ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline: February 25

The Department of Information Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, invites applications for two 3-year fully funded PhD scholarships.

The candidates are expected to begin on September 1, 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The PhD scholarships are open-area; we are looking for applications in all of the department’s areas of strength (read more about the department here: www.ischool.ku.dk ). We are especially interested in PhD project proposals that augment the department’s strong, international research profile in new ways and areas.

It is expected that the PhD scholars will take active part in the department’s research activities and it is a plus if the proposed research project is situated between multiple areas of research within the department’s research profile. As a minimum we expect that the proposed research project is clearly situated within the department’s research strengths and activities, and that it is clearly connected to the expertise or interest of individual faculty members or research groups in the department.

Qualification Requirements

Applicants are expected to have a strong educational background. The successful candidates will be part of a dynamic department that spans several disciplines, and the candidates must thrive in such an interdisciplinary environment. It is expected that the successful candidates take part in the department’s daily life and activities, and contribute to the development of the overall research milieu at the department.

The applicant’s qualifications for the scholarship are evaluated by taking into account the applicant’s general educational and academic background such as the applicant’s grade average, thesis grade, language competencies, publications and other academic activities given by the curriculum vitae as well as the duration of study especially during the applicant’s MA programme.

In addition, the proposed PhD project and study plan will be evaluated by taking the following into consideration; originality, choice of theory and method, disciplinary relevance, and prospects for completion within the required timeframe of 36 months.

Furthermore, applicants are encouraged to reflect on how their project relates to the research activities and the academic profile at the department.

Applications must be submitted electronically no later than February 25, 2019 at 23.59 (11.59 pm) (CET).

See full description and guidelines for application here: https://employment.ku.dk/phd/?show=148628 

ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen

Application deadline: February 17, 2019 (23:59 CET)

Duration: 1 month (either between April and June 2019 or between October and December 2019)

Salary: 3,000 euro + 1,500 euro budget for direct costs

Contract: Fee contract

The ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, offers a thriving interdisciplinary research environment in the areas of media, communication and information. Involved disciplines include communication and media studies, computer science, cultural studies, educational science, studies in religion, and history. The ZeMKI invites applications from excellent researchers in the field of media, communication, and information.

As a ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellow, the selected candidate will delve into the versatile research activities at the interdisciplinary centre with over 60 members. Applicants should demonstrate experiences and a strong interest in collaborative research which is embraced at the ZeMKI in various ways and contexts. The selected candidate is expected to contribute to these research activities in the area of media change and transforming communications in the form of a research paper submitted to the peer-reviewed “Communicative Figurations” working paper series and a lecture in the ZeMKI Research Seminar.

Applicants must have a PhD or other doctoral degree in a relevant discipline by the application date.

We offer a lump sum allowance of 3,000 Euros plus up to 1,500 Euros for research related expenses.

To apply for this post, please send your application documents via e-mail to andreas.hepp@uni-bremen.de. The closing date for receipt of applications is February 17, 2019 (23:59 CET). We are unfortunately unable to accept any late applications.

Website: http://www.zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/research/zemki-visiting-research-fellowship.html

Deadline: January 25, 2019

The Digital Media Research Centre at QUT is seeking applications for PhD students (on stipend) to commence research in 2019 allied to one of two projects.

Internet-distributed television: Cultural, industrial and policy dynamics

Supervisor: Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham (s.cunningham@qut.edu.au)

This project investigates the impact of global subscription video-on-demand platforms on national television markets. As U.S.-based services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video open up these markets to unprecedented competition, the project will provide much-needed comparative analysis of how governments are responding and what the implications are for debates about local content, local screen production, and media diversity. Analysis of original production and programming strategies will identify new forms of transnational media flow. Conceptually, the project aims to advance our understanding of an emerging paradigm of globalising, multiterritory television.

The PhD project sits within a wider Australian Research Council-funded project (conducted by Ramon Lobato (RMIT University), Amanda Lotz and Stuart Cunningham (QUT)). You are invited to propose an area of focus, for example, on a particular streaming service, institution, national context, production practice, policy issue.

