ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

January 7-10, 2025

Lisbon (Portugal)

Deadline: September 15, 2024

The 5th Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication takes a comparative and global approach to the study of media and fear. Jointly organized by the Faculty of Human Sciences (Universidade Católica Portuguesa) and the Center for Media@Risk (Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania), the Lisbon Winter School offers an opportunity for doctoral students and early career post-doctoral researchers to strategize around the study of media and fear together with senior scholars in the field. It is held in coordination with the Annenberg Schools of the University of Southern California & University of Pennsylvania, the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, the University of Helsinki’s Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities, and The Europaeum.

Call for Applications

Fear is a powerful emotion that is thought to obscure, undermine or derationalize decision-making. It can either trigger or paralyze action, inducing irrational behavior, generating moral panics or fostering responses to keep people safe. It abounds in the media coverage of wars, terror, social protests, natural disasters, technological accidents and the radical events associated with climate crisis, migration, poverty, racialized violence, misogyny, settler colonialism and other global inequities. Fear gives high visibility to inflammatory discourses that furnish a central stage across the information environment, creating a loss of control and predictability alongside an intensification of uncertainty, threat, risk and insecurity across different publics. While reports on fear-inducing conditions and events have the potential to induce action and create solidarity for those being effected, the media also instigate hate against marginalized social groups who have become the target of what Ruth Wodak (2015) has called “the normalization of shameless politics.” Today a central ingredient of many videos and posts that go viral on social media, fear can be promoted by a wide range of actors, including those who instigate action against the rule of law. 

The Lisbon Winter School aims to cut across the many discourses driven by fear, considering its weaponization by political, religious and social actors who aim to increase their own power, including leaders of democratic and authoritarian regimes, drug cartels, religious institutions, terrorist groups and protest groups. Topics include power grounded on fear, threat, and compliance; fear as a rhetorical tool to spread hate against the ‘other’; fear as a propaganda technique used throughout history; fear as a feature of contemporary polarized societies that present particular groups as sources of threat. Fear also has positive effects. It can be channeled toward helping people keep safe or avoid danger. Wearing a mask to prevent a viral infection, abandoning a village or a city before it is hit by a typhoon, or seeking refuge during air strikes are examples. 

Regardless of how positively or negatively scholars feel about the invocation of fear in mediated communication, its presence is a clear component of media environments everywhere. But what kind of presence does it have? How is it part of wider strategies designed to discriminate against specific groups of people? How is it used by democratic or authoritarian regimes, terrorist or criminal groups to create compliance and counter resistance? How is fear central to nationalistic discourses in different nations? What parallels can be established between contemporary media environments and earlier regimes in which fear occupied a central stage? And how can people resist feeling threated by messages that attempt to stir it up? These are just some of the questions the Lisbon Winter School aims to discuss. 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 fear in different geographies and temporalities. The list below illustrates some topics for possible consideration. Other topics dealing with media and fear are also welcomed: 

• Media and the dissemination of fear
  
• Fear, populism and the media
  
• Terrorism and the media
  
• Moral panics
  
• Reporting war and tragedy
  
• Fear and the democratic process
  
• Communication techniques to create fear
  
• Fear and identity formation
  
• Algorithms, AI and the promotion of fear
  
• Promoting fear against gender, racial and religious minorities
  
• Fear as tool of compliance 
  
• Fake news and disinformation
  
• Fear, anxiety and irrationality
  
• Fear and (self-)censorship
  
• Fear in the public arena in specific national or regional contexts
  
• Climate anxiety
  
• Visual media and fear
  
•  …
  

PAPER PROPOSALS

Proposals should be sent to lisbonwinterschool@gmail.com no later than 15 September 2024 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 early-October. 

FULL PAPER SUBMISSION 

Presenters will be required to send in full papers (max. 20 pages, 1.5 spacing) by 15 December 2024. 

For more information visit lisbonwinterschool.com

ORGANIZERS

Nelson Ribeiro

Barbie Zelizer

CONVENORS

Sarah Banet-Weiser 

Risto Kunelius

Francis Lee

Deadline: June 14, 2024

About the Book: Sustainability represents a great challenge for companies today. Understanding sustainability management in the luxury industry is necessary to know its implementation considering the stakeholder expectations, and the benefit of society and the environment. Different theories and methodologies to measure their impacts show the contribution of luxury companies to sustainable development through innovative solutions that apply to their value chain. The communication strategy is crucial to increase transparency.

