ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Edited By: Heritiana Ranaivoson, Sally Broughton Micova, Tim Raats

ECREA Members can get a 20% discount using the SMA34 code until the end of June: https://www.routledge.com/European-Audiovisual-Policy-in-Transition/Ranaivoson-Micova-Raats/p/book/9781032184487

This book describes and critically addresses the innovations and shifts made in the revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) adopted by the European Parliament and Council in 2018. Reflecting on European Union regulation and policy practice in all its Member States, the book’s unique approach places in-depth case study topics against the broader theoretical background.

Taking a Europe-wide angle, an international team of authors focuses on key aspects of the AVMSD: the expansion of its scope to include video-sharing-platforms such as YouTube; the update of the rules for commercial communications; the first attempt for harmonized, minimal requirements at EU level regarding transparency of media ownership; new rules to ensure that video-on-demand services offer, invest in, and prioritise European content; the obligation on television distributors and smart TV manufacturers to pass on broadcasters’ signal without any interference, alteration or modification; and, the formalisation and consolidation of new forms of collaboration among national regulatory authorities.

This thorough analysis of the cornerstone of European media policy makes this edited collection a crucial reference for scholars and students of media and cultural industries, media law and policy, European and EU media policy, and technology studies.

Aarhus University, Denmark

Apply here: https://au.career.emply.com/ad/professor-at-the-centre-for-educational-development-aarhus-university-denmark/rpisxi/en

The Centre for Educational Development (CED) at Aarhus University invites applications for a position as professor in university teaching and learning. The professorship is a permanent position beginning 1 March 2024 or as soon as possible. The place of employment is Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.

About the Centre for Educational Development (CED)

The mission of the Centre for Educational Development is to inspire engaging teaching and excellent educations at Aarhus University. We offer teachers, academic staff, coordinators, directors, and executives at Aarhus University practical partnership, collaboration, and help concerning their ongoing teaching tasks and competencies. Furthermore, we ambitiously strive for the highest international level through applied research in university teaching and learning. We contribute to development projects and experiments in the fields of digitalization and learning technologies at universities, university teaching and program development.

CED employs almost 60 colleagues organized into three departments specialized in digital development, teaching development, and program development, respectively, plus a small administration. We have a good collegial atmosphere characterized by a high degree of professionalism, collaboration and the opportunity for continuous professional development. We value inquiry, co-creation, empowerment, and expertise.

The research group at CED works within and across the three departments. The group comprises five associate professors, three to five postdocs, and three PhD-students. The group focus on high quality applied research. The current topics of interest in the group include student learning, transitions and career, teacher development and educational leadership, health sciences education research, digitalization and learning technology in higher education. We come from a wide range of research methods and theoretical frameworks.

The centre management group consist of centre director Anne Mette Morcke, department leads Anders Hyldig (Digital Development), Liza Strandgaard (Teaching Development), and Tina Bering Keiding (Program Development).

For a more detailed description of CED, please, visit our website.

About the positions as professor at CED

As the professor of university teaching and learning at CED, we expect you to take on leadership responsibilities and strategically develop the research field. The successful applicant can develop externally funded research in collaboration with international partners. We expect you to be a dedicated outgoing ambassador for CED, contributing significantly to the centre’s continuous collaboration with educational leaders. We expect you to take on a leading role in the cross-departmental research group and undertake supervision of junior researchers.

The position does not include personnel management, but you are an active member of the centre management group and can also foresee participating in administrative and organisational tasks. Finally, we expect you to participate in CEDs day-to-day-activities (like curriculum development, course leadership, and the practical running of courses, seminars, and workshops for teachers at Aarhus University). 

The responsibilities of the professor at CED

Your primary responsibilities are to

• lead the cross-departmental research group at CED
  
• participate in the centre management group (but no personnel management)
  
• develop the field of applied research in university teaching and learning at international level
  
• attract external funding
  
• supervise younger research colleagues at CED
  
• teach and lead courses in university teaching and learning at Aarhus University and in Denmark
  
• contribute to and lead relevant development and implementation projects from CED
  
• give advice and offer consultations concerning higher education, teaching and learning at Aarhus University and relevant councils and committees nationally and internationally

Qualifications and competences

You have

• a track record of internationally recognised research in higher education
  
• a strong international research network
  
• a portfolio of externally funded research grants
  
• research leadership experience and project management skills
  
• experience with supervision of younger research colleagues
  
• comprehensive experience in teaching and developing courses for faculty
  

You can

• participate in a small, divers, and well-functioning centre management group
  
• collaborate respectfully and professionally with educational leaders at Aarhus University
  
• represent CED in relevant national and international fora
  
• lead development and implementation projects in higher education
  

You are a person who

• thrives on complex processes with multiple agendas and stakeholders
  
• accepts that admin and organizational management is a part of the job
  
• keeps a cool head and high spirits when things are not going as planned
  
• would like to learn Danish (if you are not already speaking a Scandinavian language)
  

Conditions and place of employment

The professorship is a full-time permanent position from 1 March 2024 or as soon as possible.

