ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 24, 2023

Toronto (Canada)

Deadline: December 20, 2022

The conference is organized by the Digital Democracies Institute (Simon Fraser University) and York University and will take place in Toronto on May 24, 2023 (one day before the beginning of ICA).

• For this pre-conference, we seek critical explorations of authenticity and authentication as they relate to digital manipulation and digital artifice. 
  
• How is authenticity caught, created, faked, authenticated and managed through digital assemblages? 
  
• How is it both constructed as a felt experience, as well as machinized though automated recognition patterns? 
  
• If authenticity is key to misinformation, then what kind of interventions can we imagine to question, and undermine such articulation? 
  
• What new algorithms of authenticity could we imagine and deploy?
  

We are particularly interested in research that examines the fabrication of digitally mediated authentic experiences, be they non-conscious and habitual, or spectacular and deeply meaningful. We are interested in research that explores how objects and persons come to be seen and experienced as authentic and inauthentic, which includes paying attention to how authenticity – in its affective, emotional, non-conscious and cognitive dimensions – is constructed via technical affordances, media habits, political rhetoric, mass-personal communication, network rhythms, recommendation algorithms and targeted campaigns. Equally, we are interested in work that critically and creatively challenges the articulation of authenticity with misinformation.

We welcome a wide array of methodological approaches – qualitative, quantitative, speculative, creative, participatory, collaborative and others. We are open to different formats of intervention, from traditional papers to research-creation. We also welcome proposals for short workshops (1 hour length), demonstrations and other modes of collaborative inquiries.

A full description of the conference is available here.

Please submit 150-200 words abstract to ICA2023Preconf@gmail.com by December 20, 2022. Notices of acceptance will be sent on 11 January 2023.

Key details and dates:

• Date: Wednesday, May 24, 2023. 9:00 - 17:00
  
• Venue: York University, Toronto
  
• Division affiliation: Communication & Technology Division
  
• Fee: Registration will be free
  
• Call for Abstract deadline: December 20, 2022
  

Organizers: 

• Ganaele Langlois (Communication and Media Studies, York University)
  
• Wendy Chun (Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University)
  
• Alberto Lusoli (Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University)
  
• Anthony Burton (School of Communication, Simon Fraser University)
  

Best regards,

Alberto Lusoli

Digital Democracies Institute

Simon Fraser University

June 19-21, 2022

Newcastle University, a University of Sanctuary

Deadline: December 9, 2022

The academic conference will take place between 19-21 June 2023 during UNHCR Refugee week at Newcastle University, a University of Sanctuary. The conference will be in person only, although we will record the keynote presentations. The cultural festival will take place in buildings and sites on campus and at venues around the city of Newcastle, a City of Sanctuary, between 19-25 June, although some exhibitions might extend into the following weeks.  Further details about the cultural festival including a programme of events and activities, will be available nearer the time.

Call for Papers

The experiences of refugees and asylum-seekers remains salient in and for the media as journalists report from one conflict zone to another, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine adding immediacy to the coverage of war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, (re)animating public and political debate about how ‘we’ should respond. At the same time, major crises in regions such as DR Congo, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Sudan, Chad, Mali, Sudan, Nigeria, Burundi and Ethiopia go largely unreported (Wanless et al, 2022). Generations of Palestinians have now grown up in UN-administered refugee camps in the Middle East, around one million Rohingya people from Myanmar are living in refugee camps in Bangladesh, and the accelerating climate crisis is leading to the further displacement of millions of people worldwide.  Some scholars suggest that media coverage of war often lacks context or historical perspective, so that discussions about the economic and cultural aspects as well as the wider structural issue of migration, are largely ignored (Fengler et al, 2022). It is scarcely original to suggest that mainstream media outlets play an important role in informing the public about refugees and asylum-seekers – for example, the number of people attempting (and sometimes tragically failing) to enter Britain informally via the English Channel are a regular feature of UK national news – but the way the issue is reported is seen by many commentators as contributing to the rise of hostile populism across Europe and beyond.  However, refugees, asylum-seekers, activists and others interested in calling media to account are not standing passively by, but are increasingly using both legacy and social media platforms and technologies to challenge and contest misinformation and negative and polarising and narratives, not least in order to tell their own stories in their own words. 

