ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

July 13, 2023

Online

I am pleased to invite you to the next in the series of IPRA Thought Leadership webinars. The webinar Fighting fake news: why should PR experts care? will be presented by Nidal Abou Zaki on Thursday 13 July 2023 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (unadjusted).

What is the webinar content?

The webinar will analyse the modern era scourge of fake news, explain its origins and its path forward. The webinar will also explore the dangers of fake news to PR including the undermining of authenticity and the erosion of trust.

How to join

Register here at Airmeet. (The time shown should adjust to your device’s time zone.)

A reminder will be sent 1 hour before the event.

Background to IPRA

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

Background to Nidal Abou Zaki

Nidal Abou Zaki is the founder and managing director of Orient Planet Group. A journalist, author, and thought leader in management consultancy, he started the company in 2000, after leaving his post as corporate communications manager of the Dubai World Trade Centre. Nidal has a BSc in business administration from the Lebanese American University. He continues to write opinion pieces for the UAE’s Al Bayan newspaper.

Contact

International Public Relations Association Secretariat

United Kingdom

secgen@ipra.org

Telephone +44 1634 818308

October 23-27, 2023

Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic

Deadline: July 1, 2023

https://iksz.fsv.cuni.cz/en/study/phd-studies/phd-course

About the course

Course Title: Discourse Studies and Method: Using Discourse-Theoretical Analysis and Discursive-Material Analysis

Course Coordinator and Leader: Professor Nico Carpentier

Course Credits: 5 credits

Course Timing: The course will be organised on 23 October - 27 October 2023

Course Location: Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Course background and purpose

The course aims to discuss two methods in the field of discourse studies: Discourse-theoretical analysis (DTA) and Discursive-material analysis (DMA). Both are grounded in so-called high theory, with discourse theory as its main starting point, but with elements of actor network theory and new materialism. This course will start with an introduction to these theoretical models, but will then move on to their analytical deployment in communication and media studies research.

Special attention will be spent on the creation of a theory-grounded analytical model to guide the research. Apart from attending lectures, participants will be expected to participate in both theoretical and research-driven workshops.

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course, successful students will be able to:

have a deeper understanding of the field of discourse studies, and in particular of its discourse-theoretical component

have a deeper understanding of the theoretical relationship between the discursive and the material

know how to translate discourse-theoretical models into analytical practice, through the use of the notion of the sensitising concept (applied to discourse theory, and to discourse-theoretical rereading of other theories)

set up an analytical model for a discourse-theoretical analysis and a discursive-material analysis

Teaching

The one-week course will be organised in 10 teaching slots, combining lectures and workshops. These workshops are partially theoretical (presenting an article or chapter), and partially research-driven (presenting an analytical model).

Available participant slots and costs

A total number of 20 participant slots are available. The participation fee is 50 euros and only covers course attendance. Participants are required to pay themselves for their travel and accommodation costs, and all other expenses.

Registration

The deadline for the application submission is 01 July 2023.

To register for this course, the following three documents have to be submitted:

A motivation letter

• A brief description/abstract of the ongoing (PhD) research (including the current stage of the research)
• A CV (including information about your university affiliation and your contact information)

Please send all documents and queries to Mazlum Kemal Dağdelen at or use the form on the course webpage for submission.

June 30, 2023

Brussels Press Club (Belgium)

The European Media and Information Fund (EMIF) is pleased to invite you to its showcase event, which will take place in the Brussels Press Club on the 30th of June, from 9:00 to 13:00 (see agenda below). The thematic focus of this year will be “Countering Disinformation in the Age of AI: 2 Years of EMIF's impact.” We would appreciate it if you could also extend the invitation to your members and relevant contacts in Brussels.

Over the course of a successful second year of activities, EMIF has supported 40 projects dedicated to combating disinformation across Europe and awarded a total of 6.4 million euros. Against the backdrop of the fast-paced developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and their influence on the information ecosystem, we have invited a number of grantees to show how their projects aim to effectively counter the harmful effects of AI-generated disinformation or, instead, to leverage AI to combat information manipulations online. Some of the showcased projects utilise machine learning for social network analysis, providing valuable insights into disinformation networks, while other innovative initiatives employ extended reality (XR) games to enhance media literacy among students, equipping them with the skills to detect deep fakes.

