ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

October 23-25, 2019

School of Media, Faculty of Media, Communication and Design, National Research University HSE, Moscow

Deadline: May 31, 2019

Keynote Speakers

• Vincent Mosco, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Queen's University (Canada)
• Joe Karaganis, vice-president American Assembly, Columbia University, editor of the report “Media Piracy in Emerging Economies” (US)
• Patrick Burkart, professor, Texas A&M University (US)
• Tristan Mattelart, professor, French Institute of Press, University of Paris II Pantheon-Assas (France)
• Göran Bolin, professor Södertorn University (Sweden)
• Aleksandra Elbakyan, creator of Sci-Hub (platform of free scholar publications)

Call for Papers

This conference explores piracy as a figure navigating the conventions, norms and boundaries of legality in digital cultures and beyond. Offline and online piracies thrive on technological affordances yet they do so in opposition to corporate efforts -in music, film, publishing and academia- to label them as threatening for the economy and society. In turn, pirate activities frequently become themselves subject to economic exploitation, co-optation and spectacurilzation by market forces. During the last decades, while the copyrights industry lobbies for tighter IP laws on a global scale, social media corporations find productive ways to capture counter-hegemonic networks through the exploitation of free or leisure time and users’ data. Caught in the highly flexible and contingent context of digital networks, piracy allows for the probing of norms and boundaries, questioning the logics that define intellectual property laws, broadening the uses and perceptions of authored production and enabling new forms of technology usage surpassing corporate control. Moving beyond approaches that represent piracy in terms of illegality or supply and demand, we propose to explore pirate networked sociabilities working within and outside the fringes of market economy through the lens of institutional and discursive power and attempts to escape corporate control.

The discourse on piracy can be seen as part of a broader set of discourses and practices shaping the figure of the threat in media and culture, that is to say the construction of borderline and contested practices, identities and phenomena that rest on the threshold of the legitimate and illegitimate, the legal and the illegal. We understand these boundaries to be highly contingent, historical and politically defined and subject to discursive contestation. To bring few examples beyond digital piracy, the figures of the ‘parasite’ in biology, the ‘virus’ in digital worlds or the ‘benefit scrounger’ in public discourse become likewise threats that have to be managed and confronted for the presumed progress of the community. We look for abstracts that explore the threat as a broader phenomenon related to issues of political economy, otherness, marginality, resistance, community, assimilation, camouflaging, gender, class, recognition and representation. We seek to address the power relations in designations of the threat (who, why, when and by whom is someone categorized as a threat) as well as explore the conditions under which authorities and legal entities decide who has the right to exist and how.

We welcome contributions in the following topics:

• Legality, Illegality and Sharing Economies
• Political Economy of Othering
• Disruption and the New Economy
• Academic Publishing and Piracy
• Art, Music and Piracy
• Discourses on Disruption
• Ecosystem and Disruption
• Gender, Class, Sexual Others
• Viruses and Parasites in Media
• Human and Non-Human Worlds

Submissions should include the name(s) and institutional affiliations of the applicant(s), email address and abstracts no longer than 500 words (including references) in English or in Russian.

Abstracts must be submitted before May, 31, 2019 at: piracyandbeyond@gmail.com

Participants will be notified about acceptance by June 30, 2019

For any further information, please contact us at: piracyandbeyond@gmail.com

WEBSITE: https://cmd.hse.ru/mediapiracy/

Organizers

• Ilya Kirya, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
• Yiannis Mylonas, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
• Panos Kompatsiaris, Higher School of Economics, Moscow

University of Tübingen

Deadline: June 16, 2019

The Chair for Empirical Media Research at the Institute of Media Studies (Prof. Zurstiege), University of Tübingen, has the following position available as of October 01/2019: Academic Employee (m/f/d) (full-time, German public sector pay scheme E 13 TV-L).

The duties of the position holder include academic teaching in the field of media science (4 hours per week during the semester) as well as cooperation in the context of the ongoing projects at the department.

The following is expected: a doctorate in media or communication science as well as profound knowledge of quantitative and / or qualitative research methods. The position provides the opportunity for further qualification (habilitation) and is initially limited to three years.

The University of Tuebingen seeks to raise the number of women in research and therefore invites qualified female scientists to apply. Disabled persons will be preferred in case of equal qualification. Recruitment is carried out by the central administration.

Applications with the usual documents, including a copy of the dissertation and a presentation of the habilitation project, preferably in electronic form, should be submitted by June 16/2019 to: Prof. Dr. Guido Zurstiege (guido.zurstiege@uni-tuebingen.de), University of Tuebingen, Institute of Media Studies, Wilhelmstr. 50, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany 

Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Klagenfurt University

Application deadline: May 21, 2019

Die Universität Klagenfurt will mehr qualifizierte Frauen für Professuren gewinnen.

Am Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften an der Universität Klagenfurt ist gem. § 98 UG voraussichtlich ab 1. Jänner 2020 eine unbefristete Universitätsprofessur für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften im vollen Beschäftigungsausmaß zu besetzen.

