ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 13, 2026

This webinar aims to provide a much-needed focus on disability studies and media in Africa and to share critical insights from the works of various scholars and practitioners who focus on disability and media in Africa while introducing and centering important voices from African scholarship on disability and media. 

Speakers will focus on topics such as “Between Tragedy and Miracles: Personal reflections on encountering blindness narratives in media and the development of authentic identity”, “Community Media as a Tool for Disability Empowerment in Rural Africa”, “The role of the media in shaping attitudes about albinism in Sierra Leone” as well as “Disability, Normalcy, Difference, and Eugenic Thinking”.

Sponsored by the Inclusive Communication and People with Disabilities (ICO) Working Group, this webinar creates a space to share work, identify gaps and spotlight important contributions in African disability studies and media scholarship.

When: Wednesday, 13 May 2026 @ 11:00 UTC / 12h00 London / 13h00 Paris / 14h00 Nairobi / 16h30 Kolkata / 19h00 Beijing / 21h00 Brisbane. The event will last 2 hours.

Pre-registration is required by 11 May. Register at https://iamcr.org/webinars/register-media-and-disability 

Sponsored by: IAMCR's Inclusive Communication and People with Disabilities (ICO) Working Group

Organisers

• Ngozi Marion Emmanuel, Research Assistant, Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, Birmingham City University, UK
  
• Lorenzo Dalvit, Professor of Digital Media and Cultural Studies, School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa
  
• Bimbo Fafowora, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa
  

Moderator

Ngozi Marion Emmanuel, Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, Birmingham City University, UK

For more, see at https://iamcr.org/webinars/media-and-disability  

Register at https://iamcr.org/webinars/register-media-and-disability 

A Call for Book Chapter Proposals

Deadline: May 15, 2026

We are pleased to share this call for book chapter proposals for Teaching AI, to be published open access by EdTech Books. Abstracts (250 words) are due May 15, 2026. Authors will be notified no later than May 29, 2026. Accepted chapters will be due by July 1, 2026. The book will be published in Fall 2026. Full details are below, but please feel free to contact us with questions or to submit your proposal at rferdig@gmail.com.

We recognize this is an ambitious timeline. However, because each chapter follows a structured template and draws directly from courses you are already teaching, we believe the turnaround is manageable. Accepted authors will receive the full template upon notification and can expect chapters to run approximately 4,000-6,000 words.

Best, Richard E. Ferdig (Kent State University), Richard Hartshorne (U. Central Florida), Enrico Gandolfi (KSU), Laurie O. Campbell (UCF), and Jennifer Petit (KSU)

Purpose

Artificial intelligence is not new. Faculty across computer science, cognitive science, information systems, engineering, and related fields have been teaching AI for decades, building courses, developing pedagogical approaches, and preparing students for a world increasingly shaped by intelligent systems. What has changed in recent years is not the existence of AI but its visibility, its accessibility, and its reach. AI is now part of nearly every discipline and nearly every conversation about the future of education, work, and society.

And yet, despite this breadth, we do not always share what we know. Syllabi go unread beyond individual institutions. Pedagogical decisions made through years of trial and error stay locked in one classroom. Faculty building new AI courses, often under significant institutional pressure and with little time, are reinventing wheels that their colleagues across campus or across the world have already built.

The goal of Teaching AI is to fix that. This edited collection brings together faculty who teach AI (in any discipline, at any level, in any context) to share their syllabi, their teaching strategies, their hard-won best practices, and their vision for where AI education is headed. The result will be a single, rich, open-access resource for anyone teaching AI or thinking about doing so.

This is not a collection about AI in the abstract. It is a collection about the concrete, practical, and deeply human work of teaching AI to students. We are as interested in the instructor who has been teaching machine learning since the 1990s as we are in the instructor who launched an AI literacy course last semester. Both have something essential to contribute.

Each chapter follows a shared template and includes multiple components: course purpose and objectives, disciplinary context, pedagogical approach, AI ethics and academic integrity, course texts and technologies, assignments, an expanded course outline, best practices, and future directions. Chapters will be organized by content area, and that organization will emerge from the submissions themselves.

For a sense of what this format looks like in practice, we encourage prospective contributors to review our related collection, Teaching the Game (Volumes 1 and 2), available free of charge at Volume 1 and Volume 2. While that collection focuses on gaming education, the chapter format, voice, and scope are directly analogous to what we are building here.

Areas We Especially Welcome

Any standalone AI course (i.e., discipline-specific or designed for a general audience) is eligible for consideration. We welcome submissions from institutions around the world and across every level of instruction within higher education. 