The successful applicant will refer to centre director Anne Mette Mørcke.

Place of employment is Trøjborgvej 82-84, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

Non-Scandinavian speaking candidates must acquire the necessary basic Danish language skills within a short period of time (2 years).

Further information on the appointment procedure can be found in the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

The appointment is in accordance with the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (Akademikerne).

Further information on qualification requirements and job description can be found in the Ministerial Order on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities.

International applicant?

Denmark is a great place to live. We are world class at work-life balance and attractive working conditions. Equality and trust is high, crime is low. English is our second language. Aarhus is a wonderful, safe, happy, young and vibrant town. Aarhus University ranks in top 100.

Aarhus University offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including relocation service and career counselling to expat partners. At CED, we truly welcome international candidates for this position.

Please find more information about entering and working in Denmark on Research at AU.

The hiring process

We encourage diverse research and teaching backgrounds and the position is therefore not limited to for example a degree in education or Arts. We acknowledge that other pathways can be relevant.

In connection with your motivated written application, you must attach your

• CV
  
• documentation for the PhD degree
  
• listed publication overview and selected publications for assessment (max 3)
  
• suggested research plan covering the first two years at CED (max 3 pages)
  
• documentation for attracting external funding as primary investigator
  
• experiences with supervising and assessing junior researchers (PhDs and postdocs)
  
• description of experiences in leadership and management
  
• teaching portfolio (max 3 pages)
  
• documentation of participation in teaching courses
  
• a short teaching statement (or your teaching philosophy)
  
• and - if relevant - examples of leading development projects (max 3 pages)
  

We use shortlisting in the hiring process lead by the centre director and head of assessment committee. In this shortlisting process, we exclude applicants that clearly do not match the described position. Applicants that are not shortlisted will not receive a full assessment. After the shortlisting process, an assessment committee with international participation gives their written summary concerning each of the shortlisted applicants. Based on these summaries of qualifications, an employment committee of future colleagues and the centre director invites the most qualified 3-4 applicants for an interview. If necessary, the employment committee can invite 1-2 applicants to a second interview round before making the final decision and offer.

Applications must be made in English.

Interviews are expected to take place in the period 4 – 15 December 2023.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants.

The application must be submitted via Aarhus University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aarhus University's website.

Aarhus University

Aarhus University is an academically diverse and research-intensive university with a strong commitment to high-quality research and education and the development of society nationally and globally. The university offers an inspiring research and teaching environment to its 38,000 students (FTEs) and 8,300 employees, and has an annual revenues of EUR 935 million. Learn more at www.international.au.dk/

October 12, 2023

Online

Deadline: June 2, 2023

We invite you to submit an abstract for our upcoming conference, taking place online on 12 October 2023. Deadline for applications is 2 June 2023.

More info: https://ecrea.eu/event-5219347 

This one-day conference seeks to explore the methods we use and approaches we take for understanding media and cultural production in the contemporary moment. The field of media production research has been growing rapidly over the last decades, as more and more researchers see the gains from studying the ‘backends’ of the media and cultural industries. At the same time, new challenges arise due to rapid shifts in the media and cultural industries, as well as forms and practices of media and cultural production and distribution. A sectoral shift in the media and cultural industries has introduced new actors, as well as new questions, theoretical impulses, empirical objects, and research tools and practices.

This conference explores many of the contemporary challenges to understanding the nature of media and cultural production by focusing on the research process, rather than the research findings. In doing so, we hope to encourage researchers to push the boundaries of production research, share useful research designs, as well as challenging moments and failed experiments, that we can still learn from.

We also have two excellent keynote addresses:

• Epistemic crossroads – towards digital communication system analysis? Signe Sophus Lai & Sofie Flensburg, University of Copenhagen
  
• Analysing Cultural Platforms: Interfaces, Infrastructures, Recommender Systems.  David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds
  

We invite scholars to present short papers or provocations on methods and methodology in the field of media and cultural production research. The presentations can reflect on one’s own research designs and methodologies, as well as on broader issues such as developing novel methods and approaches in the field, or conceptual and theoretical discussions on the practice of studying media and cultural production in recent years.

To apply

Submit a 150-300-word abstract (excluding references) and a 100-word bio for each speaker (including email address and affiliation). In your submission, please indicate whether you are applying for a 15-minute presentation or a 7-minute provocation.

Please send your proposal to Vilde Schanke Sundet at v.s.sundet@media.uio.no.

Costs

This online conference will be free of charge.

Deadline for submission

Deadline for submission: 2 June 2023. Decisions will be communicated no later than mid-August.

Media & Jornalismo

The Scopus indexed Media & Jornalismo receives articles in continuous flow and accepts proposals for the organization of special issues.