The Platform Governance Project: Rethinking Internet regulation as media policy

Supervisor: Professor Terry Flew (t.flew@qut.edu.au)

The Platform Governance Project is an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project that investigates the regulatory and policy implications of understanding global digital platforms as media companies. Responding to ongoing public concern about these companies’ self-management of online communication and social media, this project will address these concerns by developing detailed recommendation for reform based on international case studies, enabling media policy makers to more effectively regulate digital media platforms to better align with contemporary public interest rationales. As part of a research a team led by Professor Terry Flew (QUT), and working with Nicolas Suzor (QUT), Fiona Martin (Sydney) and Tim Dwyer (Sydney), the PhD candidate will conduct research on the changing political economy of digital platforms, the value ecology of content distributed online through these platforms, and the shifting relationship of media and communications policy to such challenges. It would be advantageous to have a research background in media and creative industries, and an interest in media law and policy.

Applications must contain the following

• A two page research proposal demonstrating alignment to the selected project including proposed project title, project outline, research question or problem statement, a brief overview of previous relevant research, objectives of the program of research and investigation, research methods/methodologies and plan including references to key literature/contextual sources.
  
• Full Curriculum Vitae including three referees (two referees must be academic).
  
• Academic Transcripts from previous undergraduate and postgraduate study.
  

Applications close midnight (ADST) January 25, 2019.

Applicants will be notified of outcome by February 15 2019.

Applications are to be sent as a single pdf to the QUT Digital Media Research Centre Coordinator at dmrc@qut.edu.au

For further information about the projects please contact the listed project supervisor directly via email.

Eligibility

To apply for this scholarship, you must meet the entry requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at QUT, including any English language requirements for international students.

You must also

• have completed a first-class Honours degree, a research Masters degree, or a coursework Masters degree with a significant research component from a recognised institution and in a cognate discipline
  
• be able to take up the scholarship and begin full-time study no later than July 2019 and enrol full-time
  
• develop a research proposal that responds to and aligns with the aims of either the Internet-distributed television or Platform Governance Project
  
• demonstrate excellent capacity and potential for research
  

May 7-8, 2019

Bydgoszcz (Poland)

Deadline: March 31, 2019

Organized by the Department of Journalism, New Media and Communication, Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The international conference The Future of Media, Mediatization, Journalism and Communication will be part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the University and the 500th anniversary of the heritage of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, after the acquisition in 1994 (for over $ 30 million) of this Renaissance genius’ notes ("Codex Leicester"), said the computer is a reflection of ​​Leonardo da Vinci’s ideas. The special panel on the first day of the conference is to be devoted to the heritage of Leonardo and other geniuses whose minds were ahead of the ages in which they lived. Thanks to the inventions of Edison, Marconi, Tesla and many others, including those living today, like the mentioned Bill Gates or Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the World Wide Web), people today use technologies that enable fast, efficient, interactive communication, and the works of Leonardo and others geniuses are now easily available in the global Network, in digital form, being an inspiration for further activities for the development of civilization. Using this inspiration, the conference is organized to exchange ideas, opinions, results of research and predictions related to the development of media, journalism, various forms of communication and mediatization of social life in various dimensions.The conference panels are to concern in particular (but not limited to):

the future of media, including:

public, local/regional and community media

printed press in the face of proliferation of the Internet sources of information

radio and television in the era of digitalization and multimedia communication

the future of mediatization of social life and gamification, including:

mediatization of politics on a local, national and international scale

mediatization of sports and Olympic Games, including e-sport

mediatization of culture, gamification, robotics, cyborgs and VR

the future of journalism, including:

online and data journalism

investigative journalism (also international)

specialist journalism (political, cultural, sports reporting etc.)

the future of various forms of communication, including:

communication in social networks

political communication in the cyberspace

global communication, environmental communication etc.

The event accompanying the conference will be the pre-premiere of an educational computer game devoted to overcoming the spiral of violence as part of the project (co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union) #Again Never Again: Teaching Transmission of Trauma and Remembrance Through Experiential Learning. The project's participants, led by scientists from the University of Turku (Finland), are partners from 7 other countries, including Poland (see the project’s website: https://againneveragain.eu).

The conference is free (no conference fee) and addressed to experts in media and communication studies, information science, game studies, sociology, political science, law, cultural studies and other specialists whose research is related to the topic of the conference.

We are waiting for your proposals till 31 March 2019.

We are planning to publish the papers as chapters of an edited peer-reviewed book (as an e-book or in a printed version).

More about the event on the conference website: http://www.futureofmedia.ukw.edu.pl

The conference is free (no conference fee) and addressed to experts in media and communication studies, information science, game studies, sociology, political science, law, cultural studies and other specialists whose research is related to the topic of the conference.

