ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

November 21, 2024

ENTER Museum Solothurn

Deadline: September 6, 2024

For the fourth meeting of Media History | CH, the research network for media historians and media scholars, curators, and archivists in Switzerland, we call again for contributions that exemplify the variety of historical sources used for doing media history.  

Written sources, photographs, and other still images, as well as audiovisual materials are at the core of historical media research. This one-day workshop aims to gather and discuss sources used in research projects in Swiss universities or dealing with Swiss media to share methodological insights, provide practical tools, and discuss difficulties related to archival access and preservation. More specifically, each participant is invited to: 

“Bring” her/his source, if possible, in its original material dimension

Explain and discuss the source in elevator pitch style (max. 5’) 

Make clear which are the stories that can be told thanks to the source

We invite scholars, archivists, and curators to submit a 100-word abstract with the source they want to discuss and addressing the 3 points mentioned above. The abstracts should be sent to gabriele.balbi@usi.ch by 6 September 2024 and notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 27 September 2024. 

The one-day workshop will be structured as follows:  

11.30 am: Get together and lunch (not included) 

12.30 pm – 2pm: ENTER Museum Visit 

2.00 – 2.30 pm: Coffee Break  

2.30 – 4.00 pm: Presentations and discussions of sources  

4.00 – 4.30 pm: Business meeting of Mediahistory.ch  

4.30 – 5.00 pm: Coffee Break  

5.00 – 7.00 pm: Media Biographies

From 7.00 pm: Aperitif 

This is a free-fee events and two coffee breaks and the aperitif will be offered by us (lunch is excluded).   

For more info: https://mediahistory.ch/158-2/

Full text submission period: September 1 to October 31, 2024

This thematic section of Revista Comunicando aims to explore how AI is contributing to the redefinition of media and information literacy competencies and how citizens, educators and professionals can prepare for these changes. 

https://revistacomunicando.sopcom.pt/index.php/comunicando/announcement/view/16 

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is looking for three different researcher profiles to join the newly launched Centre for Advanced Studies project on Virtual Worlds & Society. 

Virtual Worlds are set to play a central role in Europe industry and society in the future. This project will embrace a multidisciplinary perspective, and dive into the impacts on individuals and society, to support future policy interventions. 

Read our vacancies here:

1 - Researcher in Digital Transformation: https://lnkd.in/dzfCMxie 

2 - Researcher in Social Communication: https://lnkd.in/drekKdcf 

3 - Researcher in Digital Anthropology: https://lnkd.in/dEWm_JXd 

All positions are based in the beautiful Ispra, nearby Milan, Italy 

The deadline for applications is *16 July*

October 25th 2024

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona (Spain). In Person.

Deadline: July 15, 2024

GAME group - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Our conference proposal is grounded in the work of David Morley, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the materialities and contexts of mobile communications in relation to our everyday, always situated life: "context is no 'optional extra' which we might study at the end of the analytic process but rather, is best seen as a 'starting point' which has determining effects on both production and consumption" (2017, 2). In a recent book, Morley, along with Annette Hill, Maren Hartmann, and Magnus Andersson, introduces the concept of "mobile socialities" as a generative concept to reclaim the anthropological tradition of cultural and media reception studies and incorporate them into mobilities, reflecting on people in motion and the role of mobile media in everyday life.

The paradigm of mobilities has opened up the field of social sciences to explore the role of movement in the constitution and functioning of institutions and social practices in recent decades (Urry, 2007): the constant flow of people, objects, money, communications, and ideas. These are physical or imaginary movements that also involve complex combinations of networks, relationships, technologies, and systems, not limited to fixed spaces.

This mobility paradigm is defined as a non-media-centric approach and suggests moving away from solely identifying communicative processes and practices with the phenomenon of media and technologies. From this perspective, mobile communications allow experiencing everyday life as a continuum that problematizes the fragmentation of the public and private, production and reproduction, as well as the division between spaces and territories. The relational aspect is crucial and necessary to emphasize in a current climate and migration crisis: what happens in one place affects another, and people's experiences of life, their relationship with ideas, imaginaries and objects are very different, intersectional, interdependent, changing and dynamic.

The aim of the conference is to contextualize mobilities and think about them in connection with socialities, representations, and discourses of popular culture, a central element of our contemporary societies, and the sense of belonging that these mobile communications enhance in communities, territories, cultures and traditions.

