ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 2-3, 2023

University of Tübingen, Germany 

https://uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet/campusleben/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungskalender/kongresse-und-tagungen/social-justice-and-technological-futures/  

Registration as participant via email to Ms. Laura Schelenz (laura.schelenz@uni-tuebingen.de) 

Social justice theories are crucial instruments to meet the challenges of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. The Tübingen Symposium questions canonical values in technology creation while also exploring diverse and potentially competing social justice concepts. The works of Black feminists and critical race theorists as well as decolonial and Global South scholars and activists render visible the interlockings of societal, economic, cultural, and political injustice in the design, production, and distribution of technology. In thinking about the future and its daunting challenges, including the transformation of work, climate change, migration, and overall precarity, what should be the role of technology? What do technological futures look like from a social justice perspective?

August 8-11, 2023

Oslo, Norway

Deadline for submissions: March 31, 2023

https://ifip-summerschool.github.io/#2023-call-for-papers-out-now 

Our future is shared. The Internet and the web, (personal) data, resources, climate effects, music, genetic information, trading routes, celestial bodies, holiday homes, rides: we have built a globalized world on sharing, and sharing will be the great protagonist of our future. However, sharing is mostly realized through centralized platforms, controlled by dominant industry players, instead of decentralized architectures and communities. The 18th IFIP Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management takes a holistic approach to society and technology. We support interdisciplinary research exchange and foster discussions through keynote lectures, tutorials and workshops. Participants will benefit from presenting their research and receiving meaningful feedbacks. The summer school culminates in the publication of selected papers among those submitted by the participants, in the form of an edited volume published by Springer.

City, University of London

The School of Communication & Creativity (SCC) at City, University of London is a cosmopolitan, industry-focused, socially engaged and politically conscious centre of educational excellence and world-changing interdisciplinary research which shapes and influences professional practice.

Our PhD studentships will support the next generation of researchers, practitioners and entrepreneurs working across the media, creative and cultural sectors. More information on our website and below.

We want to support PhD research that will make a positive difference in the world, pushing forward knowledge and/ or practice in the creative and cultural industries, and are particularly interested in receiving proposals that are interdisciplinary and/ or engage with equality, diversity and inclusion.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• transformative justice;
  
• radical creativity;
  
• social justice and communication and/ or creativity;
  
• power, representation and communication;
  
• anti-racist, feminist and queer futures;
  
• the role of creativity and/or communication in tackling climate change, crises, conflict and racism;
  
• race and migration;
  
• media freedom;
  
• criminalisation and media victimisation;
  
• digital/ new media;
  
• aural environmentalism;
  
• sonic cities;
  
• health humanities.
  

What is included

Funding is available for UK, EU and international students.

The doctoral studentships will consist of:

• An annual stipend (currently £19,688; will rise in line with UKRI guidelines) for three years full-time (pro-rata for part-time study), inclusive of London weighting
  
• A full tuition fee waiver
  
• £1500 in research expenses/ consumables over the course of the award
  

Eligibility

The studentships will be awarded on the basis of academic promise, creative thinking and/ or practice-based achievement, or professional equivalent. Projects demonstrating a commitment to interdisciplinarity, social change, and/ or equality, diversity and inclusion are particularly encouraged.

• Applicants must hold, or be on course to complete, at least a good Second-Class Honours degree and a Master's degree in a relevant subject (or international equivalent), or provide equivalent qualifications or professional/ practice-based experience that evidences their preparedness for PhD study.
  
• Applicants whose first language is not English and whose qualifications were not completed in a majority English-speaking country must achieve at least 7.0 in IELTS or a recognised equivalent. Please see the entry requirements for further information.
  
• Applicants must not be currently registered as a doctoral student at City, University of London or any other academic institution.
  

October 28-30, 2023

Kuwait University, Kuwait

Deadline: May 15, 2023

The Twenty Seventh Annual Conference of the Arab-US Association for Communication Educators Kuwait University

Media platforms have developed at an unprecedented rate recently, disrupting traditional models for publishing, broadcasting, and advertising and creating a need for identifying new models. As media become more fragmented and at the same time converge, implications can be seen across several different areas, such as the way people access media, how media are marketed, and how the media industry is changing.