Media & Jornalismo, an internationally recognized and Portuguese pioneer journal in the field of Media and Journalism Studies (indexed in Scopus and ERIH Plus), invites the international scientific community to submit articles that fall within the thematic scope of the journal and to submit proposals for the organization of special issues. 

This call for papers and proposals for thematic issues is related to the editorial changes that Media & Journalism is implementing and that will come into full force in 2024: 

1) From the second semester of 2023 onwards, the submission of articles will happen in continuous flow, all year round. This measure aims to privilege the heterogeneity of themes, responding to a need to cover the most salient academic and scientific issues at a given moment, in the disciplinary field of communication sciences.

2) From 2024, the continuous flow modality is now accompanied by the online first publishing policy, thus reducing the waiting times for publication of the different articles that overcome the double-blind peer review and ensuring the timely dissemination of the critical findings generated that are so important for the systematic accumulation of knowledge in the discipline of communication sciences. Articles published in the online first publishing modality will continue to integrate the Scopus database (in which the journal is indexed) under the denomination "Article in Press".  All the articles published in this double format, continuous flow and online first publishing, will integrate, in due time, and in definitive publication, numbers of the journal, which will maintain its biannual periodicity. 

3) Also from 2024, all articles accepted for publication will be published in a bilingual version (Portuguese and English or Spanish and English), the English version being compulsory. The journal seeks, with this measure, to internationalize itself and to achieve a different dissemination. The costs resulting from the necessary translations (Portuguese into English; Spanish into English; English into Portuguese), will be borne by the authors of the articles, in a practice followed by other important national journals. 

4) The free-to-publish policy of submission and the policy of consultation at no cost for the reader (free-to-read) will be maintained. 

5) The continuous flow of submissions and the online first publishing policy do not preclude the organization and publication of special issues, whether a) they are proposed to the journal by guest editors with recognized research merit, b) they seek to cover a topic that is salient in the academic community at the time the proposal is made, and c) the proposal is in line with Media & Journalism's editorial strategy and main thematic lines. In the case of special issues, the articles included and organized by the guest editors are published together and immediately after the formatting of the various articles that integrate the different special issues.

June 8, 2023

I am pleased to invite you to the next in the series of IPRA Thought Leadership webinars. The webinar Japan digital PR best practices: how to run hybrid media relations will be presented by Kazuko Kotaki on Thursday 8 June 2022 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (unadjusted).

What is the webinar content?

Explore hands-on learnings and insights on how corporate communications have evolved in the hybrid world resulting from a three-year-long virtual media relations. The webinar will share practical knowledge on what works and why, based on Kazuko’s global media and agency client experiences from both Japan and around the world.

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 Kazuko Kotaki

Kazuko is Associate Director, Corporate at Edelman Japan. She is a passionate public relations veteran with over 20 years of experience in consulting, media relations, and narrative development focusing on communications in the STEM field. She joined Edelman in 2022 to provide business communications counsel to the world’s top brands and most critical communication needs. 

Contact

International Public Relations Association Secretariat

United Kingdom

secgen@ipra.org

Telephone +44 1634 818308

Friday 6 October, 2023

London college of communication

Deadline: July 3, 2023

8.00-14.00 (BST) / 16.00-22.00 (AWST)

TikTok Creators and Digital Economies Symposium

From new dance challenges to instantly recognisable songs, TikTok is often attributed with producing new global trends. Merging short form video, popular and original music, hashtags, comments, and participatory features like stitching and duets, TikTok provides a platform for ordinary users to consume, create, play and participate in public conversations.

Creators benefit from new kinds of visibility and affective economies, yet also complain of shadow bans, seemingly arbitrary limitations on views, and algorithmic personalisation and circulation of content.

TikTok follows and disrupts the social media landscape and popular imagination. TikTok’s ‘For You’ feature amplifies the potential for ordinary users to create viral content and its powerful personalised algorithms extend creators’ reach to global audiences and across multiple platforms.

TikTok influencers and ordinary creators generate niche communities important for identity expression, community building and visibility, introducing new iterations of symbolic, cultural and economic power (Abidin et al. 2020, Abidin 2020, 2019).

TikTok native influencers generate millions of views and leverage virtual, gift, and live-streaming economies, expanding forms of cultural production across platforms (Poell et al 2022, Yesiloglu and Costello 2021).

In addition, Bytedance and Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese counterpart, point to significant cultural, geo-political, and economic commonalities and differences in platform governance, as determined in and through national contexts and markets (Kaye et al al. 2022, Zhang 2021).

More globally, Bytedance occupies a unique position in the data economy and is at the heart of serious privacy and surveillance concerns, marked by the rise of TikTok bans (Maheshwari and Holpuch 2023).

TikTok and Douyin open up new creator practices with serious implications for creative industries, monetisation practices, digital economies alongside governance frameworks encompassing these spheres.

