ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Online Seminar Series – Every Wednesday, 5 pm CET

Zoom

After our winter break, we’re excited to announce the fifth meeting of our seminar series, “Entangled Histories: Borders and Cultural Encounters from the Medieval to the Contemporary Era”. This series, promoted by the Faculty of Communication and the Master’s Programme in Media and Cultural Studies at Üsküdar University, brings together academics, students, and curious minds to explore how borders — political, cultural, social, epistemic, disciplinary, and symbolic — shape our world, our communication, and our histories.

When: Every Wednesday at 5 pm (Central European Time)

Where: Online via Zoom

Zoom link for all meetings: https://tinyurl.com/aumv88jz

We’re back after the holidays and will continue weekly until 1 July! (Browse our programme at https://sites.google.com/view/entangledhistories/programme?authuser=0 )

Next Seminar: January 14, 2026

Speaker: Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández (University of Granada)

Title: Crossing Epistemological Borders: New Ways of Studying Alliteration in Old English Verse

About the talk: How can we study ancient poetry in new ways? In this seminar, Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández will show how his project bridges disciplinary and methodological borders by combining traditional philological analysis with digital, data-driven approaches. His new database covers over 40,000 lines of Old English verse, allowing researchers to explore patterns of alliteration and metre with both classic and modern tools. By crossing boundaries between close reading and statistical methods, this work opens up fresh perspectives on how we understand early medieval English poetry—and on how different disciplines can work together.

About the speaker

Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández is Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the University of Granada, where he leads a major research project on Continental Sources of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, funded by the Spanish State Research Agency. He specialises in medieval English language and literature, especially Old English poetry. He has published widely, including as co-editor of Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016) and contributor to The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014). His research has been recognised with several awards, including the Extraordinary Doctorate Award (2013–2014) and the “Excellence in Knowledge” Research Award of Grupo Caja Rural (2017).

Join us for lively discussions and new insights into how borders, of all kinds, shape our lives, our cultures, and our research!

Deadline: March 6, 2026

Call for Chapters

Editors: Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u & Lara Martin Lengel

Communication for development has evolved over the last seventy to eighty years with impactful contributions from leading scholars. The impact of their work has reverberated beyond academic circles, shaping policy and practice especially in the global south.

These groundbreaking contributions include the modernization theories of the 1950s and 1960s led by Daniel Lerner, Wilbur Schramm and Everett Rogers whose insights on the stages of modernization, the contribution of mass media to national development, and the diffusion of innovation became guiding principles for engaging with publics for decades.

The work of dependency and other critical theorists, especially in the 1970s, provided an alternative view in communication for development and by extension the international development trajectory. Thinkers like Andre Gunder Frank, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Samir Amin, Walter Rodney, Luis Ramiro Beltrán and Paulo Freire recalibrated the debates by bringing to the fore issues of inequality, internal failure dynamics and the need for communication to address power imbalances.

The 1980s and 1990s introduced a seismic shift in the communication for development discourse by focusing on participatory approaches to communication. The works of Paulo Freire, Paolo Mefalopulos, Jan Servaes, Thomas Tufte, Alfonso Gumucio Dagron,  and Srinivas Melkote among others reshaped the debate particularly on the need for community engagement and sustainable social change.

The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in the 2000s and the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 as well as the technological revolutions spurred by the internet and the sudden emergence of COVID-19 that rebooted how people communicated had profound impact on communication for development, leading to calls on the United Nations to reconsider the 17 SDGs by adding SDG18—Communications for All, to ensure that the role of communication does not take a back seat in the development process.

While this is going on, the phenomenon of artificial intelligence has emerged as a transformative force. Thisrevolutionary phenomenon is altering how development is implemented at individual, country and continental levels. Artificial intelligence is likely to define the development path in the 21st century with profound impact on all sectors, be it health, education, infrastructure, poverty alleviation, food security, energy access, and climate action. Artificial intelligence presents new promises, yet also presents challenges that may exacerbate inequality. The algorithmic governance of information flows, the concentration of AI capabilities in the global north, and the potential exclusion of marginalized voices from AI-mediated development discourse demand urgent scholarly attention.

This reality calls for rethinking of how communication for development will be implemented in the coming decades. The aim of this book, currently under consideration by the renowned publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, is to examinecommunications for development in light of the rise of artificial intelligence. It aims to revisit previous theories, models and approaches to communications for development and assess their potency or otherwise in the artificial intelligence century. Communication for Development 2.0 intends to be a major scholarly collection and reference work that will shape the communication for development discourse in the AI era. We seek contributions from established and emerging scholars to critically review and propose new approaches to communications for development in light of artificial intelligence and its implications for development practice.