The main objectives of this conference are to discuss, analyze, and critique topics related to those phenomena and to contribute to the academic debate about new media models and theory. The subjects and themes covered in the conference will include, without being limited to:

• History of media fragmentation and convergence in media landscape

• Digital and social media fragmentation and convergence in media landscape

• Changes in media theories and research in a fragmented and converged media landscape

• New media for media education in a fragmented and converged media landscape

• Effects of media convergence and fragmentation in media landscape

• Corporate and strategic communication and their relationships with media convergence and fragmentation in media landscape

• Agenda setting effects of influencers in media landscape

• Effects of media fragmentation and convergence on consumers in media landscape

• Fragmentation and convergence of journalism in media landscape

• Health and emergency communication in a fragmented and converged media landscape

Site: Kuwait University, Kuwait

Date: 28-30 October 2023

Languages of the conference: Arabic and English Registration fees: $150

Hotels: To be announced later

Important deadline dates:

• May 15th: Submission of abstract

• June 15th: Response to abstracts

• August 15th: Submission of registration forms and fee payments

• Sept. 1st: Submission of full paper

Consequently, the consumers of media messages have changed their usual patterns of consumption. The phenomena of digitization, media convergence, media fragmentation, and consumption of media and user-generated content set the agenda of interests and concerns for educators, scholars, and practitioners.

• Sept. 20th: Dissemination of final conference program

Contact:

Send abstracts and questions to Dr. Yousef AlFailakawi, President of AUSACE

yalfailakawi@ku.edu.kw

www. https://ausace.mystrikingly.com

June, 22-23, 2023

Bucharest, Romania (Virtual and in-person sessions)

Deadline: April 23, 2023

Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest

The Institute for International Journalism of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University Yuriy Fed'kovych Chernivtsi National University of Ukraine

The International Conference

Communication in times of (poly)crisis and digital disruptive transformations

The current context in Europe and around the world seems to be marked by a sense of perpetual, although uneven and differently experienced, crisis and uncertainty. On the background of (post)Covid pandemic situation, issues that have been put on hold - climate change, food insecurity, population aging and migration, to name just a few - are reappearing, with a greater force, powered by the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing inequalities. These difficult challenges have triggered populist discourses, favor nationalism and extremism, mainly because the digital informational ecosystem favors the simplicity and emotionality of those responses.

In these boisterous times, trustworthy communication is essential; the high capacity of conspiracy theories to go viral, the threat of exposure to contradictory information and fake-news/disinformation might contribute to making people more vulnerable and confused and also might persuade them to accept and to disseminate ideologically-driven content and polarized information.

The purpose of this conference is to consider the state of digital informational ecosystem and communications research in the times of (poly)crisis and uncertainty. The conference theme focuses on the intersection between the role of quality press, traditional journalism, political/public communication and digital technologies, all understood as potential enhancers of democracy, yet vulnerable when under attack.

We invite participants to submit theoretical and empirical proposals that might contribute to a critical discussion on the reconfiguration of journalistic and political/public communication practices in a hybridized and polarized networked media environment.

·         How can the emerging disruptive forms of communication and information be meaningfully delineated?

·         How do strategies and tactics change in relation to the construction of (alternative) agendas, claims and politics?

·         How do journalists engage in (re)enforcing public confidence and accountability?

·         How has the proliferation of digital populism, misinformation and disinformation/fake news transformed political communication? 

We are interested in papers on the following topics:

@ Disinformation and misinformation in media and political/public communication;

@the vulnerability of audiences in major crisis situations – the impact of gender, social class, age and other identity categories;

@ Ethical and moral dilemmas of using Artificial Intelligence in public communication;

@hate speech in digital informational ecosystem;

@ digital communications and the re-actualization of populism and nationalism;

@ Conceptual and methodological challenges of studying journalists’ roles in a digital environment;

@ communication role in citizen sciences and participatory transformation of research;

@ Marcom and creative industries strategies;

@data-driven propaganda strategies and conspiracy theories;

@ work, gender and new technologies;

@organizational communication (in time of crisis), communication campaigns, types of activism and political movements in digital informational ecosystem;

@ communication of climate change and adaptation; politics of climate;

@ (higher) education in digital informational ecosystem.