The book aims to provide a theoretical and practical reflection on the various implications of sustainable management in the luxury sector. The guiding thread of this proposal is intended to be the journey from detecting the need to implement a sustainable management strategy in their companies in the luxury sector, to the challenge of measuring all sustainability issues, or how the future of data management is and its usefulness for making better decisions. In this way, the reader is shown the different stages in which a luxury company can find itself in the management of its sustainability, so that it becomes a theoretical-practical manual for those responsible for this discipline.

Aims and Scope: The scope of this book covers an advanced level of theories and development of materials in the field of sustainable luxury management, the strategies, measurements and value of Sustainability to understand the main challenges of sustainability in the luxury industry. The book depends on the following themes (but not limited to):

• Luxury and sustainable management.
  
• Sustainability goals and opportunities for luxury companies.
  
• Implementing goals and opportunities for luxury companies.
  
• Implementing sustainability in luxury business
  
• Impact of regulation on sustainability for luxury companies.
  
• Consumer behavior and Sustainable luxury
  
• Strategies for sustainable supply chain management in luxury.
  
• Collaborating with stakeholders in luxury companies.
  
• Marketing strategies for sustainability in luxury
  
• Strategic communication management to enhance the sustainability of luxury brands.
  
• Differences in sustainable luxury management between conglomerates and small players.
  
• Particularities of the measurement of sustainable luxury management according to the sector, products and services.
  
• Commonly accepted single metrics to measure sustainability issues: global reporting initiative, etc.  Creating value for stakeholders and shareholders of luxury companies.
  
• Measuring sustainable management among the value chain of luxury companies.
  
• Measuring ESG criteria in the luxury industry.
  
• The challenges of measuring sustainability: variables, methodologies and interpretations.
  

Book Editors:

Dr. Celia Rangel-Pérez. Complutense University of Madrid, Avda.Complutense, s/n. 28040, Madrid-Spain. 0034 91 394 2220. cerangel@ucm.es  

Dr. Belén López Vázquez. ESIC University, Avda. Valdenigriales, s/n 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón Madrid, Spain. 0034 91 4524100. belen.lopez@esic.university 

Manuel Fernández Menéndez. Valdenigriales, s/n 2822 ESIC University, Avda. 3 Pozuelo de Alarcón Madrid Spain. 0034 91 4524100. manuel.fernandezmenendez@esic.university

Important Dates:

• Abstract submission: 14th June 2024
  
• Notification of abstract acceptance: 30th June 2024
  
• Full chapter submission: 15th October 2024
  

Notification the first chapter review: 30th November 2024 Revised chapter submission: 15 January 2025 Notification of second chapter review: 1st March 2025 Final submission of full chapter: 1st April 2025 Submission to publisher: 20th June 2025

How to Submit Abstract/Book Chapter and Queries:

Ensure the complete information of authors and co- authors and send an abstract by the scheduled deadline (14th June 2024) following this link: https://forms.office.com/e/ELs74JnRyV?origin=lprLink

For any query, please, send an email to the editors via these email addresses:

• cerangel@ucm.es
  
• belen.lopez@esic.university
  
• manuel.fernandezmenendez@esic.university
  

February 5-7, 2025

CERN, Switzerland

Deadline: July 31, 2024

The 2025 ECREA Communication History Workshop will be hosted by CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire / European Council for Nuclear Research), where the World Wide Web took its first steps between the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s. 

This special location inspired us to choose the theme of communication networks from long-term and historical perspectives as the key topic of the workshop. “Network” is one of digital literacy’s most symbolic and obsessively repeated keywords and metaphors. However, communication networks are not exclusively digital. From telegraphy to telephony and wireless communication in the 19th century, from radio and TV networks in the 20th, the concept of network has been used even before the Internet and, specifically, the Web. Communication networks seem to transform the sense of speed, space, and place, creating new connections and erasing others. Networks enable the exchange of communication or limit it; new networks are launched, and old ones are abandoned or have to be maintained.

Interrogating communication and networks from a diachronic perspective can be approached from numerous angles: networked communication and its infrastructures, communication through networks, and within networks, networks of communication, and communication on networks, to name but a few. This inquiry should encompass discourses, imaginaries, modalities, infrastructures, governance, and many other dimensions. Three main historical perspectives on communication networks are suggested:

1. Communication and networks before the digital age:

    Potential topics for exploration include, but are not limited to letters, press, telegraph and telephone networks, radio, and TV networks, but also other forms of communication networks, through for example learned societies or rumor. The legacy of these models, their physical or symbolic persistence, their stakeholders, and their structure are topics of interest as well as issues of regulation and governance.