We invite participants to explore mobilities in relation to the following general themes:

• Socialities, Migrations, and Geographies of Mobility
  
• Imaginaries and Representations of Mobility
  
• Everyday Life and Mobile Communications
  
• Mobilities, Belonging and Identities
  
• Power and Mobility/Immobility
  
• Consumption, Mobilities and Domestication
  
• Media Industries, Regulation and Mobilities
  

Keynotes confirmed: 

• Dr. Annette Hill (Jönköping University)
  
• Dr. David Morley (Goldsmiths University)
  

We invite abstracts of 400-500 words, highlighting the paper's focus and contribution to the theme. Please, include a brief (100-word) author bio along with the abstract using these template. 

Anticipated timeline: 

Abstracts and bios due: July 15, 2024

Acceptance sent: Mid-August 2024

Contributions can be in Catalan/Spanish and English

Conference site: https://symposium.uoc.edu/112598/section/49126/2nd-cultural-studies-conference-mobilities-in-context-popular-culture-communications-and-socialitie.html

For inquiries, more information and submission of abstracts/bios please contact GAME at game@uoc.edu

Edited volume by Olga Kourelou and Philip E. Phillis

Deadline: September 30, 2024

Greek cinema has been defined primarily on national terms with discussions revolving around questions of ‘Greekness’ and what Greek films reveal about the national character and culture. Therefore, the idea of transnational Greek cinema may at first sound like an oxymoron. Yet, as Maria Chalkou has argued, what is perhaps the most distinguished characteristic of Greek cinema today is the ‘renegotiation and redefinition of the national through the transnational’ (2020). Indeed, since the 2000s and especially after 2010 and the international success of the films of the so-called ‘Greek Weird Wave’, Greek film culture has been characterised by an increasing openness – what Lydia Papadimitriou has described as ‘extroversion’ (2018). On the one hand, this is the result of the intensification of co-production activity and the distribution and consumption of Greek films beyond their national borders. On the other, this is evident in the thematic preoccupations of an ever-larger number of films that take a more fluid approach towards the national by focusing on the multicultural make-up of Greek society and by bringing to the fore the subjectivities of ethnic ‘others’, questioning thus nationalist myths of purity, authenticity and containment.

This edited volume invites chapter proposals that will open up discussions of Greek cinema and film culture beyond the national through a consideration of its transnational dimensions. The scope of the book is historical in that we are interested in mapping out Greek cinema’s transnationalism diachronically. While scholars have rightly pointed out the recent outwardness of Greek cinema, Greek film culture has always been transnational. This was especially the case in the post-war era, when production and exhibition practices, as Dimitris Eleftheriotis has demonstrated (2001, 2006), were of a hybrid character, involving cultural exchanges with both the West and the East. However, the transnationalism of this period of Greek cinema, and of others, remains under-researched and this gap in our knowledge is something this book aims to fill. We welcome contributions adopting different methodologies in their analysis, from empirical to text-based. The goal of this publication is to explore at what levels the transnational manifests itself in Greek cinema, whether this is in terms of production, distribution, exhibition, creative personnel, content, or form, as well as to what effect, looking specifically at the politics and ideological implications within transnational flows. For, as Rosalind Galt reminds us, ‘the transnational is always political because it demands that we think about the relationships of cinema and geopolitics through, between, and beyond the state’ (2016).

Topics may include but are not limited to:

•  Transnational modes of production, distribution and exhibition from early Greek cinema to today
  
•  Co-productions
  
•  Auterism and cosmopolitanism
  
•  Genre flows, remakes and remixes
  
•  Transnational cinephilia
  
•  Transnational actors and stars
  
•  Migration (representations of migrants, refugees and ethnic ‘others’; migrant and diasporic filmmakers; borders and border-crossing)
  
•  Queer transnationalism
  
•  Greek locations in international filmmaking, and film tourism
  
•  Reception of Greek films abroad (festivals, audiences, exhibition practices, critical reception)
  
•  Transnational readings of the so-called ‘new’ and ‘old Greek cinema’
  
•  Language, dubbing, subtitling
  

--

The edited volume is under consideration with Edinburgh University Press.

Please send a title, 300 word abstract and a short biography in a single file to transnationalgreekcinema@gmail.com by 30th September 2024. The final chapters should be around 6000-8000 words and submitted to the editors by the end of May 2025. No payment from authors will be required.

September 24, 10.00-13.30

Café Kava Bar Gaj (tbc, close to the Faculty of Social Sciences)

 ECREA Audience and Reception Studies Section

We invite you to join us for an engaging and insightful discussion panel organized by the ECREA Audience and Reception Studies Section. This event is an opportunity to exchange knowledge, gain tips and tricks, and get inspired on how to keep audience studies relevant in today's educational landscape.