Mit rund 12.000 Studierenden ist die Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt eine junge, lebendige und innovative Universität, die am Schnittpunkt zwischen alpiner und mediterraner Kultur – einer Region mit höchster Lebensqualität – liegt. Als staatliche Universität gemäß § 6 UG ist sie aus Bundesmitteln finanziert. Ihr Leitbild steht unter der Devise „Grenzen überwinden!“. Das QS Top 50 Under 50 Ranking 2019 zählt sie zu den 150 besten jungen Universitäten der Welt.

Gemäß ihrem zentralen Strategiedokument, dem Entwicklungsplan, gehören der wissenschaftliche Exzellenzanspruch bei Berufungen, vorteilhafte Forschungsbedingungen, gute Betreuungsrelationen und die Förderung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses zu den vorrangig leitenden Grundsätzen und Zielen der Universität.

Area of responsibility

Der Aufgabenbereich der Professur umfasst:

• die Vertretung des Faches in Forschung und Lehre insbesondere in den Bereichen Mediatisierung sowie Medienbildung im Kontext der Digitalisierung
• die organisatorisch-koordinierende Mitbetreuung des Fachs und die Mitwirkung an der curricularen Entwicklungs- und Evaluationsarbeit
• die Mitwirkung in den Bachelor- und Masterstudien des Institutes
• die Mitwirkung im Doktoratsstudium sowie an der Entwicklung und Implementierung von Doktoratsprogrammen
• die Beratung und Betreuung von Studierenden im Fach, insbesondere die Betreuung von Bachelorarbeiten, Masterarbeiten und Dissertationen
• die Mitwirkung an der Profilbildung des Instituts
• die Beratung und Förderung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses
• die Mitwirkung im Universitätsmanagement

Requirements

• Habilitation in Medien- und/oder Kommunikationswissenschaft oder gleichzuhaltende Qualifikation
• hervorragende Forschung und Lehre im Bereich Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft im Schwerpunktbereich Mediatisierung, Medienbildung im Kontext der Digitalisierung
• nachgewiesene universitäre Lehrerfahrung und hochschuldidaktische Kompetenz
• Führungskompetenz und Teamfähigkeit

Desired skills

• Bereitschaft zur Weiterentwicklung des Fachs
• Erfahrungen in der internationalen Forschungskooperation und Einbettung in die internationale Forschungslandschaft
• Internationale Forschungs- und Publikationsleistungen
• Fähigkeit und Bereitschaft zur Leitung einer Organisationseinheit
• Bereitschaft und Fähigkeit zu interdisziplinärer Kooperation
• Innovative Ansätze in der Entwicklung und Vermittlung von Theorien und Methoden
• Thematische Bezüge zum 2019 gegründeten Digital Age Research Center (D!ARC) der Universität (interdisziplinärer Potenzialbereich „Humans in the Digital Age“, HDA)
• Erfahrung in der Konzeption und Durchführung von Drittmittelprojekten
• Kompetenz im Bereich Gender Mainstreaming und Diversity Management

Additional information

Der Aufgabenbereich der Professur bedingt, dass die zukünftige Professorin / der zukünftige Professor den Arbeitsmittelpunkt nach Klagenfurt verlegt.

Die Universität strebt eine Erhöhung des Frauenanteils beim wissenschaftlichen Personal ­— insbesondere in Leitungsfunktionen ­— an und fordert daher qualifizierte Frauen ausdrücklich zur Bewerbung auf. Frauen werden bei gleicher Qualifikation vorrangig aufgenommen.

Menschen mit Behinderungen oder chronischen Erkrankungen, die die geforderten Qualifikationen erfüllen, werden ausdrücklich zur Bewerbung aufgefordert.

Die Bezüge sind Verhandlungsgegenstand. Das Mindestentgelt für diese Verwendung (A1 gem. Universitäten-Kollektivvertrag) beträgt derzeit € 71.900,-- brutto jährlich.

Neuerdings kann bei Berufungen nach Österreich für die ersten fünf Tätigkeitsjahre ein attraktiver Zuzugsfreibetrag gemäß Einkommensteuergesetz gewährt werden. Die Voraussetzungen sind im Einzelfall zu prüfen.

Ihre Bewerbung besteht bitte aus einem maximal fünfseitigen Pflichtteil, einem vollständigen Verzeichnis der Publikationen und Vorträge und der in den letzten fünf Studienjahren abgehaltenen Lehrveranstaltungen sowie allfälligen ergänzenden Unterlagen (z.B. Lehrveranstaltungs­evaluierungen). Die Übermittlung des o.g. Pflichtteils ist eine notwendige Bedingung für Ihre gültige Bewerbung. Bitte übermitteln Sie Ihre Unterlagen bis spätestens 21. Mai 2019 per E-Mail an die Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Büro des Senats, z. Hd. Frau Sabine Tomicich (application_professorship@aau.at).

Für die Berufungsvorträge ist der 1.Oktober 2019 in Aussicht genommen. Für inhaltliche Fragen beachten Sie bitte die allgemeinen Informationen für BewerberInnen (www.aau.at/jobs/information) oder wenden sich an den Vorsitzenden der Berufungskommission, Herrn Prof. DDr. Matthias Karmasin (Matthias.Karmasin@aau.at).