All of these factors point to big questions about the relationship between TikTok creators and emerging features of digital economies. While TikTok’s niche creator practices share common features across other social media and digital platforms (Hardy 2022, Sujon 2021), TikTok’s specific approaches to monetisation and affective entrepreneurialism raises questions about what is distinct on TikTok for creator economies.

This symposium brings together current work which opens up these dynamics, examining emerging forms of cultural production and also their economic consequences for creators, citizens, consumers, advertisers, and platforms.

Submission guidelines

We invite papers examining TikTok Creators and Digital Economies, related to but not limited to these themes:

• Creator identities and cultures
  
• Storytelling, music and creator discourses
  
• Intimate, relational and affective labour
  
• Virtual gifting and cultural production
  
• Creator academy and creator fund
  
• LGBTQ+ creators
  
• Queerbaiting
  
• Materialities of creation, consumption and circulation
  
• Global, local, national creator contexts and economies
  
• TikTok, ByteDance and Douyin platform ecosystems
  
• Douyin and wanghong
  
• Resilience and precarity
  
• Influencers, celebrity, and virality
  
• Creator business models
  
• TikTok advertising and monetisation
  
• Political and networked economies
  
• Nichification, metrics and metrification
  
• Branded content, paid partnerships and the creator marketplace
  
• Livestreaming and e-commerce
  
• Symbolic power and cultural economies
  
• Attention economy, affective commerce and regimes of visibility
  
• Algorithmic personalisation
  
• TikTok audiences and markets
  
• Platform governance, bans and censorship
  
• Content ownership, copyright and royalties
  
• Geo-politics of short-form video
  

Research students, early career researchers and scholars in and/or or from the Global South and/or underrepresented communities are strongly encouraged to apply.

A selection of papers will also be considered for inclusion in a Special Issue tentatively entitled “TikTok Creators and Digital Economies” that will be published in a top-ranked peer-reviewed journal in the field of Media and Communication Studies. 

For consideration in this symposium, please submit abstracts (up to 250 words) on previously unpublished papers and a short bio (up to 100 words) to DCE@lcc.arts.ac.uk. 

Key dates

Abstracts and biographies submission: 3 July 2023

Notifications of acceptance: 24 July 2023

TikTok Creators and Digital Economies Symposium: 6 October 2023

This event is a collaboration between the TikTok Cultures Research Network based at Curtin University and the Digital Cultures and Economies Research Hub at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.

The event is organized by Zoetanya Sujon, Sevil Yesiloglu, Irida Ntalla, Jonathan Hardy, Yue Qin, Yingwen Wang and Richard Meng.

Please email DCE@lcc.arts.ac.uk with any questions about this event.

Open call

Deadline: June 3, 2023

The term ‘Artificial intelligence’ (AI) was coined by John McCarthy in the year 1956 at Dartmouth College at the first-ever AI conference. Later that year, JC Shaw, Herbert Simon, and Allen Newell created the first AI software program named ‘Logic Theorist.’ Since then, AI is changing the way we communicate in the media world as is the intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the intelligence of humans and other animals, it is the backbone of innovation in modern computing, unlocking value for individuals and businesses. Its applications include advanced web search engines, recommendation systems, understanding human speech with voice-enabled devices, such as Siri and Alexa, that have evolved the way people talk to their devices, self-driving cars, generative and creative tools, automated decision-making, and competing at the highest level in strategic game systems, from interacted TV to TV shows where the spectator can choose the next steps of the show,  Chatbots, omnichannel communications, and targeted marketing campaigns, conversational agents, optical character recognition (OCR), social robots, 3D printing, the fifth generation of mobile services (5G), and automated-writing software the artificial intelligence is having a big impact on communication.

The study of mechanical or "formal" reasoning began with philosophers and mathematicians in antiquity. The study of mathematical logic led directly to Alan Turing's theory of computation, which suggested that a machine, by shuffling symbols as simple as "0" and "1", could simulate any conceivable act of mathematical deduction. This insight that digital computers can simulate any process of formal reasoning is known as the Church–Turing thesis (Berlinski,2001).

The importance of the proposed research is to analyze how those “0” and “1” have affected and impacted communication, how AI will evolve and how this evolution will affect communication, what will be implications of the 4 main types of artificial intelligence affecting the perception and reception of the recipient, What is AI and why it matters, How AI is shaping the future of communication and media, What AI Means for the Freedom of speech, what it takes to make AI safe and effective, in the  Adaptive artificial intelligence, unlike traditional AI systems, can revise its own code to adjust for real-world changes that were not known or foreseen when the code was first written, is the AI controlling and determining the access to the mass media for the users, etc.…

This open call seeks submissions that contribute to our understanding of the application of AI in media production and consumption, considering the wide range of communication processes and theories from the perspective of communication studies. Multidisciplinary submissions are welcome. We encourage a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to this subject, particularly those relating to global and international contexts for the subject.

