ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Journalism Practice

Deadline: December 16, 2023

Guest editors:

• Claudia Mellado
  
• Daniel Hallin
  

Over the past decade, research on journalistic role performance—defined as the study of how particular journalistic norms and ideals are collectively negotiated and result in specific practices—has become very important among scholars from the Global North and South, providing a more thorough understanding of the processes behind journalistic practices in relation to normative expectations in a fluid media environment.

While journalists must adapt, adjust, and perform multiple roles on a daily basis in response to ever-changing circumstances, shifting norms, rapidly changing technology, political polarization, and a years-long pandemic are making the profession more challenging than ever. In public discourse, journalists are often derided as failing to live up to their duties to serve society, and public distrust with media performance is widespread and by many accounts increasing. At the same time, journalists across the world are working in smaller newsrooms, covering a variety of beats, feeding more platforms, often in environments that offer little job security. How do these circumstances impact the performance of journalistic roles? How is the performance of journalistic roles shaped in the news, and how do journalistic ideals compare to actual practice?

As a concept, role performance conceives of journalism as a social practice, focusing on the interplay between political economy, agency, and the structure of the media. This epistemic umbrella provides a strong theoretical and empirical framework to account for the fluid, dynamic nature of journalistic roles and to explore the constant tension between norms, ideals, and the practices of journalists and news organizations in different institutional settings.

This special issue explores the factors shaping journalistic roles, what roles journalists most frequently perform in their newsrooms, the way journalists feel they can perform multiple roles, to what extent journalistic ideals consistently or fully match the real-world behavior of journalists and the content of news media in different newsrooms, how this varies across space and time, and how this affects the way audiences evaluate the profession.

We welcome empirical and theoretical submissions that contribute to the further development of this research area. Contributions to this special issue may employ different methodological and theoretical approaches and study professional roles and role performance from different levels of analysis.

A conference related to this special issue, “Between ideals and practices: Journalistic role performance in transformative times,” will be held by Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in May, 2023 before the ICA Conference.  People interested in submitting to the special issue are encouraged, but not required, to submit to this conference as well.

The special issue aims to bring together innovative, thought-provoking contributions, from different national and regional contexts, exploring a range of topics, including:

• Professional roles and pandemic reporting: How has the pandemic affected roles performed by journalists? How has journalistic content creation changed/evolved and how has a global pandemic impacted the ways journalists view their roles?
  
• Role performance and technology: How have technology and AI modified news media practices and consumption? How has the digital transformation of journalism impacted the performance of journalistic roles in the news? How are converged newsrooms that deliver to multiple platforms changing traditional roles?
  
• Role performance and media systems: What political, social and economic contexts shape the performance of journalistic roles?
  
• Role performance and news beats: How does the performance of professional roles vary across news beats and genres?
  
• Role performance and news routines: How do journalistic roles materialize in, or are shaped by, the practices of sourcing, newsgathering, and packaging the news?
  
• Role performance and audiences: How do audiences play a role —shaping, perceiving or receiving— the roles that news media and journalists perform?
  
• Methodological challenges of studying journalistic roles: What are the best practices to engage with and gain access to journalists and for data collection and analysis in the study of journalistic role performance?
  
• Blurred professional boundaries: How do the proliferation of digital media and the variety of actors and channels introduced into the circulation of news affect professional norms and role performance?"
  

https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/journalistic-role-performance/

December 9,  9.30-10.15 CET

We would like to invite you to an open lecture being part of the sixth edition of the workshop Towards Development of Mediatization Research: Mediatization of War, organised by the Department of Mediatization of the Institute of Social Communication and Media Sciences of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, in cooperation with Wroclaw Academic Centre and Academia Europaea Wroclaw Knowledge Hub.

The lecture, entitled 'The War Feed: War in Plain Sight', will be given by Professor Andrew Hoskins, University of Glasgow.

Please join us on Friday, 9.12.2022, 9.30-10.15 a.m. at Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/xeu-syzi-ifm 

Edited By: Melodine Sommier, Anssi Roiha, Malgorzata Lahti

Engaging with the topic of critical intercultural education at tertiary level, the book aims to strengthen what critical intercultural communication means and facilitate its implementation in higher education classrooms.

