ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Flow Volume 29 Special Issue 4

Deadline: Janaury 13, 2023

The viral popularity of BeReal prophesizes the next generation of social media and social sharing platforms. The image-centric sharing platform, launched in 2020 by Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau, promotes itself as a platform for people who hate social media. The platform’s 10 million active users receive a daily notification reminding them it is “time to BeReal” while allowing two minutes to snap their current moment. Already recognized as the “antidote to social media fakery” (Duffy & Gerrard, 2022), BeReal encourages authenticity through the platform’s logic and design while policing users' labor through its emphasis on capturing each post in a single shot. BeReal cultivates a return to simplicity with its minimalist interface and simple user experience flow (Boffone, 2022). In the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, BeReal promotes a sense of digital collectiveness as users share their pandemic moments and build a digital community. With increased social media fatigue, BeReal promises a platform experience where creative work and posting practices neither center around advertisements nor influencers (McKoy & Scanlan, 2022).     

This special issue of Flow opens a space to discuss this platform. What do BeReal’s unique affordances provide for users? How do they catalyze certain user behaviors and practices over others? How will BeReal shift influencer and creative economies? Is BeReal just another social sharing fad, or will the platform have a more permanent impact on digital platform cultures? As one of the first scholarly forums about BeReal, we welcome scholars to grapple with this emerging critical conversation interrogating BeReal’s role in the following topics and beyond:

• Methodological ethics and concerns for studying BeReal
  
• Telecommunications law and media policy 
  
• The future of advertising on social platforms
  
• BeReal’s user experience
  
• Race, Gender, and BeReal
  
• Cross-cultural and/or transnational analyses of platform use
  
• Influencer economies and platform labor 
  
• Social sharing v. social media 
  
• Behind the scenes of BeReal: authenticity and curation 
  
• Social media fads
  
• Slow social media 
  
• Gamification of social platforms 
  
• Abolitionist and anti-carceral analyses of surveillance on BeReal

To be considered for this issue, please submit a completed column of 1200-1500 words, along with at least three images (.gif or .png) or embeddable audiovisual materials with image sources. Please send your column, media files, sources/citations, and a short bio to Flow’s guest editors, Jess Rauchberg and Tom Divon, at flowjournaleditors@gmail.com by January 13, 2023. This Special Issue will be published at flowjournal.org in early February. 

Flow is a critical forum on media and culture published by the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Flow’s mission is to provide a space where scholars and the public can discuss media histories, media studies, and the changing landscape of contemporary media.

References

Boffone, T. (2022, September 29). You gotta be quick when it’s time to BeReal. Retrieved from https://www.popmatters.com/bereal-social-media-gamification. 

Duffy, B.E. & Gerrard, Y. (2022, August 15). BeREal and the doomed quest for online authenticity. Retrieved from  https://www.wired.com/story/bereal-doomed-online-authenticity/. 

McKoy, K. & Scanlan, K. (2022, November 15). Could BeReal be the first successful social media channel to grow without ad support? Retrieved from https://digiday.com/marketing/could-bereal-be-the-first-successful-social-media-channel-to-grow-without-ad-support/.

Deadline: March 17, 2023

Dear colleagues,

I am writing to share the call for nominations for The International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award 2023. The award honors internationally oriented books published within the last ten years that advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of the linkages between news media and politics in a globalized world in a significant way. 

You can find the call for nominations at the bottom of this email and on the journal website at https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/HIJ/2023%20IJPP%20book%20award%20announcement-1670345784.pdf.

I would be very grateful if you could consider nominating books (self-nominations are also accepted) and share this call for nominations with anyone you think may be interested in it. The deadline is March 17, 2023. 

Call for Nominations 

The International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award 2023

Deadline: 17 March 2023

Nominations are invited for the annual International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award, to be sent to committee members no later than March 17, 2023.

Rationale

The International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award honors internationally oriented books that advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of the linkages between news media and politics in a globalized world in a significant way. It is given annually by the International Journal of Press/Politics and sponsored by Sage Publications. 