For the academic conference, we now welcome abstracts which focus on any aspect of the relationship between refugees, asylum-seekers and the media from a range of contributors including academics, media professionals and media practitioners, especially those with lived experience and/or experience of collaborating with refugee or asylum-seeker communities. We are keen to receive abstracts of work which will be presented in a variety of formats including text, screen and sound-based based forms, as well as multi-media work*.  Topics could range from, but are definitely not limited to:

§   representations in mainstream or social media

§   reporting policy and/or legal responses

§   refugee and asylum-seeking media practices, websites and/or social media accounts

§   refugee and asylum-seeking experiences as sources or subjects of news discourse

§   alternative media and community media representations

§   refugees and asylum-seekers making media

§   citizen journalism and the refugee and asylum-seeking experience

§   participatory media projects with refugees and asylum-seekers

§   practices of journalists and media practitioners with lived experience as refugees   

§   the ethics of reporting

§   refugee and asylum-seeker voices in the public sphere

§   empathy and affect in media discourse

§   journalism education in relation to covering refugees and asylum-seekers

§   collaborative media projects with refugee or asylum-seeker communities

§   refugees, asylum-seekers and the adoption/adaptation of media technologies

Publication opportunity

After the conference, we will be inviting full papers to be submitted for possible inclusion in a special double issue of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics which will be published in 2024 (issue 2, summer; issue 3, autumn).  

Dates for your diary

§   9 December, 2022 – submission of abstracts/posters (350-500 words)

§   6 February, 2023 - decisions announced

§   20 February, 2023 – registration opens

Posters

PhD students are welcome to submit abstracts but can, as an alternative, submit a research poster.

For further information, please contact Karen Ross and David Baines at: sanctuarysongs2023@newcastle.ac.uk    

*depending on the technical requirements

References 

Fengler, S., Bastian, M., Brinkmann, J., Zappe, A.C., Tatah, V., Andindilile, M., Assefa, E., Chibita, M., Mbaine, A., Obonyo, L. and Quashigah, T. (2022) Covering migration - in Africa and Europe: Results from a comparative analysis of 11 countries. Journalism Practice, 16(1), pp.140-160.

Wanless J., Michou H., Peyre-Costa P., Schembri K., Kårstad I., Olivesi M., Foster E, Toure M., Vu M.,  Taylor J., Skarstein T. (2022) The World’s Most Neglected Displacement Crises 2021. Norwegian Refugee Council. Availableat: NeglectedList2021_ENG_LR.pdf   

Editors: Franziska Oehmer-Pedrazzi, Sabrina Heike Kessler, Edda Humprecht, Katharina Sommer, Laia Castro

Link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-36179-2

The articles in the book are written in English or German.

Abstract:

This open-access handbook identifies and systematizes the status quo of standardized, content-analytic research in communication science and makes it accessible to researchers and students. It addresses topics and research areas in news journalism, fictional content, and communication by professional and lay communicators. The focus is on the central questions and research designs with special attention to the constructs/variables used. In the associated database "Database of Variables for Content Analysis - DOCA" variable descriptions are compiled and made retrievable. The handbook provides the contextual framework for this. Together, they form the basis for the standardization and thus comparability of content analysis studies.

May 23, 2022

Toronto, Canada

The Interpersonal Communication Division of the International Communication Association invites early career scholars to a Research Escalator taking place in the Annual International Communication Association Conference in Toronto (May 2023). The Research Escalator is a great mentorship opportunity for doctoral students and post-docs. You will receive feedback on the paper you submit from senior Interpersonal Communication faculty, who will provide their feedback on a project in development. This feedback can help develop and shape its direction toward a full conference paper or publication. In this way, the Interpersonal Communication Division wants to enhance participation in ICA and warmly encourages early career researchers to submit to the Research Escalator session. This is a low-threshold opportunity for young scholars to attend the ICA conference.

The process has two stages: First, submit your 500-word proposal by email to both Early Career Representative, Dr. Elizabeth Hintz (elizabeth.hintz@uconn.edu) and International Liaison, Dr. Leena Mikkola (leena.mikkola@tuni.fi) by 1 November at 12:00 ICA headquarter time (EDT). Please mention your name, affiliation, and your career stage. Your proposal can focus on one of three options:

• an article manuscript you are currently working on
  
• an extended abstract of your doctoral dissertation
  
• a detailed research plan/dissertation proposal.
  