Potential chapter topics comprise but are not limited to the following:

• Diffusion, innovation and artificial intelligence
  
• Participatory communication and artificial intelligence
  
• Communication for development, artificial intelligence and inequality
  
• Communicating national development in the age of artificial intelligence
  
• Development communication and artificial intelligence in the global south
  
• Development communication and artificial intelligence in the global north
  
• Communicating social change in the era of artificial intelligence
  
• Data colonialism, artificial intelligence and communications for development
  
• Artificial intelligence infrastructure and communication for development
  
• Communication for development, language and artificial intelligence
  
• Digital inequality, artificial intelligence and development communication
  
• AI divide and digital dependency
  
• Communicating Sustainable Development Goals in the AI era
  
• AI ethics and communication for development
  
• Algorithmic governance and development communication
  
• AI literacy and capacity building in development contexts
  
• Case studies of AI applications in development communication practice
  

Submission Requirements

Prospective authors should send their abstract submissions to Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u (mjyushau@gmail.com) by 6th March 2026. Abstracts should comprise the following:

• 250 words abstract
  
• Institutional affiliation
  
• Corresponding email address
  
• 200 words author bio
  

All submissions should be in Word document format. Authors whose abstracts have been accepted will be notified by 3rd April 2026. Final chapters should be between 5,000- and 6,000-words and will be due by 12thJune 2026. Co-authored chapters will be considered. Full papers will undergo a rigorous peer review process. Submitted work must be original and not under consideration elsewhere.

October 14-17, 2026

Mexico City, Mexico

Deadline: March 1, 2026

Regeneration(s) opens us up to exploring deeper processes of technological, cultural, political, artistic, and infrastructural renewal. Online cultures are born, mature, decay, and are reborn in slightly different forms; generations of internet researchers train and mentor each other; new ideas and approaches emerge. Regeneration here is not simply understood as technological repair or sustainability, but as a relational and ethical process grounded in ongoing responsibilities to land, peoples, data, and communities; Regeneration is cyclical and inseparable from complex histories of resistance as a counterweight to the logics of optimization and maximization that characterize the tech industry.

Generation and generativity as productive capacities are also contested processes and capacities as AI companies try to frame generativity as automation, reproduction, and passivity at scale. The challenge then is to generate technical, political, and communal imagination and maps that allow us to articulate embodied, alternative, and active generative futures around collective technological use. This also offers an opportunity to think seriously about how our scholarly networks themselves are generated, regenerated, and maintained.

This year’s conference is co-hosted by scholars and institutions in both Mexico City/CDMX, MX, and Los Angeles, CA, two cities with complex and entangled histories. Although they are often thought of as distinct worlds - one, the historic capital of México, and the other, a paradigmatic U.S. metropolis molded by migration, sprawl, and imagination. Both historically and now, they are inextricably tied; from colonial and imperial trade routes to cross-border familial legacies, to twentieth century labor markets and migration. Turning colonial historical narratives on their heads, Chicano activists of the 1960s and 70s reminded the world with an insistent rallying cry, “the border crossed us.”

In recent years, both have seen unprecedented investment from tech companies expanding infrastructure and the transformation of core industries and craft by the increasing encroachment of AI, even as both cities struggle with severe drought and other environmental and economic consequences hastened by legacies of resource extraction. Mexico City/CDMX has also experienced challenges posed by a significant influx of so-called “digital nomads,” particularly from the North. Worsening gentrification and an ever-growing population of non-Spanish speakers have sparked a backlash, pushing back against displacement and economic stratification. Los Angeles, too, has been subject to the crisis of housing affordability and gentrification, a perennial issue exacerbated by the tech hubs like Silicon Beach. It is against these backdrops and complex, intertwined but distinct histories and cultures that we invite the AoIR global community of internet scholars to participate in this conference.

Call for Participation

AoIR 2026 solicits work exploring the theme of regeneration(s) in all of its manifold usages.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Regenerative technologies: Regeneration and Indigenous feminist theories of relationality and care; Technologies that add to rather than extract, lab cultures, autonomous infrastructure.
  
• Platform genealogies: The evolution and reconfiguration of social media, online communities, and digital economies.
  
• Generative media and AI: Challenging and deepening engagement with the realities and rhetorics of “generativity.”
  
• Activism and continuity: Intergenerational organizing and learning in digital social movements, creation and care.
  
• Reflection: Legacies of scholarship, reflecting on generations of AoIR and Internet Studies scholarship, mentorship, and intergenerational collaboration.
  
• Multispecies ethics: Biological, ecological, digital systems.
  
• Identity and community: Engagements with the theme through dimensions of identity, including race, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, language, citizenship, and culture.
  
• Digital age and life course: Generational identities online; intergenerational communication and conflict; youth, aging, and digital
  
• inclusion.
  
• Technological generations: Successive waves of internet platforms, infrastructures, and protocols; how technologies inherit, disrupt, or forget previous generations.
  
• Cultural memory and legacy: Internet nostalgia, digital preservation, and the archiving of online histories.
  
• Digital caretaking: Skill shares and makerspaces, familial tech maintenance, community pedagogy.
  
• Technoptimism/pessimism: Imaginaries of regeneration, resilience, and refusal.
  

We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the internet beyond the conference theme.