2. Imaginaries, representations, and narratives related to networks:

    This may include cultural imaginaries and narratives surrounding networks in a long-term perspective, their representations in media, the controversies that may have arisen through time, utopia, and mythologies related to networks and networked societies. A reflection on the word per se, its emergence and eventual disappearance, and its metaphorical history is also welcomed.

3. Digital communication networks: from socio-technical origins to platformization:

    Genesis and evolution of digital networks, communication dynamics and changes through digital networks, online communities and their modalities of communication, and past discourses and approaches surrounding the development of networked communication are only a few topics that may be diachronically addressed. The history of social network sites, even the disappeared ones or the failed European attempt to create alternatives to US platforms, can be considered. The digital dimension of networks should always be considered from a historical perspective, in line with the focus of the section. 

Other transversal topics such as the role of networks in shaping communication and community, their impact on societies, or network analysis for studying the history of communication may be proposed. The study of networks in communication and media studies is also welcome: media studies, for example, have often advanced theories about small or large networks, their social role, the power of media in creating or breaking social networks, the strong or weak ties created by networks, etc.

We invite scholars from various disciplines to freely submit abstracts for papers addressing these themes. Submissions should be in English and have a clear historical approach. Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted no later than 31 July 2024. Proposals for full panels (comprising 3 or 4 papers) are also welcome: these should include a 300-word abstract for each individual presentation and a 150-word rationale for the panel. Send abstracts to: comnet@usi.ch. Authors will be informed regarding acceptance/rejection for the conference no later than 13 September 2024. Early career scholars and graduate students are highly encouraged to submit their work (please indicate if the research submitted is part of your thesis or dissertation project).

Fees and accommodation: The conference registration fee is 150 Swiss francs/about 150 euros (100 Swiss francs/about 100 euros for Ph.D. and M.A. students), and participants are asked to cover their travel expenses. This fee includes apero at the get-together, coffee breaks, and two lunches. A special rate has been arranged for lodging near CERN: a single room with a private bathroom for 58.00 Swiss francs. Further information will be sent to all the accepted presenters.

Local organizers: James Gillies and Jens Vigen (CERN, Geneva), Deborah Barcella, Martin Fomasi, and Gabriele Balbi (USI Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano).

For the section management team: Christian Schwarzenegger (University of Bremen), Valérie Schafer (C2DH, University of Luxembourg), Marie Cronqvist (Linköping University).

Edited by: Gaëlle Ouvrein, Ana Jorge, and Hilde Van den Bulck 

Published in May 2024

Audience Interactions in Contemporary Celebrity Culture: Approaches from across Disciplines explores current understandings of celebrity-audience relationships in the context of digitalization and the ongoing celebritization of all aspects of culture and society. Focusing on the themes of celebrity and health, celebrity and identity, and celebrity and scandal, this volume presents chapters authored by experts from across the globe that deal with celebrity-audience relationships in different historical, cultural, and social settings, tackling the topics from social-psychological, critical/cultural, and persuasive perspectives. In doing so, this book highlights the broadening of disciplinary, paradigmatic, theoretical, and methodological approaches to celebrity studies research. By bringing these different approaches together in one book and drawing overall conclusions across chapters, the editors and contributors of this volume promote and facilitate cross-fertilization in ongoing efforts to grasp the fascinating complexity of celebrity-audiences relationships. Scholars of media, pop culture, and celebrity studies will find this collection particularly useful.

Contributions by: Gwen Bouvier, Mihai Coman, Paulien Decorte, Simone Driessen, Olivier Driessens, Regiane Lucas Garcêz, Qiang Geng, David C. Giles, Alexander Jenkins, Gaëlle Ouvrein, Pedro Paixão-Rocha, Samantha Tecson, Hilde Van den Bulck

About the editors: Gaëlle Ouvrein is assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the University of Brussels. Ana Jorge is associate professor of media and communications at Lusófona University. Hilde Van den Bulck is professor of communication studies at Drexel University.