Rules

• Abstracts should be 500 words excluding the bibliography.
  
• Abstracts should include a biographical note max. 50 words per author.
  
• Abstracts should include at least two references.
  
• Evaluation will focus on relevance to the book topic, selection of research objects, and clarity in the use of methodology.
  
• Co-authored abstracts need to state the first author.
  
• Only one abstract per the first author can be submitted.
  
• APA 7
  
• 5 Keywords.
  

Send your abstracts with your chapter proposal on June 3, 2023, to raquelbenitezrojas@gmail.com

References

Berlinski, David, (2001) The advent of the algorithm: The 300-year journey from an idea to the computer. Harcourt Books. San Diego, USA

August 21 - September 1, 2023

Maastricht Summer School, Maastricht University (online) 

Deadline: August 1, 2023

The focus of this Summer School course is on critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and news framing. A key objective is to enable you to design an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts). Most Summer School participants are usually PhD candidates, You can read more about the course content, course objectives and recommended literature below. You also find there the link to the timetable.

The course fee is €399. To apply for the course, please visit the DreamApply website. For more information, please contact course coordinator Leonhardt. 

Course Description

What do the newspaper coverage of the War in Ukraine, the tweets by Elon Musk and the heated social media debates about migration have in common? They all confirm the pivotal role of texts and images in our societies. This course teaches you the analytical skills to study the possible meanings of textual and visual media representations.

Interactive lectures offer you concepts and methods to examine what combinations of words and/or visual elements mean in terms of a broader debate in society. These lectures further help you to understand how national identities and power relations affect the interpretations of media representations. Your individual assignment concerns a short paper, in which you apply a method to study one or two news articles, cartoons or social media posts.

Dr Leonhardt van Efferink developed an exclusive Summer School template that helps you to write a well-structured course paper. On top of this, he offers individual feedback in class and active personal tutoring by e-mail. Finally, his support includes a simple framework to develop focused, consistent and transparent research questions.

Below you find the course objectives, a link to the timetable and suggested literature.

Course Objectives

1.    Designing an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts).

2.    Developing a research method that draws on critical discourse analysis, social semiotic analysis and/or news framing analysis, in line with your research objectives.

3.    Explaining the role of the national and ideological contexts in which (social) media content is being produced.

4.    Understanding the complexity of text-image relations and their role in meaning-making processes.

5.    Producing a research design and dataset for your thesis or dissertation that is manageable.

Timetable

The fifth online edition of this course lasts from 21 August until 1 September 2023. Four earlier online editions in 2020/2021/2022 were fully booked and seven earlier editions took place on-campus in Maastricht between 2014 and 2019. This edition has daily teaching sessions of at most three hours. Teaching days will start at 13.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2) and end at the latest at 16.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2). This makes it easier for students from far away countries to deal with the large time differences. Please check Leonhardt's website for most up-to-date version of the timetable: https://vanefferink.com/en/media-representations-and-research-methods-summer-school-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing/

Literature

Leonhardt has based this course on publications in various languages (see overview below for some examples). You are not required to do pre-course reading. However, if you would like to do so, you are advised to select one of the publications below. You can also contact Leonhardt for tailor-made reading advice.

1.    Caple, H. (2013) Photojournalism. A Social Semiotic Approach.

2.    Dahinden, U. (2006). Framing. Eine integrative Theorie der Massenkommunikation.

3.    D’Angelo, P. (ed.) (2018) Doing News Framing Analysis II. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.

4.    Geise, S., & Lobinger, K. (eds.). (2013). Visual Framing. Perspektiven und Herausforderungen der visuellen Kommunikationsforschung.

5.    Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis.

6.    Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to do Critical Discourse Analysis.

7.    Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.

8.    Royce, T. D. (2006). Intersemiotic Complementarity. A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In T. D. Royce, & W. Bowcher (Eds.), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse (pp. 63-109).

9.    Van Gorp, B. (2010) Strategies to take the Subjectivity out of Framing Analysis. In P. D’Angelo, & J. A. Kuypers (Eds.), Doing News Framing Analysis. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives (pp. 84-109).

10.    Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds., 2016) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies.