The committee extends a special invitation to students, researchers, and practitioners who have previously not participated in an AoIR event to submit proposals, and to scholars from the Global South, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color globally, LGBTQIA+ peoples, scholars living with disabilities, and people outside or adjacent to the academy. With this in mind, AoIR renews its commitment to travel scholarships, as well as other initiatives, to support conference participants. We will also follow the lead of last year’s committee and continue to experiment with forms of multi/bilingualism to further our mission of diversity and inclusivity within internet research. The conference committee will accept applications, in English,  for participation in Spanish at the conference.

Please make these selections within ConfTool.

This year’s conference will offer opportunities for hybrid participation for keynote and plenary viewing only in order to focus on multilingual access at the conference itself.

Location and Venue

We could not be more delighted to be coming together in Mexico City/CDMX, an ideal host city and venue for our community of researchers. The conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency in the Polanco neighborhood. A block of rooms has been reserved at a conference rate for participants. The reservations for the Hyatt block will be made available at a later date; please watch the AoIR Listserv for announcements. The Hyatt has been newly renovated and offers accessible rooms, air conditioning, a gym, onsite dining, an indoor pool, and spectacular views of Chapultepec Park. Those wishing to make alternative lodging should feel free to do so at their leisure. Mexico City/CDMX has a great network of public transportation and affordable private transport options (e.g., taxis).

Polanco is known for its historical architecture, public green spaces, and several of the city’s most visited museums and collections, including the Soumaya and Jumex Museums, in addition to the National Museum of Anthropology. The neighborhood is walkable and proximate to public transportation to connect to the rest of the city. Mexico City/CDMX is one of the great culinary and cultural capitals while also standing as a focal point for contemporary research and activism around the digital, including labor organizing among app-based and gig-economy workers, public campaigns over the environmental and social impacts of data centers, and national debates over data protection, platform governance, and digital sovereignty.

Hosts

The 2026 Conference Host Committee is an international, cross-border collective made up of scholars and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pomona College, and the Platform Observatory.

To Apply

We will once again use the ConfTool submissions management software system to manage the CFP process. To submit, please use this link.

Please note: all applicants will need to recreate a ConfTool account for the 2026 instance, even if you have submitted in the past.

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For more information on how to submission guidelines, please visit our website: http://aoir.org/aoir2026.

Sincerely,

AoIR2026 Program Chair

AoIR2026: Regenerations, http://aoir.org/aoir2026

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698)

Deadline for manuscript submissions: September 30, 2026

Special Issue Editors:

 Dr. Daniel Cardoso

• Guest editor
• e-mail, website
• CICANT, Lusophone University, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal
  
• Interests: consensual non-monogamies; kink/BDSM; social movements; genders and sexualities; contemporary intimacies
• Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

 Dr. Sara De Vuyst

• Guest Editor
• e-mail, Website 
• Department of Literature and Arts, Maastricht University, 6211 Maastricht, The Netherlands
• Interests: feminist and queer media studies; ageing studies; digital platforms and platformisation; (queer) ageing in media and art; gender issues in media; journalism and technology

 Dr. Inês Amaral

• Guest Editor 
  
• e-mail, Website 
  
• Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, 3000-370 Coimbra, Portugal
  
• Interests: participation and social media; feminist media studies; gender and media; media and digital literacy; audiences; disinformation
• Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Contemporary societies are deeply mediatized, a process that encompasses even those who do not, or cannot, access media technologies—this is particularly evident when considering how digital media, with its supposed ability to transcode any other form of representation or communication, operates. While some theorists from the late 20th century saw networked digital media as a way to overcome, or trouble, the norms often associated with the gendering of bodies, or viewed technology as a means of creating a globalized experience of commonality and empathy, recent years have provided ample evidence to the contrary. Neofascist movements, purported “men’s rights activists”, anti-trans mobilizations, right-wing populism, reinforced border controls, hyperbolic discourses about generative language and image models, and much more are all phenomena partly fueled by the technical and social affordances of widespread digital media; that is, digital media are co-constitutive of these dynamics, not merely modes of expressing or representing them. Under platform capitalism, these processes are further entangled with profit-driven logics of extraction and engagement, as platforms commodify attention, amplify antagonism, and algorithmically shape new contours by which oppression and discrimination are enacted.

Building on this dynamic, tech fascism arises through aesthetic and emotional cues that subtly reinforce gender hierarchies. Digital platforms create spaces where feelings of intimacy, nostalgia, and hyper-feminine visual styles reframe traditional gender norms as sources of comfort and stability, while hyper-masculine styles sell the promise of strength and dominion (over one’s own body, first and foremost). What seems like harmless lifestyle imagery serves as a data-driven mechanism that upholds patriarchal expectations, optimized for visibility and engagement. Thus, gendered performances are not just personal expressions, they are algorithmically curated artefacts that replicate power relations while appearing individualized, apolitical, and visually appealing.

In all these contexts, though sometimes in less obvious ways, gender/sex and sexualities have been instrumental in shaping the surrounding political dynamics. Right-wing populists decry ‘the gay agenda’; legislators define ex cathedra, which sexes are biologically ‘real’ or not; social media platforms and generative systems collect, analyze and (re)produce certain perspectives or experiences of genders and sexualities; and queer and Global South activists push back against epistemicide, articulate strategies of survival, and continue to reinvent non-hegemonic projects of contemporary intimacies.