The following projects will be presented by a consortium member:

• TRUE INFO (EURACTIV Media Network B.V).
• Decoding the Disinformation Playbook (International Press Institute)
• The Disinformation Laundromat (Alliance for Securing Democracy)
• Escape Fake 2.0 (Polycular e.U.)

EMIF-funded project Escape Fake 2.0 will give a demonstration of their XR games throughout the entire event with in a special XR room set-up for attendees to interact with.

The event will be also the occasion for EMIF’s Management Committee to present its Annual Progress Report, and for sharing publicly the findings of the independent evaluation of EMIF's achievements during its second year of activities .

We sincerely hope that you can attend. Kindly confirm your attendance by registering here.

Kind Regards,

the EMIF Team

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Date and Place:

30 June 2023 – 9:00 to 13:00 CET

Press Club Brussels

Rue Froissart 95, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Do not hesitate to contact emif@eui.eu if you have any questions.

Agenda:

9:00 – 9:30

Registrations

9:30 – 9:50

Open Discussion: AI, Disinformation, and the Changing Media Landscape with Siada El Ramly (DOT), Luca Bertuzzi (Euractiv), and Paolo Cesarini (EMIF)

9:50 – 10:25

EMIF Year 2: Progress, Impact, and Lessons Learned: presentation of EMIF Annual Report (Luis Madureira Pires, Paolo Cesarini) and of the independent Evaluation report (Max Von Abendroth)

10:25 – 11:00

Escape Fake 2.0 presentation and demonstration (Irina Paraschivoiu and Benjamin Arzt)

11:00 – 11:15

Coffee Break

11:15 – 12:30

Project presentations (Alliance for Securing Democracy, Euractiv, International Press Institute)

12:30 – 13:00

Closing conversation: AI and the Future of Countering Disinformation

Task Force Practices of Academic Publishing in Communication (2019 - 2023) has published Recommendations to ECREA Executive Board and to ECREA members.

You can read it HERE.

The aim of the task force is to monitor developments, engage in debate on publishing ethics and standards in the field, develop clear recommendations for ECREA members and therefore support Association’s mission to both promote and protect the highest academic standards.

Members: Lenka Vochocová (chair), Burcu Sumer (vice-chair), Mercedes Medina, Angeliki Monnier, Klaus Rummler, Francisco Segado, Victoria Tur Viñes, Angel Arrese, Cátia Ferreira.

University of Stirling

Open ended, full time

Closing date: 11 July 2023

More details: : https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/work-at-stirling/list/details/?jobId=3654&jobTitle=Lecturer%20in%20Public%20Relations%20and%20Strategic%20Communications

Communications, Media & Culture (CMC) wishes to appoint a suitably qualified and experienced candidate at Lecturer Grade 8 (Teaching and Research) with specialist interests in Public Relations to expand the Division’s teaching, research and knowledge exchange activities.

We are looking for an excellent communicator who is able to effectively teach, motivate and mentor undergraduates and postgraduates. They will make a contribution to the strategic direction of CMC through research, teaching and impact activities, including short-course opportunities. The successful candidate will contribute to the delivery of modules on the MSc in Public Relations and Strategic Communication and postgraduate programmes as well as BA Hons in Journalism Studies. Applicants with specialist knowledge, skills or interests in one or more of the following areas are invited to apply:

• Digital communications and social media analytics
• Health, science and environment communications
• Corporate communications and branding
• Political communication
• Strategic campaign planning and evaluation

The postholder will be researcher who has expertise in public relations and strategic communications, evidenced by published research and peer reviewed scholarly activity. They will have a growing research profile in public relations, a strong understanding of industry practices and emerging trends, and will engage effectively with external stakeholders to pursue opportunities for collaboration, income generation and enhancing CMC’s regional, national, and international profile.

Informal enquiries can be made to Dr William Dinan, Head of the Division of Communications, Media & Culture: william.dinan1@stir.ac.uk

History of Media Studies

History of Media Studies is a peer-reviewed, scholar-run, diamond OA journal dedicated to scholarship on the history of research, education, and reflective knowledge about media and communication—as expressed through academic institutions; through commercial, governmental, and non-governmental organizations; and through “alter-traditions” of thought and practice often excluded from the academic mainstream. The journal publishes high-quality, original articles, reviews, and commentary on the history of this inter- and extra-disciplinary area as it has intersected with other fields in the social sciences and humanities—and with social practices beyond the academy.

We encourage submissions in any one of our formats, in either Spanish or English: https://hms.mediastudies.press/author-guidelines

We are committed to a humane, care-based, and developmental review process, with the goal to improve manuscripts through collegial exchange.