Head of the conference organizing committee:

Dr hab. Radoslaw Sajna – e-mail: r.sajna@ukw.edu.pl

For more information, visit the conference website: http://www.futureofmedia.ukw.edu.pl

Conference in comparative political communication

July 1-2, 2019

Nice (France)

Deadline: February 27, 2019

Elections to the European Parliament have long been considered "second class" elections (Reif & Schmitt, 1980). Two main factors have been put forward in order to justify this assessment: the persistent low level of participation in this election in most of the European Union countries and the weakness of the European Parliament in regard to the capabilities and powers of the different national parliaments. As a result, mainstream political parties - in office locally sooner or later - have somewhat neglected these elections, often perceived by the public at large as a "sideline" for politicians having lost momentum or at the end of their careers. However, marginal political parties, or those representing the extremes of the political spectrum, have benefited from the weak investment of mainstream parties, making their voices heard and advancing their ideas.

While the 2014 European elections did not directly change the situation, the influence of this vote is far from negligible. Indeed, the political communication of the marginal and extreme parties during this election has influenced the opinion of its tone even more demagogic and populist than before, with speeches attacking the European Union and its Brussels institutions, or those opposed to immigration or advocating a return to national borders, sometimes with some violence unheard since the first half of the 20th century. More than ever, mainstream parties have been blamed as "complicit" in this surrender of sovereignty.

With this frontal denunciation of mainstream parties, but also with the rebuttal of the ideas of political consensus inherent to the usual democratic debates, the political communication of the 2014 European elections has become the testing ground of several demagogic parties, frequently characterized as "populists". They took advantage of this platform to make their voices heard, and then grasped power in several countries of the European Union. One can also glimpse in this movement the birth of the idea of "clearing off" (politicians and parties), which made the later happiness of some newcomers on the political chess boards of several countries of the Union, with notably the 2017 "party-less" victory Emmanuel Macron in France in 2017.

Looking at the political communication flows of the 2014 European elections thus made it possible to show that their "second-order" status had become questionable: if their immediate result - the composition of the European Parliament - did not change very much, the influence of these elections on the internal votes that followed in the EU countries is far from negligible.

This conference proposes to its contributors to draw up an initial assessment of the political communication of the 2019 European elections by particularly exploring three points:

• a comparative analysis of the political communication strategies and tactics of the campaign in the European Union, through all the communication tools and methods, including possible subversive uses of social networks and the deliberate use of fake news;
  
• linking content and programs with the political evolution of many EU countries since the previous European elections, which will lead to consider the balance between national issues and European issues, some seemingly becoming crucial for politicians in office (starting with France);
  
• finally, the evaluation of the "disruptive" or, on the contrary, more classical feature of political communication at the European level; will we be witnessing a banal practice of political communication across the countries of the Union? Or will the diversity and fragmentation of political landscapes and the increased growth of social networks spark innovation and creativity?
  

These central questions will be the subject of the international conference on Comparative Political Communication to be held in Nice on July 1st and 2nd, 2019, in the framework of cooperation between the "Sic.Lab Méditerranée" laboratory of the Côte d'Azur University (www.siclab.fr) and the Center for Comparative Studies in Political and Public Communication (www.ceccopop.eu). This scientific event will bring together researchers and communication professionals on the Carlone Campus of the LASH Faculty of the Côte d'Azur University and at the Mediterranean University Center, located on the "Promenade des Anglais".

The conference is organized by Philippe J. Maarek, Professor specialized in Political Communication at the Paris Est Créteil University (UPEC), former president of the Political Communication Research Sections of IPSA and IAMCR, associate member of the Sic.Lab and head of CECCOPOP. He ensures its scientific coordination with Nicolas Pelissier, Professor of Information Sciences and Communication at the University of Côte d'Azur and Head of Sic.Lab Méditerranée (EA 3280).

The event will be bilingual, French-English. Colleagues wishing to present a paper are invited to send a request to participate before February 27, 2019, to the following email address: ceccopop@gmail.com.