In Europe, in particular, celebrations of LGB(TQ+) rights sit side by side with unscientific probing and testing of professional athletes, high-tech surveillance systems intended to keep (some) migrants out, reports of ‘medical anal inspections’ for refugees seeking asylum from sexual orientation-related persecution, and profits of millions in sales of weaponry to genocidal nations. Again, we find here the promise of data (understood as objectivity and truth)—made possible at scale by digitalization—as a central political strategy and praxis.

As digital infrastructures increasingly mediate the most intimate dimensions of life—touch, desire, care, and identity—our bodies become entangled with the logics of data extraction, surveillance, and algorithmic governance. Such processes are not governed by the logics of the technologies alone, but also (or perhaps mostly) by the political economies underpinning them, and their profit-maximizing imperatives. As economic trends start to emerge in relation to those technologies, so do questions about whether we find ourselves in a state of (post-industrial) capitalism, in post-capitalism, or in technofeudalism.

This Special Issue invites contributions that examine how intimacies, bodies, and desires are shaped, commodified, and disciplined by technological systems and the global political economy that sustains them. This includes contributions that do not foreclose or minimize the role that individualized agency or feelings thereof play in the uptake and deployment of such disciplinary systems, and how homo oeconomicus might be seen as both a consequence and a cause of the current sociopolitical and technical changes. We seek critical work that interrogates how affect, embodiment, and relationality are reconfigured in an age of platforms, biometrics, and digital capital. We are particularly interested in contributions that approach these questions through intersectional frameworks, attending to how categories such as gender, race, social class, sexuality, and (dis)ability shape and are shaped by digital infrastructures.

Aim of the Special Issue and how the subject relates to the scope of the journal

This Special Issue aligns closely with the scope of Societies, which is dedicated to interdisciplinary research on contemporary social transformations, and the journal’s focus on the intersections of technology, identity, and social structures provides an ideal framework for examining how digital infrastructures mediate intimate life and sustain intersectional forms of oppression. By exploring how platform capitalism structures visibility, affect, and relationality, the Special Issue will addresses Societies’ interest in the social implications of science and technology, constructions of identity, and the dynamics of inclusion, justice, and power. By bringing together perspectives from sociology, feminist theory, transgender studies, queer studies, critical race studies, queer ecologies, intersectional theory, media studies, and critical political economy, this Special Issue contributes to the journal’s mission to illuminate emerging societal questions and foster critical, interdisciplinary dialogue on how digital systems reconfigure the most personal dimensions of social life.

Suggest themes

Contributions to this Special Issue should follow one of the three following categories of papers: 1) article, 2) conceptual paper, or 3) review. In addition to following the guidelines and thematic focus of the journal, contributions should also address the topics that are the in focus of the Special Issue.

As a suggestion for the topics that can potentially be covered (though by no means intended as an exhaustive list) please see the following:

• The technological production of gender and sexualities;
  
• Intersectionally framed appropriations and deployments of technology within the context of gender and in connection with other systems of structural power asymmetry (e.g., race, class, sexuality, disability, species, age, etc.);
  
• The political economy of the platforming of gendering, and the gendering of platforms;
  
• The role of platform logics play in academic work related to gender and sexualities;
  
• Theoretical innovation in conceptualizing gender and sexualities, and techno-facilitated cisnormativity;
  
• The struggles around the visibility, ownership, and deployment of signifiers around gender and sexualities (e.g., “gender ideology”, “queer”/”cuír”, and “identity politics”) within contemporary digital manifestations of culture;
  
• The situatedness of epistemic frameworks on gender and sexualities, and their shaping in and through platformed economics and politics;
  
• The materiality of gendered (digital) media systems as part of the Earth system;
  
• The role of non-hegemonic and counter-hegemonic epistemologies and praxeologies in challenging and maintaining gendered platform logics;
  
• The mediatic becoming-salient of certain fields (e.g., professional sports) as material and symbolic battlegrounds;
  
• Digitally manifested expressions of gender “diversity” and “empowerment” as techniques of political economy occlusion;
  
• The resurgence of ‘the real’, ‘the authentic’, or ‘the truth’ in (digital) populist and popular narratives around gender and sexualities;
  
• The deep mediatization of Global North models of gender and sexualities in the context of neocolonialism;
  
• The affordances and perils of digitalized understandings of analogue embodiments;
  
• The tensions and continuities between individualized and collectivistic forms of (digital) organizing and mobilizing within and/or against platforms;
  
• The politics of (automated and algorithmic) recognition, and their social and economic implications;
  
• The gendered politics of algorithmic fascism;
  
• The aesthetic infrastructures of digital patriarchy.
  

Dr. Daniel Cardoso

Dr. Sara De Vuyst

Dr. Inês Amaral

Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

• intersectionality
  
• deep mediatization
  
• affect
  
• embodiment
  
• platformization
  
• gender
  
• sexualities
  
• neocolonialism
  
• technofascism
  

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

• Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  
• Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  
• Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  
• External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  
• Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
  

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.