The award committee will judge each nominated book on the following criteria: the extent to which the book contributes to internationally relevant knowledge; the significance of the problems addressed; the strength of the evidence the book relies on; conceptual innovation, clarity of writing; and the book’s ability to link journalism studies, political communication research, and other relevant fields of intellectual and scholarly inquiry.

Eligibility

Books written in English and published within the last ten years will be considered. Monographs as well as edited volumes of exceptional quality and coherence will be considered for the award. Books by current members of the award committee are ineligible and committee members will recuse themselves from discussion of books by members of their own department, works published in series that they edit, and similar circumstances.

Award committee

The award committee consists of Cristian Vaccari (Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics), Frank Esser (chair of the Political Communication Division of ICA), and Annika Sehl (chair of the Journalism Studies Division of ICA). 

Nominations

Nominations including a rationale of no more than 350 words should be emailed to Cristian Vaccari (c.vaccari@lboro.ac.uk by March 17, 2023. Self-nominations are accepted. 

The nomination must specify why the book should receive the award by outlining the importance of the book to the study of media and politics and by identifying its international contribution and relevance. Please include links to or copies of relevant reviews in scholarly journals if applicable. 

Arrangements should be made with the publishers of nominated books for one hard copy or e-book (i.e., the full book in PDF form) to be sent by March 17 to each of the three committee members at the following addresses:

• Cristian Vaccari, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Brockington Building U3.19, Loughborough University, Epinal Way, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, United Kingdom. Email: c.vaccari@lboro.ac.uk. 
  
• Frank Esser, Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Andreas St 15, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland. Email: f.esser@ikmz.uzh.ch
  
• Annika Sehl, Department of Journalism, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Ostenstraße 25, 85072 Eichstätt, Germany. Email: annika.sehl@ku.de 
  

Presentation

The award will be presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association and will be announced on the IJPP website. 

Past winners of the award

2022: Nikki Usher, News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism (Columbia University Press 2021).

2021: Allissa V. Richardson, Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism (Oxford University Press 2020).

2020: Thomas Hanitzsch, Folker Hanusch, Jyotika Ramaprasad, and Arnold S. de Beer (Editors), Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe (Columbia University Press, 2019).

2019: Maria Repnikova, Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

2018: Erik Albæk, Arjen van Dalen, Nael Jebril, and Claes H. de Vreese, Political Journalism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 

2017: Katrin Voltmer, The Media in Transitional Democracies (Polity Press, 2013).

2016: Andrew Chadwick, The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power(Oxford University Press, 1st edition 2013).

2015: Rodney Benson, Shaping Immigration News (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

11-15 April 2023

Venice, Isle of San Servolo

Deadline: December 23, 2022

Making your voice heard in digital governance

How to promote democratic values and fundamental rights in platform governance?

The Spring School deals with regulatory and governance issues, related to digital media and platforms. In particular, this 2023 School focuses on regulatory and policy options for digital developments at the intersection of regional (European) and global levels, in a historical moment characterised by overlapping crises – overt conflict, health, environmental and care. By bringing together scholars and expert practitioners from different regions and knowledge backgrounds, the Spring School will foster interdisciplinary and intergenerational reflections upon the challenges associated with emerging world orders from a communication governance perspective, and the role of the European Union therein. Students will be involved in multiple activities, including working in groups to elaborate policy briefs on the topics discussed. Join the EuromediApp Spring School 2023 to learn how to make your voice heard in digital governance!

Who can join

PhD and advanced Master students in the field of communication studies, political science and sociology.

Participation is subject to a selection process.

Venue

The event will take place on the isle of San Servolo, at the Venice International University (VIU), just a few minutes by water bus from Piazza San Marco. See more details on how to get there: https://servizimetropolitani.ve.it/en/san-servolo-island/where-we-are.

Program

In Venice, the program includes:

• Presentation of posters
  
• Seminars, panels, interactive sessions on:
  
• • Communication governance and geopolitics
  • Technological developments challenging European governance
  • Knowledge values and emerging communication orders
• Group activities for writing policy briefs
  
• Excursion to outlandish Venice

The final program will be available in January 2023.