To ensure the collection reflects the full breadth of how AI is being taught, we are particularly interested in courses that represent the following areas. This is not an exhaustive list but rather an invitation. If your course does not appear here, that is not a reason to hesitate. It may be exactly what this collection needs.

• AI literacy and general education. Courses designed for students across majors that build foundational understanding of what AI is, how it works, and what it means for society. We welcome both introductory survey courses and more advanced treatments of AI for non-specialists.
  
• AI ethics, policy, and governance. Courses centered on the societal, legal, and ethical dimensions of AI (i.e., bias, accountability, transparency, regulation) and the responsibilities of those who build and deploy intelligent systems.
  
• AI and human interaction. Courses exploring how humans and AI systems work together (i.e., human-centered AI design, explainability, trust, accessibility, and the user experience of intelligent systems).
  
• Generative AI and creativity. Courses built around generative tools and their implications for art, music, writing, design, and other creative disciplines (including both technical and critical approaches).
  
• AI for soft skills. Courses that address how AI and generative AI can be used to develop and strengthen competencies such as collaboration, teamwork, self-efficacy, and empathy (etc.) across disciplines and professions.  
  
• AI and the workforce. Courses focused on how AI is transforming professional practice, career preparation, and workplace dynamics across industries.
  
• AI and society. Courses that examine AI's broader cultural, political, and societal impacts, including surveillance, misinformation, democracy, and questions of power and equity.
  
• Discipline-specific AI. Courses that examine what AI means within a particular field (i.e., health, law, education, business, journalism, the arts, and beyond). Teaching AI in nursing looks fundamentally different from teaching AI in computer science or communications, and those differences are exactly what this collection wants to capture.
  
• Technical and applied AI. Courses focused on building, training, and deploying AI systems (i.e., machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and related areas) with particular interest in how instructors make technical content accessible and pedagogically meaningful.
  
• International and global perspectives. AI is developed, deployed, and experienced differently across cultures, regions, and political contexts. We actively encourage submissions from institutions outside North America and Western Europe, and from courses that engage critically with global dimensions of AI.

One important note: we are specifically seeking standalone AI courses. These are courses in which AI is the primary subject. Courses that include an AI module or unit within a broader curriculum are outside the scope of this collection.

Details

To be considered, please submit a 250-word abstract by May 15, 2026, that includes:

• Author name(s), institutional affiliation(s), and email address(es) 
  
• Title of course 
  
• Course keywords: content area, level (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, professional development), and delivery mode (e.g., online, face-to-face, hybrid) 
  
• Brief description of the course, including its context, how long it has been taught, and any ways it has evolved in response to recent developments in AI

Full chapters will be due July 1, 2026. Accepted authors will receive a complete updated chapter template. The book will be published open access with Creative Commons licensing by EdTech Books.

Please send proposals and any questions to rferdig@gmail.com.

Global Media and China

Deadline: May 20, 2026

We are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a forthcoming special issue titled “AI, Algorithmic Media, and Digital Governance: Power, Control, and Technological Transformation,” to be published in the journal Global Media and China.

The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into digital infrastructures represents a profound transformation in contemporary media environments and governance systems. AI-driven platforms, algorithmic recommendation systems, and automated content moderation increasingly shape how information circulates, how public discourse is structured, and how political authority is exercised across different societies. These developments raise important questions about algorithmic governance, digital sovereignty, media regulation, and the broader political implications of AI-mediated communication.

This special issue seeks to advance interdisciplinary scholarship examining the evolving relationships between AI technologies, media systems, and governance practices. We welcome contributions that critically explore how algorithmic systems influence media production, platform governance, public communication, and political power across diverse institutional and geopolitical contexts.

We invite empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions from scholars working in communication and media studies, political science, digital governance, sociology, science and technology studies, and related disciplines. Submissions may focus on China, or adopt comparative and transnational perspectives.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Algorithmic governance, digital statecraft, and political authority
  
• AI-driven propaganda, information manipulation, and computational misinformation
  
• State-led AI governance and digital surveillance regimes
  
• Platform politics and the political economy of algorithmic systems
  
• Public perceptions of AI and the politics of digital rights
  
• AI infrastructures, technological sovereignty, and global asymmetries in digital power
  
• Smart cities, Internet of Things systems, and algorithmic governance in public administration
  

Key dates

• Abstract submission deadline: 20 May 2026
  
• Notification of invitations for full papers: 1 June 2026
  
• Full paper submission deadline: 30 October 2026
  

Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words to the guest editors with the subject line “GMAC Special Issue Submission.”

