civil society - Institutions and organisations
  
• Migration and nation - Economic practices and occupations
  
• Ethnic and cultural formations - Violences
  
• Culture, arts and representation - Past, present and future imaginaries
  
• Memory and memorialization
  

Key deadlines and details:

• Submission deadline: February 28, 2019
• Planned publication date: June 2019
• Authors must use the ScholarOne submission portal to submit manuscripts. Submission guidelines should be followed and can be found at: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/ijcds

The IJCDS is published by Pluto Journals and upon publication, individual articles can be located through the JSTOR database. Please contact the IJCDS editorial team with regards to any questions.

Liverpool University

Deadline: February 15, 2019

PhD Exploring The Future of Mixed Reality for Immersive Entertainment Immersive Technologies, such as AR, VR and MR, are continuing to transform the way we can engage in entertainment experiences. From television programmes and documentaries that you can literally walk into, to cinematic experiences where you can become a part of the narrative, to games that enable you to interact with your environment in creative ways. The narrative possibilities for combining the real and virtual are seemingly endless for media storytellers.

This blending of physical and digital worlds presents a number of challenges for content makers. From thinking about the ways that we might spatially engage with an interface or character, to using games engines and data to dynamically trigger and render content, to creating new opportunities and spaces to experience stories in location-based and at home entertainment.

This practice-based PhD* will be exploring this future, working between the Liverpool Screen School and the Department of Computing in the Faculty of Engineering at LJMU and our network of industry professionals across games, film, documentary and television.

You will be making and testing prototypes and speculative design ideas and concepts. You should have an interest in the future of spatial computing, mixed reality, augmented reality and immersive technology and ideas for how it could transform documentary, fiction or other forms of moving image.

Questions/Areas you might explore are:

• What are the future possibilities for the broadcast, film and games industries in adopting mixed reality? And how might this be appropriate for specific audiences
  
• What are the possibilities for narrative when it interacts with you and your environment, in both at home and out of home contexts?
  
• What might mixed reality cinema or television entertainment look like in the future?
  
• What are the User-Experience Design Challenges in developing Spatial User Experiences?
  

You will have access to a wide variety of facilities including the new Liverpool Immersive Experience Lab (LIVELab) and the content production facilities and resources in the Screen School. This includes facilities such as green screen film studios, mixed reality and augmented headsets, volumetric creation tools, cameras, content creation software and games engines, UX design tools and emotional measurement facilities.

There will also be opportunities to engage with our industry networks across games, film, television and the growing immersive sector in the region.

We are primarily looking for someone with strong conceptual and realisation abilities and an interest in the future of Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality. You should also have a background in either games development, immersive experiences, animation, 3d modelling, film, design or digital arts. Although we are open to interested candidates from a range of other disciplines.

In the first instance, please send an expression of interest and a brief outline of the area you would like to focus on to p.j.woodbridge@ljmu.ac.uk as soon as possible, and by 15th February 2019 at the latest. We will then look to working with you on the proposal which needs to be submitted by Monday 4th March 2019.

*PhDs can either be fully funded scholarships including stipend and fees, or fees only, they are offered on a competitive basis. For more details about the terms please see this link.

Deadline: March 1, 2019

The Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen is offering a 3-year PhD position at the newly established Computational Communication and Democracy (CCD) Lab. The PhD student will work with the lab director, Prof. Yannis Theocharis on the thematic area Digital Media and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities

Description of the position

Duration: 3 years

Starting date: April 1, 2019 or soon as possible thereafter

Remuneration is based on grade E13 TV-L (50% of a full-time position) of the German federal employee scale (an increase to 100% is possible depending on application for external project funding)

General description of the position:

The PhD student will be embedded in the newly established CCD Lab, a research-oriented environment within the interdisciplinary ZeMKI of the University of Bremen. The research area Digital Media and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities focuses on explaining how digital media are transforming the quality of democracy, concentrating on issues such as uncivil behaviour, the activities of countercultures, new forms of political participation and representation, misinformation and exposure to news or social media content in general. The PhD student will be actively involved in the research activities of the CCD Lab and assist in the evolution of its research agenda and research output. It is expected that the PhD student will be an active contributor to the interdisciplinary intellectual environment of the ZeMKI. For more information about the Lab and ZeMKI please see below.