Es besteht kein Anspruch auf Abgeltung von Reise- und Aufenthaltskosten, die aus Anlass des Aufnahmeverfahrens entstehen.

Abstract submission: October 1, 2019

Article deadline: January 10, 2020

To an increasing extent we are using media to make sense of, communicate about or track our health, physical as well as mental. With this issue of Conjunctions we wish to explore this expanding and interdisciplinary field of media and health and emerging forms of participation in health through media. The issue aims for a deeper understanding of how and with what consequences digital and social media are becoming an integral part of how medical practitioners as well as private persons practice, communicate about and understand health and illness. The topic of media and health invite scholars to consider how perceptions of health, health practices and the life of patients are changing with the interweaving of digital media participation.

This special issue addresses the multiple ways in which the uses of digital media contribute to the reconfiguring of traditional doctor- and patient roles – and practices as well as culturally constructed perceptions of health and illness. How do the participatory affordances of digital technologies change perceptions of what it means to be healthy and how we cope with illness? What is at stake as patients become more engaged in their health, illness, visits to the GP through the use of tracking devices, social media and information searching?

Scholars are invited to focus on the role of digital media of all kinds in new health practices. We encourage an interdisciplinary approach coupling media studies on health with sociological, cultural or healthcare perspectives. Empirical analyses as well as methodological and theoretical discussions are welcomed. As health practices and perceptions differ greatly across the world, we invite contributions from a broad range of social and cultural contexts.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Mixed methods approaches to gathering and analysing data on media and health
• Empirical analyses of public health campaigns and news media coverage of health-related issues
• The digitisation of the healthcare system in doctor and/or patient perspective
• Empirical analyses of health-related practices on social media or through self-tracking technologies or other forms of participatory patient practices
• Theoretical and methodological discussions about challenges and opportunities on the topic of health studies within digital humanities
• Discussions and use of core concepts within media- and health studies such as affordances, domestication, power, place and time as well as patient empowerment-, participation- and education.

Timeline:

• October 1, 2019: Submission of article abstracts
• October 10, 2019: Editor decision on selection of abstracts for the special issue
• January 10, 2020: Submission of articles
• February, 2020: Review phase
• May 1, 2020: Final submission of revised articles
• Medio 2020: Publication of special issue

Stedelijk Studies 10: (Spring 2020)

Deadline: June 14, 2019

The web of digitized collections and archives in the field of arts and culture is expanding rapidly. As with any technological burst, the digital imperative evokes promises for an improved functionality, but also brings about new challenges and perils. Many museums, like other memory institutions, embrace the digitalization of their archives and collections as means to attract new audiences, for instance, and further their participation and engagement in their collections, their program of activities, and their research. At the same time, these digital transformations challenge existing modes of knowledge production and dissemination, requiring new competencies and new forms of collaboration.

This issue of Stedelijk Studies investigates how we imagine those transformations, and how they affect cultural and academic practices. We invite manuscripts that critically investigate how practices of digitization of collections and archives transform knowledge production and knowledge exchange across academia, museums, and archives. This question ties in with recent scholarship in the fields of digital heritage, digital art history, and digital humanities, but is also addressed in other fields, such as science and technology studies (STS), artistic practices, and design theory.

Scrutinizing existing digitization practices allows us to identify and challenge the forceful imaginaries that often kick-start and drive large-scale and costly digitization projects. Socio-technological imaginaries are part of new technological developments, but as social theorists (c.f. Castoriadis 1997; Marcus 1995; Flichy 1999; Jasanoff and Kim 2015) have argued, such imaginaries are not innocent; they shape our perceptions and elicit our actions, even if we may not realize they do. With this issue we therefore aim to explore how interdisciplinary scholarship on the effects and challenges of digitalization may enhance a deeper understanding of past and current projects concerned with the digitization and new usages of archives and collections in the field of arts and culture, such as Stedelijk Text Mining Project, Time Machine, and Accurator. To start the discussion, we identify three dominant promises associated with such digitization projects. Contributions addressing other possible promises are equally welcome.

Promise 1: Towards increasing inclusivity

Projects involving digital archives and collections are often presented as challenging traditional forms of knowledge production and consumption, and by extension, as questioning our cultural canons (Ciasullo, Troisi & Cosimato 2018). Through co-creation and participatory designs, such projects promise a less hierarchical form of knowledge production in which practitioners, academics, and, increasingly, citizens or niche experts are considered equal contributors to knowledge production (Ridge 2016). The development of more inclusive and diverse digital “pipelines” that include crowdsourcing and folksonomies, however, also warrants practical, moral and epistemological concerns over biases, authority and accuracy, and issues of multiple interpretations and narratives.

Promise 2: Towards complete connectivity

Many heritage and cultural institutions are adopting linked open data as a way to organize and disseminate their collections, archives, and research data (Jones & Seikel 2016; Van Hooland & Verborgh 2014). The advent of linked open data would allow unlimited aggregation of materials from disparate geographical locations. It promises a transition from specialized and siloed information in archives and museums to a web of cultural data. Yet the operationalization of linked open data comes with many questions and concerns, ranging from web standards and domain-specific ontologies, loss of contextual information, presentation of provenance, and user interfaces, to legal and ethical considerations related to copyright and privacy.