Student reviews (from LinkedIn recommendations)

1.    “I found Leonhardt very well familiar with all the dynamics of his class room, as he very efficiently caters to the need of all his students coming from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds.” – Sadia from Pakistan

2.    “Leonhardt is a great lecturer who knows his subject matter. I found his inclusive approach particularly useful in teaching media analysis techniques.” – Koen from Belgium

3.    “Not only did Leonhardt demonstrate a high level of expertise in the subject, but he also helped his students understand difficult concepts in a very accessible way, effectively bridging the gap between theory and practice, and fostering fruitful discussions in class.” – Carolina from Brazil

Special monograph

Deadline: December 15, 2023

Through using extended reality (XR) technologies, users can engage in immersive environments and stories. With the hype of the metaverse, the usage of augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and particularly virtual reality (VR) technologies has expanded quickly in recent years. These technologies have applications in a variety of industries, including entertainment, education, and healthcare. An area of growing interest is its use as a prosocial tool, creating and experimenting with immersive VR content that aims to encourage positive social behaviors and interactions in the audience, even though its use and application has primarily been studied in the field of video games. Prosociality is developing as a key concept for the betterment of contemporary communities, in which individuals adopt more polarized views, in the present environment of the so-called era of misinformation. By expanding previous approaches to the term (Chacón, 1986; Amato, 1983; Olivar, 1998), González Portal (2000) defined prosocial behavior as "all positive social behavior with or without altruistic motivation" (quoted in Auné et al., 2014).

A well-known paradigm for analyzing how individuals learn and take on new behaviors is the social cognitive theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1986, 1991, 2001). According to SCT, behavior is impacted by a mix of personal (such beliefs and attitudes) and environmental (like social norms and modeling) elements. Technology may be considered as a technique of manipulating these environmental characteristics in the context of immersive prosocial media to increase the transmission of positive social attitudes and values. The immersive nature of immersive media allows for the experience of situations and environments that may be difficult or impossible to replicate in the real world. VR enables the user to become an active participant in the story they are experiencing, improving the relationship between the audience and the storytelling while inspiring positive attitudes and feelings in them, such as empathy, compassion, and collaboration. This experience can be strengthened through social modeling, in which users watch and mimic the behaviors of others in the VR environment, or by assuming the position of the other through perspective taking experiences (Herrera et al., 2018) by embodying the other through an avatar (embodiment).

According to the theory of embodiment cognition (Barsalou, 2008), physically experiences, such as interactions with our surroundings and other people, shape our ideas and behaviors. The immersive quality of VR may produce a sensation of presence that makes the virtual environment appear real and present in the given situation. The user's ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and social interactions can all be affected by this experience. Therefore, it can be viewed as an addition to SCT as a framework for comprehending the use of VR as a prosocial tool. Numerous cognitive and emotional processes can be influenced by embodied experiences, according to research. For instance, VR simulations of walking help elderly persons' cognitive performance (Riva et al., 2017). Immersive virtual reality (VR) experiences of intergroup encounter have been utilized to foster prosocial behavior by boosting empathy and lowering stress and prejudice in such circumstances (Banakou et al., 2016; González-Franco et al., 2016; Stelzmann et al., 2021; Tassinari et al., 2022). Despite the growing research efforts and interest in the potential prosocial effects of immersive VR technologies, it is important to continue investigating these issues as well as any potential ethical and moral ramifications of their use in the field of communication.

This monographic issue proposes a critical examination of the production of immersive content and its application to prosocial goals. We, therefore, seeking proposals that contribute to the investigation and analysis of the impacts of prosocial immersive VR storytelling from the perspective of communication and media effects. From their production and consumption models, methods that concentrate on both technological factors and the formal characteristics required for their formulation. We invite participation with empirical and theoretical research. We encourage a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, experimental research and case studies that fall within the following thematic lines and potential research questions, but are not restricted to them:

Thematic lines:

- Examining immersive VR, AR, and MR content to improve contemporary communities.

- Historical traces of prosocial usage and applications of immersive technology.

- Studies of the scientific literature on the use of immersive technologies and their prosocial effects, including scoping reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.

- The use of immersive technology as social change agents.

- Prosocial immersive narrative analysis.

- The use of immersive technology for social advocacy/activism.

- Measuring experiences of the prosocial effects of immersive narratives.

- Researching media impact measurement techniques in the realm of immersive storytelling.

- Methodological approaches for evaluating the effects of immersive prosocial narratives.

- Research on the formal and technological aspects of immersive prosocial storytelling.

- The development of hybrid immersive audiovisual creations.

- The transition of linear products in the audiovisual medium to immersive settings and experiences.

Research questions:

- How are processes of change toward prosocial behavior impacted by VR, AR, and/or MR?

- What techniques and arrangements are used in the design and production of immersive experiences to produce a prosocial influence on the audience?

- What aspects of an immersive piece of content's design could work against its ability to have a positive social impact?

- What experimental approaches are best suitable for evaluating the effects of immersive storytelling from an ecological perspective?

- What specific measures or evaluation tools are effective for assessing the prosocial impact of immersive VR content?

- How may immersive story interfaces for VR, AR, and/or MR be created to maximize their beneficial effects? 

- What ethical and moral ramifications can immersive audiovisual projects for good causes have, and should they be considered?

- What risks and effects result from the use of these technologies to the development of prosocial models?

Multidisciplinary approaches are possible and can originate from a variety of fields, including human-computer interaction, psychology, digital humanities, and communication.