Guest Editors:

Dechun Zhang, University of Copenhagen (dezh@hum.ku.dk)

Weiai Xu, University of Massachusetts Amherst (weiaixu@umass.edu)

Han Lin, Soochow University (linhan741@gmail.com)

Full details of the Call for Papers can be found here:

https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/GCH/Algorithmic%20Media_CFP-1773117974170.pdf

We would greatly appreciate it if you could circulate this call among colleagues, research groups, and academic networks who may be interested.

Thank you for your attention, and we look forward to receiving your submissions.

June 4, 2026, 8:30–12:00 (UTC+2)

Cape Town, South Africa (in person) 

Deadline: May 4, 2026

We are delighted to announce that registration is officially open for the ICA 2026 pre-conference: https://www.icahdq.org/event/Childrens (deadline, 4 May 2026)

Why attend?

This half-day, workshop-style pre-conference will bring together scholars and practitioners to explore how research can inform policy, regulation and child rights-respecting design in digital environments.

Keynote Speaker – Professor Ann Skelton

University of Pretoria & University of Leiden, Former Chair, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

What to expect:

The programme encompasses an exceptional breadth of scholarship relating to children’s rights, ranging from AI governance, platform power and digital labour to youth activism, digital violence, age-based bans, family mediation, gaming ecosystems and data protection. The conference discussions will be grounded in rich empirical work from across Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Australia.

Registration Details

Fee: $35

Fee waivers available for students and participants from UN third-tier countries. If this applies to you, please email us to obtain a waiver: info@info@dfc-centre.net

ICA membership or main conference registration not required

About

We invite scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and civil society actors to join us for the preconference to discuss how research can guide policy, regulation, and digital design, and how Global South perspectives can strengthen and reshape international debates within the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and General comment No. 25.

The pre-conference is organised by Digital Futures for Children, a joint research centre at LSE with 5Rights Foundation, in association with the ICA divisions Children, Adolescence and Media and Communication Law and Policy. For further information, visit https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/events/ica/preconference 

Alongside the academic program, participants are invited to take part in a carefully curated program of guided tours and cultural events, designed to offer a deeper and more distinctive engagement with Brno. Extending beyond standard sightseeing, the program provides access to experiences that are rarely available to visitors: the tours cover key highlights of the city, but they also offer a unique look at some of Brno's architectural marvels, including the functionalist Villa Tugendhat or the city water tanks. Cultural events include English-friendly theatre performance, film screenings in a functionalist church, and a workshop on sustainable analog photography. These events are designed to offer not only cultural insight but also access to spaces and experiences that are often not easily available, even to local residents.

Participants can sign up for these activities during the conference registration process. As capacity is limited and many of these events tend to fill up quickly, we strongly encourage you to secure your spot early, before 31 May 2026.

More information about the program is available here: https://ecrea2026brno.eu/tours-culture-workshops/

September 14, 2026

Utrecht University (the Netherlands)

Deadline: May 29, 2026

Organized by Karin van Es (Utrecht University), Ramon Lobato (Swinburne University), and Mike Wayne (Erasmus University).

Powered by Special Interest Group Streaming Video.

This workshop explores media distribution in connected vehicles. Planes, trains and automobiles have been electronically mediated environments since the appearance of car radios in the 1930s. Yet recent developments in connected and autonomous transport have introduced an expanded array of media experiences, interfaces, and streaming integrations. This prompts new questions for media research: Who controls vehicular screens? What content is available–or restricted? What user experiences are offered and normalised? How are such screens regulated, and to what effect? In addressing these questions, the workshop approaches digital media as mobile and context-dependent rather than primarily domestic or platform-bound. Our aim is to relocate television, radio and other media within infrastructures of mobility, where viewing practices, technologies, and meanings are reconfigured.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Histories of car radio, mobile television, in-flight entertainment, and other transit media  
  
• Platform strategies of manufacturers, airlines, and other transport providers
  
• Prominence, discoverability and curation of media interfaces in seat-back screens and dashboards
  
• User experience, affordances and requirements of in-vehicle entertainment
  
• Jurisdiction and regulatory challenges arising from cross-border and in-transit viewing
  
• Content licensing, territorial rights, portability, and distribution models in mobile and transnational contexts
  
• Connectivity, onboard systems, streaming technologies, and the material and infrastructural conditions enabling (or constraining) viewing in transit
  
• Advertising, targeting and monetization strategies shaped by mobility, temporality, and location-specific viewing

We welcome theoretically grounded and empirically oriented contributions from media studies, law, design, sociology, mobility studies and related fields that critically engage with the workshop’s themes.