In the proposal, present the purpose of the paper, main theoretical framework and/or assumptions, and, if applicable, research methods and (preliminary) results.

The submitted proposals will be reviewed by one of the following mentors – to be matched to junior scholars by expertise:

Kathryn Greene – Rutgers University, US 

Jeffrey Hall – University of Kansas, US

Amanda Holmstrom – Michigan State University, US

Pekka Isotalus – Tampere University, Finland

Steven Wilson – University of South Florida, US

Stephen Yoshimura – University of Montana, US

If the proposal is selected for mentorship, the journal scholar submits the most recent version of their paper by 5 April 2023 to the assigned mentor so that they have sufficient time to review the manuscript.

The Research Escalator meeting is a round-table discussion, in which participants and mentors will discuss the papers submitted by the participants, as well as methodological and theoretical issues in communication research. You will also get written personal feedback from your mentor. Your participation will include submitting a paper, giving a short, 2-3 minutes presentation of your work (no slides), and actively engaging in the workshop discussions. You will receive detailed instructions once accepted.

For further information, please contact Elizabeth Hintz (elizabeth.hintz@uconn.edu) or Leena Mikkola (leena.mikkola@tuni.fi).

Medijska istraživanja / Media Research (SPECIAL ISSUE)

Deadline: November 20, 2022

The editors of Medijska istraživanja / Media Research indexed in SCOPUS would like to invite contributions to a special issue: Higher journalism education online – state, challenges, perspectives

Digital age has significantly transformed higher education of journalists from both of its main aspects - academia and profession. New possibilities and opportunities, as well as more demanding challenges conditioned by rapid technology development particularly call for a specific scientific research and regular improvement of the content of study programs, and of the way they are organized and performed. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the traditional perception of journalism education and the educational experience for all main participants of the educational process.

Scientific journal Medijska istraživanja / Media Research helps to improve journalism theory and media research from 1995 by focusing on a range of important subjects, therefore thematising this topic continues the tradition. This special issue aims to present contemporary practice and theoretical thought of higher journalism education in an online environment with the intent of reviewing new trends in that scholarly area, particularly in the European context. The topic is relevant primarily because we passed the turning point where, using different technological solutions, the conventional journalism education was enriched with new teaching methods, tools, and approaches for educational purposes allowing it to adequately answer the media industry demands. Complex issues arising from web-based/online teaching and learning on an academic level of journalism education requires research of conducting professional journalism competencies from at least two main focuses:

1. Distance academic programs that educate journalists

Distance study programs are those performed entirely at a distance, respectively those in which all courses are performed online and those in which the complete teaching and learning process is mediated by ICT (Sener, 2015, Bates 2020). Distance academic programs that educate journalists have existed in some countries, such as the United States, for almost three decades (Castaneda, 2011), while in some areas, such as Southeastern Europe, they are still missing. There is, as well, a particular lack of literature presenting the introduction of such study programs, analysing curriculum, discussing challenges, advantages and disadvantages, as well as comparative research (Vukić and Brautović, 2021). On that trail, we seek for articles on the following topics:

- planning and conducting study programs

- program concepts diversity

- (specific) teaching contents

- (national) case studies

- analysis of curricula and / or syllabuses

- advantages and disadvantages of study programs

- international comparative analyses

- organization of students' practice in media, etc.

2. Conducting e-learning in study programs that educate journalists

The pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus required an urgent shift to distance learning at all levels of education and for all the professions around the world, including academic programs that educate journalists, but e-learning in a hybrid form or only remotely was, in some institutions already a well-known academic practice. Similarly, student internships in students' media and in partner media organizations, have moved into a virtual environment. As such teaching experience differs significantly from the classroom experience and from in-person teaching, the transformation was a certain challenge for those who have encountered e-learning for the first time in these circumstances.