This special monograph is a component of the "Immersive prosocial audiovisual narratives: measuring their impact on society and analysing their formal and technological characteristics" project, which is supported by the AICO call of the Conselleria d'Innovació, Universitats, Ciència i Societat Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana (CIAICO/2021/258, 2022-2044).

References

Amato, P. R. (1983). Helping behavior in urban and rural environments: Field studies based on a taxonomic organization of helping episodes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(3), 571.

Auné, S. E., Blum, G. D., Abal, F. J. P., Lozzia, G. S., & Attorresi, H. F. (2014). La conducta prosocial: Estado actual de la investigación. Perspectivas en Psicología, 11(2), 21-33.

Banakou, D., Hanumanthu, P. D., & Slater, M. (2016). Virtual embodiment of white people in a black virtual body leads to a sustained reduction in their implicit racial bias. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 601.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of moral thought and action. En W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development: Theory, research and applications (Vol. 1, pp. 71-129). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. Media psychology, 3(3), 265-299.

Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 617-645.

Chacón, F. (1986). Una aproximación al concepto psicosocial de altruismo. Boletín de Psicología, 11, 41-62.

Gonzalez-Franco, M., Bellido, A. I., Blom, K. J., Slater, M., & Rodriguez-Fornells, A. (2016). The neurological traces of look-alike avatars. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 10, 392.

González Portal, M. D. (2000). Conducta prosocial: Evaluación e Intervención. Madrid: Morata.

Herrera, F., Bailenson, J., Weisz, E., Ogle, E., & Zaki, J. (2018). Building long-term empathy: A large-scale comparison of traditional and virtual reality perspective-taking. PloS one, 13(10), e0204494.

Olivar, R. R. (1998). El uso educativo de la televisión como optimizadora de la prosocialidad. Psychosocial Intervention, 7(3), 363-378.

Riva, G. (2017). Virtual reality in the treatment of eating and weight disorders. Psychological Medicine, 47(14), 2567-2568.

Stelzmann, D., Toth, R., & Schieferdecker, D. (2021). Can intergroup contact in virtual reality (VR) reduce stigmatization against people with schizophrenia?. Journal of clinical medicine, 10(13), 2961.

Tassinari, M., Aulbach, M. B., & Jasinskaja-Lahti, I. (2022). Investigating the influence of intergroup contact in virtual reality on empathy: an exploratory study using AltspaceVR. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 815497.

Coordinator:

Dr. Francisco-Julián Martínez-Cano – Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (francisco.martinezc@umh.es).

Begoña Ivárs-Nicolás – Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (bivars@umh.es).

Richard Lachman – Toronto Metropolitan University (richlach@torontomu.ca).

Editor of the monograph: Nereida López Vidales (nereida.lopez@uva.es).

IMPORTANT DATES AND DEADLINE:

Deadline for receipt of articles: from December, 15, 2023 until January, 30, 2024.

Deadline by which authors will receive a response: Before March, 15, 2024.

Publication date of the monograph: June, 1, 2024.

SUBMISSION METHOD AND GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS:

1st) Articles must be submitted through the OJS platform, following the journal's rules and making sure to submit a blind version.

The articles will be evaluated by blind peers and must follow the journal's rules, which can be consulted at the following link: http://revistas.usal.es/cuatro/index.php/2172-9077/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

In order for the article to be reviewed, it is compulsory that:

- the article arrives adapted to the template. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MM_zDxj3z94jCRmNZjO0BbPPe8iI1v7x/edit)

- the article comes in a blind version.

- the document of transfer of rights is attached.

- the article is accompanied by a Turnitin report (or similar), prepared by the author (articles with more than 35% similarity, excluding the bibliography, will not be accepted).

2º) Once sent to OJS, an email will be sent to the editor of the monograph, who will acknowledge receipt within a maximum period of one week.

Doubts about this monograph can also be resolved through the above e-mail addresses. 

A maximum of 7 articles will be published.

IMPORTANT AT THE SUBMISSION STAGE

In addition to being uploaded to the platform (OJS), the articles have to be sent simultaneously to the following 4 addresses: fjcrevista@usal.es, francisco.martinezc@umh.es, bivars@umh.es, richlach@torontomu.ca, richlach@torontomu.ca and nereida.lopez@uva.es

Articles will be peer-reviewed and must follow the journal's guidelines, which can be found at the following link:

http://revistas.usal.es/cuatro/index.php/2172-9077/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

Lund University, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Lund University was founded in 1666 and is repeatedly ranked among the world’s top 100 universities. The University has around 46 000 students and more than 8 000 staff based in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö. We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition.

Lund University welcomes applicants with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We regard gender equality and diversity as a strength and an asset.

We are now looking for a PhD student in Media and Communication Studies with a focus on strategic communication and psychological defense.

Work duties

The main duties are to devote themselves to their own research education, which includes both own research and third cycle courses. In addition to doctoral studies, participation in teaching and other departmental work (max 20%) may also be included. 