Proposals must include an abstract of 250 to 500 words (one or two sheets) and a one-page Vitae. They will be subject to a double-blind evaluation by the Scientific Board. Proposals must include an abstract of 250 to 500 words (one or two sheets) and a one-page Vitae. They will be subject to a double-blind evaluation by the Scientific Board

• Françoise Albertini, Université de Corse, France
  
• Paul Baines, Cranfield University, Royaume-Uni/United Kingdom
  
• Camelia Beciu, Université de Bucarest, Roumanie/Romania
  
• Donatella Campus, Università di Bologna, Italie/Italy
  
• Maria-José Canel, Université Complutense, Espagne/Spain
  
• Eric Dacheux, Université de Clermont Auvergne, France
  
• Alex Frame, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
  
• Lutz Hagen, Université Technique de Dresde, Allemagne/Germany
  
• Denisa Hejlova, Charles University, République Tchèque/Czech Republic
  
• Christina Holtz-Bacha, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Allemagne/Germany
  
• Karolina Kok-Michalska, Audiencia, France
  
• Darren Lilleker, Bournemouth University, Royaume-Uni/United Kingdom
  
• Eric Maigret, Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, France
  
• Pascal Marchand, Université de Toulouse 3, France
  
• Anna Matušková-Shavit, Charles University, République Tchèque/Czech Republic
  
• Lars Nord, Midwestern University, Suède/Sweden
  
• Paul Rasse, Université Côte d’Azur, France
  
• Jordi Rodriguez Virgili, University of Navarra in Pamplona, Espagne/Spain
  
• Brigitte Sebbah, Université de Toulouse 3, France
  
• James Stanyer, University of Loughborough, Royaume-Uni/United Kingdom
  
• Ioanna Vovou, Panteion University, Grèce/Greece
  
• Claes de Vreese, University of Amsterdam, Pays-Bas/Netherland
  
• Małgorzata Winiarska-Brodowska, Jagellon University, Pologne/Poland

Deadline: March 1, 2019

The Media Change & Innovation Division (Prof. Michael Latzer, http://www.mediachange.ch) at the IKMZ – Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland invites applications for:

Postdoc (initially 2 years but can be renewed) in the field of Internet, Algorithms and Society

Please send your application including a letter of motivation, CV, transcripts and a written scientific contribution (e.g., publication, excerpt from the dissertation) in a single PDF file via email to Valeria Rieser (v.rieser@ikmz.uzh.ch) by March 1, 2019.

The selection process will begin in March 2019. However, the job offer remains open until qualified candidates are found.

The University of Zurich strives to increase the proportion of women in academic positions and therefore particularly invites applications by qualified female researchers.

Job specifications

Algorithmic selection, e.g., current project on The Significance of Algorithmic Selection for Everyday Life including survey, tracking and interviews in the domains of information seeking and opinion formation, consumption and commercial transactions, social communication and entertainment on the Internet and/or

Internet use, longitudinal World Internet Project – Switzerland, representative survey on Internet use and attitudes towards issues such as privacy online, participation, digital well-being etc. in the Swiss population and/or

Governance and regulation, ethics and business model analysis in relation to the impact of digitization, artificial intelligence and algorithmic selection in communication processes.

Further academic qualification along the lines of the division’s research and teaching areas.

We offer

Excellent conditions for research on highly topical issues, integration into a highly motivated and globally connected team at a leading institute for communication sciences in Europe, opportunity for additional training in theory and also in qualitative as well as quantitative methods, opportunity to deepen didactical skills, and adequate pay.

Job requirements

• PhD in communication studies or a related discipline
  
• Expertise in quantitative methods
  
• Passive knowledge of German
  

More information can be found here

Contact: Dr. Moritz Büchi (m.buechi@ikmz.uzh.ch)

Starting date: May 2019 or as agreed upon

Deadline: April 7

Applications are now being received for the 2019 IAMCR Urban Communication Research Grant. The grant is worth USD 1,750 and supports communication and media research that advances understanding of the growing complexity of the urban environment.

Hosted by the International Association for Media and Communication Research and funded by the Urban Communication Foundation, this grant supports communication and media research that advances our understanding of the growing complexity of the urban environment. It is predicated on the assumption that communication scholars have a valuable contribution to make to an understanding of the urban landscape. The grant is open to all IAMCR members in good standing.

The USD 1,750 grant is designed to support research already in progress or in the beginning stages. It gives priority to projects that feature innovative, inter-disciplinary, applied, and creative approaches to studying the central role of communication in the transformation of urban cultures and communities.

A 6-person committee consisting of five IAMCR members and two Urban Communication Foundation representatives will judge the proposals. IAMCR representatives in the committee are Nico Carpentier (Chair), Cees Hamelink, Janet Wasko and Olesya Venger. Urban Communication Foundation representatives are Gary Gumpert and Susan Drucker.

The grant is awarded each year at the annual IAMCR Conference, this year scheduled for Madrid, Spain from July 7-11, 2019. Grant winners are expected to attend the conference and present a paper related to urban communication. They must also report to IAMCR and the UCF on the progress of their research at the following year's conference, and submit a paper for this conference.

