ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

January 2024

Deadline: July 1, 2023

V15N1 

Papers to be submitted to: https://cutt.ly/HzCSduo

The Mediterranean Journal of Communication seeks the submission of articles for the special issue: Creatives industries in the network, coordinated by Dr. Antonio Castro-Higueras (University of Málaga, Spain), Dr. José Patricio Pérez-Rufí (University of Málaga, Spain)and Dr. Toby Miller (University Autónoma Metropolitana—Cuajimalpa, México), to be published in January 2024 (V15N1). Deadline for submissions: July 1st, 2023. 

Creatives industries in the network

The cultural and creative industries have become a strategic sector in the new knowledge society, both for their economic impact and other factors, such as social cohesion, identity, and the promotion of the local. The digital world has revolutionized the creative sector, like so many others. "Creative Industries and the Internet" aims o explore this new scenario and answer questions such as: 

• Are the traditional creative industries adapting to the digital milieu?
  
• Will purely digital creative industries monopolize new markets? 
  
• What are the new business models? 
  
• How do users/audiences of the creative industries behave on the Internet? 
  
• What is new creative talent like and what work does it perform? 
  
• Is there a relocation or concentration of digital creative industries in particular digital territories?
  

We also invite the analysis and interpretation of the processes and effects of platformization of cultural production and its circulation (Helmond, 2015; Nieborg and Poell, 2018; Magaudda and Solaroli, 2021) in the various sectors of the creative industries.

For more information, you can contact the email acastro@uma.es

Special Issue of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (Sage)

Deadline: May 26, 2023

Following more than a decade of work on the structural properties of datafication and platforms, more recent studies are focussing on how users decode, make sense, avoid or resist algorithmic data. These works have contributed to make the role of users visible and meaningful and show users' reflective engagement with technology. Linking platform perspectives dealing with questions of power, accountability and governance on a macro-level to users' everyday engagement with digital technology represents a fruitful path when aiming to understand complex user-data relations. This special issue aims to connect datafication studies with lived user experiences, inviting scholars to think along and reflect on the concept of data reflectivity in their contributions.

We understand data reflectivity as a synthesizing concept signalling the dualism inherent in data: on the one hand, data reflect human users in specific (datafied) ways aiming to structure user experiences. On the other hand, users have their own ways of engaging in, circumventing, or even rebelling against these data reflections, employing reflective strategies to manipulate and shape data for their own purposes. We encourage submissions that provide theoretical, methodological or empirical venues for better understanding the data/user nexus in relation to media, platforms, infrastructures and algorithms (in particular recommendation systems), metrics and analytics.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Conceptualisations of data reflectivity and the data/user nexus, the role of user reflectivity in the face of black boxing, obscurity, obfuscation, etc.
  
• User practices of algorithmic engagement and resistance, their relation to algorithmic imaginaries and literacies, and their implications for understanding the data/user relationship
  
• Theorizing the challenge of volatility: How to account for temporal variability of algorithmic systems in relation to users' algorithmic literacy? In other words, how to deal with algorithms as moving targets?
  
• New methodological venues for exploring the data/user relations, such as collecting "big" and "small" data, data donations, applying mixed methods in new ways etc.
  
• Examining the link between platform design and agency, reflectivity and literacy
  
• Empirical contributions engaging in questions such as: How reflective are users and what are the potentials and limitations of reflectivity for providing users with agency or literacy? What are users reflective or not reflective about in relation to data? What is the role of affective and tacit knowledge for data reflectivity?
  

Full call: https://ruc.dk/en/cfp-data-reflectivity-new-pathways-bridging-datafication-and-user-studies

Deadline for abstracts (500 words, excluding references): May 26th, 2023

Guest editors: Martina Skrubbeltrang Mahnke (Roskilde University, Denmark), David Mathieu (Roskilde University, Denmark), Joëlle Swart (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) and Pille Pruulmann Vengerfeldt (Malmö University, Sweden) 

Contact information: mahnke@ruc.dk

All papers are published under SAGE's publishing options.

December 11-13, 2023

Helsinki, Finland

Deadline for abstracts: May 2, 2023

In the recent years, HEPPsters have been engaging in themes of populist mobilisation in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly the relationship between time and space, and how this relationship informs the construction of ‘Us’. In the previous edition, HEPP3 paid special attention to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, this theme is expanded to reflect on the rise of ethno-nationalism. We are here also drawing on our Horizon2020 project on Deradicalisation in Europe and beyond, where the key thematic is social exclusion as the driver for violent radicalisation, emergence of grievance, alienation, and polarisation. We also want to investigate the emergence of religious populism, the formation of epistemic communities, and logics of datafied forms of communication that also deal with polarisation. We hope to incite theoretical and empirical discussions of these themes and more.