Special Panel: Exploring (dis)continuities in work, gender and technology

The session seeks research that employs work-centered perspectives alongside a gender or intersectional lens to examine the current context, marked by (poly)crisis and technological disruptions. Traditionally, the media field has privileged the symbolic as an object of inquiry, but as digital technologies have become ubiquitous, it has manifested a growing, trans-disciplinary concern with understanding how the means of communication shape material life, not only how they represent it. With the rise of the platform economy, and the increasing proportion of knowledge workers who depend on communication to carry out their tasks, the media field is turning its gaze towards work-related matters. We want to contribute to this turn by exploring the (dis)continuities that digital technologies create between work, home and leisure time, while keeping in mind that the impact will differ across identities. Gender remains a core organizing principle in our society, but we acknowledge that it is influenced and often becomes less prominent in relation to other identity categories, namely, social class, age, race/ ethnicity, educational background, occupational status, job type, bodily and cognitive abilities, non-normative sexualities, and nationality. We welcome with equal interest submissions that belong to the media field and to other disciplines, both empirical and theoretical approaches connected to the following areas:

·      Work in communication industries

·      Knowledge workers and communication practices

·      Technology and paid/unpaid labor in the platform economy

·      Work and intersectional (digital) inequalities 

·      Designing technology and policy for digital wellbeing

Practical information

The abstract (300 words) will contain author’s/authors’ details, the study’s purpose, research questions, employed methodology or approach, (potential) results, including references (please, use the template attached below).

The submission languages are Romanian and English. The time allocated to each presentation will be 15-20 minutes, and it can be delivered online/virtual and face to face (the corresponding author is expected to express this choice when submitting the abstract). The deadline for abstract submission is April, 23, 2022, at the address: conference@fjsc.ro

 NO participation fees.

If you have further questions, please contact the organizers at the address: conference@fjsc.ro

Scientific Committee

Jatin Srivastava, PhD, Full Professor, Ohio University, USA

Natalia Nechaieva Yuriichuk, PhD, Associate Professor, Yuriy Fed'kovych Chernivtsi National University

Marian Petcu, PhD, Full Professor, University of Bucharest, Romania

Antonio Momoc, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Bucharest, Romania

Camelia Beciu, PhD, Full Professor, University of Bucharest, Romania

Camelia Cmeciu, PhD, Full Professor, University of Bucharest, Romania

Georgeta Drulă, PhD, Full Professor, University of Bucharest, Romania

Adriana Ștefănel, PhD, Lecturer, University of Bucharest, Romania

Pierre Morelli, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Lorraine, France

Dana Popescu-Jourdy, PhD, Associate Professor, Université Lyon 2 Louis Lumière, France

Delia Cristina Balaban, PhD, Full Professor, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Nataša Simeunović Bajić, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Niš, Serbia

Gheorghe-Ilie Fârte, PhD, Associate Professor, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi, Romania

Elena Prus, PhD, Full Professor, Universitatea Liberă Internațională din Moldova, Chișinău, Republica Moldova

Florin Ardelean, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Oradea, Romania

Irina Diana Mădroane, PhD, Associate Professor, West University of Timișoara, Romania

Organising Committee

Antonio Momoc, Dean - FJSC, PhD, Associate professor, University of Bucharest

Romina Surugiu, Vice Dean - FJSC, PhD, Associate professor, University of Bucharest

Jatin Srivastava, PhD, Full Professor, Ohio University, Institute for International Journalism (IIJ)

Nicoleta Apostol, PhD, Lecturer, University of Bucharest

Alexandra Bardan, PhD, Lecturer, University of Bucharest

Доц. др Наташа Симеуновић Бајић

Филозофски факултет Универзитета у Нишу

Doc. dr Nataša Simeunović Bajić, Filozofski fakultet Univerziteta u Nišu

MLK Conference Room 527, located in Riverside Church, 91 Claremont Avenue (between Broadway and Riverside Drive) Columbia University, New York, USA

