ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

September 26-28, 2024

Piedmont (Italy)

Deadline (EXTENDED): April 11, 2024

Dear all,

This is to let you know that we are accepting panel proposals for the stream Food Media and Communication in the congress of the International Society for Gastronomic Sciences and Studies (ISGSS). As detailed below, we will soon open our call for abstracts as well. The title of this year's congress is Shaping Gastronomy: Regenerating Food Systems and Societies. It will take place in Piedmont (Italy), between the 26th and the 28th of September 2024. For details on our organization, on the congress and its beautiful locations, please follow this link: https://www.internationalgastronomicsociety.org/congress-overview

Contact (stream): Luca Antoniazzi, l.antoniazzi@unisg.it

Important Dates

• Call for Panels (open or closed): Open from 2nd February 2024 to 1st of April 11st April 2024
  
• Call for Abstracts (papers and posters): Open form the 15th of April to the 15th of May
  
• Early Bird Registration: From 15th May 2024 to 15th July 2024
  
• Standard Registration: From 16th July 2024 to 1st September 2024
  

June 24, 2024 (1:30 PM - 2:45 PM)

Currumbin Boardoom (Star L2), Gold Coast, Australia

Deadline: April 1, 2024

Proposers:

Dr. Lindsay Palmer (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)

Dr Soomin Seo (Sogang University, South Korea)

Dr. Ruth Moon (Louisiana State University, USA)

Prof. Saba Bebawi (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Dr. Saumava Mitra (Dublin City University, Ireland) [Acting as Chair]

About the workshop

When conducting journalism research in spaces where groups of humans are experiencing marginalisation, the academic researcher and human research subjects necessarily encounter each other on an unequal plane of power and privilege. While critiquing the power imbalances between Western journalists and their news subjects, or their non-Western colleagues working alongside them, journalism scholarship in this area remains largely silent about its own problematic position vis-à-vis the actors it studies in liminal spaces.

To address this silence, we are organising a Blue Sky Big Ideas workshop for attendees of ICA 2024 in Gold Coast, Australia. The workshop will facilitate a dialogue among a diverse group of researchers who have previously conducted fieldwork among journalists and journalism-adjacent workers in liminal spaces, particularly those in the Global South but also in other relevant marginalised contexts. It will also include those who might be planning such fieldwork. The participants will come together to reflect on their own practices as researchers, and engage with each other to find common ground across their various positionalities, identities and experiences. The aim of the workshop will be to outline the inequities and imbalances which scholars need to be aware of in their work.

How to join

The workshop will be open to 10 interested participants apart from the initial proposers. Please write to Saumava Mitra (saumava.mitra@dcu.ie) to express your interest by 01st April 2024 with a short rationale of 75 words outlining why you would like to participate. Scholars based in ICA-designated tier B or C countries and early career or student scholars planning fieldwork in marginalised research contexts will be prioritised as workshop attendees.

Journal of Greek Media and Culture (special issue)

Deadline: May 15, 2024

Since the publication of Richard Dyer’s Stars (1979), which initiated the beginning of scholarly enquiry into film stardom, star studies have been constantly evolving and expanding. While most early work on stardom focused on issues of representation and the ideological significance of film stars, or their role in the industrialisation of Hollywood cinema, the field has expanded across film, TV and media studies, adopting new areas of investigation and methodological approaches, including work on the nature of fame and celebrity (Holmes & Redmond 2007; Holmes & Negra 2011), empirical audience research (Herzog & Gaines 1991; Stacey 1994), acting and performance (Naremore 1988; Hollinger 2006; Baron 2018), as well as national and transnational stars and stardoms (Vincendeau 2000; Landy 2010; Meeuf & Raphael 2013; Yu & Austin 2017; Lawrence 2020). 