Promise 3: Towards unlimited and easy access

Online resources provide access to tens of millions of items from thousands of cultural institutions. In an ideal world, these increasingly democratic and connected institutions will offer unlimited and easy access to data that are personalized and meaningful, but also reusable for academic research. In reality, the myriad interfaces and smart digital techniques notwithstanding, many users and producers still experience difficulties in accessing, interpreting, and presenting online archival and collection data (Kabassi 2017). This may in part be the result of lagging digital literacy skills, and evokes concerns about, for instance, the aptness of the methodologies researchers employ in analyzing this data. It also raises questions about how diverging interests of developers, cultural organizations, and audiences affect the affordances of human-centered designs in graphical and conversational user interfaces.

This issue of Stedelijk Studies aims to reflect on these kinds of promises, encouraging practitioners and academic researchers to revisit past and current digitization efforts. We particularly invite discussions of good practices as well as failed projects in order to assess indicators of success and failure against the backdrop of such promises. Contributions can be submitted in the form of text with images, but with this issue we also seek to explore innovative digital publication formats. We welcome theoretical, methodological, and practice- or case-based contributions focusing on questions such as:

• What kinds of imaginaries can be identified in the digitization of archives and collections? How are future imaginaries about the digital enacted in archiving practices?
• How do diverging expectations of developers, content producers, volunteers, niche experts, and computer scientists affect digital projects involving collections and archives?
• How can we assess the processes and outcomes of digitization projects of memory institutions in light of presumed promises? What are examples of good practices, and what can we learn from failed attempts?
• Which new imaginaries may emerge from scrutinizing past and current projects in the realm of digital archives and collections?

The thematic issue Imagining the Future of Digital Archives and Collections will be edited by Dr. Vivian van Saaze (Maastricht University), Dr. Claartje Rasterhoff (University of Amsterdam), and Karen Archey (Stedelijk Museum).

ABOUT STEDELIJK STUDIES

Stedelijk Studies is a high-quality, peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The journal comprises research related to the Stedelijk collection, exploring institutional history, museum studies (e.g., education and conservation practice), and current topics in the field of visual arts and design.

SUBMISSION

Deadline for the abstract (max. 300 words) and CV is June 14, 2019.

Deadline for the article (4,000–5,000 words) is October 15, 2019.

Publication of the issue will be in May 2020.

Please send abstracts and other editorial correspondence to:

Esmee Schoutens, Managing Editor, Stedelijk Studies stedelijkstudies@stedelijk.nl

Edited by Jessica Retis and Roza Tsagarousinanou

Co-published by IAMCR and Wiley Blackwell Willey Webpage.

Description:

Over the past three decades, the term ‘diaspora’ has been featured in many research studies and in wider theoretical debates in areas such as communications, the humanities, social sciences, politics, and international relations. The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture explores new dimensions of human mobility and connectivity—presenting state-of-the-art research and key debates on the intersection of media, cultural, and diasporic studies

The Handbook presents contributions from internationally-recognized scholars and researchers to strengthen understanding of diasporas and diasporic cultures, diasporic media and cultural resources, and the various forms of diasporic organization, expression, production, distribution, and consumption.

The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, lecturers, and researchers in areas that focus on the relationship of media and society, ethnic identity, race, class and gender, globalization and immigration, and other relevant fields.

Table of Contents:

1. Diasporas, Media, and Culture: Exploring Dimensions of Human Mobility and Connectivity in the Era of Global Interdependency. Roza Tsagarousianou and Jessica Retis
2. Diasporas: Changing Meanings and Limits of the Concept. Robin Cohen
3. Digital Diasporas: Beyond the Buzzword: Toward a Relational Understanding of Mobility and Connectivity. Laura Candidatu, Koen Leurs, and Sandra Ponzanesi
4. The Tragedy of the Cultural Commons: Cultural Crossroads and the Paradoxes of Identity. Thomas Hylland Eriksen
5. Diaspora and the Plurality of Its Cosmopolitan Imaginaries. Myria Georgiou
6. Beyond the Concept of Diaspora?: Reevaluating our Theoretical Toolkit Through the Study of Muslim Transnationalism. Roza Tsagarousianou
7. Doing Diasporic Media Research: Methodological Challenges and Innovations. Kevin Smets
8. Homogenizing Heterogeneity in Transnational Contexts: Latin American Diasporas and the Media in the Global North. Jessica Retis
9. Unraveling Diaspora and Hybridity: Brazil and the Centrality of Geopolitical Context in Analyzing Culture in Global Postcolonial Space. Niall Brennan
10. Media, Racism, and Haitian Immigration in Brazil. Denise Cogo and Terezinha Silva
11. China’s Vessel on the Voyage of Globalization: The Soft Power Agenda and Diasporic Media Responses. Wanning Sun
12. Digital Diaspora: Social Alliances Beyond the Ethnonational Bond. Saskia Witteborn
13. Transnational Mediated Commemoration of Migrant Deaths at the Borders of Europe. Karina Horsti
14. The Politics of Diasporic Integration: The Case of Iranians in Britain. Annabelle Sreberny and Reza Gholami
15. Scripting Indianness: Remediating Narratives of Diasporic Affiliation and Authenticity. Radha S. Hegde
16. Media Representations of Diasporic Cultures and the Impact on Audiences: Polarization, Power, and the Limits of Interculturality. Miquel Rodrigo‐Alsina, Antonio Pineda, and Leonarda Garcia‐Jimenez
17. Toward a Democratization of the Public Space?: Challenges for the Twenty‐First Century. Alicia Ferrandez Ferrer
18. Decolonizing National Public Spheres: Indigenous Migrants as Transnational Counterpublics. Antonieta Mercado
19. The Power of Communication Networks for the Political Formation of a New Social Actor in Chile: The Case of Migrant Action Movement. Ximena Poo
20. Making National Cultures: Sindhis in Indonesia’s Media Industries. Thomas Barker
21. Reporting Violence and Naming Migrants in Assam: The Coverage of Anti‐“Bengali Muslim” Violence in Assam by The Assam Tribune Newspaper. Musab Iqbal
22. Media and Nationalism Beyond Borders. Janroj Yilmaz Keles
23.  Online Diasporas: Beyond Long‐Distance Nationalisms. Angeliki Monnier
24. Somali Development Agents as Development Communicators: Visions and “Religious” Challenges. Michele Gonnelli
25. The Mediation of Migration and States of Exception. Miyase Christensen and Christian Christensen
26. Intersections and (Dis)Connections: LGBTQ Uses of Digital Media in the Diaspora. Alexander Dhoest
27. Sri Lankan Migrant Women Watching Teledramas in Melbourne: A Social Act of Identity. Shashini Ruwanthi Gamage
28. Digital Diasporas: Accounting for the Role of Family Talk in Transnational Social Spaces. Gabriel Moreno‐Esparza
29. Italian Post‐war Migration to Britain: Cinema and the Second Generation. Margherita Sprio
30. Between Access and Exclusion: Iranian Diasporic Broadcasting in Open TV Channels in Germany. Christine Horz
31. Low Frequencies in the Diaspora: The Black Subaltern Intellectual and Hip‐Hop Cultures. Bryce Henson
32. Facebook for Community, Direct Action, and Archive: Diaspora Responses to the 2014 Floods in the Balkans. Deborah James
33. The Romanian Scientific E‐Diaspora: Online Mobilization, Transnational Agency, and Globalization of Domestic Policies. Mihaela Nedelcu
34. Refugees, Information Precarity, and Social Inclusion: The Precarious Communication Practices of Syrians Fleeing War. Melissa Wall, Madeline Otis Campbell, and Dana Janbek
35. Racial and Class Distinctions Online: The Case of the Mexican European Diaspora on Social Networking Sites. Lorena Nessi and Olga Bailey
36. Physical and Virtual Spaces Among the Palestinian Diaspora in Malmo. Fanny Christou and Spyros Sofos
37. Developing and Defending Mixed Identity: Lessons from the Caribbean Diaspora. Charisse L’Pree Corsbie‐Massay and Raven S. Maragh-Lloyd
38. Latino and Asian as Pan‐Ethnic Layers of Identity and Media Use Among Second‐Generation Immigrants. Joseph Straubhaar, Laura Dixon, Jeremiah Spence, and Viviana Rojas
39. Migration, Transnational Families, and New Communication Technologies. Mirca Madianou

About the Editors

Roza Tsagarousianou is Reader in Media and Communication, CAMRI, University of Westminster, UK. She is author of Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks and of Diasporic Cultures and Globalization, and co-author of Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities & Civic Networks.

Jessica Retis is Associate Professor of Journalism, California State University Northridge, USA. She is author of Immigrant Media Spaces in Madrid: Genesis and Evolution, and co-author of BBC & TVE Daily Newscasts: Professionals and Audiences' Discourses. She has edited several works including Immigration and Media: Proposals for Journalists.

Special issue of Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society

Deadline (abstracts): August 1, 2019

(guest editors: Maria Eriksson & Guillaume Heuguet)

In today’s digital landscape, cultural content such as texts, films, images, and recorded sounds are increasingly subjected to automatic (or semi-automatic) processes of identification and classification. On a daily basis, spam filters scan heaps of emails in order to separate legit and illegit textual messages,1 algorithms analyze years of user-uploaded film on YouTube in search for copyright violations,2 and software systems scrutinize millions of images on social media sites in order to detect sexually offensive content.3 To an increasing extent, content identification systems are also trained to distinguish “fake-news” from “proper journalism” on news websites,4 and taught to recognize and filter violent or hateful content that circulates online.5

These examples reveal how machines and algorithmic systems are increasingly utilized to make complex cultural judgements regarding cultural content. Indeed, it could be argued that the wide-ranging adoption of content identification tools is constructing new ontologies of culture and regimes of truth in the online domain. When put to action, content identification technologies are trusted with the ability to separate good/bad forms of communication and used to secure the value, authenticity, origin, and ownership of content. Such efforts are deeply embedded in constructions of knowledge, new forms of political governance, and not least global market transactions. Content identification tools now make up an essential part of the online data economy by protecting the interests of rights holders and forwarding the mathematization, objectification, and commodification of cultural productions.