May 1, 2023 - 10:00-13:00 EST (Hybrid event)

Deadline: March 27, 2023

Organisers: Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, University of Liverpool, University of Sheffield and Worlds of Journalism Study

As part of UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day 2023, an academic conference will take place at Columbia University in New York on 1 May 2023 as a hybrid event. The academic conference focuses on freedom of expression as a driver for other human rights, linking to UNESCO’s overall theme for World Press Freedom Day 2023. Academia has played an important role in World Press Freedom Day by hosting an academic conference that provides a forum to hear from scholars who research constraints on media freedom in all their complexity. As this is the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, the first part of this year’s academic conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate academia’s contributions to better understanding the challenges of journalism safety and media freedom, as well as looking ahead at how it can contribute to these pressing issues in a future where freedom of expression is being threatened around the world. This interactive workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars to come together to discuss how we can continue to build stronger interdisciplinary academic capacity and greater collaboration between academia and civil society. An action statement will be produced on the next steps academia can take.

The second half of the conference will be a panel session. We invite contributions that discuss current challenges to freedom of expression as a driver for other human rights. The academic consultations on the 10th anniversary of the UN Plan on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity identified six areas posing significant challenges to freedom of expression: digital safety; gender-specific safety issues; workplace safety issues; improving monitoring; understanding impunity; and the weaponisation of the law. Papers addressing any of these areas while highlighting the link with protection or curtailment of freedom of expression are welcome.  

Submission requirements:

Abstracts of 250 words and an author bio of 100 words should be submitted by 27 March 2023 via the following link - https://liverpoolcommsmedia.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5mRz1iojzBgDKFU

detailing the research area being considered and its links to freedom of expression. The event will be hybrid with the option to attend either in person or online. There will also be a chance for abstracts to be published on both the Journalism Safety Research Network’s (JSRN) website and University of Liverpool’s DigiPol: Centre for Digital Politics, Media and Democracy website. Academics who would like to attend without presenting at the event in person or online, can also register their interest via the link.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Dr Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova (vpetkova@liverpool.ac.uk) or Dr Gemma Horton (gemma.horton@sheffield.ac.uk).

We look forward to seeing you at the academic conference as part of UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day! 

Best wishes 

The Organising Committee 

Professor Jackie Harrison, UNESCO Chair on Media Freedom, Journalism Safety and the Issue of Impunity

Dr Vera-Slavtcheva Petkova, Reader in Global Journalism and Media, University of Liverpool, UK / Worlds of Journalism Study Executive Committee Member

Catalina Botero, Columbia Global Freedom of Expression

Dr Gemma Horton, Impact Fellow, Centre for Freedom of the Media

Dr Emily Harmer, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Liverpool, UK

Dr Rosalynd Southern, Senior Lecturer in Political Communication, University of Liverpool, UK

Dr Christos Kostopoulos, Research Associate, University of Liverpool, UK

September 28-29, 2023

The University of Sydney 

Deadline: April 16, 2023

Policy innovation for inclusive internet governance 

https://internet-policy-meco.sydney.edu.au/

The task of internet policy making has changed markedly over the past two decades. The ‘move fast, break things’ era—during which a central policy concern was how to manage economic disruption across industry sectors from entertainment to journalism, retail, transport and hospitality—has evolved into a digital era characterised by complex and interconnected social, political and economic global challenges. Today, internet policy must confront issues relating to embedded interests, monopoly power, geopolitics, colonisation, warfare, automation, the environment, misinformation, safety, security and more. As DeNardis (2014) has argued, conflicts within internet governance involve critical negotiations over economic and political power and how these conflicts are resolved “will determine some of the most important public interest issues of our time”. 