Although, there is a range of research topics regarding e-learning which resulted in different insights and conclusions, based on the recent experience of the heads of the higher journalism education institutions in Russian Federation during pandemic (Vartanova and Lukina, 2021), it could be argued that the journalism education in an online environment in the recent years faced numerous issues that can be associated with three key aspects: technological, pedagogical, and communicational. A number of articles illustrates it. For example, Fowler-Watt et al. (2021) present teaching experience of covering COVID-19 crisis within specific pedagogic challenges of the pandemic, such as teaching mobile journalism, reporting of the community and Zoom managing of students' wellbeing during lockdown. Further, Pain, Ahmed and Zahra Khalid (2021) discuss the consequences that the low internet connectivity, and the lack of access to technology brought to journalism education, giving the example of a good practice and remedy in the case of Kashmir, India. Studying the journalism students' distance learning experience at the Lomonosov Moscow State University during restrictive measures Poluekhtova, Vikhrova and Vartanova (2020) found that while effective online education presumes stable communication of all participants in the teaching process and among departments, online learning is not an alternative to the in-person journalism education because the formation of professional identity is hard to acquire at a distance.

Of all the mentioned perspectives from a general or from the emerging pandemic circumstances point of view, we encourage various contributions on the following topics:

- analysis of teaching documentation and curricula and/or syllabuses

- adaptation of teaching contents that are performed in the classroom for e-learning

- e-learning and teaching methods

- lifelong e-learning

- collaborative e-learning systems (Moodle, Merlin, MS Teams, etc.)

- hybrid forms of teaching

- e-learning experiences (teacher/student perspective)

- creativity in e-learning

- conducting student internships at a distance (student media/media organizations), etc.

We are looking for scientific research articles from a wide range of academic contexts and methodologies, and for book reviews of the books published in 2021-2022, and we actively encourage interdisciplinary, comparative and innovative submissions that will contribute to the development of the journalism education research field.

The Editor-in-Chief of Medijska Istraživanja / Media Research is Nada Zgrabljić Rotar and the guest editor of this special issue is Tijana Vukić. All submissions and questions about this call for contributions should be sent to a special issue editor's email: tijana.vukic@unipu.hr.

The special issue will appear in the second half of 2023.

The deadline for submissions is November 20, 2022.

The procedure with the received papers for this special issue is identical to the procedure for regular publication in the journal Medijska istraživanja / Media Research. Submitted articles are subject to double-blind review and only those submissions with two positive reviews will be published. We seek for 8000 words long articles (about 50,000 characters). Detailed description of the journal, the journal style guide and Guidelines for contributors can be found at http://www.mediaresearch.cro.net/en/guidelines-for-contributors/

This special issue is organized as a project collaboration within the three-year (2021-2023) international scientific project Higher Education of Journalists in a Digital Environment (HEJDE). It is an institutional project of the Faculty of Humanities of the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula aimed at the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research of the state, challenges and educational opportunities of the modern academic education of journalists.

October 12, 2022

We want to invite researchers to discuss the past and the future of mediatization research as a broad yet unifying approach. We would like to open up the discussion, inviting senior scholars, including Göran Bolin, Nick Couldry, Kirsten Frandsen, Andreas Hepp, Stig Hjarvard, Knut Lundby, Friedrich Krotz, Carlos A. Scolariand other guests to provide responses, comments, and to discuss and explore the future of mediatization research. Anyone interested can join, a link to the ZOOM event will appear around 10 October on the event website. 

ZOOM LINK: It will soon be available on the site below

EVENT WEBSITE: https://ecrea.eu/event-4756915 

December 16–18, 2022

University of Belgrade, Serbia

Deadline: October 15, 2022

We invite scholars from diverse fields to evaluate the risks, benefits, and potential outcomes of emerging technologies and to critically examine the ways these technologies affect and shape societies. We welcome submissions examining different aspects of emerging technologies from the perspective of specific disciplines as well as interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary approaches to the topic.