Fee

100 EUR per student, paid after the acceptance of application.

EuromediApp covers accommodation for the whole stay in San Servolo with full pension. The project also covers cultural excursions included in the program. EuromediApp does not cover travel costs to the venue.

Travel grant

Travel costs should be covered by the participants or their institutions. If your university does not offer any financial support for such a travel and you still need a subsidy, you can request a travel grant (reimbursing expenses up to 400 EUR).

Travel grants are limited.

You will have to submit a letter from your supervisor confirming your university does not support the participation of students in summer/winter/spring schools.

Application

Please click on “Apply” and fulfil the form, including your motivation letter (max. 500 words) and curriculum vitae (max. 2 pages), by 23rd December 2022. Selected students will be informed by 10th January 2023.

Facts & figures

This is the second school organised by the EuromediApp. See the feedback from participants of the first Winter School, held in Strobl (Austria) in February 2022:

• 70% of the participants considered it one of the 10% best academic events they have ever attended
  
• 86% of the participants indicated they were very satisfied (max. evaluation score) with the event. No student was unsatisfied
  
• After attending it, 86% of the participants would have paid a fee of 200 EUR or more (considering both value for money and their economic conditions)
  

In their own words...

“The formula was perfect: the best of working environment and the best of good mood. The flow was great. Great teachers and wonderful networking among students”

“Thank you for the great week! I could feel that you really wanted to make it special, informative and enjoyable and you put a lot of effort into organizing it. All the faculty as well as students seemed committed and happy to make the most of this time”

“I am very impressed with the quality of the input lectures and everyone’s willingness to collaborate and share knowledge with one another”

Organising committee

On behalf of the Jean Monnet Network European Media and Platform Policy (EuromediApp):

Claudia Padovani and Andrea Pettrachin (University of Padova)

Hannu Nieminen (University of Helsinki)

Helena Sousa (University of Minho)

Josef Trappel and Tales Tomaz (University of Salzburg)

Robin Mansell (London School of Economics)

September 14-15, 2023

Cardiff University (UK)

Deadline: February 17, 2023

The Future of Journalism 2023 conference invites submissions on all aspects of journalism.  

The event is hosted by the School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC) and it takes place at Cardiff University on the 14th & 15th of September. 

The organisers especially encourage contributions addressing the theme of “Journalism in troubled times: threats, opportunities and research” 

 This includes, but is not limited to, papers addressing themes such as: 

• The role of journalists and journalism in covering conflict including war, repression, and political violence 
  
• The challenges created in reporting on authoritarian and/or populist political movements  
  
• In an age of Trump, Putin, Johnson, Bolsonaro and many more, the threat to journalism’s standards, normative behaviours, and the compromises to journalistic values in covering populism/authoritarianism? 
  
• The challenges created by reporting on and/or for minority communities  
  
• The challenges of reporting systemic or existential changes, such as climate change 
  
• The accommodations made by legacy news institutions under pressure and the impact on ideals of journalistic objectivity, quality, and fairness 
  
• The role of social media in shaping audience responses to journalism and news consumption 
  
• The impact of both online and physical abuse and threat to journalistic challenge to authority 
  
• Ongoing issues around the gendering of journalism and news 
  
• The tensions between the role of legacy media and alternative media in covering crises 
  
• The changing patterns of sourcing and roles of expertise in journalism 
  
• The implications for improving journalism education associated with these developments 

Confirmed keynote speakers include Professor Jane B. Singer of City, University of London and Dr Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, Associate Professor and Cowles Fellow in Media Management, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication 

The fee for the conference is £275 (£50 for students), which includes tea and coffee breaks as well as the conference dinner (to be held on the evening of 14th September).  

Please do not submit more than one abstract as first author, with no more than two abstracts in total. 

The deadline for abstracts (300 words maximum) is February 17th, 2023. Abstracts should be submitted online via the link on the page: https://cardiffjournalism.co.uk/foj2023/.  

Should you have any questions, please contact us at FoJ-conference@cardiff.ac.uk 

Drexel University

The Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor position in Journalism, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Communication. The starting date for this position is September 1, 2023. This position is a 9-month contract with 40/40/20 responsibility in research, teaching, and service, including community outreach. The successful candidate will be reviewed for tenure after five years. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience, and the position includes a generous startup package. 