Availability:

Audience Interactions in Contemporary Celebrity Culture: Approaches from across Disciplines (Lexington Books) for $105.00 • (£81.00)(Hardcover) and $45.00 • (£35.00)(Ebook). For more information, please visit: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666922448/Audience-Interactions-in-Contemporary-Celebrity-Culture-Approaches-from-across-Disciplines 

September 16 - 20, 2024

University of Bonn, Germany

Deadline: June 30, 2024

Summer School

In times of datafication and the increasing integration of artificial intelligence applications into many areas of society, the debates about human self-determination and technological autonomy can be seen as symptoms of a profound reconfiguration of the relationships between technology, culture, and society. Together we want to explore key issues related to these themes and their consequences for, among others, individuals, institutions, and democracy.

In the course of the ongoing rise of artificial intelligence, digital society unfolds diverse potentials for transforming the relationship between humans and technology. Social robots like Paro, generative language programs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT, and interactive voice assistant systems (Alexa, Siri) simulate authentic interpersonal interactions, mimic cognitive processes of emotion recognition, present themselves in humanoid forms, and generate evaluative speech and text communication. With the continuously expanding functional spectrum of artificial intelligence, new scenarios are being explored, and algorithmic degrees of freedom beyond human control, surveillance, and intervention are activated and normalized in many areas of society.

The enhanced capabilities of new “social machines” pose serious ethical and political challenges for democracies. Machines are no longer perceived solely within communication processes as media for storing, visualizing, and distributing information, but are conceptualized, utilized, and researched as communication partners. In particular, we need to account for the increasing autonomy of technical artifacts such as robots, voice assistance systems, drones, or so-called autonomous vehicles. What semantics surround their usage? Which are the most crucial and far-reaching implications that different types of autonomous systems have for defense, surveillance, work and care situations as well as for electoral mobilization and political decision making within democratic societies? Are critical methodologies and research perspectives such as “responsible AI” or “platformization”, sufficient to capture the effects of “social machines” on democratic life?

In general, the summer school explores the development of human self-understanding under contemporary technological conditions, the relationship between states and private actors, and specific scenarios of human-technology interaction in medicine, music, art, and politics that confront us with a complicated landscape of risks and constantly evolving challenges for regulation but also with an underexplored variety of chances for creating a better future and enhancing the resilience and vitality of democracies.

Autonomy and Autonomous Systems Workgroup

Cooperative Summer School

The Universities of Bonn and the Technical University of Aachen (RWTH) in collaboration with distinguished professionals, international scholars, and researchers from Europe and the United States, invite you to participate in an in-depth Summer School on “Artificial Intelligence, Social Machines and the Future of Democracy”. This 5-day program is organized to provide individuals and organizations with the knowledge, skills, and practical understanding necessary to address the intricate issues surrounding AI and the future of human-machine relations and democratic governance structures.

This Summer School intends to bring together a variety of disciplines, such as

• philosophy

• media studies

• political science/international relations

• information science

• science and technology studies

• technology and innovation management

• robotics

• psychology

One afternoon will be dedicated to a practical workshop at University of Bonn’s ‘Human Robot Lab’ to offer a hands-on perspective on robot research.

The Summer School is open for a total of 30 PhD, MA, M.Sc candidates with different disciplinary backgrounds. Participants are offered (1) extensive training in discussing current research problems following keynote presentations and in small-group workshops, (2) the opportunity to network with other students and leading scholars, and (3) an inspiring environment to present and discuss their own research work.

Keynote Speakers:

Christian Bauckhage, PhD, Professor of Computer Science (Pattern Recognition), Lead Scientist for Machine Learning at Fraunhofer IAIS, co-director of The Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, University of Bonn (Germany).

André Cramer (DT/German Telekom), Innovation Strategy, Strategic Communications and Tech Ethics Advocacy, member of the AI competence Team of the German Telekom.

Autumn Edwards, PhD, Professor, School of Communication; Editor-in-Chief of the Human- Machine Communication Journal, Western Michigan University (USA). Co-editor of the «DeGruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture» (to appear 2024)

Chad Edwards, PhD, Professor of Communication, Co-Director of the Communication and Social Robotics Labs; Associate Editor of the Human-Machine Communication Journal, Western Michigan University, USA

Gabriele Gramelsberger, PhD, Professor for Theory of Science and Technology. Co-Head of the Human Technology Center at RWTH Aachen, Director of the Kate Hamburger Kolleg "Cultures of Research", RWTH Aachen (Germany).