Culture Unbound (Special Issue)

Deadline: January 31, 2026

Editors: Johanna Dahlin and Hossam Sultan

In many countries, research ethics in qualitative and ethnographic research—including digital and online ethnographies—are increasingly subject to formalized governance. A growing tendency toward bureaucratization introduces standardized procedures that often reflect criteria and expectations from clinical or laboratory settings. While these frameworks aim to ensure accountability, they can clash with the relational, adaptive, and context sensitive nature of ethnographic practice. Requirements such as detailed pre-study protocols, rigid consent forms, and extensive documentation can in some cases,—such as recordings, the management of sensitive data, or consent forms requested by ethics approval authorities—pose risks to participants and lead to over-bureaucratization for researchers. In other contexts, such as participant observation in large groups, it may be practically impossible to obtain informed consent from everyone involved. These developments raise fundamental questions about how ethical review systems can accommodate the complexity and unpredictability inherent in ethnographic research, without reducing ethics to formal procedures and the ticking of boxes.

The governance of research ethics is not a neutral or purely technical matter—it shapes what kinds of knowledge can be produced, whose voices are heard, and which methods are considered legitimate. As ethical review systems become increasingly standardized and bureaucratized, there is a risk that flexible, context-sensitive approaches such as ethnography are marginalized or forced into compliance frameworks that do not fit their epistemological foundations. These developments have implications not only for researchers but also for participants, communities, and the broader public.

By critically examining these transformations, this special issue aims to advance scholarly debate on how ethical governance can protect participants and uphold integrity without undermining methodological diversity and innovation. We invite academic contributions that analyze tensions, unintended consequences, and creative responses to current systems, as well as conceptual and empirical work proposing alternative approaches that better align with the relational and processual nature of ethnographic practice. The purpose is to generate knowledge and critical perspectives that can inform future discussions and scholarly agendas for ethical governance—agendas that respect both accountability and the complexity of qualitative research.

Types of Contributions

This special issue invites contributions in the form of full papers (8000 words) or short commentaries (3000-4000 words) that reflect upon current transformations in the regulation of ethics in ethnographic research with focus tensions, emergent questions, work arounds and future agendas that they see needed to be put in place. We welcome:

• Empirical studies, including shorter vignettes, examining how ethical review systems shape research practices in different contexts.
  
• Theoretical and conceptual analyses of ethics as practice, situated ethics, and reflexivity in relation to governance.
  
• Methodological reflections on alternative consent models (oral, processual, participatory) and their recognition within formal systems.
  

Contributors can reflect upon questions such as, but not limited to, the following:

• How can ethics be understood as relational and processual rather than fixed and standardized?
  
• What risks arise when journals and institutions impose “one-size-fits-all” requirements on diverse research practices?
  
• How might digital, online and hybrid ethnographies challenge existing assumptions about consent, privacy, and data security?
  
• In what ways can critical and postcolonial perspectives inform the design of ethical review systems?
  
• What strategies can researchers and institutions adopt to balance accountability with methodological flexibility?
  

Contributions are welcome from scholars working in a variety of fields and disciplines that engage in ethnographic research. The special issue will be published in the international open-access journal Culture Unbound. All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.

Timeline:

• 31 January 2026: Deadline for Abstract submission. Please send a 500-word extended abstract to johanna.dahlin@liu.se and hossam.sultan@liu.se. Please indicate whether the intended manuscript is going to be a full article (up to 8000 words) or a short commentary (up to 4000 words).
  
• 15 February 2026: Notification of acceptance of proposal for paper.
  
• 15 August 2026: Submission of full papers
  
• 30 October 2026: Reviews in
  
• 31 December 2026: Revised manuscripts due
  
• Spring 2027: Publication in Culture Unbound
  

Submit your proposals and any queries to johanna.dahlin@liu.se and hossam.sultan@liu.se

Bremen University

Call closes on January 30, 2026, 23:59 CET

Come and work with us!

Our Fellowship Program invites international researchers to Bremen to deepen and connect their research in the transformation of media, communication, and information. We are looking for established scholars who want to enjoy the thriving interdisciplinary research environment at ZeMKI. Disciplines include media and communication studies, computer science, film studies, educational science, studies in religion, and history. Since mid-2017, ZeMKI has regularly hosted colleagues from all over the world.

What we expect:

The duration of the fellowship is one month. Applicants should demonstrate experience in their respective field of research and a strong interest in working jointly with principal investigators at ZeMKI to develop new ideas together. The main focus of the ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellowship is to pursue a joint project with at least two ZeMKI Labs (find all descriptions here: https://zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/research/labs/). The joint project can take various forms and should aim to have an impact on academic and public debates in their respective area of scholarly focus.

The following outputs are expected:

• a research paper submitted to the peer-reviewed ZeMKI Working Paper Series
  
• a public presentation in the ZeMKI Research Seminar

For a successful application it is highly recommended to inform oneself thoroughly about current activities in the ZeMKI Labs of interest and the work of principal investigators at ZeMKI.

What we offer:

• Research Resources: Fellows are welcome and encouraged to make use of and connect with ZeMKI’s research resources in the context of their collaboration with ZeMKI labs, including the research studios, IT pools/technical equipment, cooperatives, and initiatives.
  