Submission details:

Abstracts of 350 words are due by 29 May 2026 along with a 100 word bio and should be sent to mediainmotionworkshop@gmail.com

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 5 June, and accepted authors will be invited to submit extended abstracts of 1,500 words by 5 September. The workshop will be held on 14 September at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. A special issue is planned following the workshop. We also welcome expressions of interest from scholars who cannot attend the workshop but would like to be considered for the special issue. Please feel free to reach out to the organisers by email: mediainmotionworkshop@gmail.com 

History of Media Studies

Deadline: September 15, 2026

History of Media Studies solicits proposals for a special section on the histories of publishing in the media, communication, and film studies fields. The focus of the special section is on the role of publishers—both commercial and nonprofit—in these fields’ development. We are keen to highlight the contributions of publishing houses and publication initiatives from around the world, including those beyond the Anglophone North Atlantic.

Most existing histories of the media, communication, and film studies fields take the publication context of the works they survey for granted. The premise of the special section is that specific publishers—and the wider world of academic publishing—have made a difference in the development of local, national, and subfield traditions of scholarship. Very few works of dedicated history have attended to these publishing ventures. The special section will provide a forum for new accounts, in conversation with these fields’ intellectual and institutional histories.

Proposals of around 1000 words, including references, should be sent to hms@mediastudies.press, with the subject line: Histories of Publishing. The deadline for submitting proposals is September 15, 2026. Please reach out if you have any questions or ideas.

Proposals may be submitted in English or Spanish, the two languages that History of Media Studies publishes.

We expect most contributions to be research articles (generally 14,000 words or fewer), but we will also consider other formats, including research notes, commentaries, interviews/oral histories, overlay re-publications, and contextualized archival materials; please see our Author Guidelines for more details: https://hms.mediastudies.press/author-guidelines

Suggested approaches include, but are not limited to:

• case studies of media-related publishing houses
  
• accounts of small and independent presses, as incubators of heterodox media scholarship
  
• treatments of significant commercial publishers (e.g., Routledge)
  
• studies of influential book series, including translation series
  
• accounts of institutional publishing (e.g., UNESCO or CIESPAL)
  
• histories of the publishing initiatives of scholarly associations, including association-affiliated journals
  
• self-publishing and informal circulation in activist media scholarship
  
• the role of translation and translated editions
  
• treatments of the relationship between books and journal portfolios within presses
  
• historical accounts of the political economy of publishing and its effects on the field
  
• reflections on the role of editors and editing as mostly invisible intellectual labor
  
• accounts of publishing initiatives beyond the Anglophone world, including in Latin America
  
• female-run initiatives, editors, and publishers
  

Please reach out to hms@mediastudies.press with any questions.

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.

University of St. Gallen 

The Media and Culture Research Unit at the MCM Institute, University of St. Gallen is hiring:

We are seeking two highly motivated PhD candidates to join an exciting new SNSF-funded research project investigating the persuasive power of communicative AI (comAI) in the everyday lives of adolescents and families across Europe. 

The Project

Chatbots, virtual assistants, and AI writing tools are becoming a normal part of daily life for young people across Europe. Yet we know surprisingly little about how these technologies actually influence adolescents - their attitudes, decisions, and relationships - in the context of everyday family life. This four-year cross-national ethnographic study investigates the persuasive power of comAI among adolescents aged 13–18 and their families across Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. It examines AI influence along three dimensions: the interpersonal dimension, exploring how young people perceive AI as a social actor and navigate questions of agency and relationship; the social and cultural dimension, focusing on how families respond to AI-generated disinformation, bias, and errors; and the technical dimension, examining how families understand emotional design, data profiling, and manipulative by-design features in comAI. Findings will inform AI regulation and digital literacy programmes across Europe.

The DOK Programme

Successful candidates will be enrolled in the PhD Programme in Organisation Studies and Cultural Theory (DOK) at the University of St. Gallen. The DOK programme integrates the university's core and contextual subjects in an interdisciplinary form of doctoral studies, bringing together organisational research and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS). The programme is particularly suited to research that engages with complex social, cultural, and technological questions from multiple disciplinary perspectives, making it an ideal home for this project.

What We Offer

• A fully funded PhD position (100%) for four years supervised by Prof. Veronica Barassi, starting in September 2026.
  
• Enrolment in the DOK programme at the University of St. Gallen, one of Europe's leading universities.
  