We are seeking candidates that show a clear promise of a strong, active research program in journalism and communication in a digital media ecology driven by AI, algorithms and automation, with methodological expertise in AI and big data analysis, social media analytics, and broader, quantitative methods. We are looking for candidates who center on theories of digital media across questions of social, cultural and political issues. We invite candidates from diverse journalism and digital communication research interests, including topic areas that complement one or more of the research specializations in the department: social media and digital communication; political communication; international communication: popular and consumer culture; relationship management and corporate social responsibility; political communication; non-profit communication and advocacy.  While distinctly situated in communication studies, we welcome interdisciplinary perspectives.

The Department of Communication within the College of Arts and Sciences (CoAS) has an Undergraduate program in Communication, a Professional Master’s program in Strategic Digital Communication and a Master’s and PhD program in Communication, Culture and Media. With faculty members who are equally passionate about teaching and about cutting-edge research, the department is a leader in communication education, guiding the design of new curricular approaches to enhance student learning. The curriculum offers focus and flexibility, allowing students to define their path to success. Students learn through hands-on experiences gained in the classroom and co-operative education. 

The College of Arts and Sciences (CoAS) delivers a time-honored liberal arts education paired with Drexel’s renowned focus on applied learning. Research and scholarship in the College explore contemporary issues with an eye toward improving the common good. The College is home to a breadth of disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and a focus on the now.

Required Qualifications

• PhD or Doctorate in journalism, communication, mass communication, political communication, or a related field at the time of appointment
  
• Demonstrable research profile centered around journalism and communication in an AI driven, digital media ecology, including expertise in relevant methodologies, including social media/data analytics, meta-analyses, network analysis, or other quantitative social science techniques pertaining to AI and big data. Subareas of particular interest include (but are not limited to) contemporary (e.g., AI, big data) media environment and journalism, platforms and publics (e.g., studies of mis/disinformation, civic engagement), ethics of AI and digital communication, and more
  
• Track record of publications in top academic journals and/or with top academic publishers
  
• Demonstrable network through engagement in recognized academic organizations (ICA, IAMCR, AoIR...) and international research collaborations
  
• Commitment to excellence in teaching
  
• Ability to teach undergraduate and graduate level courses in the field of journalism, digital communication, including expertise to teach advanced analytics methods
  
• Must be legally able to work in the United States
  

Preferred Qualifications

• A track record of grant application is strongly preferred but not required
  
• Teaching experience at the university level is highly desirable, and some journalism experience will be considered as a plus, but not required
  
• Online teaching experience desired
  

Location

University City- Philadelphia, PA

Special Instructions to the Applicant

Review of applications will begin December 15, 2022 until closing date of January 15, 2023. Interested candidates should submit the following materials:

• A letter of interest that describes the applicant’s program of research and other qualifications.
  
• A curriculum vitae that includes names and contact information for three references. 
  
• Two samples of recent research (i.e., journal articles, book chapters, conference papers).
  
• A teaching statement/philosophy and, if available, evidence of teaching effectiveness. 
  
• A one-page diversity statement that discusses the candidate’s skills, experiences and commitment to teaching about diversity and social justice, how the candidate’s past or future research addresses questions important to an increasingly diverse society, and any professional service that assists in achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  

Please keep in mind that only applications submitted via Drexel Careers will be considered. You can find the link here.

Please address all queries to the chair of the search committee:  Dr. Asta Zelenkauskaite.

NECSUS (special section), Autumn 2023

Deadline: January 15, 2023

This special section invites submissions that engage with questions of cyclicality, circularity, and recursivity in relation to media. Film history is traversed by the serial logic of production (such as silent serials, B-movies, and ephemeral sub-genre cycles) as well as the embracing of tropes of circularity bound by the Deleuzian time-image. Well beyond this purview, the undoing of the finite work through the logic of migrating content also attests to the creative repositioning of authorship as rewriting and recycling across media, as the multiple rebirths of Irma Vep (as a character and as a concept in 1915, 1996, and 2022) suggest. 