• Access to the State and University Library Bremen: All fellows will be provided with access to the central academic library of the University of Bremen.
  
• Courses: Fellows are eligible to participate as listeners or guest lecturers in courses in the diverse media study programmes at ZeMKI. They have to individually ask for permission directly from the professor or lecturer.
  
• A stipend of 3,000 euros plus a budget for research-related expenses of up to 1,500 euros

Please fill out all fields of the application form and submit it in order to apply by January 30, 2026 (23:59 CET): https://nc.uni-bremen.de/index.php/apps/forms/s/WHTbJbx8wfPjkSEGt5JdakNo

Call website: https://zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/call-for-applications-zemki-visiting-research-fellowship-2026/

June 22-26, 2026

Gränna Campus, Jönköping University

Deadline (EXTENDED): February 7, 2026 

https://ju.se/academicwritersretreat

Writing Retreat Theme: Research Spices

Annette Hill and Joke Hermes

What kinds of savoury and sweet spices do you add to your research practice? This academic writers’ retreat takes the metaphor of spices to explore research craft.

We consider the seeds, roots, bark and fruits in our writing and analysis. And we reflect on layering of empirical and conceptual thinking, from whole to ground spices, toasted and roasted spices, and subtle and strong fragrances.

The retreat starts with a choice of spices and then we try out, write and reflect on the flavours and fragrances we want to create in our research craft. Each day we spend time in workshops, private writing time, go on walks by the lake and mountainside, and we cook together.

To find out more about registration, fees and the programme go here: https://ju.se/academicwritersretreat

July 13-15, 2026

Glasgow, UK

Deadlines: January 26/February 16/March 13

Conference format: In person

Submission Dates:

Papers (extended abstracts):

• What: 1000-1500 words
  
• Due date: January 26, 2026
  
• Notification of results: March 2
  

Panels

• What: 2000-3000 words
  
• Due date: February 16, 2026
  
• Notification of results: March 9
  

Workshops & Tutorials

• What: 1000-3000 words
  
• Due date: February 16, 2026
  
• Notification of results: March 9
  

Posters (extended abstracts)

• What: 1000-1500 words
  
• Due date: March 13, 2026
  
• Notification of results: March 27
  

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 2026 International Conference on Social Media & Society (#SMSociety)! #SMSociety will return as an in-person event at the University of Glasgow, Glasgow UK from July 13th to 15th. The 2026 conference is co-organized by the Digital Cultures and Economies Research Hub at the University of the Arts London (UAL), the University of East Anglia (UEA), and the hosts at the Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy at Glasgow University.

The conference’s three-day program will feature panels and paper presentations, workshops, tutorials, networking events, and a poster session.

In keeping with the conference’s inter- and transdisciplinary focus, we welcome both quantitative and qualitative scholarly and original submissions that crosses disciplinary boundaries and expands our understanding of current and future trends in social media research across many fields including (but not limited to): Communication, Computer Science, Critical Data Studies, Education, Journalism, Information Science, Law, Management, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, Public Administration, Science and Technology, Sociology, Urban Studies, among others.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

#SMSociety is a biennial gathering of leading social media researchers from around the world. It is the premier venue for sharing and discovering new peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research on how social media affects society. #SMSociety provides participants with opportunities to exchange ideas, present original research, learn about recent and ongoing studies, and network with peers.

TOPICS OF INTEREST (the list is not exhaustive)

• Affordances
  
• AI and LLMs
  
• Algorithms
  
• Computational, digital and data methods
  
• Creators and Influencers
  
• Cyberbullying, Trolling and Antisocial Behavior
  
• Digital Education
  
• Digital Intimacies
  
• Discourse and Public Opinion
  
• Health and Wellbeing
  
• Infrastructures, platformisation and datafication
  
• Marketing and Promotional Social Media
  
• Misinformation and Disinformation
  
• Online and Offline Communities
  
• Platform Cultures 
  
• Platform Governance and Regulation
  
• Emerging and Established Social Technologies, Apps and Platforms
  
• Politics, Policy, and Regulation
  
• Privacy, Security and Trust
  
• Social Media Cultures and Everyday Life
  
• Use and Users
  
• Vibes, memes and trends
  
• 
  

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Submission types and guidelines: You can submit an extended abstract for a paper or poster presentation, and/or propose a panel, workshop or hands-on tutorial.

How to create or log in to CMT to submit a paper or poster (extended abstract).

PUBLICATIONS:

Publication of Pre-prints and Datasets: To promote your work during and after the conference, authors of accepted papers (extended abstracts) are encouraged to share their work as a pre-print via a public repository of your choice. Preprint will be accessible via the conference online program and other channels. If you have a dataset to share, you can also upload it to one of many data repositories such as Dataverse or figshare. Authors of accepted papers will have an opportunity to provide a link to their pre-print and/or dataset for inclusion in the conference program.

Journal Publications: We hope that feedback received from other scholars during the review process and the Q&A part of your presentation will help you refine your ideas and develop your work into a full paper after the conference. Once ready, you are encouraged to submit your full paper to a journal of your choice.