Application:

To apply, MA and PhD students are asked to submit an abstract of 300 words detailing their own research and a short CV. Selection of participants based on following criteria: thematic fit, originality, interdisciplinary approach. Accepted abstracts will be presented in a high- density session including a short presentation and a poster. Please submit your application via email (see below) until June 30th, 2024.

Program

The Summer School will include daily keynote lectures, and practical and theoretical workshops on related topics. Further details will be published soon.

Dates

• Application Deadline: June 30th, 2024
  
• Acceptance Notification: July 15th, 2024
  
• Summer School: September 16th - 20th, 2024
  

Contact address for abstracts:

Anna Maria Böhmer (anna.boehmer@uni-bonn.de)

University of Bonn, Lennéstraße 6, 53113 Bonn/Germany

Fees

Participation at the Summer School will be free. Costs for travel and accommodation will not be covered.

Organizing Team:

• University of Bonn
  
• Secretary: Dagmar Ogon (ogon@uni-bonn.de)
  
• Prof. Dr. Caja Thimm (thimm@uni-bonn.de)
  
• Prof. Dr. Maximilian Mayer (maximilian.mayer@uni-bonn.de)
  

More information : https://autonomy-research-group.org/en/index-en.html

Communication & Society (2025 Special Issue)

Deadline: October 30, 2024

Guest Editors:

• Josef Trappel, University of Salzburg, Austria
  
• Tales Tomaz, University of Salzburg, Austria Gillian Doyle, University de Glasgow, Scotland
  
• Mercedes Medina, University of Navarra, Spain
  

Recent transformations in media ownership and market concentration have had a considerable impact on the diversity and quality of news and information accessible to the public. After many years of journalism experience, producing and disseminating news continues to be a highly challenging, but necessary endeavor (Ferrucci and Nelson, 2019; Neff et al., 2022; Picard, 2010). In the latest decades, two categories of new entrants are playing a decisive role in this scenario: small-scale businesses characterized by adaptable frameworks and cost-efficient operations (Medina, Breiner & Sánchez-Tabernero, 2023) and technology titans such as Google, Meta, X, and TikTok (Voci et al., 2019; Trappel, 2024). The stability of the information system is jeopardized by the financial instability of traditional media conglomerates or the infiltration of technological platforms with substantial market reach but minimal regard for journalistic standards (Flew et al., 2024; Hendrickx, Smets, & Ballon, 2021).The current discourse centers on expanding the scope of corporations' operations to guarantee income streams that support journalistic endeavors (Vara-Miguel et al., 2023) or resort to public funding to preserve a struggling market (Sjøvaag & Krumsvik, 2018).

In the present call for papers, we invite authors to contribute empirical and theoretical research on how ownership can influence the continuity of news media and its essential role in democracy.

This special issue aims to bring together interdisciplinary research that sheds light on the following topics (not limited to):

● In the digital age, who owns media matters.

● Ownership and strategic management of media companies as sources of competitive advantage.

● Financial sustainability of media companies: solutions to overcoming information market failures.

● Exploring how private and public ownership influences the content of media outlets.

 ● Market concentration and pluralism in the digital era.

● Transparency in media ownership: implications and case studies.

● Editorial independence and media ownership.

● Relationships between media ownership, politics and democracy.

● Influence of media ownership on audience trust.

● Impact of changes in media ownership and ownership on content policies

and strategies.

● The transformation of media companies through technology.

Paper submission deadline: before October 30, 2024.

Articles should be submitted through the OJS before October 30, 2024 for the peer-review process. Authors should indicate in the "author comments" section that this article is for this monograph.

The proposed articles must comply with the journal's guidelines which can be found on the following link: https://www.unav.edu/publicaciones/revistas/index.php/communication-and- society/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Publication: April 2025.

This special issue is part of the project Resilient Media for Democracy (ReMeD) the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101094742.

Call can be found here: https://www.unav.edu/documents/29853/0/CYS_CFP_2025.pdf/3d32359e-4c35-bda9-8cca-e4ecfc7476b2?t=1716894864639 

Edited by: Irina Zakharova (Leibniz University Hannover, Germany) & Juliane Jarke (University of Graz, Austria)

A new Special Issue on “Care-ful Data Studies: or, what do we see, when we look at datafied societies through the lens of care?” edited by Irina Zakharova and Juliane Jarke has been published in Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 27(4): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2316758

The issue and its nine contributions apply feminist care ethics to the study of datafied societies. The contributions explore socio-digital care arrangements, practices of data work and care, situated modes of knowledge production, politics of vulnerability, and build communities of care in our datafied world.