More recent developments in predictive computation, algorithmic control, and machine learning have led to a renewed interest in cybernetics and systems theory among media scholars. One key interest in this area is how complex systems can potentially ‘regulate themselves’ through recursive feedback loops. In these accounts, the systemic feedback loop takes on a political efficacy that potentially undermines goal-oriented intentionality of the conscious human subject. This preoccupation also manifests in popular culture. The figure of the loop has become a staple technique of contemporary art. In streaming content such as Russian Doll, Dark, or Black Mirror: Bandersnatch time loops are often deployed to convey the slow violence of unsustainable habits and ‘history in a loop’. What is the meaning of these recursive aesthetic movements? How do the underlying principles of seriality enable these loops? Also: to what extent are serial production and consumption patterns themselves caught in unsustainable loops? 

Moreover, the figure of the loop connects cycles of destruction to what one might call cybernetic subjectivities. The cultural figure and meme of the NPC (non-playable character) is a good example of such a cybernetic subjectivity in current media discourse. One may also think of the figure of the sleepwalker that Tony Sampson deploys to think about the nonconscious and repetitive patterns of social media consumption. Recursive media aesthetics are perhaps most clearly present in video games, where gameplay and progression loops buttress logics of optimisation and improvement. Of course, videogames have also begun to reflect on this core dynamic of theirs in titles like Deathloop, Souls-like games, and the increasingly popular genre of rogue-like/lite games (such as Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells, and Hades). Following yet another line of thought, this looped construction of subjectivity can be extended to the digital mediatisation of the so-called cycles of life, through apps that track physiological cycles, such as menstrual or metabolic cycles. What does it mean that subjectivity is produced in and through recursive systems? How does this transform our understanding of subjectivity? Do (digital) media contribute to the articulation of a new, recursive understanding of subjectivity?

If the figure of the loop (often, not always) has dystopian connotations, the notion of the circle or circulation tends to carry utopian potential. Re- or upcycling practices and designs for circular economies are often invoked as ways to ‘break the loop’ of environmental destruction. How and what do media circulate? In what circular movements are media themselves embedded? In what ways can cycles of media production and consumption be said to be open or closed? The cyclicality that underpins posthuman and decolonial thought has echoes in filmmaking across the world from Zama (Lucrecia Martel, 2017) to Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021). But the aforementioned also suggests that recursive or cyclical processes cannot be easily distinguished and opposed to linear models of (Western) thought. Capitalism’s insistence on linear progress and persistent growth relies on the operations of extractive cycles which, in turn, feed on natural cycles of seasons and life more generally, for instance in agricultural and livestock farming. How are these linear and recursive logics articulated to function together? What insights – regarding ecological, social, and political problems – can be gleaned from a method that pays attention to the imbrication of cyclical and linear aspects of time? The critical re-assessment of Western and colonial knowledge formations thus involves a reckoning with the linear and nonlinear models of time that support modern extractive economies.

For this special section of NECSUS we welcome contributions on #Cycles in different media forms, including but not limited to:

# cycles of production, distribution, and consumption 

# cycles of the Earth, social and political cycles in relation to media

# tracking metabolic, menstrual, circadian and other cycles

# cybernetic subjectivities

# circular (media) economies and re-/upcycling

# recursivity in media and media aesthetics 

# time loop media

# gameplay loops and progression loops

# ‘smart’ infrastructures and feedback loops

# new forms of non-linear temporalities in narrative film and media

We also invite submissions on the intersection between academic research and artistic practice – especially ones drawing circularity and/or seriality conceptually or methodologically. We look forward to receiving abstracts of 300 words, 3-5 bibliographic references, and a short biography of 100 words by 15 January 2023 to necsus.info@gmail.com. On the basis of selected abstracts, writers will be invited to submit full manuscripts before 1 September 2023 (5,000-8,000 words, revised abstract, 4-5 keywords) which will subsequently go through a blind peer review process before final acceptance for publication.  Please check the guidelines at: https://necsus-ejms.org/guidelines-for-submission/ 

NECSUS also accepts proposals throughout the year for festival, exhibition, and book reviews, as well as proposals for guest edited audiovisual essay sections. We will soon open a general call for research article proposals for the section Features, which are not tied to special section themes. Please note that we do not accept full manuscripts for consideration without an invitation.