Parallel to their increased pervasiveness and influence, however, content identification systems have also been heavily contested. Debates regarding automatic content identification tools recently gained momentum due to the European Union’s decision to update its copyright laws. A newly adopted EU directive encourages all platform owners to implement automatic content filters in order to safeguard copyrights6 and critics have argued that such measures run the risk of seriously hampering the freedom of speech and stifling cultural expressions online.7 High profile tech figures such as Tim Berners Lee (commonly known as one of the founders of the Internet) has even claimed that the widespread adoption of content filtering could effectively destroy the internet as we know it.8 Content identification systems, then, are not neutral devices but key sites where the moral, juridical, economical, and cultural implications of wide-ranging systems of online surveillance are currently negotiated and put to the test.

This special issue welcomes contributions that trace the lineage and genealogy of online content identification tools and explores how content identification systems enact cultural values. It also explores how content identification technologies reconfigure systems of knowledge and power in the online domain. We especially invite submissions that reflect on the ways in which content identification systems are deployed to domesticate and control online cultural content, establish new and data-driven infrastructural systems for the treatment of cultural data, and bring about changes in the activity/status of cultural workers and rights holders. Contributions that locate online content identification tools within a longer historical trajectory of identification technologies are also especially welcomed, since digital content identification tools must be understood as continuations of analogue techniques for monitoring and measuring the qualities and identities of things.

We envision contributors to be active in the fields of media history, software studies, media studies, media archaeology, social anthropology, science and technology studies, and related scientific domains. The topic of contributions may include, but are not limited to:

• The historical and political implications of content identification tools for audio, video, images, and textual content such as machine learning systems and digital watermarking or fingerprinting tools
• The genealogy of spam filters, fake news detection systems, and other strategies for keeping the internet “clean” and censoring/regulating the circulation and availability of online content
• Comparative investigations of the technical workings of different methods for identifying content, including discussions on the challenges and potentials of indexing/identifying sound, images, texts and audiovisual content
• Reviews of the scientific theories, political ideologies, and business logics that sustain and legitimize online systems of content identification
• Reflections on historical and analogue techniques for identifying objects and commodities, such as paper watermarks and the use of signets and stamps
• Issues of censorship related to online content identification and moderation and/or discussions regarding the ethical dilemmas and legal debates that surround content surveillance
• Explorations of the implications of algorithmic judgements and measurements of identity, and reflections on the ways in which content identification tools redefine what is means to listen/see and transform how cultural objects are imagined and valued
• Examinations of the relationship between human and algorithmic efforts to identify suspect content online and moderate information flows

Submissions

Abstracts of a maximum of 750 words should be emailed to Maria Eriksson (maria.c.eriksson@umu.se) and Guillaume Heuguet (guillaume.heuguet@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr) no later than 1 August 2019. Notification about acceptance to submit an article will be sent out by 1 September 2019. Authors of accepted abstracts are invited to submit an article by 1 February 2020. Final versions of articles are asked to keep within a 6,000 word limit. Please note that acceptance of abstract does not ensure final publication as all articles must go through the journal’s usual review process.

Time schedule

• 1 August 2019: due date for abstracts
• 1 September 2019: notification of acceptance
• 1 February 2020: accepted articles to be submitted for review
• Feb-April 2020: review process and revisions

About the guest-editors

Guillaume Heuguet defended a dissertation in 2018 on music and media capitalism based on a longitudinal analysis of YouTube’s strategy and products, including its Content ID system (to be published by the French National Archives in 2019). He is currently an associated researcher at GRIPIC (Sorbonne Université) and Irmeccen (Sorbonne Nouvelle). He runs the music journal Audimat and has edited a forthcoming book entitled Anthology of Popular Music Studies in French (Philharmonie de Paris, 2019).

Maria Eriksson is a doctoral candidate in media studies at Umeå University, Sweden who is currently spending time as a visiting scholar at the department of arts, media and philosophy at Basel University in Switzerland. She has a background in social anthropology and her main research interests concern the politics of software and the role of algorithms in managing the logistics and distribution of cultural content online. She is one of the co-authors of the book Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music (MIT Press, 2019) and has previously co-edited special issues in journals such as Culture Unbound.

Link to the online version of the call for papers: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/internet-histories-genealogies-online-content-identification/?utm_source=CPB_think&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JOD09539

More information on Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rint20.