Application Procedure

Submit the application electronically to UrbanCommunication2019@iamcr.org. Applications will be accepted until April 7, 2019.

The complete application must include:

• A letter of application, not exceeding two pages, that describes the proposed research or research already in progress, the significance of the work to urban communication, and the methodology to be employed. A description of any special funding needs is also welcome (e.g. travel, research assistants, technical support).
  
• A current CV
  
• A sample of applicant's work relevant to the proposed research
  

NOTE: Your email application must have "Urban Communication" in the subject line

The grant winner will be announced by May 1, 2019.

April 19, 2019

RUDN University, Moscow (Russia)

Deadline: February 15, 2019

For the last few years, due to the increases in active information and communication technologies adoption, mass media activities have considerably changed in their organization and nature. Digitalization processes have marked the beginning of a new era of mass media and communication development. The approaches to creating, disseminating and analyzing media texts have changed significantly.

The emergence and consolidation of digital media, the creation of convergent editorial offices and newsrooms, the application of new multimedia technologies have caused the journalist role to change. This rapid transformation of the communication landscape, the interlacing online and offline communications, media convergence, the birth of new formats and the growth of number of concepts make it necessary to consider and reconsider our scientific terminologies.

Goals of the conference:

• to identify and systematize the current changes in the field of media and communication and to discuss different aspects of teaching journalism and public relations in a modern media landscape

• to provide scholars, educators and practitioners from different cultural communities with opportunities to interact, network and benefit from each other’s research and expertise related to communication issues, intersecting with different cultural spheres and national environments

• to synthesize research perspectives and foster interdisciplinary scholarly dialogues for developing integrated approaches to complex problems of media and communications across the world.

The conference aims to produce a discussion platform, bringing together researchers, practitioners and educators from different areas – journalism and media, linguistics and discourse studies, public relations, marketing, psychology, international relations, political studies, cultural studies, sociology, etc. – to exchange and share their experiences and research results.

Conference topics

1. Communication Theory and Methodology: communication and media theories, approaches to media research, modernizing the methods of media research, qualitative and quantitative methods of media research; discourse analysis: theory and practice; research techniques for the media industry.

2. Public Relations and Organizational Communication: old and new tools for integrated marketing and PR communication, strategic approaches utilizing content marketing, big data & measurement of strategies, reputation & crisis management, organizational communication, political communications, public diplomacy, image of the country, the impact of the internet on public relations, brand journalism, corporate PR, advertising and marketing across cultures.

3. Audience Studies and Participatory Communication: audience uses and gratifications, media reception, audience activism, audience activity and passivity, participatory culture, participatory communication and development, media and political participation, alternative and community media.

4. Media Linguistics: concepts, categories and methods of analysis, media texts genres, art of persuasion, discourse analysis, Internet linguistics, media’s visual language, typology of media speech, media discourse.

5. Media Education and Media Literacy: new technologies and modern approaches in teaching journalism and PR, the gap between academic knowledge and demands of job market, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), e-learning, gaining additional professional qualifications, media effects, digital media literacy education, fake news, fact-checking, civic media work, critical thinking, visual literacy, informal media literacy.

6. Media Ethics: ethics of persuasive communication, ethics of traditional and digital media, journalistic ethics, privacy in the electronic global metropolis, copyright and distribution via digital media.

7. Informational Warfare and Propaganda: as the world becomes more and more polarized, politically and geopolitically, propaganda and information warfare has gained a prominent place in shaping the opinions and perceptions of global audiences. It has the effect of creating an emotional and yet simplistic world of good versus bad with opposing sets of values and realities. The current context has both similarities and differences with historical examples, and not all contemporary actors communicate identically as there are some specificities discernable in these information and influence campaigns. Persuasion, influence, deception, public manipulation, perception, cognitive sphere, physical sphere, Information sphere and intangible elements.

8. Multimedia Journalism and Modern Technologies: multimedia and transmedia storytelling, classification of digital news packages, data visualization, gamification of journalism, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), production of VR content, immersive video storytelling, mobile journalism, news consumption habits.

9. Interpersonal and Cross-cultural Communication: cross-cultural interaction, digital communication across cultures, glocalization, intercultural communication and politics, intercultural and multilingual education, interpersonal communication and relations, language and cultural hybridity, psychological communication studies, transculturality in global context, conflict, mediation and negotiation across cultures, corporate culture and management.