12-14 September 2023

Porto, Portugal

Deadline: February 25, 2023 

The ECREA Audience and Reception Studies Section, in cooperation with SOPCOM Portugal, Lusófona University/CICANT and NOVA University/ICNOVA, is inviting you to the conference in Porto (Lusófona University), 12-14 September 2023.

Conference call

Unpredicted events have profoundly affected the lives of citizens around the world. The pandemic disrupted everyday routines and brought about rapid mediatization of numerous practices, from education and theatre-going, to therapy and fitness to name a few. After the first period of heightened orientation towards official information audiences developed different strategies and tactics for navigating the social and media environment – reaching personal networks, looking for alternative sources of news, creating their own content, campaigning or disconnecting from news flows. As we struggled to understand these varied responses to the pandemic, new crises entered the lives of citizens – war in Ukraine, energy and financial crisis, climate crisis, and political upheaval. These created different imagery, sources and relations to be woven into audience practices.

Such global occurrences pose unprecedented challenges and unforeseen human proximity to digital environments in an increasingly datafied, algorithmic world. As such, audiences are in a state between conformed and disruptive forms of thinking and acting, presenting themselves in between receptionist dynamics and (new) digital participatory habits. The conference intends to discuss these challenges in the context of our digitally saturated times

We therefore invite submissions that focus on audiences and touch on any of the following points:

-       Online hate speech

-       Online (dis and mis)information disorders

-       Privacy and surveillance

-       Trust in (datafied) media

-       Digital literacy

-       Audiences in a post-truth era

-       Digital disconnection

-       News consumption and participation

-       Ethic contexts on audience research

Application process

Proposals for papers can be submitted in the form of 300 words abstract through the online form available here.

The deadline for the submission is 25th February 2023. 

Submitted abstracts will be evaluated by the panel of reviewers consisting of Conference Scientific Committee, ARS and SOPCOM members.

Notification of acceptance will be sent to participants by 7th April 2023.

Authors of accepted abstracts are expected to attend the conference in person.

Participation fee (including coffee break and lunch) is 60 EUR for all participants. Each participant should cover their travel and accommodation costs.

For further information do not hesitate to contact conference organizers:

• Jelena Kleut, University of Novi Sad, Chair of Audience and Reception Studies Section ECREA, jelena.kleut@ff.uns.ac.rs
  
• Vivi Theodoropoulou, Vice-Chair of Audience and Reception Studies Section ECREA, vivitheodoropoulou@gmail.com
  
• Maria José Brites, Lusófona University, CICANT, Vice-Chair of Audience and Reception Studies Section ECREA, and Chair of SOPCOM WG Publics and Audiences, maria.jose.brites@ulusofona.pt
  
• Marisa Torres da Silva, NOVA University, ICNOVA, Vice-Chair of SOPCOM WG Publics and Audiences marisatorresilva@fcsh.unl.pt 
  

Edited by: Dalton, D., & Ramirez Plascencia, D.

Brill (2022)

https://brill.com/view/title/38449    

Imagining Latinidad examines how Latin American migrants use technology for public  engagement, social activism, and to build digital, diasporic communities. Thanks to platforms  like Facebook and YouTube, immigrants from Latin America can stay in contact with the  culture they left behind. Members of these groups share information related to their homeland  through discussions of food, music, celebrations, and other cultural elements. Despite their   physical distance, these diasporic virtual communities are not far removed from the struggles in  their homelands, and migrant activists play a central role in shaping politics both in their home  country and in their host country.