Notes

1 Brunton, Finn. Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet. Cambridge & London: MIT Press, 2013.

2 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en

3 https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-content-porn-ban-date-explicit-changes- why-safe-mode

4 https://thenewstack.io/mit-algorithm-sniffs-out-sites-dedicated-to-fake-news/

5 https://www.gouvernement.fr/la-france-engage-une-experimentation-inedite-en-matiere-de-regulation-appliquee-aux-contenus-haineux and https://www.letelegramme.fr/france/internet-des-amendes-pour-les-plateformes-qui-laissent-des-contenus-haineux-21-02-2019-12213979.php

6 http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-3010_en.htm

7 https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Academics_Against_Press_Publishers_Right.pdf

8 https://www.eff.org/files/2018/06/13/article13letter.pdf

ECREA Mid-Year Section Conference

October 21-22, 2019

University of Helsinki, Finland

Abstract Deadline : June 1, 2019

Joint Conference of three ECREA Sections: Communication and Democracy; Digital Culture and Communication; and Media Industries and Cultural Production

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Lisa Parks, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Kaarina Nikunen, University of Tampere

In a turn to ‘infrastructuralism’ (Peters 2015), media and communication scholars are increasingly attentive to the materialities and politics of the technological, organisational and cultural infrastructures that underpin media today. Platforms, data centres, software, but also new forms of organising cultural production and labour, shape the politics of digital cultures and transform the media industries. Digital and media infrastructures have become elemental to everyday life. They are significant in reproducing existing social and cultural inequalities, as well as creating new power struggles. As digital/media infrastructures unfold in everyday life, they bring challenges across multiple domains, from the foundations of social justice to the industrial structures underpinning our everyday interactions with media and communication systems. This conference aims to address the politics and inequalities that emerge, as technological and media industries adopt, dismantle and transform infrastructures to channel and process communication flows. Media infrastructures (broadly) operate under different and uneven conditions that configure media labour, media production, and the politics of communication and access (Starosielski and Parks 2015). This conference seeks to examine digital/media infrastructures and inequalities from an inter- and multi-disciplinary perspective, inviting papers to interrogate the significance of the ‘infrastructural turn’ in media and communication studies to our understanding of media industries, democracy and digital cultures.

During this joint-ECREA section conference, we aim to engage with questions concerning inequalities and the infrastructures of digital culture, media industries and (digital) democracy through addressing topics such as (but not limited to):

• The value, significance and relevance of infrastructure studies to media industry studies, the study of media and democracy, as well as digital culture
  
• The industries and labour that operate and control specific technological media infrastructures, such as data centres, cloud computing, cable/satellite networks, content delivery networks
  
• The politics and power dynamics of digital/media infrastructures
  
• The significance of digital/media infrastructures in everyday life, especially related to the reproduction of social inequalities
  
• The impact of digital/media infrastructures on culture, society, politics and democracy
  
• The impact of digital/media infrastructures on media labour and cultural production
  
• The organisational and cultural infrastructures of the media industries
  
• Experiences and affective relationships that emerge in connection with media infrastructures
  
• Forms of logistical media
  
• Temporalities of media infrastructures
  
• Emerging questions for the foundations of social justice in the digital media infrastructural turn
  

Submission details

Please submit a 300-word abstract for individual proposals.

Panel proposals should include a 300-word panel rationale plus individual 200 word abstracts from a minimum of four speakers.

All abstracts for individual as well as panel proposals should be submitted through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=infrastructuresandin

Deadline for submission is 1 June 2019. Notifications of acceptance will be issued by 30 June 2019.

Registration and Fees:

• Early bird and ECREA-members fee: €100 (until 12th August)
• Early bird reduced student fee (for students who are also ECREA members): €50 (until 12 August)
• Full fees and non-ECREA members: €120 (to be paid until the 15th of September)
• Student, non-ECREA member fee: €60 (to be paid until the 15th of September)

For more information and enquiries, contact:

• Julia Velkova, University of Helsinki at julia.velkova@helsinki.fi
• Anne Kaun, Södertörn University at anne.kaun@sh.se
• Sander de Rieder, University of Ghent at sander.deridder@ugent.be

Or consult the conference website.

Scientific Committee:

• Ysabel Gerrard, University of Sheffield
  
• Catherine Johnson, University of Huddersfield
  
• Ana Jorge, Research Centre for Communication and Culture, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
  
• Anne Kaun, Södertörn University
  
• Maria Michalis, University of Westminster
  
• Christina Neumayer, IT-University of Copenhagen
  
• Sander de Rieder, University of Ghent
  
• Emiliano Treré, University of Cardiff
  
• Julia Velkova, Consumer Society Research Centre, University of Helsinki
  

Related conferences in Helsinki during that same week:

ECREA section conference on “Communication Rights in the Digital Age”, 24-25 October, keynote speaker is Philip Napoli (Duke University):

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/communication-rights-in-the-digital-age/call-for-papers

Alexanteri conference 2019 on “Technology, Culture, and Society in the Euras­ian Space”, 23-25 October, among the keynote speakers are Benjamin Peters (University of Tulsa) and Natalie Koch (Syracuse University).

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/technology-culture-and-society-in-the-eurasian-space/

December 5-6, 2019

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany)

Deadline: July 15, 2019

The ECREA Communication and Democracy Section invites contributions to an off-year workshop on the political implications of privacy. Questions related to the individual and organizational management of information boundaries spread across the field of communication and media studies. Herein, politics, in a narrow and broader sense, play a role in myriad ways:

• How can one conceive of privacy as realized within mediated societal and communicative relations?
• How can we explore the management of privacy affecting processes of institutionalized and practice-based joint decision-making?
• How is privacy imprinted in technology?
• Which notions of privacy play a role across policies and media?