Medijske studije/Media studies (special issue)

Deadline: June 20, 2024

Medijske studije / Media studies journal announces call for papers for the special issue: New European Media and Platform Policy: Implications for the Political Economy of News

Guest editors:

Tales Tomaz (University of Salzburg), Josef Trappel (University of Salzburg), Mercedes Medina (University of Navarra)

Important dates:

• Extended abstract submission deadline (800-1000 words, excluding references): 20 June 2024
  
• Notification of abstract acceptance: 15 August 2024
  
• Full paper submission deadline: 15 December 2024
  
• Special issue publication date: June 2025

Different economic arrangements of media and technology lead to different outcomes. Publicly funded media with independent governance structures usually provide more accurate and public-oriented coverage, upholding the rights of vulnerable groups (Benson, 2018; Cushion, 2017). Even distinct ownership and governance forms of private media matter: publicly traded companies are more aligned with general capitalist demands than family-owned outlets, or ad-based outlets are more sensitive to corporate interests than subscription-based ones (Dunaway, 2008; Soloski, 2019).

Thinking about these conditions is ever more important as the political economy of news has significantly changed in the recent decades. News has become digital (Newman et al., 2023), platformised (Poell et al., 2023) and produced and distributed by a variety of actors beyond media companies, ranging from big tech platforms to small alternative content producers (Mancini, 2020). In addition, the advertising-based business model of news production does not seem to be sustainable for the demands of democratic societies facing (geo)political, economic, societal and ecological crises, while the pressure on publicly funded media only increases (Sjøvaag & Ohlsson, 2019).

Far from the libertarian fantasy that an economy can be created outside the control or oversight of governments, political bodies are active in shaping the conditions under which all stakeholders operate. This is also true for media and technology (Griffin, 2023). Accordingly, the European Union has followed these developments and created a comprehensive regulatory package to influence the political economy of media and platforms. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the AI Act and the Media Freedom Act (EMFA), among others, have laid down new baselines for the operation of media and digital platforms. To what extent are these changes having a real impact on the political economy of news production, distribution and consumption? Should we expect changes in EU countries in terms of ownership concentration, funding of public interest content or the balance between profit and non-profit news production? Does the new regulatory framework favour the promotion of public interest content? Should we expect EU influence in middle powers, which are often “policy followers”, shaping their regulation and political economy of news as well?

On top of those questions, the governance toolbox is more diverse than the one reflected in this EU regulatory framework. There are options on the table such as stronger antitrust enforcement against platforms (as attempted by the FTC in the US), increasing public subsidies to news media (the Nordic experience) or requiring platforms to fund news media (as represented by the Australian Media Bargaining Code). There is also the proposal to create a fully-fledged public service internet (D’Arma et al., 2021). Would such measures in Europe achieve better results than the current framework? What impact should we expect from different instruments? How to design these alternatives, given the current framework, and how to build the political will to bring them about?

This special issue welcomes proposals on the topics above and related discussions. Submissions can be theoretical, methodological or empirical, case studies or comparative work. Innovative use of methods is encouraged. We expect extended abstracts of 800 to 1.000 words, excluding references, by 20 June 2024.

Abstracts should be sent to tales.tomaz@plus.ac.at, josef.trappel@plus.ac.at, mmedina@unav.es and ms@fpzg.hr.

Manuscripts should be submitted directly through the Media Studies OJS system. The manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review, following the standard procedure of the journal. When submitting the manuscript, please make a note that submission is for the special issue New European Media and Platform Policy: Implications for the Political Economy of News.

Manuscripts should be up to 8.000 words, including footnotes and references. Detailed instructions for authors can be found here.

For more information about the special issue, please contact: tales.tomaz@plus.ac.at, josef.trappel@plus.ac.at, mmedina@unav.es or grbesa@fpzg.hr.

Articles published in the Media Studies journal are indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, ProQuest - Social Science Database and Social Science Premium Collection, ERIH PLUS, Hrčak – The Portal of Croatian Scientific Journals and DOAJ – the Directory of Open Access Journals.

For more information about the journal, visit Media Studies.

References

Benson, R. (2018). Rethinking the sociology of media ownership. In L. Grindstaff, M.-C. M. Lo, & J. R. Hall (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology (pp. 387–396). Routledge.

Cushion, S. (2017). The democratic value of news: Why public service media matter. Bloomsbury Publishing.