Description of research duties. The PhD student will support the Lab director in the development of the research area. This involves providing assistance with data collection and analysis, coordination of existing, and development of new projects for the acquisition of third-party funding, carrying out administrative tasks related to the Lab’s operation (e.g. coordination of student research assistants) and involvement in the Lab’s publication output. The PhD student is expected to develop and carry out her/his own PhD project related to the broader research area.

Description of teaching duties: The position involves 2 hours of teaching per week.

Essential qualifications

• Master’s in Media and Communication, Political Science, Computer Science, Sociology, or related disciplines
  
• Skills in quantitative methods
  
• Skills in computational methods (a focus on text-as-data methods – especially automated text analysis and machine-learning – is a plus)
  
• Familiarity with, or willingness to build methodological expertise on, network analysis
  
• Experience with social media data analysis is desirable
  
• Interest in political communication
  
• Command of R (experience with Python is a plus)
  
• Strong command of English
  

The University of Bremen intends to increase the proportion of women in science and therefore urges women to apply. Handicapped applicants with the same professional and personal suitability are given priority. Applications from people with a migration background are encouraged. Candidates who already hold a PhD degree will not be considered.

For any questions please contact Prof. Dr. Yannis Theocharis at yannis.theocharis@uni-bremen.de

Application

The application should include the following documents:

A letter of motivation (no longer than 2 pages) that outlines your substantive research and methodological interests. Please describe why you believe your profile fits with the main objectives and mission of the CCD Lab

• CV
  
• A copy of your academic certificates
  
• A writing sample (research paper, publication, or Master’s thesis)
  
• Names of two referees
  

Please send your application including the reference number A4/19 until 01/03/2019 to:

Universität Bremen

Zentrum für Medien-, Kommunikations- und Informationsforschung (ZeMKI)

z.H. Frau Denise Tansel

Postfach 33 04 40

28334 Bremen

Germany

or as PDF via Email (single file) at: dtansel@uni-bremen.de

The employment is fixed-term and serves the scientific qualification, governed by the Act of Academic Fixed-Term Contract, §2 (1) (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz). Therefore, candidates may only be considered for appointment if they still have the respective qualification periods available in accordance with § 2 (1) WissZeitVG.

About the Computational Communication and Democracy Lab

The Lab’s substantive research agenda is driven by the idea that the proliferation of digital media opens up new avenues for social and political interaction that have radical effects on democratic processes: participation, organisation, representation. As such, digital communication offers opportunities, but also poses enormous challenges that fundamentally affect the quality of our democracies. Relying on developments in the field of computational social science as a point of departure, the Lab’s is also interested in methods through which new types of digital information can be processed and repurposed for studying a variety of social and political phenomena enabled by digital technologies. The lab has two main goals. First, to lead research on different but interdependent substantive topics for understanding, the social and political impact of digital communication and address methodological and epistemological issues related to conceptualisation, operationalisation, measurement and inference. Second, to offer BA, Masters, and PhD students a path for specialisation in computational and data science methods, with applications to communication and media research.

About the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI)

As an inter-faculty research institute, the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) bundles research activities at the University of Bremen in the area of media and communicative change regarding a broad range of cultural, social, organisational and technological context fields. The research institute is committed to interdisciplinary cooperation, integrating researchers from the areas of media and communication studies, cultural studies, information management and media pedagogics. In addition to their research activities, ZeMKI members are active in the various media related study programmes at the University of Bremen. The ZeMKI oversees the profile-building research group "Communicative figurations of mediatized worlds" of the University of Bremen. The research group has been supported as a "Creative Unit" by the institutional strategy "Ambitious and Agile" of the University of Bremen funded within the frame of the Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments.

An edited volume comissioned by Palgrave

Deadline: February 25, 2019

If you are working on this or a similar topic, please consider submitting an abstract. The deadline is tight, February 25 for a 500 words abstract and March 31 the chapters.

To find out more, get in touch at toub.fox@wlv.ac.uk.