The journal is published by mediastudies.press, a scholar-led, no-fee nonprofit publisher established in 2019. The journal is edited by three established scholars in the history of media and communication studies field: David W. Park, Peter Simonson, and Jefferson Pooley. See our launch editorial (versión en español).

The journal’s Editorial Board includes scholars from nearly all continents and regions, with the aim to broaden the field’s traditional scope.

The journal is affiliated with (1) the Working Group on the History of Media Studies; and (2) the History of Media Studies Newsletter.

January 9-12, 2024

Lisbon, Portugal

Deadline: December 15, 2023

The 4th Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication takes a comparative and global approach to the study of media and ambivalence. Jointly organized by the Faculty of Human Sciences (Universidade Católica Portuguesa), the Center for Media@Risk at the Annenberg School for Communication (University of Pennsylvania), the School of Journalism and Communication (Chinese University of Hong Kong), the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (University of Southern California) and the Helsinki institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (University of Helsinki), the 4th Lisbon Winter School offers an opportunity for doctoral students and early career post-doctoral researchers to strategize around the study of media and ambivalence together with senior scholars in the field.

Call for Applications

It is perhaps paradoxical that media scholars tend to regard ambivalence in ambivalent ways. Many maintain that ambivalence undercuts and undermines the media environments it inhabits, introducing a level of uncertainty that obscures not only multiple aspects of the media’s workings—including its messages, roles, technologies, practices and effects—but also what is most patterned and exceptional about the media writ large. Others see ambivalence as a necessary complication of the tired and overused binaries of late modernity, sustaining what the American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald described as the “test of a first-rate intelligence,” whose “ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function” would produce generative opportunities built around the “the improbable, the implausible, often the impossible.”

Regardless, then, of how positively or negatively scholars feel about ambivalence, its presence is a clear component of media environments everywhere. But what kind of presence does it have? What are its primary attributes and pitfalls? In what ways does ambivalence make media environments better or worse? In what ways does it foster or complicate widely-adopted notions of media practices, processes, production, consumption and effects? How does it foster resistance and under which conditions?

This Winter School will examine the pairing of media and ambivalence in all its recognizable forms. Orienting to the broad spread of ways in which ambivalence can be understood to inhabit the media, it aims to develop a fuller understanding of why ambivalence is such a longstanding inhabitant of media environments. Possible questions stretch across the wide range of entry points for contemplating the media that allow for media representation and processing, media use and media refusal, media production and consumption. They include, how do the media and ambivalence shape each other? What role do the media and associated technologies play in structuring ambivalence, and what role does ambivalence play when associated with the media? Under which conditions does ambivalence emerge? How is it represented and where? How is it recognized and by whom? What impact does it have on media fare, the representation of marginalized groups or the shape of audience engagement? How does it affect the capacity to form identities, make informed decisions or embrace polarization? How does it figure in decisions to refuse or reject the media? How is ambivalence being weaponized in current political climates, and to what end? How has it been weaponized in the past? 

We welcome proposals by doctoral students and early career post-doctoral researchers from all over the world to discuss the intertwined relation between media and ambivalence in different geographies and temporalities. The list below illustrates some topics for possible consideration. Other topics dealing with media and ambivalence are also welcome: 

·       Ambivalence towards media platforms, content, practices or effects

·       Ambivalence and AI

·       Techniques to counter ambivalence 

·       Ambivalence and identity formation

·       Ambivalence and human rights

·       Promoting ambivalent representations of the past

·       Ambivalence in the public arena in specific national or regional contexts

·       Ambivalent discourses on science and climate change

·       Ambivalent discourses on racism, misogyny, classism, settler colonialism 

·       Ambivalence and journalism

·       Ambivalence and popular culture

·       Resistance to media, including media rejection, media detox, pushback on social media, news avoidance or domestic practices to control media usage

·       Children and media ambivalence 

·       Ambivalence, media and imaginative future 

·       Ambivalence and conflict

·       Ambivalence and overload

·       …

PAPER PROPOSALS

Proposals should be sent to lisbonwinterschool@gmail.com no later than 30 September 2023 and include a paper title, extended abstract in English (700 words), name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and a brief bio (max. 100 words) mentioning ongoing research. Applicants will be informed of the result of their submissions by mid-October.