THE WORKING LANGUAGE OF THE CONFERENCE IS ENGLISH.

Organizing Committee:

Victor V. Barabash - Doctor of Philology, Head of Mass Communication Department, Dean, Faculty of Philology, RUDN University (Russia)

Gregory Simons - Docent in Political Science, Researcher, Institute for Russian and Eurasian studies, Uppsala University (Sweden) & Docent at the Department of Communication Sciences at Turiba University (Riga, Latvia).

Nico Carpentier - Docent, Department of Media, Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic) & Uppsala University (Sweden) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).

Natalia V. Poplavskaya - PhD in Philology, Head of MA programme “Applied International Journalism”, Deputy Dean for International Relations, Faculty of Philology, RUDN University (Russia)

Tatyana G. Dobrosklonskaya - Doctor of Philology, Professor, Moscow State University of Russia (Russia)

Participation formats:

• Paper presentation
• Participation without paper presentation

Who should attend?

• Academics
• Researchers
• Journalists
• PR and marketing practitioners
• Technologists and Scientists
• Professionals from the private and public sector

THERE IS NO REGISTRATION FEE.

Paper Proposal Submission Guidelines:

Abstract length: 300 words

Font: Times New Roman, Font size – 12, interval – 1.0; Top 6.1cm. Bottom 6.5cm. Left 4.9 cm. Right 4.9 cm. Distance from the footer – 5,8 cm, from header – 5,7 cm;

Title of the abstract in capital letter, bold font & to be placed at centre;

In the next line – Name of author (authors), bold font and to be placed at the right side;

In the next line – university name, position, bold and to be placed at the right side;

In the next line there will be the text with justify format;

Don’t use hyper link in your text; in such case put number in the text which will be used circle mark and later put those serial number in your bibliography;

List of resources in bibliography will not be more than 10.

Important dates

• Abstract Submission Opens: January 15, 2019
• Abstract Submission Deadline: February 15,  2019
• Registration deadline for participants: April 1, 2019
• Conference Dates: Moscow (Russia), April 19, 2019

Visa support

RUDN University may provide invitations for visa support for the foreign participants on their request. Please, contact us via email mediaconf.rudn@gmail.com and fill in the migration form (will be sent on request).

Deadline for citizens of the majority of EU countries, China and India: April 1

Deadline for citizens of other countries: March 3

The official webpage of the conference: http://eng.rudn.ru/science/conferences/9349

Special issue of Digital Journalism

Deadline: April 30, 2019

Editor-in-chief: Oscar Westlund

Guest Editors: Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, Peter Fray (University of Technology Sydney)

The year 2020 will mark the 10th anniversary of the ‘Arab Spring,’ a term normally associated with major citizen uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East, sparked by the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi. Street demonstrations and popular protests spread to other countries including Bahrain, Egypt, Libya and several others. Since 2010, sporadic, copycat, online-driven movements have also emerged in much of the developing world (Wei, 2016) with citizens taking a leading role in gathering and producing news while demanding a greater voice in determining their social and political destinies, raising hopes of greater political inclusion and freedom, including press freedom. How has the advent of technologically-inspired ‘Arab Spring’ protests combined to railroad changes not just in contemporary digital journalism but also in 21st century digital activism across the Global South? In what ways do activists and journalists in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America relate to each other in terms of techniques, tactics and ethics in their fields? In marking the 10th anniversary of the ‘Arab Spring,’ we also ask whether the “revolutions” have inspired fundamental changes in the ways in which journalists and activists operate, questioning whether they face operational obstacles and if so, counterquestioning whether freedom of speech has regressed to pre-revolution conditions?

The ‘Arab Spring’s perceived influence as a political point of departure for activists throughout the developing world has triggered increasing global debates with some doubting the assumed contributory role of social media and citizen journalism towards democratization (Loader and Mercea, 2012). In fact, repeated calls for rethinking journalism have gathered pace in the aftermath of the ‘Arab Spring’ (Peters and Broesma, 2012, 2016). As citizen accounts were broadcast unedited on global news channels such as Al Jazeera English, many predicted the possible transformation of journalism while others speculated on how news organisations would intergrate social media content into mainstream news material. In what ways then has the ‘Arab Spring’ transformed digital journalism practices in non-Western societies in general? What evidence is there to show in the wake of the ubiquitous protests that journalism and equally activism have dynamised and evolved? What contributory role has diverse computer networking technologies in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring,’ made to the contemporary conceptualisation and theorisation of both digital journalism and digital activism? Also, in what ways can the widespread practice of digital journalism be traced and credited to the ‘Arab Spring?’