We will organize the discussion in two sessions:

In the first session Teaching Audiences, we will map out how audience studies are taught at different institutions, in different countries in terms of content, class activities and assignments, and reading materials. Some of the questions we will address are: What are approaches to the structure of the audience studies and audience research courses? What are the key concepts, theories and messages we want students to take with them? How do we structure the syllabus and focus our lectures - historically, by research methods, by “type of audiences”, etc.?

 In the second session Audience Perspective in Curricula and Other Courses, we will further delve into audience studies and audience research to address the various challenges identified previously and to discuss ideas and practices on how to keep the key questions and concerns of audience centric research and studies relevant to university degrees concerned with media, culture and communications. Some of the questions we will address are: What is the relevance of audience research and studies in different degree programs? How do the audience perspectives fit into courses related to users, digital citizenship, literacy, and technology?

Join us to discuss the contemporary challenges and the future of audience studies within media and communication degrees. Share your experiences and insights, and learn from others in the field.

There is no fee. To participate, please fill out the form by 15th July 2024. 

Email access: form 

Web access: form

As spaces are limited, participants will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. We will notify all applicants about the selection process by 30th July 2024.

We look forward to your contribution to this important discussion!

Panel organizers: David Mathieu, Jelena Kleut, Maria José Brites, Ranjana Das, Sonia Livingstone, Tereza Pavlickova, Vivi Theodoropoulou

Communication Studies

Deadline (EXTENDED): July 29, 2024

We invite submissions for the special issue of the journal Communication Studies (Scopus). The deadline has been extended to July 29th. See below or visit this link https://ojs.labcom-ifp.ubi.pt/ec/announcement/view/94 for more information.

Call for special issue: Navigating the Ethical Landscape: Organizational dynamics, engagement, and societal impact (extended)

Editors:  Gisela Gonçalves (University of Beira Interior /LabCom, Portugal), Evandro Oliveira (Autónoma University/LabCom, Portugal) and Shannon Bowen (University of South Caroline, USA).

Anachronistic, disruptive change, socio-political dynamics and stakeholder activism have increased the need to make ethical commitments and challenge organizational practices and impacts. Ethical commitments are needed not only to address micro-issues or a few legal concerns, but also to play a central role in finding solutions to global and local challenges. Moreover, these changes are made according to deep overall commitments and positions that are strategically adopted by the organization and do not play a peripheral role. This special issue calls for original research that addresses strategic and organizational communication from a normative and ethical horizon that is now in increasing demand.

Companies now face normative imperatives to address societal issues and engage in political discourse, with instances of corporate social advocacy and CEO activism alongside traditional corporate citizenship and CSR strategies. However, corporate hypocrisy, inauthentic behaviors, and soft propaganda persist, as do the ploys of greenwashing and other colorwashing (including pink, rainbow, and blue).

We invite empirical, conceptual, and critical papers that address issues such as:

• normative and ethical governance in organizational communication
  
• strategic engagement with non-business issues
  
• the societal impact of rhetoric and stories
  
• regulatory implications for the public sector
  
• ethics, leadership and change management
  
• the role of strategic communication in achieving the UN sustainable development goals
  
• communication within the B Corp model, the fourth sector, and social purpose organizations
  
• corporate and social advocacy and CEO activism
  
• greenwashing and other colorwashing
  

Please identify clearly at the beginning of the manuscript that it is a submission for the special issue “Navigating the Ethical Landscape: Organizational Dynamics, Engagement, and Societal Impact." Revised papers from works presented at ECREA-OSC Conference or the Global Strategic Communication Conclave are especially welcomed and sought (please identify as such on the title page).

Submission Guidelines

Full papers must be submitted online through the journal's website.

Papers must be written in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If your text is written in a language other than English, please submit both an original and an English version of your abstract, title, and keywords.

Papers must follow the journal's guidelines for formatting and referencing, available here: https://ojs.labcom-ifp.ubi.pt/ec/about/submissions

All papers will be subject to double-blind peer review.

Important Dates

Submission deadline: July 29, 2024 (extended)

Notification of acceptance: September 27, 2024

Publication of the special issue: December 2024

August 19-30, 2024 (online)

Maastricht Summer School, Maastricht University

Deadline: August 9, 2024

The focus of this Summer School course is on critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and news framing. A key objective is to enable you to design an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts). Most Summer School participants are usually PhD candidates, You can read more about the course content, course objectives and recommended literature below. You also find there the link to the timetable. The course fee is €499. 