All #SMSociety conference presenters will also receive an exclusive invitation to submit their work as an expanded full paper for consideration in an open access, conference thematic issue of Platforms & Society.

#SMSociety was founded by Anatoliy Gruzd and Philip Mai in 2011.

For #SMSociety 2026, the Microsoft CMT service is and will be used for managing the peer-reviewing process. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.

June 12, 2026

DeZIM, Berlin

Deadline: January 31, 2026

Organized by: Nader Hotait, Tom Runge, Elias Steinhilper (DeZIM – German Center for Integration and Migration Research)

In recent years, particularly sparked through the Black Lives Matter campaign, racism has become an increasingly prominent subject in both traditional and social media. Yet its visibility, framing, and interpretation seem to vary greatly across contexts, platforms, and political environments. While some racist incidents spark widespread media outrage and mobilization, others remain less visible or get reframed in ways that minimize or distort their significance. This workshop invites critical academic engagement with the dynamics of media salience and valence to explore not only what becomes visible in media debates, but how it is made to matter. Is racism portrayed as a serious structural issue, an individual moral failing, a contested label, or even dismissed altogether?

We seek contributions that interrogate in how far racism is made visible or invisible, normalized or contested in contemporary media landscapes—ranging from traditional print media to user-generated content platforms. We welcome qualitative case studies, quantitative content analyses, comparative research, theoretical contributions, and mixed methods approaches. The workshop aims to bridge disciplinary and methodological boundaries, fostering dialogue between scholars working in media and communication studies, political sociology, and ethnic and racial studies, among other fields.

We welcome papers that address (but are not limited to) the following questions:

• How do salience and valence of racism differ across space, time and media types?
• Which factors explain variance in the salience and valence of racism in media debates?
• What role do editorial practices, technical affordances, algorithms, or audience engagement play in shaping the salience and valence of racism?
• How do different actors (journalists, activists, policymakers) frame and evaluate racist incidents?
• How do societal contexts shape media representations of racism, and what are the measurable societal effects of such representations on public attitudes, policy preferences, and experiences of racialized communities?
• How can novel methodological and ethical approaches advance the study of racism in media? What insights emerge from critically reassessing or innovating upon conventional research methods?

Please submit an abstract of 250–300 words outlining your proposed paper, along with a short bio (max 150 words), by January 31, 2026, to hotait@dezim-institut.de.

The workshop is designed as an author workshop where full papers are discussed in detail. Selected papers may be considered for inclusion in a special journal issue following the workshop. Selected participants will be asked to submit full papers of 6,000–8,000 words (including references) by May 31, 2026, for circulation prior to the workshop.

For inquiries or further information, please contact: Nader Hotait, hotait@dezim-institut.de; Tom Runge, runge@dezim-institut.de; or Elias Steinhilper, steinhilper@dezim-institut.de.

September 23-25, 2026

Vienna, Austria

Deadline: February 27, 2026

The conference “Comparison as Method and Heuristic in Communication Research” takes place against the backdrop of rapid technological, media, and societal change. It focuses on innovations, trends, challenges, and solutions in comparative research within the field of media and communication studies.

Back in November 2006, the former Commission for Comparative Media and Communication Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the Department of Communication at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, organized a workshop on this topic (Melischek et al., 2008). That workshop examined the state of comparative media and communication research in Germanspeaking countries, addressing core questions: What is comparative communication research? What are its objects of study? And what is the scientific value of comparison? At the heart of the discussion was comparison as a method and methodological principle.

The workshop was held at a time when comparative approaches in media and communication studies were not yet systematically established. However, they had been gaining increasing relevance since the 1990s (Livingstone, 2003; Pfetsch & Esser, 2004) and have since matured into a more consolidated area of inquiry (Esser & Hanitzsch, 2012; Esser, 2016; Chan & Lee, 2017; Holtz-Bacha, 2021; Volk, 2021).

Today, the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies (CMC) brings together key perspectives on public discourse, media change, and transformations in mediated public communication through its Research Groups on Media Accountability & Media Change, Media, Politics & Democracy, and Science Communication & Science Journalism. These Research Groups focus on questions of ethics and responsibility, democracy and participation, as well as truth and factuality—unified by a common methodological foundation: the comparative approach (see also: Melischek & Seethaler, 2017).

This conference revisits the comparative paradigm with fresh urgency. It addresses the pressing need to reflect on methodological innovation, technological transformation, and shifting global contexts from an international perspective. By bringing together scholars working across global regions, the event aims to critically assess the role of comparison as both method and heuristic in contemporary communication research—and to chart pathways for its future development.

Call for Papers (Themes)

1. Innovations, New Developments, and Approaches in Comparative Communication Research

We welcome submissions that explore methodological developments, discuss the use of new digital and technological tools, examine the challenges and potentials of comparative approaches, or present innovative proposals for advancing comparative methodology.

Questions might include:

• How can emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, or natural language processing enhance comparative research designs in communication studies?
  
• In what ways do automated content analysis and large-scale digital datasets (e.g., news archives, digital platforms) reshape the scope and scale of comparative research?
  