READ MORE: https://emerge.ifdt.bg.ac.rs

December 9, 2022

Online event

Deadline: October 15, 2022

Continuing our research meetings focused on specific issues of mediatization research chaired by eminent experts (Göran Bolin (2017), Johan Fornäs (2018), Andreas Hepp (2019), Mark Deuze (2020) André Jansson (2021)), this year the workshop will take place online on the 9 December 2022 and it will be led by Professor Andrew Hoskins, University of Glasgow. We invite all mediatization researchers who wish to discuss their own research projects in a narrow and closed group of media scholars under the guidance of an expert. The title of this year's edition is: Mediatization of War

READ MORE: https://www.umcs.pl/pl/towards-development-of-mediatization-research-vi-mediatization-of-war,24329.htm#page-1

A special issue of Feminist Media Studies

Deadline: October 15, 2022

Guest edited by:

Mia Liinason, Professor of Gender Studies, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Ov Cristian Norocel, Associate Professor of Gender Studies, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University

Forthcoming December 2023 (see full info on all dates below)

Digital media offer tremendous possibilities for feminist and LGBTI+ collectives to connect across geographical distances and to create other possible worlds in solidarity and struggle. Yet, digital media allow similar potentiality for far-right actors to build profoundly different subjectivities and networks of belonging. In the context of these dynamics, this Special Issue encourages transdisciplinary explorations of how, and to what effect, transforming media landscapes enable diverse communities of feminist and LGBTI+ initiatives, as well as exclusionary, misogynist and anti-LGBTI+ collectives, to materialize and shape civil (and uncivil) societies.

We encourage contributions that draw on various ethnographic, empirical and theoretical approaches to explore how digital technologies allow feminist and LGBTI+ actors to reimagine the world through counter-hegemonic worldings and life imaginings, and invite examinations of the gendered dynamics of the far right metapolitics that oppose them.

These developments are global and transnational yet they interact with local practices and contexts in complex ways. Therefore, we welcome contributions that analyze how algorithms, affordances and vernaculars of digital platforms facilitate collective sense-making and network building in embedded contexts of feminist and LGBTI+ struggles, as well as among far-right actors, highlighting what these appearances can reveal about transforming media landscapes from a diverse range of contextual perspectives at various local and global scales.

We are particularly interested in papers that explore the following and other related questions:

·        How do algorithms, affordances or vernaculars of digital platforms facilitate collective sense-making and network building in feminist and LGBTI+ struggles? How do they facilitate the creation of collectives and networks among far-right actors?

·        How do digital technologies allow feminist and LGBTI+ actors to reimagine the world through decolonial, anticapitalist or antimisogyny worldings?

·        What are the gendered dynamics of the far right metapolitics that oppose feminist and LGBTI+ visions and world making?

·        How do far right enactments in digital space jeopardize locally situated struggles for women’s, gender and sexual justice?

·        What is the effect of interactions between the circulation of popular digital artefacts, such as memes, and political events in particular places?

·        How are subjectivities and representations considered un/trustworthy in contexts of feminist and LGBTI+ online engagements? How do far-right actors deem online dynamics as un/trustworthy?

·        What do these appearances reveal about the generativity and interconnectivity of present-day media ecologies and about the transforming features and meanings of media and communication?

In addition to engaging with the special issue’s theme all articles must (a) comply with the general submission requirements, (b) address the central concerns of the journal, which is to bring together scholars, professionals and activists from around the world to engage with feminist issues and debates in media and communication, and (c) be of relevance to a wide international and multidisciplinary readership (see below for the Journal’s aims and scope).

Key dates

• October 15, 2022: deadline for abstracts (250 words) and biographical note (200 words) to be sent to both Special Issue guest editors Mia Liinason, mia.liinason[at]genus.lu.se AND Ov Cristian Norocel, ov_cristian.norocel[at]genus.lu.se
  

•       November 25, 2022 – Communication of decisions to potential authors

•       January 15, 2023 - Submission of articles for internal review 

•       February 15, 2023 - Deadline for submissions to journal

•       February 15-March 30, 2023 - Double-blind peer review

•       March 30-May 30, 2023 - Revisions by the authors 

•       May 30-July 15, 2023 - Second round of review 

•       July 15 -August 15, 2023 - Revisions by the authors

•       August 15, 2023 - Deadline submission of revised manuscripts for final acceptance

•       August-December 2023 iFirst publication of finalized articles after copyediting process

•       December 2023 – Special Issue published

Submission instructions

Read the Instructions for Authors for information on how to submit your article.

If you have questions about the special issue, please contact Special Issue editors Mia Liinason, mia.liinason[at]genus.lu.se or Ov Cristian Norocel, ov_cristian.norocel[at]genus.lu.se

Warm welcome with your submission!