• Integration into the Media & Culture research unit (=mcm3) at the Institute of Media and Communications Management Institute, a dynamic, international, and interdisciplinary research team. See more information about us here: https://mcm.unisg.ch/en/das-institut/lehrstuehle-und-forschungsbereiche/mcm3/.
  
• Access to a growing network of researchers through the PersuasiveAI Futures Network
  

Your Profile

• Master's degree in communication sciences, social sciences, political sciences, or a related field.
  
• Proficiency in English and fluency in at least one or two of the project languages (German, French, or Italian) is mandatory.
  
• Willingness and ability to spend extended periods conducting fieldwork in one of the following cities: Berlin, Paris, or Milan.
  
• Knowledge of qualitative and ethnographic research methodologies is a strong advantage.
  
• Curiosity, intellectual independence, and a genuine interest in the social impacts of comAI.
  

How to Apply: 

Application must be submitted by 4 May. In person interviews will be held by 15 June, with decisions communicated by the end of that month.

Please send along: 

• A cover letter explaining who you are, your background, and why you are interested in the PhD position, including your level of language knowledge and your connection to one of the ethnographic areas
  
• A one-page document outlining your potential PhD project
  
• Your CV
  
• A writing sample (MA thesis, article, etc.), if available but not mandatory
  

APPLICATION LINK: https://jobs.unisg.ch/offene-stellen/two-fully-funded-phd-positions-m-w-d/53f14753-3d80-4877-acfe-1acc0b62e409 

For information about the job opening or general questions, please contact philip.disalvo@unisg.ch (applications must be submitted through the application link, applications coming via email won't be considered).

We invite advanced scholars as well as early-career researchers with a completed PhD to serve as mentors at the poster session of the ECREA European Communication Conference 2026 in Brno. 

This session is designed to support Master’s students and early-stage PhD candidates by combining traditional poster presentations with personalized mentorship.  

Mentors will be matched with presenters based on shared research interests.  

As a mentor, you will: 

• Provide feedback on the poster draft ahead of the conference; 

• (Ideally) attend the poster session during the conference and engage in discussion with but not limited to your assigned mentee; 

• Meet with the mentee during or after the conference (in-person or online) to offer career guidance and/or help mentees refine their research.  

After introducing the mentor and mentee to each other via e-mail in May, it will be the mentee’s responsibility to reach out to the mentor, ask for the poster draft feedback, and arrange the mentoring meeting.  

Please express your interest in serving as a mentor by April 30 using the following form: https://forms.office.com/e/U3XhhtYaT6 

We will get back to you in May to match you with a mentee. 

If you have any questions, please contact Lucie Čejková: luccej@fss.muni.cz 

Thank you for supporting this initiative and helping us create an inclusive and nurturing environment at ECC 2026! 

Comunicação e Sociedade, Estudos em Comunicação, Media & Jornalismo,  Observatorio (Special issue)

Deadline: September 30, 2026

Four Portuguese free-to-read and free-to-publish journals in the field of Communication Studies (published by public universities) – Comunicação e Sociedade, Estudos em Comunicação, Media & Jornalismo, and Observatorio (OBS*) – have decided to jointly launch a special issue with the aim of fostering reflection on the policies and logics of sharing scientific knowledge.

With the aim of charting a counter-trend path (and within an unprecedented collaborative initiative), we seek submissions that interrogate the material and institutional conditions of conducting research in Communication Studies, including the role of digital platforms in the circulation of knowledge, the limits and potential of open access, and the tensions between quantitative evaluation and the substantive quality of reflection and critical thought.

Suggested Topics

• Marketization of science and academic capitalism;
  
• Academic freedom and university autonomy;
  
• Forms of cultural and organizational resistance;
  
• The nature and reconfiguration of scientific reputation;
  
• Science and language policies;
  
• Academic and scientific rankings;
  
• Oligopolies and scientific publishing;
  
• Metrics, quantification, and impact;
  
• Open access policies and repositories;
  
• The impact of AI on scientific writing and review;
  
• Invisibility, bias, and inequality in scientific citations;
  
• Big Tech, platformization, and publishing ecosystems;
  
• Algorithmic regimes of visibility and classification;
  
• Research independence and innovation agendas;
  
• Research assessment, DORA, and alternatives.
  

Full manuscripts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Submission Period: April 20 to September 30, 2026.

Publication Period: 1st Semester of 2027.

More information here:

https://obs.obercom.pt/index.php/obs/announcement/view/3 

https://impactum-journals.uc.pt/mj/announcement/view/352 

https://revistacomsoc.pt/.../revist.../announcement/view/128 

https://ojs.labcom-ifp.ubi.pt/ec/announcement/view/99