• How can comparative methods be adapted to address new forms of digital and hybrid media, such as influencer communication, platform governance, or algorithmic curation?
  
• How can mixed-method approaches strengthen comparative communication research?
  
• How can we ensure that long-term panel designs evolve methodologically in response to technological developments without compromising their scientific rigor and comparability?
  
• What are best practices for ensuring transparency, replicability, and ethical integrity in technologically mediated comparative studies?
  

2. Methodological Reflection and Critique

Comparative methods offer many advantages: they are context-sensitive, contribute to theory-building, help identify causal relationships, and have high heuristic value. Nevertheless, this conference also invites critical perspectives. What are the blind spots, limitations, and epistemological or methodological challenges associated with comparative methods? How can we overcome these issues?

Questions might include:

• What are the methodological implications of using computational tools for comparability—do they introduce new biases or overcome traditional limitations?
  
• How can we make comparative research more participatory, inclusive, or decolonial—both in design and in interpretation?
  
• How can comparative research contribute to the de-Westernization of communication studies?
  
• How should comparative research reflect upon the concept of national states?
  
• How relevant is historic comparison to understand current developments? What are the obstacles and potentials we have to consider?
  
• How do comparative approaches manage the demand for replicability, the tension between internal and external validity, or generalizability?
  

3. After Comparison: Making Use of Comparative Results

Comparative methods help identify patterns, uncover similarities and differences, and advance theory. They contribute to a deeper understanding of complex social phenomena. This section asks how comparative findings can be used productively—both within academia and in broader societal contexts.

Questions might include:

• How can comparative results be theoretically integrated or related back to existing frameworks?
  
• What generalization strategies (e.g., typologies, model building) are especially fruitful in comparative research?
  
• How can comparative insights be made productive across interdisciplinary contexts?
  
• In what ways can comparative findings inform methodological innovation or open new research perspectives?
  
• What is the value of comparative results for policy-makers and other stakeholders—and how can we rethink discursive science-to-policy or science-to-public processes?
  

Submission Guidelines

We welcome regular and student-led submissions. The conference language is English. All submissions must contain a separate cover page and an extended abstract. The cover page should provide the title of the submission, author information, 3–5 keywords and, if applicable, a note identifying the submission as a student-led paper. Extended abstracts must be fully anonymized for peer review. They should be 800–1.000 words long (excluding references, tables, and figures).

Please send your submissions containing separate PDF files for cover page and anonymized extended abstract to cmc@oeaw.ac.at.

The deadline for submissions is February 27, 2026. Submissions will undergo peer review, and acceptance notifications will be sent out no later than March 30, 2026.

Date

The conference will open with a keynote and panel discussion on the evening of September 23, 2026.

Authors of accepted extended abstracts will present their papers in person in Vienna on September 24 and 25, 2026. The conference will conclude around noon on September 25, 2026.

Organizers

Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies (CMC)

Austrian Academy of Sciences | University of Klagenfurt

Bäckerstraße 13

1010 Vienna, AUSTRIA

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/cmc

Contact

cmc@oeaw.ac.at

Conference Venue

The conference will be held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), located in the heart of Vienna at Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna, AUSTRIA.

Conference Registration

Registration will be open from March 30, 2026. Conference attendance is free.

Publication

The organizing team aims to publish selected contributions and results of the conference in an academic context.

References

Chan, J. M., & Lee, F. L. F. (Eds.). (2017). Advancing comparative media and communication research. Routledge.

Esser, F. (2016). Komparative Kommunikationswissenschaft: Ein Feld formiert sich [Comparative communication science: A field takes shape]. Studies in Communication Sciences, 16(1), 54-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scoms.2016.03.005

Esser, F., & Hanitzsch, T. (Eds.). (2012). The Handbook of Comparative Communication Research. Routledge.

Holtz-Bacha, C. (2021). Comparative media research. European Journal of Communication, 36(5), 446-449. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231211043179

Livingstone, S. (2003). On the challenges of cross-national comparative media research. European Journal of Communication, 18(4), 477-500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323103184003

Melischek, G., Seethaler, J., & Wilke, J. (Eds.). (2008). Medien & Kommunikationsforschung im Vergleich: Grundlagen, Gegenstandsbereiche, Verfahrensweisen [Media and communication research in comparison: Foundations, areas of study, methods]. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Melischek, G., & Seethaler, J. (2017). Die Institutionalisierung der Kommunikationswissenschaft an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Geschichte und Aufgabenbereiche des Instituts für vergleichende Medien- und Kommunikationsforschung [The institutionalization of communication science at the Austrian Academy of Sciences: History and areas of responsibility of the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies]. Geistes-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Anzeiger, 152(1), 65-98. https://doi.org/10.1553/anzeiger152-1s65

Pfetsch, B., & Esser, F. (Eds.). (2004). Comparing political communication: Theories, cases, and challenges. Cambridge University Press.

Volk, S. C. (2021). Comparative communication research: A study of the conceptual, methodological, and social challenges of international collaborative studies in communication science. Springer VS.