Mia and Cristian

Journal aims and scope

Aims and scope

Feminist Media Studies provides a transdisciplinary, transnational forum for researchers pursuing feminist approaches to the field of media and communication studies, with attention to the historical, philosophical, cultural, social, political, and economic dimensions and analysis of sites including print and electronic media, film and the arts, and new media technologies. Feminist Media Studies especially encourages submissions based on original, empirical inquiry of the social experiences of audiences, citizens, workers, etc. and how these are structured by political, economic and cultural circumstances. The journal invites contributions from feminist researchers working across a range of disciplines and conceptual perspectives.

Feminist Media Studies offers a unique intellectual space bringing together scholars, professionals and activists from around the world to engage with feminist issues and debates in media and communication. Its editorial board and contributors reflect a commitment to the facilitation of international dialogue among researchers, through attention to local, national and global contexts for critical and empirical feminist media inquiry.

Peer Review Policy:

All research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymous refereeing by at least two scholars. Submissions for the special issues of Commentary & Criticism are reviewed by the guest editor (or the associate editors if it is an issue we have organized), not by double blind peer review as with full length articles.

Authors can choose to publish gold open access in this journal.

Website journal: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=RFMS

November 20-22, 2022

University of Bonn/Germany (and online)

Deadline: October 23, 2022

An international Conference of the Research Group “Autonomy and autonomous Systems” of the Universities Bonn & RWTH Aachen

Autonomy, originally a core concept of the Enlightenment epitomizing aspirations of modernity, has become one of the central and particularly high-profile concepts in debates on digital transformations.

The discourse figures of this debate mostly comprise a polarizing perspective that oscillates between the restrictive or dangerously uncontrollable effect of digital technologies, such as facial recognition, surveillance or 'autonomous weapons' and the liberating, autonomy-enhancing function ('smart home', 'assisted living'). Contexts of application include e.g. administration, military and police, social and health- related services, medicine and education, and not to forget, the digital economy with its diverse challenges regarding the future of work. Today, in times of digitalization, datafication, and an increasing influx of artificial intelligence into many sectors of society, the concept of autonomy needs re-definition and reflection under contemporary technological conditions.

Our starting point for the reflections on understanding of autonomy in the digital age is a conceptual sensitivity that asserts the possibility of autonomy for both personal-subjective and collective-social relations. On both levels, conditions for autonomy are subject to rapid change. Outlining the distinction between autonomous and automatic systems, different degrees of autonomy can be distinguished - from weak forms, in which it is a matter of gradual absence of external control, to strong forms, in which the respective 'autonomous' entity is able to set its own laws (rules).

With the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and the increasing use of robots in everyday life technological transformations have come along with social changes and new conflicts. Questions of privacy and data use, the future of work or the subsequent dawn of a 'post-capitalist' society, as well as the discussions about the consequences of autonomously acting combat robots and the ethical regulation of warfare are just a few examples of the present challenges and those still to come. Meanwhile, discourses of technological autonomy address an array of issues concerning the future of democracy. Global digital dependencies, the delegation of authoritative power and the rise of global platform companies challenge the political autonomy of democratic states and their technological sovereignty. On a cultural level, the integration of autonomous systems into society launches a discussion about a technologically induced crisis of humanist values and question the ideals of the enlightenment for today’s socio-technical practices. Studies related to trans- or posthumanism construe technologies as an opportunity to improve or even overcome the human condition. Visions of human enhancement, virtuality, cyborg-societies mingling with autonomous machines and artificial superintelligence might sound utopian today, but perhaps not anymore tomorrow. The reasoning in both optimistic assumption and skeptical anticipation illustrates the urgency of re-defining not just our idea of personal autonomy within the digital, and datafied society but also the need to theorize and analyze new forms of autonomy to understand the next phase of digital society. Interdisciplinary research on the concept of autonomy is needed in order to substantiate our normative, functional, and epistemic claims on the development of the relationship between humans and technology in the future.

The conference “Autonomy in the Digital Age: Rethinking Relationships between Humans, Technology, and Society” aims to encourage a conversation among all disciplines interested in issues concerning ‘Autonomy and Technology’, allowing for diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives. We intend to explore the significance of autonomous living in our digital societies, to question the humanist concept of autonomy itself in our technological reality and to analyse the implications of our interaction with (semi)autonomous systems.