The Conference strives to assemble a wide range of international researchers at all career stages, with the aim of examining populism, particularly from a discursive and cultural approach. We welcome contributions from a wide range of fields. All submitted papers will be considered for our Working Papers series. 

The Conference encourages papers that approach the following and related themes: 

•       Political (Mis)use of Time and Space 

•       (De)radicalisation, Radicalism and Violent Extremism

•       (Ethnic) Nationalism and Populism

•       Misogyny, Xenophobia and Racism

•       Euroscepticism, Europhilia, and Eurocentrism

•       (Post-)Pandemic Populisms

•       Epistemic Populisms and Academic Knowledge

•       Populist logics of Datafication and Populism

•       Religion and Populism

•       Populist Dynamics and the Global South 

•       North-South Relations and (Post)Colonialism

•       Imperialism and Emotions

•       Affects and Emotions in Politics and Policy

•       Agonism, Antagonism, and the “Us”

•       Gender in Populism and Polarisation 

•       Cultural Populism and Populist Challenges on Culture

•       Political humour and populist rhetoric

•       Political Communication and Media in Times of War and Crisis

•       Populist Dynamics and the Logic of Populism

Please send in your paper submissions through this form < https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-lE4QuePA6XeSsDkeBneK-yyntuleEMdex8oOkEgNR8/viewform?edit_requested=true> by 2nd May 2023. The submission must include your name and institution, a title, a 100-150 word abstract, and five keywords. Please send your panel proposals through this form < https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1kxI30w8u7HvXT8llBF1kDNseTy21M9pMMMvQ5WXJ6qw/viewform?edit_requested=true>  by 2nd May 2023. We encourage paying attention to diversity in the proposals. The Conference will be held primarily on site, with the possibility of presenting online.

The Conference fee is 200 euros, with a discounted fee of 100 euros for doctoral researchers, non-employed researchers, and colleagues from the Global South and Central and Eastern Europe. Beyond this, fee exemptions will be available in certain cases. If you feel that you require a fee exemption, please email hepp@helsinki.fi.

Organizer

The conference is organised by the HEPPsinki research group. The Organising Committee of HEPP4: Feeza Vasudeva (chair), Alexander Alekseev (co-chair), Dayei Oh, Emilia Palonen, Emilia Lounela, Gwenaëlle Bauvoi, Laura Horsmanheimo, Ionut Chiruta, Katinka Linnamäki, Kleber Carrilho, Rūta Kazlauskaitė, Virpi Salojärvi.

The HEPP4 organising is supported by the following projects:

- D.Rad: Deradicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Reintegrate (EC: Horizon 2020)

- Now-Time, Us-Space: Hegemonic Mobilisations in Central and Eastern Europe (Kone Foundation)

- Datafication of Society at the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (PROFI)

- ENDURE: Inequalities, Community Resilience and New Governance Modalities in a Post-Pandemic World (Trans-Atlantic Partnerships Academy of Finland)

Click the link below for further information:

<https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/emotions-populism-and-polarised-politics-media-and-culture/call-for-papers-hepp4>

May 10, 2023

Dear Colleagues at the European Communication Research and Education Association,

EDMO is pleased to share the Training on EU Policy to Tackle Disinformation with you, which will be held online on 10 May, 2023 from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm CEST.

The training aims to provide a basic introduction to EU policy on disinformation, including the most recent developments in the field, also seen through the lens of different players in the field, in particular the European Commission, European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) and European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) . 

The training is intended as a basic introduction to the policy instruments for those who are not already familiar with them. 

Speakers will include:

Krisztina Stump is Head of the Unit in charge of combatting online disinformation at the European Commission. The Unit drafted the Commission Guidance on how to strengthen the Code of Practice on Disinformation and accompanied the drafting of the new Code by the signatories. She is chairing the Task-force of the Code of Practice. During the last ten years Krisztina has held various positions within the European Commission, in particular in telecommunications, audiovisual media, media freedom & pluralism and copyright.

Stanislav Matějka is the Head of the Analytical Department at the Slovak Council for Media Services, the national regulatory authority for audiovisual media services. In 2023 he serves as a Chair of Subgroup 3 of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services dedicated to countering disinformation and strengthening democracy in the digital environment. He previously served as a Hybrid Threats and Strategic Communication expert at the Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. 

Please find here the link to apply. The deadline is set for 3 May 2023 at 10:00 am CEST.