With citizens ‘empowered’ to report and disseminate information (Bosch, 2017), what has deterred activists in other regions of the world from repeating the ‘successes’ recorded in the Middle East? Better still, how closely related has journalism become to activism in the aftermath of the mass protests? Ten years on, with citizen media equally flourishing across the ‘developing’ world, questions are being asked not only about the ability of technologypowered media instruments to provoke social and political revolutions but also how social media, which in 2000 was praised as a democratizing platform in the Middle East, has not helped remove tyranny in many parts of the world. Limited or no access to web and mobile platforms has also stalled potential transition to the much hyped technological evolution in the poorer regions of the world leaving many struggling to understand the real essence and potential of digital technologies.

Seeking empirical accounts that examine the democratising potential of digital journalism within non-Western societies, this special edition seeks to reconceptialise digital journalism and digital activism 10 years after the ‘Arab Spring’ in order to examine how it facilitated changes, if any, in both fields. What is its legacy insofar as activists and journalists are concerned? We also seek to interrogate the impediments and restrictions on journalism as an agent of change questioning whether and in what ways the ‘Arab Spring’ advanced political and social openness in the aforementioned regions. For this thematic issue, all submissions investigating the changing relationship between digital activism and journalism are welcome, including those not particularly making reference to the Arab Spring. These include but not limited to papers addressing questions such as:

• What new forms of digital activism continue to emerge and how do these relate to, impact or affect digital journalism? 
• How do contemporary digital journalism and digital activism compare to traditional forms of journalism and activism? 
• How did the ‘Arab Spring’ transform contemporary activism and journalism? 
• How did the ‘Arab Spring’ facilitate changes in the transformative relationship between digital activism and digital journalism? 
• In what ways did the ‘Arab Spring’ advance discussions and conversations on the “death of journalism” while promoting talk of “revolutionalising political protests?”

Information about submission

Proposals should include the following: an abstract of 500-750 words (not including references) as well as background information on the author(s), including an abbreviated bio that describes previous and current research that relates to the special issue theme.

Please submit your proposal as one file (PDF) with your names clearly stated in the file name and the first page. Send your proposal to the e-mail address bruce.mutsvairo@uts.edu.au and saba.bebawi@uts.edu.au by the date stated in timeline below.

Authors of accepted proposals are expected to develop and submit their original article, for full blind review, in accordance with the journal's peer-review procedure, by the deadline stated. Articles should be between 6 500 and 7 000 words in length. Guidelines for manuscripts can be found here.

Timeline

Abstract submission deadline: 30 April 2019
Notification on submitted abstracts: 30 May 2019
Article submission deadline: 30 November 2019

ECREA Radio Research Conference 2019

September 19-21, 2019

University of Siena (Italy)

Deadline EXTENDED: January 30, 2019

In the age of platformization of culture (Nieborg & Poell 2018) every media is being turned into a digital platform and every audience is being datafied and commodified. What is the role of radio within this new media ecosystem? Tim Wu (2011) showed how radio broadcasting too was eventually colonized by the ethos of profit, but along its history the radio medium has been able to partially escape its commodification and it has carved out a social role as a public service media and as a community/civic media, more open to audience interaction and participation than television and print media used to be.

In a media ecosystem increasingly shaped by algorithms, radio is the only medium that still has a relevant analogue component, especially in non-western areas of the world. The relevance of analogue broadcasting is not only a residual practice but could be also framed as a space of freedom, a practice of resistance to the process of platformization.

“Radio as a social media” is the theme of the 2019 ECREA Radio conference. What does it mean to be a “social media” in the era of digital “social media”?

Our proposal is that radio, in order to be “social”, needs to be “convivial”, in the sense proposed by Ivan Illich in its work “Tools for Conviviality” (1973), which also inspired the first hackers and makers of home computer’s history. Conviviality is a concept that was introduced by Ivan Illich (1973). He imagined a world where people had an open relationship with the material world surrounding them, including the technologies they used: ‘I choose the term ‘conviviality’ to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment’ (1973, p. 11). Conviviality is about being vigorously engaged in relationships, conscious of values and meanings. For Illich, a convivial technology was a tool that people could manipulate, transform, adapt and control. Convivial tools are ‘those which gave each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision’ (1973, p. 21). Conviviality according to Illich revolves around the idea of free and equal access to empowering tools. Conviviality, as David Gauntlett noted, “is therefore about having the power to shape one’s own world. Illich makes it clear that individuals must retain this power – society must not seek to drain it from them” (2011, p. 168).