Table of Contents:

1 Introduction: Imagining Latinidad in Digital Diasporas. David S. Dalton and David Ramírez Plascencia

Part 1 Civic and Political Engagement    

2 Pleito y Piedad: Continuity in Religious Conflict and Identity in Rural Morelos and its Diaspora. Jason H. Dormady

3 Oaxacalifornia and the Shaping of Virtual Spaces for Collective Action. Anna Marta Marini

4 Exploiting Liminal Legality: Inclusive Citizenship Models in the Online Discourse of United We Dream. David S. Dalton

5 Digitizing Transit and Borders: Social Media Use during Forced Migration through Mexico to The United States. Nancy Rios-Contreras  

6 Latin Americans in London: Digital Diasporas and Social Activism. Jessica Retis and Patria Román-Velázquez   

7 Digital Diasporas and Civic Engagement: The Case of Venezuelan Migrants in Mexico. David Ramírez Plascencia

Part 2 Digital Media and the Construction of Diasporic Communities 

8 Solidarity and Mobility of Information among Brazilian Au Pairs in Online Forums. Amanda Arrais    

9 YouTube Channels of Mexicans Living in Japan: Virtual Communities and Bi-Cultural Imagery Construction. Yunuen Ysela Mandujano-Salazar    

10 Radio Haitiano en Tijuana: An Alternative and Aesthetic Communication Device on the Border. Diana Denisse Merchant Ley and Karla Castillo Villapudua  

11 Latinidad Ambulante: Collaborative Community Formation Week by Week. Carmen Gabriela Febles  

12 Public Engagement and the Performance of Identity on Instagram of Heritage Speakers of Spanish Studying in Spain. Covadonga Lamar Prieto and Álvaro González Alba  

13 Scientific Diasporas: Knowledge Production, Know-How Transfer and the Role of Virtual Platforms. The Case of Colombian Association of Researchers in Switzerland, ACIS. María del Pilar Ramírez Gröbli  

14 Latin American Diasporas amid a Pandemic, Hyperconnected and Polarized Context. David Ramírez Plascencia and David S. Dalton.  

Edited By: Tonny Krijnen, Paul G. Nixon, Michelle D. Ravenscroft, Cosimo Marco Scarcelli

https://www.routledge.com/Identities-and-Intimacies-on-Social-Media-Transnational-Perspectives/Krijnen-Nixon-Ravenscroft-Scarcelli/p/book/9781032169125

This edited collection illuminates the scope with which identities and intimacies interact on a wide range of social media platforms.

A varied range of international scholars examine the contexts of very different social media spaces, with topics ranging from whitewashing and memes, parental discourses in online activities, Spotify as an intimate social media platform, neoliberalisation of feminist discourses, digital sex work, social media wars in trans debates and ‘BimboTok’. The focus is on their acceleration and impact due to the specificities of social media in relation to identities, intimacies within the broad ‘political’ sphere. The geographic range of case study material reflects the global impact of social media, and includes data from Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

This enlightening and rigorous collection will be of key interest to scholars in media studies and gender studies, and to scholars and professionals of social media.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

February 1-3, 2023

Nova University of Lisbon

Deadline: December 20, 2022

Open calls for communications and artist residencies

Call for papers, artist residencies and INN 2023 Awards – Media Innovation Awards (only for Portuguese context) are open until December 20th in the scope of INN 2023 – I International Conference on Media Innovation, which will be held at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at NOVA University of Lisbon between February 1st and 3rd, 2023.

Dedicated to the theme “(Per)forming Innovation”, the first edition of this annual conference aims to explore the concept of innovation from a conceptual and performative point of view in the media sector and also the innovative use of digital media in other contexts (such as artistic, cultural or creative). The programme includes a makeathon for PhD students and young researchers, workshops and master classes, theoretical discussions, debates with professionals, hybrid sessions, artist residencies, and the first edition of media innovation awards.

Regarding abstract proposals, contributions that focus on various dimensions of innovation in the media and other creative industries are encouraged.

Concerningproposals for artist residencies, physical and virtual artistic experiences that concretize the “(Per)forming innovation” concept, capable of involving the public, are encouraged.

There are also two journals associated with the event for authors who wish to submit full papers after the conference:  Media & Journalism journal will host a limited selection of the best papers subject to a prior peer review process; Journal of Communication and Languages will edit a thematic issue dedicated to media innovation in artistic and cultural contexts, to be published in 2024, with a selection of the best articles subject to a peer-review process. Both are indexed in Scopus.

All information is available in the conference area, at https://obi.media/en/inn2023/