Meanwhile, Greek film studies have been experiencing an exponential growth in both the Greek- and English-language academe. However, while popular Greek cinema has been reclaimed as a serious object of academic study for some time now, the phenomenon of stardom in Greece has not enjoyed a similar academic reappraisal, despite its acknowledged centrality in Greek cinema and beyond. It is primarily in connection with Old Greek Cinema (Kourelou 2020; Karalis 2015; Potamitis 2013; Kartalou 2011; Kyriacos 2009), genre (Papadimitriou 2009, 2004; Eleftheriotis 1995) and, to a lesser extent, acting (Lykourgioti 2017; Dimitriadis 2008; Kourelou 2008) that Greek film criticism has recognised the role of stardom. Beyond these contexts, there has been a considerable lack of critical engagement with the diachronic manifestation and development not only of stardom but also of celebrity.

This issue aims to lay the groundwork for a wide-ranging debate on the subject that will improve our understanding of stardom in Greece. The issue, however, does not seek to simply celebrate individual stars, unearth their biographies or elaborate on the types they embody. Rather, our concern is with exploring theoretical issues individual or groups of stars raise, the kinds of identities and meanings they personify, as well as the ways in which they negotiate the values and contradictions of their era. At the same time, we are not only interested in revealing the textual significance of stars in specific historical contexts, but also their political economy and discursive construction. Some of the lines of enquiry we would particularly like to pursue revolve around the following questions: how has stardom evolved historically in Greece? Does cinema still provide the ultimate confirmation of stardom, as Christine Gledhill (1991) claimed in relation to Hollywood stars more than three decades ago? How have media technologies (from TV and VHS to social media) impacted not only the way stars emerge, but also the way their fame has been conceptualised and their fans engage with them? How can we understand Greek stardom in nationally and culturally specific terms as well as through the way it intersects with other – dominant or peripheral – transnational contexts? What ideas about personhood do stars articulate, how do these change over time and how do they help audiences make sense of themselves and the (Greek) world?

In order to reveal the multitude of stardoms in Greek film, TV and media, we invite (but do not limit) proposals on the following topics: 

• Histories of stardom and celebrity
  
• Stars and genre
  
• Stars and film style
  
• Stars, gender and sexuality
  
• Stars, ethnicity and race
  
• Stars and the nation
  
• Star labour
  
• Ageing
  
• Acting and performance
  
• The relationship between studios and stars; auteurs and stars
  
• The interconnectivity between theatrical, film and/or TV stardom
  
• Non-film stardom
  
• Cult stardom
  
• Reception and spectatorship: stardom and film criticism; the role of the audience (and different types of audiences) and how they make use of star images 
  

Please send a title, 300 word abstract and a short biography to Dr Olga Kourelou (kourelou.o@unic.ac.cy) and Dr Lydia Papadimitriou (editorJGMC@gmail.com) by 15 May 2024. The final articles should be around 6000-8000 words, and submitted to the editors by 1st November 2024.

--

Information about the call can also be found here:

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-greek-media-culture#call-for-papers

Nordic Journal of Media Studies, Vol. 7 (2025) 

Deadline: April 3, 2024

Editors:

• Anne Jerslev (University of Copenhagen): jerslev@hum.ku.dk
  
• Mette Mortensen (University of Copenhagen): metmort@hum.ku.dk
  

Important dates:

• Deadline for extended abstracts: 3 April 2024
  
• Deadline for full submissions: 1 September 2024
  
• Peer review: October 2023–December 2024
  
• Expected publication: Spring 2025
  

Background and aim

Influencers wield significant social, political, and economic influence, as they have transformed from micro celebrities (Senft, 2008; Jerslev, 2016) and other Internet celebrities from the 2000s, operating at the intersections of authenticity and performance, creativity and commerce. Influencers navigate the realms of everyday life, entertainment, and politics, cutting across mainstream cultures and subcultures, the national, the Nordic, and the international (see, e.g., Abidin et al., 2020). Over the past decade, influencers have taken a central stage on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media, on which they “make a living from being celebrities native to and on the Internet” (Abidin, 2018: 1). In their pursuit of sustained visibility, influencers construct relatable narratives and project identities and sets of values that are recognisable and desirable to followers. Most influencers adopt commercial marketing strategies; they are managed by influencer agencies and create themselves as brands by performing scenes from their relatably ordinary or (more or less) admirably extraordinary lives. Some influencers promote commodity goods to monetise on these self-branding strategies (Jerslev & Mortensen, 2023: 336), or they receive compensation from social media networks such as YouTube relative to the number of likes and followers they generate. Meanwhile, other influencers are driven by political objectives, functioning primarily as content creators and using their platform visibility to gain political impact (Lewis, 2020; Riedl et al., 2023). Influencers strategically appeal to specific target audiences defined by demographics such as age, life phase, gender, race, nationality, and more, or by shared interests in areas like gaming, fashion, financial investments, lifestyle, health, beauty, environment, sports, home handicraft, family life, food, pets, religion, and so forth.

Influencers cover a great span: Far-right female influencers project traditional family values as a form of empowerment and agency (Askanius, 2022) or advocate anti-establishment in the context of the Nordic welfare state (Mortensen & Kristensen, 2023). Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, feminist influencers advocate pro-choice and other women’s rights. Some influencers actively contribute to shaping narratives and discourses on wars by reporting from their daily life in conflict zones or propagate political opinions and calls for action. Others, like migrants, document their fearful journey towards a distant goal (Turkewitz, 2023). Others again use their popular cultural persona to promote issues related to the environment and sustainability (Schmuck, 2021). And many influencers perform catchy dances or dead-pan, comical scenes for younger audiences, who consume entertainment and information largely driven by promotional and commercial interests, but are, perhaps, also able to seek out role models fine-tuned to the formation of their own identities.

With this issue of Nordic Journal of Media Studies, we invite scholars to explore the following questions: How can we understand and measure the social, cultural, economical, and political power and impact exerted on and by followers? What does it mean to “follow” an influencer? What do online relationships and personal affective attachments to influencers mean to people in their everyday lives? Is it possible to be an influencer and, for example, an activist simultaneously in a digital economy guided by algorithmic logics (cf. Scharff 2023)? Which narratives of self are constructed by different influencer profiles?

Themes include but are not limited to the following:

• Influencers and performance of values in relation to, e.g., gender, politics, culture, etc.
  
• Influencer economies and digital labor
  
• Influencers and marketing – business models, influencer agencies, self-branding strategies
  
• Influencers and regulation, e.g., in a Nordic context
  
• Influencer culture and gender
  
• Children and TikTok – patterns of consumption, influencers as role models
  
• Influencers as sources of news and information, e.g., in the context of Nordic public service media
  
• Influencers and religion, e.g., in relation to worship and authority
  
• Influencers, politics, and politicians
  
• Influencers and cross-media communication (media, channels, genres)
  
• Influencers and followers – forms of communication, parasocial interaction, and affect
  
• Influencers, celebrity, and fandom
  
• Influencers and the construction and commodification of authenticity
  
• Influencer engagement and engagement measurement
  
• Methodological approaches to the analysis of influencer accounts and following

We welcome theoretical, empirical, analytical contributions, and so on, just as we encourage interdisciplinary work and collaborative research produced with non-academic partners.

Literature

Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: Understanding fame online. Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/9781787560765

Abidin, C., Steenbjerg Hansen, K, Hogsnes, M., Newlands, G., Nielsen, M. L., Nielsen, L. Y., & Sihvonen, T. (2020). A review of formal and informal regulations in the Nordic influencer industry. Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 2(1), 71–83. https://doi.org/10.2478/njms-2020-0007

Askanius, T. (2022). Women in the Nordic resistance movement and their online media practices: Between internalised misogyny and embedded feminism. Feminist Media Studies, 22(7), 1763–1780. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2021.1916772

Jerslev, A. (2016). In the time of the microcelebrity: Celebrification and the YouTuber Zoella. International Journal of Communication, 10, 5233–5251. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/5078

Jerslev, A., & Mortensen, M. (2023). Celebrity news online: Changing media, actors, and stories. In S. Alle (Ed.), The Routledge companion to news and journalism (pp. 334–342). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003174790