In seeking to resolve these conflicts, there is a risk that the dominant economic and geopolitical actors will structure outcomes in their interest. An inclusive approach to internet governance is needed if we are to achieve an equitable distribution of digital resources and opportunities. Inclusive internet governance requires that the voices, interests and values of the maginalised are included in policy making processes, so that dominant ideologies can be challenged and alternative imaginaries realised (Gurumurthy & Chami, 2016). 

Novelty and innovation in internet policy is itself challenging. Typically, policy making is driven by past experiences (Schot and Steinmueller, 2018) and constrained by institutional formalities, hierarchies and procedures (Bauer, 2014). Innovation, on the other hand, requires space for exploration and experimentation with opportunities “only partially known” (Bauer & Bohlin, 2022). How does policy innovation occur? 

This conference seeks to bring together a range of international voices to demonstrate how varying approaches towards internet policy are established, embodied and engaged with by a variety of stakeholders. It also aims to bring together scholars and policymakers to discuss current practices, alternative designs and the ‘unknowns’ that are required for inclusive internet governance. The conference will invite scholars, civic interest groups, platform providers and regulatory bodies to discuss the tensions of internet policy and will consider a future research agenda for the field. 

This two day conference is inviting papers that address, but are not necessarily limited to, the following topics:

• What is policy innovation in this moment? What are its ecosystems? Are they fit for purpose? How can they be reimagined?
  
• Achieving diversity, justice and inclusion in internet governance
  
• Case studies from diverse jurisdictions that address core internet governance problems
  
• Case studies in innovative approaches to digital platform governance
  
• Policies of digital sovereignty, security and conflict 
  
• Global response to automation and artificial intelligence 
  
• Policy and governance implications of emerging tech e.g. web3, AI, extended reality, the Internet of things and 5G 
  
• Emerging cultural practices and related regulatory tensions
  
• Internet business models that challenge the status quo
  

Competition and other economic policies for a more competitive internet 

Instructions

Email a 300-500 word abstract, excluding references, to milica.stilinovic@sydney.edu.au by April 16, 2023 with subject line “P&I Conference 2023 Submission”. 

All accepted papers are required to be presented in person. 

Abstracts will be assessed according to the following criteria: 

1) quality of research and analysis 

2) originality 

3) relevance to conference theme and Policy & Internet Journal audiences.  

Notifications of acceptance will be provided by 1 May, 2023.  

A selection of presenters will also be invited to submit a full paper for a special issue of Policy & Internet. 

References:

Bauer, J. M. (2014). Platforms, systems competition, and innovation: Reassessing the foundations of communications policy. Telecommunications Policy, 38(8-9), 662-673.

Bauer, J. M., & Bohlin, E. (2022). Regulation and innovation in 5G markets. Telecommunications Policy, 46(4), 102260.

DeNardis, L. (2014). The global war for internet governance. Yale University Press.

Gurumurthy, A., & Chami, N. (2016). Internet governance as' ideology in practice'–India's' Free Basics' controversy. Internet Policy Review, 5(3), 1-17. 

Schot, J., & Steinmueller, W. E. (2018). Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation and transformative change. Research policy, 47(9), 1554-1567

March 22-23, 2023

University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, USA/online

You are warmly invited to attend our free hybrid symposium, Doing Global Media Studies: Theories, Practices, Reflections. This event will take place in person and via Zoom at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication between March 22nd and 23rd. Colleagues within commuting distance from Philadelphia are welcome to attend the symposium in person. The roundtable events will be made accessible as hybrid webinars.  

They include:

• Materialities of the Global South (Ahmed Alrawi, Simran Bhalla, Daniella Gáti, Ennuri Jo, moderated by Tupur Chatterjee) 
  
• Global Media Territories (Stephen N. Borunda, Tony Cho, FengYi Yin, Tinghao Zhou, moderated by Rahul Mukherjee) 
  
• Transnational Activism and Archival Practices (Sima Kokotović, Amal Shafek, Yidong (Steven) Wang, Yilan Wang, William Lafi Youmans, moderated by Heather Jaber) 
  
• (Re)Shaping Global Markets Through Cultural Production (Bizaa Zeynab Ali, Yasemin Y. Celikkol, Madison Mellon, Jaana Serres, moderated by Celeste Wagner) 
  
• Exporting Global Nationalisms (Veronika Hermann, Seung-Hoon Jeong, Nisarg P., Nansong Zhou, moderated by Chenshu Zhou)
  

For the full program including abstracts and speaker bios, please see our symposium website: https://cargc-fellows-conference.mailchimpsites.com/

The CARGC Fellows' Symposium is held biennially. This year's symposium celebrates the 10 year anniversary of the Center and reflects on evolving concepts and methodologies of “the global” in the field of communication and media studies.