To apply for the course, please visit the DreamApply website: https://maastricht.dreamapply.com/courses/course/185-media-representations-and-research-methods-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing. 

For more information, please contact course coordinator Leonhardt: L.VanEfferink@MaastrichtUniversity.nl

Course Description

How do you make sense of the wide variety of perspectives in the media? For example, how can we interpret newspaper coverage of the War in Ukraine, tweets by Elon Musk, or Instagram posts on climate change, food, and migration? 

This course offers you academic yet practical answers to these questions. It teaches you the analytical skills to study the possible meanings of textual and visual media representations.

Interactive lectures raise your understanding of concepts and methods, helping you examine what combinations of words and/or visual elements could mean in terms of a broader debate in society. These lectures further teach you how national identities and power relations affect the interpretations of media representations. 

Your individual assignment concerns a short paper, in which you apply a method to study one or two news articles, short YouTube videos, or social media posts. You will write and present this paper during this two-week course.

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

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

Course Objectives

• Write a well-structured research paper in which you study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g., newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons, and Instagram/Twitter posts).
  
• Develop a research method that draws on critical discourse analysis, social semiotic analysis, and/or news framing analysis, in line with your research objectives.
  
• Formulate research questions that are clear, focused, and consistent, saving you a lot of time later in the research process.
  
• Compile a dataset for your thesis or dissertation that is manageable and relevant.
  
• Understand the complexity of text-image relations and their role in meaning-making processes.
  
• Explain the role of the national and ideological contexts in which (social) media content is being produced.
  

Timetable

The sixth online edition of this course lasts from 19 until 30 August 2024. The earlier online editions were fully booked and seven earlier editions took place on-campus in Maastricht between 2014 and 2019. This edition has daily teaching sessions of at most three hours. Teaching days will start at 13.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2) and end at the latest at 16.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2). This makes it easier for students from far away countries to deal with the large time differences. Please check Leonhardt's website for most up-to-date version of the timetable: https://vanefferink.com/en/media-representations-and-research-methods-summer-school-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing/

Literature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Student reviews (from LinkedIn recommendations)

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

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

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

Frontiers 

Deadline: September 30, 2024

https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/63975/contesting-artificial-intelligence-communicative-practices-organizational-structures-and-enabling-technologies   

Deadline for abstracts: 30 Sept 2024

Deadline for full papers: 31 Mar 2025

Expected date of publication: Dec 2025

For this interdisciplinary research topic we are looking forward to contributions addressing concepts, approaches, and techniques of AI contestability in the context of organizational and cross-organizational communication. This may involve interventions from research fields such as science and technology studies, organizational sociology, critical algorithm and data studies, applied ethics, legal studies, data science, software engineering, human-centered computing, and critical design.

Frontiers Research Topics are collaborative initiatives by multiple journals gathering contributions on one thematic area or issue. In our case, accepted contributions can be published in one of the following peer-reviewed journals: Frontiers in Communication (lead), Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, Frontiers in Sociology, Frontiers in Big Data, Frontiers in Computer Science and Frontiers in Human Dynamics. You can decide for yourself which journal to submit to. If a considerable number of articles are collected, they will additionally be published as a special issue / ebook.

November 7-8, 2024

University of Beira Interior, Portugal

Website: https://televisaoenovosmeios.ubi.pt

(The conference will accept proposals for in-person and remote presentation.)

Synopses 

How do we represent diversity in television today? Are we thinking of diversity of voices, people, content, vehicles or places?

On 7 and 8 November 2024, the fourth International Television and New Media Conference will focus on contemporary dynamics that accommodate different needs, such as the inclusion of minority perceptions, the deconstruction of stereotypes based on historical misconceptions, an excess of unverified information or information created by artificial intelligence, and the political validation of discourses that encourage polarisation and the formation of pro-violence clusters against minorities, women and migrants.

Bringing together academics, professionals and representatives of civil society organisations, TV and New Media 2024, promoted by the LabCom - Communication and Arts Research Unit at the University of Beira Interior (UBI), will reflect on diversity in television and its programmatic, geographical, ethical or gender representation, in an attentive analysis of the countless constructions of reality that the medium continues to promote.

Between apocalyptic and integrated readings, returning to Eco, we invite you to submit proposals in the following categories: Strategic Communication, Culture, Journalism, Gender and Human Rights, Fiction, Production and Programming, Audiences and New Platforms.

The fourth International Conference on Television and New Media will be held in the Council Room at the Faculty of Arts and Letters at UBI, and also remotely.