With contributors coming from a variety of educational contexts and disciplines, the book provides a versatile and comprehensive picture of how intercultural communication can be approached in different fields. By offering a reflection on theoretical frameworks for teaching and learning critical intercultural communication, it bridges the gap between theory and practice in recent years. Furthermore, it proposes concrete pedagogical solutions that will help educators working at the tertiary level move from essentialist approaches to meaningful intercultural education.

Higher education teachers, lecturers and professors responsible for the design and delivery of teaching on intercultural communication will find this book helpful and resourceful.

https://www.routledge.com/Interculturality-in-Higher-Education-Putting-Critical-Approaches-into-Practice/Sommier-Roiha-Lahti/p/book/9781032345390

Digital Journalism, special issue

Deadline (EXTENDED): December 5, 2023

Guest editor: Stuart Allan (Cardiff University, UK)

The ongoing crisis engendered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has recast anew longstanding concerns about the relative strengths and limitations of war and conflict reporting. Journalists are risking their lives to bear witness in often harrowing circumstances – some finding themselves deliberately targeted by the Russian military – on behalf of their distant readers, listeners or viewers. Intent on crafting compelling narratives, many are actively refashioning conventional approaches to digital reportage in order to better engage and focus public attention on the plight of those whose lives are caught-up in this catastrophe.

Just as familiar conceptions of visual journalism are undergoing reappraisal, more traditional understandings of war correspondence appear increasingly open to experimentation and innovation, particularly across social media sites and apps. Some Western media commentators have labelled the conflict in Ukraine the world's first ‘TikTok war,’ pointing to alternative types of citizen-centred coverage emerging. ‘When Russia invaded Ukraine last week, some of social media's youngest users experienced the conflict from the front lines on TikTok,’ Reuters reported. ‘Videos of people huddling and crying in windowless bomb shelters, explosions blasting through urban settings and missiles streaking across Ukrainian cities took over the app from its usual offerings of fashion, fitness and dance videos’ (Reuters, March 7, 2022). Impromptu video clips and still images, many livestreamed by citizen witnesses in the wrong place at the right time, put the lie to Russian assertions that its forces were ‘liberators’ and ‘heroes’ welcomed by the Ukrainian people. ‘The bombings and violence in cities like Mariupol, Kharkiv and Kyiv feature a cast of newly minted stars,’ the Los Angeles Times observed, ‘social media standouts who rely on satire, grit and an insider’s sensibilities to document the horrors for a global audience’ (LA Times, March 31, 2022).

This special issue of Digital Journalism aims to explore the current state of visual war journalism in diverse contexts, devoting particular attention to evolving standards, conventions and engagement. Possible themes to be examined empirically and/or theoretically in relation to one or more conflicts may include:

• The evolving status of war photojournalists in an era of image abundance
  
• ‘Click-bait’ news values in visual war journalism
  
• Drone reporting and the affectivities of distant suffering
  
• Citizens bearing witness via social media in warzones
  
• Changing narratives of ‘war’ and visual storytelling ethics
  
• The visual politics of disinformation, such as deepfake videos, in war coverage
  
• Audience interpretations of the visual mediation of warfare
  
• Computational comparisons of war-related news images in under-reported regions and locales
  
• The weaponization of visual memes in conflict reporting
  
• The political economy of global image brokers covering war
  
• Activist anti-war reworkings of war journalism’s visualities 
  
• Reimagining digital war and peace photo-reportage
  

Information about submitting:

Please submit an abstract of approximately 500 to 750 words (not including references) in either a MS Word or PDF file format to Stuart Allan (AllanS@cardiff.ac.uk) by November 30, 2022. Authors of accepted abstracts are expected to develop and submit their original article for the journal’s full peer-review process by the stated deadline. Articles should be between 7,000 and 9,000 words in length, following the journal’s style guidelines.