Submissions from all social sciences, humanities and technology disciplines related to the following topics and questions are highly welcomed, but do not need to be limited to these:

Section 1: Theoretical approaches & interdisciplinary perspectives:

How are digital data practices in public and private life enabling or hindering informational self- determination? How do we reconfigure notions like privacy and surveillance? How will the growing influence of autonomous systems affect social structures, political systems, labour and governmental control measures?

Section 2: Contexts:

How are (emerging) modes of (technical) autonomy and agency reshaping societies and personal life- worlds? Which different puzzles of “autonomy” emerge in practical contexts and fields from art, medicine and political institutions? Are we as a digital society at the beginning of a cultural opposition of humanism and technicity? How can cultural and systemic differences in technology policy be reflected and specified on the basis of the innovation of autonomous systems?

Section 3: Norms and ethics:

Which (post-Eurocentric) epistemologies and vocabularies question/enrich the debates about “autonomy” and Humanism in the new digital reality? Are agens/patiens ethics suitable as a theoretical framework for ascribing moral status (person and actor status) to autonomous systems? Should autonomy be understood as an intrinsic quality or as an effect in a relationship characterized by power relations? What normative requirements must autonomous systems and infrastructures meet in an ethically engaged digital society?

Section 4: Conversations:

How to conceptualize Human-Machine Interaction and machine-machine interactions in social sciences? Are individualistic or collectivistic designs of the digital society the vanishing point of technical autonomy issues? What is the status of the idea of autonomy in a digital society in which mutually autonomous interactions between humans and technology have become a reality?

Section 5: Systems and machines:

What degree of autonomy do we ascribe to robots? What synergies arise from the collaboration between humans and autonomous systems in different contexts? What role do autonomous robots play in hybrid decision-making-processes? Can autonomous robots be conceptualized as part of an automated process? Which criteria guide the human-centered design of autonomous systems?

 Keynote Speakers

We are pleased to announce the keynote speakers for the conference:

• Professor Dr. Lucy Suchman
  
• University of Lancaster (UK)
  

Submissions

The CfP invites contributions to: (1) individual presentations, (2) thematic panels. If possible, submissions should be assigned to one of the topics above. Please let us know whether you would like to come to Bonn or only participate online. This is not a final decision. We will ask you for a final decision during the registration process (October 2022).

(1) Submissions for individual presentations: Submissions for individual 20-minute presentations include an abstract of max. 2000 characters (including spaces, title and bibliography with max. three titles plus a short CV). Please make clear in the submission whether the submitted talk can be considered for a short talk and poster presentation, if applicable.

(2) Submissions for thematic panels: Proposals for thematic panels include three to four individual papers (per individual paper an abstract of max. 2000 characters incl. spaces, title and bibliography with max. three titles as well as a short CV) as well as a frame text (max. 2000 characters incl. spaces, title and bibliography with max. three titles) outlining the topic of the panel, the context of the papers as well as the fit to the conference topic. Please include a proposal for the panel moderation.

Please submit via email to thimm@uni-bonn.de or phengel@uni-bonn.de

Review

All submissions will be reviewed by the members of the research group ‘Autonomy and autonomous Systems’ in a double-blind review process. The following evaluation criteria apply to (1) individual presentations:

1. Clarity and conciseness of the presentation

2. Originality and innovativeness of the contribution 3. Relevance of the research question

4. Quality of the theoretical framework

 5. Quality of methodology/approach

6. Fit of the contribution to the conference topic

For (2) panel submissions, the entire panel, rather than the individual presentations, will be evaluated, and therefore will be judged based on the following criteria:

1. Clarity and conciseness of the presentation

2. Fit of the individual contributions to each other

3. Relevance of the panel within the conference topic

Deadline and Notifications:

Deadline for all submissions: October 23rd, 2022 Notification for acceptance until November 1st, 2022

Contact: Prof. Caja Thimm (thimm@uni-bonn.de) or Phillip Engelhardt, M.A. (phengel@uni-bonn.de)

Fees: The conference is free of charge.

Venue:

Universitätsclub Bonn e.V. Konviktstraße 9

53113 Bonn

More information: www.autonomy-research-group.org