We would be grateful if you could share it with your network.

About EDMO:

EDMO is an independent and multidisciplinary platform designed to build and equip a community to understand and tackle disinformation.

May 5, 2023

Please join us for a free online discussion of Erving Goffman’s 1953 dissertation, “Communication Conduct in an Island Community”—newly published as an open access book.

• A Rosetta Stone for Erving Goffman: An Online Discussion on Goffman’s Newly Published Dissertation (1953)
  
• 5 May 2023, 15:00 UTC (11am EDT/4pm BST/5pm CET) [45 minutes]
  
• Register here
  
• More info
  
• Open access book 
  

Discussants

• Yves Winkin, University of Liège
  
• Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, University of Wisconsin-Parkside
  
• Peter Lunt, University of Leicester
  
• Greg Smith, University of Salford
  
• Filipa Subtil, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa
  

Description

Join Yves Winkin, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Peter Lunt, Greg Smith, and Filipa Subtil for a discussion of Erving Goffman’s 1953 dissertation, “Communication Conduct in an Island Community”, recently published as an open access book with a new introduction by Winkin. This free Zoom session, sponsored by https://mediastudies.press, marks the dissertation’s publication with a discussion of the work’s significance by Winkin and other leading Goffman scholars.

Canadian-born Erving Goffman (1922–1982) was the twentieth century’s most important sociologist writing in English. His 1953 dissertation, based on fieldwork on a remote Scottish island, presents in embryonic form the full spread of Goffman’s thought. Framed as a “report on a study of conversational interaction,” the dissertation lingers on the modest talk of island “crofters.” It is trademark Goffman: ambitious, unconventional in form, and brimmed with big-picture insight. The thesis is that social order is made and re-made in communication—the “interaction order” he re-visited in a famous and final talk before his 1982 death. The dissertation is, as Winkin writes in the new introduction, the “Rosetta stone for his entire work.” It was here, in 360 dense pages, that Goffman revealed, quietly, his peerless sensitivity to the invisible wireframes of everyday life.

mediastudies.press is a scholar-led, nonprofit, no-fee open access publisher in the media, film, and communication studies fields.

Questions? Email press@mediastudies.press

Loughborough University, UK

We are looking to appoint two positions either as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer or Reader (equivalent to Associate Professor) in Communication and Media Studies who will contribute to our excellent research culture and make a committed, innovative, and collegial contribution to teaching on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

We are a broad-based subject area with particular research and teaching strengths in media, memory and history, political communication, language and social interaction, and cultural analysis. We encourage applications from any relevant specialism. For further details about our research and teaching please see https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/crcc/ and https://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/media-and-communication-bsc/

The deadline for applications is 15 May 2023 (https://vacancies.lboro.ac.uk/)

For informal enquiries, please contact Professor David Deacon, Head of Division for Communication and Media: d.n.deacon@lboro.ac.uk

Post reference details:

Lecturer in Communication and Media (REQ230401)

Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media (REQ23402)

Reader (Associate Professor) in Communication and Media Studies (REQ23409)

October 27-29, 2023

Prague, Czech Republic

Deadline: May 31, 2023

Conference organised by the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture, Charles University in Prague and the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, 27–29 October 2023, Prague, Czech Republic

Class, distinction, and habitus have a contested position in the political and social sciences. No less controversial are the concepts in the humanities, even though the study of class in cultural studies seems to be long past its prime. Since the 1960s, Western youth and working class popular and urban cultures have received wide scholarly attention. Minority groups and people on the margins ridiculed and stigmatised by popular culture experienced a research boom several decades ago and a renewed interest owing to research into reality TV shows. Representations of white upper-class heterosexual male domination in popular culture has been interrogated with the finest critical tools in the last years.

The research agenda of Central and Eastern European popular culture looks a bit different. Due to the allegedly different path to modernity, exploration of class, distinction, and habitus in popular culture offers interesting stimuli even today. A closer look at the political and socioeconomic changes that the region has undergone shows that these phenomena were closely linked to the development of industrial capitalism and the rise of the bourgeois society in the 19th century on the one hand. On the other, class often dissolved into nationalist and even racist ideology. Unique group’s distinctions were melted into the cult of the common people. A specific habitus was suppressed by the all-encompassing folksiness. Mass movements in the interwar period placed the removal of the enemy class and distinction at the centre of their politics.

The socialist dictatorship after the Second World War declared that it had done away with class and group-specific distinctions; differing habitus was to be replaced by uniformity. However, in the post-Stalin period, even the mildest proclamations concerning a classless society had to be revised. New social differentiations and subtle distinctions among people became more visible and found not infrequent reflection in literature, film, music, and visual arts. In late socialism, power elites gradually abandoned the banner of egalitarianism and the new class manifested in a showy manner its distinctions and habitus.