You can RSVP for our free hybrid symposium by following this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/doing-global-media-studies-theories-practices-reflections-tickets-549735532777

Please note that portions of this event will be recorded.

Warm wishes,

Eszter Zimanyi on behalf of CARGC Fellows’ Symposium Organizing Committee

December 1, 2023 

Prague, Czech Republic 

Deadline: May 1, 2023 

www.praguemediapoint.com 

------------------------------------- 

What’s Working: Sustainable Media System for a Viable Democracy 

It is our pleasure to announce the return of the Prague Media Point Conference, which will take place on December 1, 2023, in Prague, Czech Republic!  

Our world is facing an unprecedentedly complex set of intertwined, mutually reinforcing challenges - a polycrisis, as some define it. Many find it hard to navigate such circumstances and lose faith in the public space they inhabit. The role of journalism thus becomes even more crucial for the maintenance and quality of the liberal democratic system. Today’s media need to regain readers’ trust and contribute to building an open-minded public sphere. This also requires them to cultivate a system where journalists can operate freely and safely, content can remain independent from outside influence and output can effectively reach the target audience. 

We encourage submissions of abstracts and session proposals that focus on examples in the media that appear to be working and generating impact in the following areas, though the list is not exhaustive:​

∙Boundaries of censorship, content moderation institutions/models 

∙Online and other harms, protection of journalists and their content 

∙Lessons of the Twitter affair 

∙Credibility and transparency of media resources and ownership 

∙Preserving independence from the subscribers 

∙Effective ways of fighting disinformation 

∙Innovative engaging with the audience 

∙Good practice of technological advances 

∙Media resources across generations 

∙Social media at the forefront of news delivery 

∙Media cooperation across borders  

∙Public service and social media co-existence 

∙Media platformization 

Please submit your 500-word abstracts or proposals and a short bio by May 1, 2023 to: precek@keynote.cz  

Download our abstract or session template here: http://bit.ly/2GUiqz1  

For more information on submission, deadlines, and fees go to www.praguemediapoint.com. 

To register for the conference, please go to: https://bit.ly/3RXz4Av  

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

MedieKultur Special Issue

Theme editors: Ib T. Gulbrandsen (Associate Professor, Roskilde University), Martina S Mahnke (Associate Professor, Roskilde University), Emma Christensen (Postdoc, Roskilde University), Julie Vulpius (Postdoc, Roskilde University), and Simon Karlin (PhD Fellow, Roskilde University)

Issue editor: Martina S Mahnke (Associate Professor, Roskilde University)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only shaping contemporary communication processes but is actively contributing to and participating in them. Customer service chatbots communicate with us, prediction and surveillance models communicate about us, and content generators communicate instead of us. AI is, in other words, influencing how communication happens, and ultimately what it means to communicate. AI is, however, not developed, adopted, and employed in isolation. Rather, how media, researchers, citizens, vendors, data scientists, etc. understand, envision, and communicate about AI is key to how AI develops, what models are constructed, and the way they take part in processes of communication (Bailey & Barley, 2020).

The entanglement of discourse and practice, of humans and AI, raises many questions and has thus become a topic of scholarly interest across a diverse set of disciplines. While much literature has sought to define AI (see e.g., Monett & Lewis, 2018 ), such definitional work tends to neglect the significance of everyday enactments of AI; how data scientists formulate assumptions that subsequently guide their code writing, how media and vendors narrate AI to influence how citizens and potential customers imagine it, or how AI shapes communication practices in organizations. Others have discussed the potential possibilities and risks of AI, including implications for work practices, trust, as well as ethics and governance (see e.g., Crawford & Calo, 2016; Newell & Marabelli, 2018; Kellogg et al., 2020; Wiesenberg & Tench, 2020; Zuboff, 2015). However, in-depth empirical explorations, methodological and theoretical explorations of the everyday impact of how AI participates in communication and how communication participates in AI are still sparse.