FULL PAPER SUBMISSION 

Presenters will be required to send in full papers (max. 20 pages, 1.5 spacing) by 15 December 2023.  

FOR MORE INFORMATION visit lisbonwinterschool.com

University of Zurich, Switzerland 

The Media & Internet Governance Division (Prof. Dr. Natascha Just) of the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich invites applications for an open position of Research and Teaching Associate/PhD (60%). Start of employment: at the earliest possible / upon agreement

The Media & Internet Governance Division studies media policy and media economics in the convergent communications sector. Alongside research on traditional mass media, the division focuses on Internet Governance and Platform Studies. The successful applicant will work on dedicated topics that align with the division's research program.

Further information and application details: https://jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stellen/research-and-teaching-associate-doctoral-position/03bfe57c-e347-41d7-b001-35a6f643c460 

Review of applications starts immediately, but the position will remain open until a qualified candidate is found.

Please contact Alena Birrer, MA (a.birrer@ikmz.uzh.ch) if you have any further questions.

September 7-8, 2023

Budapest, Hungary

Deadline: June 30, 2023

The Youth Research Institute and the Institute of Marketing and Communication Sciences of Corvinus University of Budapest invite contributions to the conference on “Clout Culture: Youth Cultures in Changing Societies”, to be held in Budapest, Hungary on 7-8 September 2023.

The aim of the conference is to investigate contemporary youth cultures in all of its facets. We thus invite contributions for poster presentations (for Day 1) and oral presentations / panel discussions (for Day 2) on the following themes / topics in both English and Hungarian:

• High and Popular Culture
  
• Arts and Marketing
  
• Language and Communication
  
• Contemporary and Traditional Culture 
  

The conference is free of charge. Join other researchers about youth cultures for professional development and networking opportunities. The organizers of the event will provide accommodation for oral presenters and panelists.

General Paper Submission Guide

• Abstract submission: 30 June 2023
  
• Contributions from either individual author or multiple authors are welcome.
  
• Abstracts must be between 300 and 500 words.
  
• For the poster section we will only accept submissions from PhD students.
  

More information on our website: https://ifjusagkutatointezet.hu/en/news/conference-call

Further information and submissions: info@ifjusagkutatointezet.hu

October 13-14, 2023

University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin (Hardenbergestraße)

Deadline: June 15, 2023

A symposium

This international symposium engages with the concept of domestication as it stands today. It celebrates on this occasion the first ever international Routledge Handbook of Domestication of Media and Technology, scheduled for release in summer of 2023.

(https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Media-and-Technology-Domestication/Hartmann/p/book/9781032184142). The conference brings together authors from the book with other researchers as well as interested colleagues and students from the UdK. The symposium focuses on questions such as:

• What is the domestication concept’s potential value for future research? 

• How does it differ from other concepts - or where are the overlaps? 

• How does domestication work in times of surveillance capitalism?

The concept of domestication of media and technology is not new. In fact, it was first formulated in the late 1980s, early 1990s. While it has never managed to take center stage, researchers in media and communication studies have used it ever since and the application and development of the concept are still thriving. Additionally, it has been used in other fields, such as technology assessment studies, in design studies, in management studies. 

It focuses primarily on the question of what users (of media and/or technologies) do with these, especially when they are new. How do they adopt them into their everyday lives, how do they adapt to the technologies (and vice versa)? These practices are seen to relate to values that are developed over time (the moral economy of the household), both individually as well as socially. The concept also offers an emphasis on the combined notion of media as technology (object) and content (double / triple articulation). At the time of its first development, the emphasis on the users’ ability to act and interpret was high. Since then, this has seen quite a bit of differentiation. Today, the question of the relationship between users and producers as well as technologies is facing new challenges, to which the domestication concept is seen to contribute important notions.

A keynote by Prof. Maria Bakardjieva (University of Calgary, CAN) will introduce some of the key concerns. Throughout two days, the symposium’s contributors will delve into the above-mentioned questions both theoretically as well as with reference to current empirical material. 

The symposium will take place at the University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin (Hardenbergestraße).

It will begin with a book launch on Thursday, the 12th of October 2023. This will be followed by a symposium on Friday and Saturday (13-14 October), ending mid-day on Saturday.

Interested parties are invited to submit an abstract (300-500 words) to Maren Hartmann (hartmann@udk-berlin.de) until the 15th of June, 2023.

Feel free to contact us with any additional questions/ comments you might have - and feel free to circulate amongst domestication lovers :-)