The conference asks what the (dis)continuities between late socialism and post-socialism in terms of class, distinction, and habitus in the popular culture were. It seeks to answer how class, distinction, and habitus have been represented in popular culture in the “long durée” perspective. In what ways have these representations been transformed? What were the causes and consequences of these transformations, if any? Did these representations affect their recipients and in what manner?

There are numerous issues that can be addressed along these lines. The following list should not by any means be understood as exhaustive:  

- “Class” as an emic concept in national and post-national discourse

- re-drawing class in long-term transformations of Central and Eastern Europe

- class differentiation in popular cultures of Central and Eastern Europe

- habitus and taste as an analytical category in modern societies of Central and Eastern Europe

- distinctions made by gender, work, housing, leisure, culture consumption, aesthetic-tastes -representations of upper, middle, working and under-class in literature, film, TV, press, visual arts

Papers exploring the mentioned topics are especially encouraged. Please send your abstract of no more than 350 words and a short biographical note by 31 May 2023 to conference@cspk.eu

The conference will take place on 27–29 October 2023, in Prague, Czech Republic. In case of travel restrictions due to the pandemic, the conference will be held in a hybrid or online format.

The organizers intend to put together a themed monograph, in which selected papers will be published as full- length chapters.

Travel and accommodation costs are covered by the organizers.

Contacts

URL: http://en.cspk.eu/

Email: conference@cspk.eu

October 12-13, 2023

University of Edinburgh, UK

Deadline for abstracts: June 14, 2023 via https://bit.ly/IJPP2023

Also available via https://cristianvaccari.com/2023/04/18/call-for-papers-for-the-9th-annual-conference-of-the-international-journal-of-press-politics-university-of-edinburgh-uk-12-13-october-2023/

On 12-13 October 2023, the University of Edinburgh will host the 9th annual conference of the International Journal of Press/Politics, focused on academic research on the relationship between media and political processes around the world.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 14 June 2023. Attendees will be notified of acceptance by 21 June 2023. Registration fees will be due 11 August 2023 and full papers based on accepted abstracts will be due 29 September 2023. A selection of the best papers presented at the conference will be published in the journal after peer review. Previous special issues based on conference papers can be found here, here, and here.

The conference brings together scholars conducting internationally oriented or comparative research on the intersection between news media and politics around the world. It aims to provide a forum for academics from a wide range of disciplines, countries, and methodological approaches to advance knowledge in this area. 

Examples of relevant topics include, but are not limited to, the political implications of changes in media systems; the importance of different types of media for learning about and engaging with politics; the factors affecting the quality of political information and public discourse; media policy and regulation; the role of entertainment and popular culture in how people engage with current affairs; relations between political actors and journalists; the role of visuals and emotion in the production and processing of public information; the role of different kinds of media during conflicts and crises; and political communication during and beyond elections by government, political parties, interest groups, and social movements. The journal and the conference are particularly interested in studies that represent substantial theoretical or methodological advances on these issues in an international perspective, especially by adopting comparative approaches and/or focusing on parts of the world that are under-researched in the English-language academic literature.

Titles and abstracts for papers (maximum 300 words) are invited by 14 June 2023 via the online form available at https://bit.ly/IJPP2023. Abstracts should clearly describe the key question, the theoretical and methodological approach, the evidence presented, and the wider implications of the study for understanding the relationship between media and politics in an international perspective. Authors are encouraged to provide as much detail as possible about the spatial and temporal context of their study, the research design and methods employed, the data collected, and the main results of the analyses.

The registration fee for the conference will be GBP 250, to be paid by 11 August 2023. The fee covers lunches and coffee breaks on 12 and 13 October, two conference dinners on 11 and 12 October, and farewell drinks on 13 October. A limited number of registration fee waivers will be available for early career scholars and scholars from countries that appear in Tiers B and C of the classification adopted by the International Communication Association. Applications for fee waivers must be made via the abstract online submission form available at https://bit.ly/IJPP2023.

All attendees must respect the Scottish Government policies to protect themselves and the population against COVID-19. Attendees visiting Edinburgh from abroad must commit to follow the Scottish government’s regulations for international travel.

The conference is organized by Cristian Vaccari, Editor-in-Chief of IJPP. Please contact Professor Vaccari with questions at c.vaccari@lboro.ac.uk.

More about the journal and the University.