Lewis, R. (2020). “This is what the news won’t show you”: YouTube creators and the reactionary politics of micro celebrity. Television & New Media, 21(2), 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419879919

Mortensen, M., & Kristensen, N. N. (2023). At the boundaries of authority and authoritarianism in the welfare state: News coverage of alt. health influencers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Javnost – The Public, 30(1), 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2023.2168442

Riedl, M. J., Lukito, J., & Woolley, S. C. (2023). Political influencers on social media: An introduction. Social Media + Society, 9(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231177938

Scharff, C. (2023). Are we all influencers now? Feminist activists discuss the distinction between being an activist and an influencer. Feminist Theory. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/14647001231201062

Schmuck, D. (2021). Social media influencers and environmental communication. In B. Takahashi, J. Metag, J. Thaker, & S. E. Comfort (Eds.), The handbook of international trends in environmental communication (pp. 373–387). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367275204

Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks. Peter Lang.

Turkewitz, J. (2023, December 20). Live from the jungle: Migrants become influencers on social media. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/20/world/americas/migrants-tiktok-darien-gap.html#

Procedure 

Those with an interest in contributing should write an extended abstract (max. 750 words) where the main theme (or argument) of the intended article is described. The abstract should contain the preliminary title, five keywords, and a rationale for how the article fits within the overall aim of the issue.  

Send your extended abstract to Mette Mortensen (metmort@hum.ku.dk) and Anne Jerslev (jerslev@hum.ku.dk) by 3 April 2024. 

Scholars invited to submit a full manuscript (6,000–8,000 words) will be notified by e-mail after the extended abstracts have been assessed. All submissions should be original works and must not be under consideration by other publishers. All submissions are submitted to Similarity Check – a Crossref service utilising iThenticate text comparison software to detect text-recycling or plagiarism.  

• Visit Crossref to learn more about Similarity Check  
  

After the initial submission and review process, manuscripts that are accepted for publication must adhere to our guidelines upon final manuscript delivery. You may choose to use our templates to assist you in correctly formatting your manuscript.  

• Download a manuscript template (docx, 32 kB)  
  
• Read the full instructions for authors  
  

About Nordic Journal of Media Studies 

Nordic Journal of Media Studies is a peer-reviewed international publication dedicated to media research. The journal is a meeting place for Nordic, European, and global perspectives on media studies. It is is a thematic digital-only journal published once a year. The editors stress the importance of innovative and interdisciplinary research, and welcome contributions on both contemporary developments and historical topics. 

• Read the aims & scope of NJMS 
  

About the publisher  

Nordicom is a centre for Nordic media research at the University of Gothenburg, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom publishes all works under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence, which allows for non-commercial, non-derivative types of reuse and sharing with proper attribution. All works are published Open Access and are available to read free of charge and without requirement for registration. There are no article processing charges for authors, and authors retain copyright. 

• Read our editorial policies  
  
• Visit Creative Commons to learn more about our CC licence 
  

Link to the call on Nordicom’s website: https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/latest/news/call-papers-influencers-entertainment-politics-and-strategic-online-culture 

September 23, 2024

Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Deadline: April 10, 2024

We look forward to your participation and contributions to this exciting ECREA pre-conference on September 23rd, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

We invite abstracts (200-300 words) until April 10th on the Topic Young people and News:

Submit your abstract here.

• Algorithms and datafication
  
• Cross European research
  
• Social media and information
  
• Decolonization of the field
  
• Participatory media
  
• Migration and news
  
• Audiences and news
  
• Socialisation and news
  
• News literacies
  
• Information disorders
  
• Theoretical reflection and future perspectives of the field
  
• Methodological discussions
  

Should you have any inquiries send us an email.

Fees: Free (ECREA members); 20€ (non-members).

More information about the pre-conference is here.

The pre-conference is endorsed by Audience and Reception Studies and Children, Youth and Media sections.

I hope to see you soon!

Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS)

The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) funds innovative projects that deal with the social opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation. We support individual researchers and groups.

You want to spend a sabbatical in a vibrant interdisciplinary research community? Become a fellow at CAIS!

A fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) releases you from your regular work obligations and opens up new perspectives.  

As a fellow, you can spend either six or three months in Bochum, Germany. During this period, we will finance your sabbatical leave from work through compensation (e.g. for a teaching substitute). Alternatively, we will pay grants of up to 2.000 € per month. You can invite guests for collaboration and will receive financial support for research expenses. Individual offices and meeting rooms with modern facilities offer optimal working conditions. In addition, we will provide comfortable apartments free of charge.

Find out more at https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/fellowships/

You want to boost your collaboration? Bring your group together at CAIS!

Working groups bring together experts from different locations to work on joint projects in an inspiring environment.

We provide catering and modern meeting facilities for working groups of up to twelve members. In addition, we will cover travel and accommodation expenses. You can spend up to three weeks in Bochum or get together for up to three shorter meetings.  

Find out more at https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/working-groups/

Application

The next deadline for applications is 30 April 2024. The earliest possible starting date for new fellowships is April 2025. The earliest possible starting date for new working groups is January 2025. You can also combine both programs. Please use the application forms provided on our website.

The funding program is open to excellent scholars and practitioners, to all career stages, disciplines and areas of investigation, as well as to pure research and to projects that are more applied in orientation.

Further questions? Please contact esther.laufer@cais-research.de.

September 23, 2024

Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Deadline: April 26, 2024

The ECREA pre-conference, titled 'Exploring the Dynamics of Digital Disconnection - Disruption, Inequalities, and Norms,' set to take place on September 23rd, 2024, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is inviting abstract submissions.

The pre-conference explores the nuanced dynamics of digital disconnection, with a special focus on its potential as a form of disruption and the normative constraints that shape its boundaries.

Submission

Please submit your abstracts of no more than 300 words to victoria.kratel@kristiania.no by April 3rd, 2024. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by April 26th, 2024.

Full call: https://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/projects/digital-disconnection/events/conferences/20240126_call-for-abstracts-ecrea-preconference-2024.pdf 

Conference website: https://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/projects/digital-disconnection/events/conferences/ECREA-preconference-ljubljana.html

There is no pre-conference fee.

Please note that this is an offline event, and presenters are expected to present in person. 

Key dates:

• April 3rd - Abstract submission deadline
  
• April 26th - Decision on acceptance
  
• September 23rd - Conference day 
  

The preconference is sponsored by the research project 'Intrusive media, ambivalent users, digital detox' (Digitox) at the University of Oslo (funded by the Research Council of Norway): https://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/projects/digital-disconnection/

May 31-June 1, 2024

Online

Deadline (EXTENDED): March 24, 2024

Our private moments can instantly become public with just a touch, and the line between what is personal and what is public has become more blurred and constitutive of each other. At Interdisciplinary PhD Communication Conference (IPCC) 2024, we are opening the floor to early career researchers, who are eager to explore these changes. The deadline for submitting the abstracts is the 24th of March 2024 (extended deadline). You can send your abstracts or panel proposals to ipcc@bilgi.edu.tr

This year's conference (May 31 - June 1, 2024) will be an online gathering which will also include an online networking event.

For the last seven years, IPCC (as part of the PhD in Communication Program at Istanbul Bilgi University) has been a space for bringing together PhD students and early career researchers dealing with communication research. IPCC also facilitates the publication of research and contributions that emerge from our conferences, such as the recently edited book "Collaboration in Media Studies: Doing and Being Together" available through Routledge.

This year, we would like to discuss the implications of public-private dichotomy for communication research, representation studies, public personas, influencers, marketing, and art-making.