This special issue aims to address this gap and invites conceptual and empirical studies that examine and reflect on the role of AI in various communication processes. We especially welcome contributions that nuance and detail the interplay between humans and AI in communication practices. The special issue assembles vital insight on AI in communication and organizing processes striving for diversity in terms of nationalities and geography among the authors as well as the theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, such as – to mention but a few – communication, organizational, and cultural studies, science and technology studies, actor-network theory, phenomenology and qualitative and quantitative studies, action research, discourse analysis, comparative approaches, (digital) ethnography, and mixed method approaches.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Empirical (case) studies on the use, application, and impact of AI in communication and organizational processes
  
• Studies in AI-narratives, imaginaries, and expectations about AI and its implications for communication processes
  
• Studies on understanding and sense-making processes in relation to the use and implementation of AI in organizations
  
• Analyses of employees’, costumer’s, individual’s or group’s conceptualizations of AI inside and outside of the traditional organizational boundaries
  
• Studies of human-AI relations, for example, the ethical dimension of AI-aided decision-making, and its opportunities and challenges for AI governance
  
• Critical and cultural perspectives: conflicts, tensions and negotiations of AI in organizational settings
  
• New, playful, and creative ways in which AI and communication practices are intertwined 
  

The special issue is related to the SCAI-projekt, funded by the VELUX FOUNDATIONS: https://scai.ruc.dk/

Submission guidelines

Abstracts should contain a maximum of 500 words excluding references. It should include the research question(s) addressed, theoretical and methodological approaches as well as preliminary conclusions. Abstracts should be submitted as a Word document via our open  journal system at www.mediekultur.dk, where you will need to create a user account if you do not already have one. Please indicate in “comments for the editor” section that you are submitting to the special issue “AI and communication practices”. In case of any questions regarding the uploading process, please contact: mahnke@ruc.dk.

Timeline

Deadline for abstract submission: May 1st, 2023

Acknowledgement of acceptance for full paper submission: May 12th, 2023

Deadline for full paper: September 11th, 2023

Notification of acceptance: November 1st, 2023

Deadline for revised articles: January 10th, 2024

Expected publication: May 2024 

References

Bailey, D. E. & Barley, S. R. (2020). Beyond design and use: How scholars should study intelligent technologies. Information and Organization, 30(2) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2019.100286

Crawford, K., & Calo, R. (2016). There is a blind spot in AI research. Nature, 538(7625), 311-313. https://doi.org/10.1038/538311a

Kellogg, K. C., Valentine, M. A. & Christin, A. (2020). Algorithms at work: The new contested terrain of control. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1): 366-410. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2018.0174 

Monett, D, & Lewis, C. W. P. (2018). Getting clarity by defining Artificial Intelligence – A survey. In V. C. Müller (Ed.), Philosophy and theory of Artificial Intelligence 2017. Springer, pp. 212-214. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96448-5

Newell, S. & Marabelli, M. (2018). Datafication in action. Diffusion and consequences of algorithmic decision-making. In R. D. Galliers & M.-K. Stein (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Management Information Systems. Routledge. pp. 403-415. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315619361-30 

Poole, D. L. & Mackworth, A. K. (2017). Artificial intelligence: Foundations of computational agents, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108164085 

Wiesenberg, M., & Tench, R. (2020). Deep strategic mediatization: Organizational leaders' knowledge and usage of social bots in an era of disinformation. International Journal of Information Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.102042

Zerfass, A., Hagelstein, J., & Tench, R. (2020). Artificial intelligence in communication management: a cross-national study on adoption and knowledge, impact, challenges and risks. Journal of Communication Management, 24(4), 377-389. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-10-2019-0137

Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1): 75-89. https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2015.5