Is it still possible a social/convivial use of radio in the age of proprietary algorithms-driven journalism and music consumption?

Keynote speakers:

Nico Carpentier, Uppsala University (Sweden) in conversation with Caroline Mitchell, Sunderland University, UK - CMFE Keynote

Elena Razlogova, Concordia University (Canada);

Christina Dunbar Hester, University of Southern California’s Annenberg

School for Communication and Journalism (USA),

David Hendy, University of Sussex (UK)

Enrico Menduni, Università Roma Tre (Italy)

David Fernandez Quijada, Media Intelligence Service, EBU

This conference aims at gathering together all the scholars that are currently exploring, from different and/or interdisciplinary perspectives, the complex entanglement between radio/audio/digital media and society.

The conference will try to situate radio studies within the broader contemporary media ecosystem and aims at starting a dialogue with and accepting contributions from Internet Studies, Platform studies, Social Media studies, critical political economy of the media, Media History, digital media management, Cultural Studies, production studies, ethnography, sound studies, social sciences.

ECREA Radio Research 2019 is not only a conference, it wants to be also a festival. A festival for the community of scholars with an interest in radio.

DEADLINE for abstract submissions: January 15, 2019 (18:00 hours Greenwich Mean Time)

How to submit:

http://www.congressi.unisi.it/ecrea2019/submission/

The Scientific Committee of the conference will select the proposals that could deal with the following topics:

Radio AS a social media

• Community/civic/free/pirate/alternative/radical/DIY not for profit radio
• radio and conviviality (Illich)
• radio audiences, empowerment, participation
• radio and the diaspora
• radio and migration
• Migration, identity, radio
• Copyright, copyleft and radio creation

Radio AND social media

• Doing radio in the age of social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
• WhatsApp, Snapchat…)
• Datafication of listening
• radio and music streaming platforms
• radio curation vs. algorithmic curation
• music radio programming vs. music platforms programming
• radio, music platforms and the listener’s agency
• networked listeners
• Access, Interaction, Participation (Carpentier)
• social media for radio: between exploitation and participation
• radio as an app
• “haptically-mediated” radio listening

Radio AS public media

• Who care for…Public service radio?
• Public service radio and innovation
• radio and cultural diversity
• Radio and the public sphere(s)
• Radio (retro)Futurism
• radio innovation and multi-platform delivery
• radio-vision
• radio and Artificial Intelligence
• Smart speakers and audio/radio listening
• Transnational radio
• Analog stories
• Podcasting
• the second age of podcasting: a new digital mass media
• repurposing radio content on new platforms distribution technologies
• hybrid radio/hybrid future
• DAB, streaming or LTE broadcasting?
• Streaming kill the digital (DAB) star
• What’s the frequency, Kenneth (frequencies and transmission studies)

Radio as a Research field

• Political economy of the radio
  
• Radio and gender studies
  
• Radio genres
  
• Radio art
  
• Politics of listening
  
• Poetics of listening
  
• Philosophy of listening
  
• History of listening
  
• Audio vs. Radio
  
• Radio audiences and commodification
  
• Production practices/studies
  
• Reception/Production ethnographies
  
• Digital ethnography
  
• Digital Methods
  
• Network analysis
  
• Radio history
  
• Radio journalism
  
• Radio and the music industry
  
• Ownership, regulation and governance of radio
  

Special issue of "The Radio Journal"

We invite delegates of the conference to submit their full papers no later than October 30, 2019 to be selected for a special issue of The Radio Journal, edited by the ECREA Radio Research board, to be published in the second issue of 2020.

Scientific Committee

Tiziano Bonini, University of Siena, Italy

Marta Perrotta, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy

Enrico Menduni, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy

Magdalena Oliveira, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

Grazyna Stachyra, Lublin University, Poland

Belén Monclus, Autonoma University, Barcelona, Spain

Conference website: http://www.congressi.unisi.it/ecrea2019/

Timeline

Paper and Panel Submission Deadline: January 30, 2019

Final decisions on accepted papers and panels: March 10, 2019

Early registration deadline: May 31, 2019

Late registration deadline: July 15, 2019

Full paper submissions for The Radio Journal Special Issue: October 30, 2019