D’Arma, A., Fuchs, C., Horowitz, M. A., & Unterberger, K. (2021). The future of public service media and the internet. In C. Fuchs & K. Unterberger (Eds.), The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto (pp. 113–127). University of Westminster Press. https://doi.org/10.16997/book60

Dunaway, J. (2008). Markets, ownership, and the quality of campaign news coverage. The Journal of Politics, 70(4), 1193–1202. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381608081140

Griffin, R. (2023). Public and private power in social media governance: Multistakeholderism, the rule of law and democratic accountability. Transnational Legal Theory, 14(1), 46–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/20414005.2023.2203538

Mancini, P. (2020). Comparing media systems and the digital age. International Journal of Communication, 14, 5761–5774.

Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Eddy, K., Robertson, C. T., & Nielsen, R. K. (2023). Digital News Report 2023. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023

Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2023). Spaces of negotiation: Analyzing platform power in the news industry. Digital Journalism, 11(8), 1391–1409. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2022.2103011

Sjøvaag, H., & Ohlsson, J. (2019). Media ownership and journalism. In H. Sjøvaag & J. Ohlsson, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.839

Soloski, J. (2019). The murky ownership of the journalistic enterprise. Journalism, 20(1), 159–162. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918809250

November 29, 2024

Prague, Czech Republic

Deadline: June 2, 2024

It is our pleasure to open the call for papers and presentations for the 2024 Prague Media Point Conference, which will take place on November 29, in Prague, Czech Republic.

Artificial intelligence has come with a power to dramatically shaken our economic, labour, and information systems. For the media sphere, it means yet another drastic turn on its bumpy ride towards any prospect of renewed stability. But unlike many other such turns, AI may provide professionals with a reactive (and creative) potential on a more egalitarian and therefore democratic basis. With the hindsight of coming on to two years of widely accessible AI tools, join Prague Media Point in assessing the impact on and responses of the media sphere and journalism to the two-vowel phenomenon. Be that on the job market, school curricula, newsroom policies, media regulation, journalistic solidarity, and beyond.

We seek submissions of abstracts, presentations or session proposals that focus on research, projects, and practices in the media that appear to be working and generating impact in the response to AI-induced media volatility (alternatively, which clearly demonstrate a potential to do so). We stress the importance of this AI-volatility link and the example-based approach for the submissions. The topical areas should be related to the following:

·         Reforming media/journalism education and media literacy for the new paradigm

·         Responses to increasingly precarious and volatile work conditions of journalists

·         Freelancing as the new norm

·         Building cross-journalism solidarity and new forms of collaboration

·         Internal changes at newsrooms – policies, workers, leadership, strategies

·         AI and new business models

·         Success of hitherto platform and media regulation and what to improve

·         Protecting journalism in adversity – standards, volatility, SLAAPs, pluralism, trust

·         Harnessing AI for investigative and data journalism

·         AI and English-language dominance vs. small-language media – marginalization or expansion?

·         Election super-year and beyond: what’s new on the disinfo scene, what’s missing in our responses

Please submit max 500-word abstracts or proposals + a short bio by June 2, 2024 to: precek@keynote.cz.

Please use the templates on our webpage, where you can also find more information on registration, deadlines, and fees: https://www.praguemediapoint.com/call-for-abstracts

Contact: Marek Přeček, Project Coordinator, precek@keynote.cz

May 21, 2024

Online

IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Seminar on "News Agencies in Transition: An Exploration of Their Status Quo, Challenges, and Future Prospects convened by Jasmin Surm 

Join the webinar on “News Agencies in Transition” on 21 May 2024 at 08:00 UTC. 

This webinar offers an exceptional opportunity to foster enriching scholarly dialogue on the dynamic field of news agencies. Participants will have the chance to network and engage in meaningful exchanges of ideas. 

Our presenters will address a range of critical topics, including: 

- Jasmin Surm: "News Agencies in Transition: An Exploration of Their Current State, Challenges, and Future Prospects” 

- Sina Thäsler-Kordonouri: "Exploring AI Integration in UK Newsrooms: An Investigation into the Use and Evaluation of News Agency Automated Journalism” 

- Barbara Ravbar: "Refugee Crisis through Media Lenses: Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Xenophobia in Reporting of European News Agencies on the Ukrainian and Syrian Refugee Crisis” 

Your participation is highly anticipated! 

To receive an invitation, please contact Mazlum Kemal Dagdelen at <mazlum@iamcr.org>.