This workshop explores contemporary and future directions of communication and media research perspectives on political implications of privacy. Beyond well-established fields of media related privacy research, such as media psychology or privacy activism, we seek for debates across the discipline. Political dimensions of privacy emerge in diverse communication and media subfields, such as political communication, journalism, media management or visual communication. We invite diverse contributions, irrespective of whether relational, rational, contextual, differential concepts of privacy or even approaches beyond privacy, such as data justice, are applied.

We look forward to a productive workshop setting with lively, cross-disciplinary academic exchange that encourages future academic networking. Limited travel grants can eventually made available for doctoral and post-doctoral researchers (decision pending). The evening program includes visiting the beautiful Mainz old town Christmas Market.

Keynotes:

• Constanze Kurz (Chaos Computer Club)
• Sami Coll (University of Geneva)

Submission:

Please submit a 500 words abstract until 15 July 2019 to politcsofprivacy@20uni-mainz.de

Notification of acceptance will be issued by 31. August 2019.

Publication:

We will invite a selection of papers to contribute to a special issue of the open access journal “Media and Communication”. Guest editors are: Johanna E. Möller (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), Jakub Nowak (Marie Curie-Skłodowska University), Judith E. Möller (University of Amsterdam) and Sigrid Kannengießer (University of Bremen).

Organization and further information:

• Johanna E. Möller (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), johanna.moeller@uni-mainz.de
• Jakub Nowak (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin), jakub.nowak@poczta.umcs.lublin.pl

October 2, 2019

Leeds Beckett University, UK

Deadline: May 31, 2019

Graduate Student/PhD Workshop jointly held by ECREA’s Crisis Communication Section and Young Scholars Network (YECREA) at the 6th International Crisis Communication Conference on October 2, 2019 at Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom.

We would like to invite all Young Scholars to apply for the comprehensive YECREA Graduate Student/PhD Workshop until May 31. The workshop is organised within the ECREA's Crisis Communication Section / 6th International Crisis Communication Conference that will take place in Leeds from October 3 – October 5, 2019.

The aim of the workshop is to provide a forum for doctoral students whose Ph.D. and research interest is related to the wide and interdisciplinary field of Crisis Communication. The cost, inclusive of a simulation or social media workshop, is £80. This will include lunches, tea, and snacks throughout the two days as well as any materials for the workshop.

October 2 from 9 am – 6 pm (including lunch, tea and snacks)

(Note: We decided to tighten up the schedule a bit and start on October 2 instead of October 1)

Panel Discussion: In the morning of the workshop, Professor Dr. Ralph Tench (Leeds Beckett University, UK), Professor Dr. Stephen Croucher (Massey University, NZ) and Dr. Keri Stephens (The University of Texas at Austin) will give short presentations on their research in connection to crisis. Points of reference are: Corporate Social Responsibility, Cross-Cultural Research, New Media and Citizen-Led Crisis Response. Afterwards, there will be time for a comprehensive Q&A in order to discuss all questions around these topics and the PhD process in general.

PhD Presentations: Afterwards, participants present an outline of their Ph.D. project and receive feedback by distinguished scholars with a broad experience in supervising PhD projects – Dr. Ralph Tench and Dr. Audra Diers-Lawson (both Leeds Beckett University), Dr. Stephen Croucher (Massey University, NZ) and Dr. Keri Stephens.

Preparing the PhD Presentations:

The presentations should address the following questions:

1.  What is the problem that motivated you to conduct the research presented? 2. What is (are) your leading research question(s)?
2. How do you try to answer these questions methodologically?
3. What do you hope to contribute to your field of research?
4. Optional: What are your (preliminary) findings? 6. Which challenges are you facing at the moment?

While regular conference panels rarely offer the opportunity for speakers to receive in-depth feedback, this workshop is conceived as a separate and more personal space to present to and receive feedback from experienced scholars as well as learn more about Crisis Communication and possible connection points within your research. The workshop mainly aims at Ph.D. students whose research project is still at an early stage, but it is also possible to participate if you already have preliminary findings. After a presentation of up to 20 minutes, the senior scholars serving as respondents will provide an initial feedback, followed by a Q&A session involving the other workshop participants as well.

Application:

To apply for the workshop, please prepare the following two documents:

• an extended abstract of up to 500 words outlining your project (literature excluded)
• a short letter of motivation stating why you would like to participate and which questions you want to see addressed; it should also mention your doctoral advisor as well as a rough time schedule for your project.

The documents must be submitted to Janina Schier (Janina.Schier@ifkw.lmu.de) until May 31, 2019. In case your proposal is accepted, you will receive a notification by mid-June 2019. There is no need to be a member of the Crisis Communication Section to apply, but please note that the capacity of the workshop is limited. A jury will select the applications according to standards of academic quality like theoretical foundation, stringency, and originality.

If you are also interested to register for the subsequent conference dealing with Risk and Crisis Communication in Leeds (October 3 – October 5), please check the conference website: https://leedstalkspr.com/crisis6-2019/.

We will also be sharing more updates on the workshop and the conference through our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ECREACrisisComm/