Timeline:

• Abstract submission deadline (extended):  December 1, 2022

• Notification on submitted abstracts: December 16, 2022

• Article submission deadline: April 17, 2023

This information also appears on the journal’s website:

https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/digital-journalism-visual-war/?utm_source=TFO&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JPG15743&_gl=1*b2p7za*_ga*NTQyMzA2MTI5LjE2NjYwODUwNDM.*_ga_0HYE8YG0M6*MTY2ODY2Njk4NS41LjAuMTY2ODY2Njk4NS4wLjAuMA..&_ga=2.123454027.1921148026.1668666986-542306129.1666085043

Central European Journal of Communication, Special Issue 2023

Deadline: January 31, 2023

Editors: Greta Gober, Michał Głowacki, Anna Jupowicz-Ginalska, University of Warsaw, Poland 

The “Central European Journal of Communication” and the Norway-grants funded „Diversity Management as Innovation in Journalism” research project (2021-2023) invite scholars from a broad range of disciplines to submit extended abstracts for a special issue under the theme of: “Reinventing Media Diversity: Change Management for Social Innovation”, focusing on the political, social, and cultural implications of enhancing diversity in the media.

Accompanying the call, we welcome interested scholars and media managers to a research conference with the same theme “Reinventing Media Diversity: Change Management for Social Innovation”. Conference is organized by Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies, University of Warsaw (June 22-23, 2023). 

For more information visit: www.managingnewsroomdiversity.com

Our Timeline:

Deadline for extended abstracts (max. 500 words): January 31, 2023

Invitation to submit a full paper: February 15, 2023 

Full paper submission: May 31, 2023 

Peer review and copyediting: Summer/Autumn 2023  

Publication: October/November 2023

Our Topic and Goals:

We are living at a historical moment of disruption and radical transformation. The urgency of climate change, the globalization crisis, the increasing sense of distributive injustice, the impoverished political leadership, the rise of the “global Right ”, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine are all points of disruption where radical change starts. Unequal power relations in participation processes that are increasingly mediated become especially pertinent in times of crisis and war.

Disruption and radical transformation similarly affect contemporary media systems, bringing attention to these transformations’ consequences for democracy and the quality of public debates. On the one hand, many discussions and research on crises facing media and journalism narrowly focus on technological disruptions and economic declines. On the other hand, there is a growing realization that the root causes of media and journalism in crises are more profound; with the focus shifting to epistemological blind spots, gaps, and exclusions. This shift is reflected in the recent renewal of media organizations’ interest in diversity and inclusion management. Reports from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (approximately since 2019) regularly list ‘diversity’ amongst the industry’s biggest challenges. ‘Diversity’ (amongst journalists, management, and programming) is a solution to restoring the audience’s trust, improving the quality of journalism, and even ‘saving liberal democracies (e.g.,  Toff et al. 2022, English, 2021). 

Meanwhile, if ‘diversity’ has become a buzzword or even a fashion, the relationship between media and participation remains vaguely defined and largely underdeveloped in mainstream media and journalism research and education (see Tandoc Jr et al. 2020 addressing this problem). We argue that critical contributions feminist, postcolonial, queer, and anti-racist theories have made in advancing our understanding of the relationship between media and participation can help deepen and expend understanding of the challenges and opportunities media and journalism face in such turbulent times (e.g., Callison & Young 2020, Douglas 2022, Thomas et al. 2019). Reinvention of media diversity, both as a field of study and practice, is thus needed urgently.

The Special Issue 2023 of the “Central European Journal of Communication” aims to shed a critical and innovative light at the complexity of political, social, and cultural implications of enhancing diversity in the media and daily media practices. We suggest looking at conditions, possibilities, and constraints for mediated participation and the role diversity management and inclusion can play in reshaping newsroom cultures, journalistic practices, and organizational processes. We also aim  for a reinvention in theorizing diversity; for instance, concerning organizational and human-based resistance to unequal power relations and organizational adaptation and change (Gober and Głowacki, 2022). Bearing in mind the complexity of reinventing media diversity theorizing we invite papers, media scholarly and industry interventions on change management and social innovation considering:

1) The Value of Media Diversity (theory vs potential impact on society),

2) Diversity and Inclusive Management (rituals, artifacts, organizational culture, and so on),

3) Societal and cultural contexts (including motivation, standpoint, positionality, and pride).   