Strategic communication deals with the study of organizations' conscious communication efforts to achieve their overall goals. The research will highlight, create an understanding of and critically examine the communication processes that govern and shape organizations in our society and the effects of strategic communication.

The Department of Strategic Communication has a newly established research institute for psychological defence (psychologicaldefence.lu.se). Psychological defense is society's common ability to identify and resist undue information influence and other misleading information directed against Sweden in order to influence our decisions, perceptions or behaviors. The research institute receives basic funding from the Swedish Agency for Psychological Defence.

The Psychological Defence Research Institute conducts research within the field of strategic communication with a focus on malign information influence and foreign interference. Malign information influence supports the interests of foreign powers’ and aims to influence vulnerabilities in society. The Research Institute focuses on security issues such as civil defence, hybrid threats, social media platforms, and open-source intelligence, and develops research-based guidelines, tools, and analyses to identify and counteract malign information influence. Applications are expected to contribute to the development of the research field of strategic communication through the investigation of psychological defence. The PhD student will actively contribute to the work and development of the Research Institute.

The doctoral programme in Media and Communication Studies at Lund University is given jointly by the Department of Strategic Communication and the Department of Communication and Media. For more information about doctoral education, see the website.

Eligibility

General eligibility for third-cycle studies requires that the applicant has completed: a second-cycle degree, completed course requirements of at least 240 credits, of which at least 60 credits are fromsecond-cycle level, or in some other way in Sweden or abroad acquired largely equivalent knowledge.

In addition to the general entry requirements for third-cycle studies, the doctoral student must have at least 30 credits in the main field of study Media and Communication Studies at advanced level or acquired equivalent knowledge in Sweden or abroad. 

The doctoral student must also have completed independent projects of at least 15 credits at second-cycle level. 

The applicant should have such knowledge of English that he/she can assimilate research literature, third-cycle courses and participate actively in seminar activities.

Assessment criteria

When appointing, consideration shall primarily be given to the degree of ability to benefit from the doctoral education.

The applicant must have a basic education related to and experience in strategic communication, media and communication studies, rhetoric or equivalent. Great emphasis is placed on the applicant's master's thesis (or equivalent degree project) and the presented thesis idea.

The assessment will also take into account the ability to work independently and structured, but also the ability to contribute to good collaboration and a good research environment at the department.

Type of employment

Only those who are or have been admitted to PhD-studies may be appointed to doctoral studentships. The employment is limited to 4 years in the case of full-time studies. In the case of teaching and other departmental duties, the employment is extended correspondingly, but not more than 5 years (at 20 % departmental duties). Doctoral student employment is regulated in the Ordinance SFS 1993:100 (Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 5, Section 7). The position is planned to start January 2024 or according to agreement.

Instructions on how to apply

The application must be attached:

1) CV with certified copies of degree certificates, academic grades and other relevant certificates 2) a copy of the Master's thesis and, where applicable, the applicant's other scientific 

publications (e.g. articles in scientific journals)

3) a personal letter describing the applicant's background, interest in the subject and intention of the doctoral education

4) a thesis sketch where the applicant presents an idea for the thesis (maximum five pages)

5) contact information for two reference persons.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Welcome with your application!

The Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University is one of the leading education and research institutions in Sweden and operates both in Lund and Helsingborg.

The Department of Strategic Communication runs Sweden’s largest education and research activities in the field of strategic communication. The department is also one of the largest in the field in Europe. The activities of the department are based at Campus Helsingborg, which is characterised by the authenticity of Lund University in a young and dynamic environment with an interdisciplinary approach. Another characteristic of the activities at Campus Helsingborg is strong engagement with the business sector and the public sector in both education and research.

The Department of Strategic Communication offers three popular undergraduate and Master’s degree programmes. At present, the department has almost 25 staff and around 330 full-time equivalent students. The department conducts successful research in various areas, including crisis communication, branding processes, organizational communication, public diplomacy and information warfare, and new media and democracy. The research environment is growing strongly, has active international contact and welcomes cross-disciplinary initiatives. The work environment at the department is characterised by cooperation in teaching teams, active work on strategy and development, and an international environment where communication in English is a natural part of the everyday.

We kindly decline all sales and marketing contacts.

Type of employment: Temporary position

Salary: Monthly salary

Number of positions: 1

Full-time equivalent: 100

City: Helsingborg

County: Skåne län

Country: Sweden

Reference number: PA2023/1314

Contact:

• Mozhgan Zachrison, +4642356529
  
• Åsa Thelander, +4642356628
  
• Anna Borg, +46462224806
  

Union representative

• OFR/ST:Fackförbundet ST:s kansli, 046-2229362
  
• SACO:Saco-s-rådet vid Lunds universitet, kansli@saco-s.lu.se
  
• SEKO: Seko Civil, 046-2229366
  

Last application date15.Jun.2023 11:59 PM CEST