We invite you to bring your insights, your research, and your stories to our conference that seeks to make sense of these issues.

https://ipcc.bilgi.edu.tr

Populism (Special Issue) 

Deadline: April 7, 2024

Guest Editors: Feeza Vasudeva and Dayei Oh 

The relationship between religion and populism has been a topic of growing interest in recent years, as populist movements with religious supporters and institutions have gained prominence around the world. The connections between Donald Trump and Evangelical Christianity in the United States, Viktor Orbán and Christianity in Hungary, and Narendra Modi and Hindu nationalists in India, are only a few examples.

At the same time, new forms of media and hybrid media environments (cf. Chadwick, 2013; Hoover, 2020) have emerged and transformed public discourse, influencing the production, reception, and circulation of populist concepts. The logic of ‘media populism’ (Mazzoleni, 2003) identifies that populist actors reach for new audiences through mediatising 'personalisation, emotionalization, and anti-establishment attitude’ (Mudde, 2007). Scholarly attention has been paid to the distinctive rhetorical style and communicative strategies of mediatized populism, such as playing up the intimacy and closeness of populist politicians to portray them as the representatives of the people against the establishment. However, not enough attention has been given to mediatized religious populism.

This call for papers seeks to explore the intersection of religion, populism, and hybrid media, focusing on the many ways these associations interact and shape one another. We welcome conceptual, methodological, and empirical research works. Possible topic areas include (but are not limited to):

• Populism and Religion
  
• Religious Nationalism and Xenophobia
  
• Mediatized religious populism
  
• Religion, Populism, and Conspiracy Theories
  
• New Religions, Cults, and Populism
  
• Atheism and Populism
  
• Transnational Nationalism(s) and Populism(s)
  
• Populisms in Datafied Society
  
• New Religious Constellations
  
• Translocal and Hybrid Movements
  
• Emotion and Affectivity
  
• Epistemic contestations in Religious Populism
  
• Institutionalized Populisms
  
• Interfaith Dialogues and Religious Populism
  

 We welcome submissions from various disciplines, including media studies, sociology, religious studies, political science, and communication studies. We encourage interdisciplinary approaches and transnational studies that examine these phenomena across different geographical contexts.

The special issue will invite individual submissions based on approved abstracts. To submit an abstract for consideration, please email an MS Word document of no more than 500 words with author information to feeza.vasudeva@helsinki.fi and cc: dayei.oh@helsinki.fi using the subject header, “Religious Populism in Hybrid Media Special issue.” The deadline for receiving abstracts is Sunday 7th April 2024. Invited manuscripts of no more than 10,000 words (inclusive) must be submitted by Sunday 25th August 2024 to the journal submission page to receive a double-blind peer review. No payment from the authors will be required.

August 18-25, 2024

Jönköping University Sweden

Deadline: May 17, 2024

About the Course

Democracy depends on engaged citizens. And yet, the most powerful discourses surrounding engagement are strategically designed to drive commercial markets. As a counterpoint to this horizon, the main purpose of this PhD residential course is to understand theories and methods of media engagement not as a metric but as a marker of power relations.

This 7.5 credit course offers an international platform for PhD researchers to write, present and receive feedback on work in progress from global experts on theories and methods for media engagement. The course will cover key concepts for engagement, including political and public spheres, digital media and AI related technologies, social movements and mobilisation, transmedia engagement, and cultural citizenship and popular culture.

Key Highlights: Mentoring and networking with world leading scholars and international doctoral researchers; slow thinking, with time to write thesis chapters and peer reviewed journal articles; residential setting of Gränna Campus, overlooking the great lake of Vättern, with easy access to local food and crafts, clear water swimming, nature walks and mountain views; social events, including trips to the historical island of Visingsö.

Teaching Team: course leader Annette Hill (co author with Dahlgren of Media Engagement Routledge 2023), and Peter Dahlgren (author of Media and Political Engagement 2009), Renira Rampazzo Gambarato (co-author of Theory, Strategy, and Development in Transmedia Storytelling 2020), and Joke Hermes (author of Cultural Citizenship and Popular Culture 2023).

Website and application: for information on the course, application process, fees, and key dates see https://ju.se/mediaengagement. Contact Annette Hill (Annette.hill@ju.se)