The International Journal of Press/Politics

The International Journal of Press/Politics is an interdisciplinary journal for the analysis and discussion of the role of the media and politics in an international perspective. The journal publishes theoretical and empirical research which analyzes the linkages between the news media and political processes and actors around the world, emphasizes international and comparative work, and links research in the fields of political communication and journalism studies, and the disciplines of political science and media and communication. The journal is published by SAGE Publishing and is ranked 19th in Communication and 22nd in Political Science by Journal Citation Reports.

The University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh has been influencing history since it welcomed its first students in 1583. Through the many achievements of its staff and students, the University has delivered on its central principles of providing cutting-edge research, inspirational teaching and innovative thinking, attracting some of the greatest minds from around the globe. Politics and International Relations (PIR) is one of the largest and most vibrant subject areas at the University of Edinburgh. It is home to more than 600 undergraduates and 100 postgraduate students annually. Its alumni include government ministers, members of parliament, policy analysts, broadcasters, business leaders, teachers, and social entrepreneurs. Its world-leading research directly informs policymakers, ministers, and NGOs.

https://iamcr.org/awards/peace-fellowships  

International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) wants to support the creation of collaborative contact zones, with modest means at its disposal, by establishing IAMCR Peace Fellowships. IAMCR will facilitate the collaboration of pairs of individual scholars, who are based in, or strongly connected to, two regions or communities that are currently engaged, or recently have been engaged, in an antagonistic conflict. An IAMCR peace followship will last 2 years, in order to provide sufficient time for collaboration, and IAMCR will select up to two pairs of peace fellows per year. After four years, IAMCR’s Executive Board will evaluate the project and decide on its continuation.

IAMCR will provide support to IAMCR peace fellows in the following ways:

A travel grant of 1500 USD, for both scholars, to attend one (1) main IAMCR conference, in order to present their collaborative work. When peace fellows are demonstrably in the impossibility to travel to IAMCR conferences, the funds can be used, pending IAMCR approval, for a different channel of communication to the IAMCR community.

An individual membership for both scholars, for two years. 

Opportunities to present their work at online or face-to-face IAMCR fora, to be decided in consultation with both scholars.

The call for applications is open until 01 September 2023. 

You may find more information about IAMCR Peace Fellowships in the link below. 

https://iamcr.org/awards/peace-fellowships

Should you need more information, please do not hesitate to contact Mazlum Kemal Dagdelen at mazlum@iamcr.org.

Also, we would be grateful if you could share this call with those you think might be interested.

Deadline: May 1, 2023

https://iamcr.org/phd-webinars/call-for-convenors-2023

We have extended the deadline for the submission of applications to convene an IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Webinar. Read this information carefully if you are an IAMCR member PhD student and would like to convene an IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Webinar with a topic you propose.

The deadline to submit applications is 01 May 2023.

The IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Webinars provide a forum for critical dialogue for PhD researchers in the field of communication and media studies. The central goals of the webinars are to give visibility to doctoral research in the global field of communication and media studies and stimulate interaction and cooperation among PhD students.  

General Principles  

Webinar organisation procedure:

Each year, one webinar is organised outside the main conference period, ideally in the second half of the year.  

This open call invites IAMCR member PhD students to submit their applications to propose a topic and to convene an IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Webinar on that topic.  

When the convenor(s) and their proposed topic are selected, the second open call for speakers and abstracts for presentations on that selected topic will be launched in collaboration with the selected convenor(s). 

The presenters from among the applications for the second call will be selected together with the convenor(s).

What IAMCR will provide  

As the organiser of the Presidential PhD Research Webinar series, IAMCR:

• Promotes the webinar via its communication channels;
  
• Provides the Zoom (or equivalent) meeting platform where the webinar will be held;
  
• Provides a registration system and issues certificates for the convenor(s) and speakers after the webinar.
  

Responsibilities of webinar convenors  

The webinar convenor(s) are expected to:

• Coordinate the organisation of the webinar;
  
• Commit to comply with IAMCR's statement on a safe and supportive community ;  
  
• Abide by the timeline and meet all deadlines to the best of their ability;
  
• Ensure that all presenters obtain copyright clearance on any materials they present;
  
• Write a short 'after the event' article (which will be made available to the IAMCR membership);
  
• Propose replacements in case participants have to cancel in order to ensure that the minimum number of three participants is respected;
  
• Make a presentation in the webinar.

More information

To have further information about the IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Webinar, you can visit https://iamcr.org/phd-webinars  or contact the coordinator of the IAMCR Presidential PhD Research Webinar series, Mazlum Kemal Dagdelen at <mazlum@iamcr.org>.