Our Processes:

We invite extended abstract (max. 500 words), highlighting the novelty of the research, data, goals, and methodologies by January 31, 2023 (the abstract shall be sent to: g.gober@uw.edu.pl).

Authors invited to submit full manuscripts (7,000–9,000 words) will be notified by February 15, 2023. The full papers shall be submitted by May 31, 2023, in accordance with the editorial standards and practices of the “Central European Journal of Communication”: www.cejc.ptks.pl.

About Us:

The “Central European Journal of Communication” adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy and articles are published Open Access with no processing charges for authors. The journal offers professional copyediting and instant access to Open Journal Systems. We welcome theoretical and empirical research from various disciplinary approaches, including methods and concepts, book reviews, conference reports, and interviews with scholars and media practitioners (policymakers, media managers, journalists). CEJC is indexed in several scientific databases, including SCOPUS, Web of Science Master Journal List, Emerging Citation Index and Central and Eastern European Online Library. 

Contact 

Questions about the “Diversity management as innovation in journalism” project, the special issue, and related June conference can be addressed to Greta Gober (g.gober@uw.edu.pl), Michał Głowacki (michal.glowacki@uw.edu.pl) and Anna Jupowicz-Ginalska (a.ginalska@uw.edu.pl). 

References:

Callison, C., Young, M. L. (2020). Reckoning: Journalism's Limits and Possibilities. online edn: Oxford University Press https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190067076.001.0001 

Douglas, O. (2022). “The media diversity and inclusion paradox: Experiences of black and brown journalists in mainstream British news institutions”. Journalism, 23(10), 2096–2113. https://doi-org.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1177/1464884921100177

Gober, G., and Głowacki, M. (2022). “Polyphony and Voice Plurality in Managing Newsroom Diversity”. Paper delivered at the conference of the European Media Management Association, Munich, June.

 Graff, A., Kapur, R., Walters, S.D. (2019). „Introduction. Gender and the Rise of the Global Right”. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44(31): 541-560.

Tandoc Jr, E., Hess, K., Eldridge II., S., Westlund, O. (2020). “Diversifying Diversity in Digital Journalism Studies: Reflexive Research, Reviewing and Publishing”, Digital Journalism, 8:3, 301-309, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2020.1738949

Thomas, T., Kruse, M., Stehling, M. (eds.) (2019). Media and participation in post-migrant societies. Lanhem, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield International.

University of Antwerp (Belgium)

The Department of Communication Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) is looking for a full-time postdoctoral researcher in the field of Media Studies.

We are hiring a postdoctoral researcher to develop a project on "Media Discourses on Societal Crises". Current society faces multiple challenges that are perceived as crises, such as COVID-19 and climate change. Discussions on societal challenges can be viewed as a discursive struggle where different views of reality compete for dominance in an uneven playing field. The aim of this project is to chart this discursive landscape in terms of representations, social identities and media platforms. In this way, the project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the discursive dynamics at play and to identify interventions and strategies to foster democratic debate.

The concrete topic of this project is left open, but should be connected to the research interests and expertise of (at least) one of the professors of the Antwerp Media in Society Centre: Sander De Ridder, Alexander Dhoest, Pieter Maeseele and Steve Paulussen.

The main aim of this temporary position is to develop a proposal for a postdoctoral fellowship to be submitted to FWO and/or Horizon-MCSA.

More information can be found here: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vacancies/academic-staff/?q=2528&descr=Postdoctoral-researcher-in-Media-Studies

February 11 – 19, 2023 

Beaconhouse National University, Tarogil Campus, Lahore, Pakistan 

Association of Media and Communication Academic Professionals (AMCAP) in collaboration with IAMCR (International Association of Media and Communication Research) and Beaconhouse National University, Lahore is  planning to organize its fourth Doctoral Spring School which will be a  9-day ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association)  style doctoral spring school offering one-on-one mentoring, workshops,  lectures, panel discussions, seminars, projects and media organizations  visits. AMCAP invites faculty, PhD scholars, and researchers to submit abstracts. 

International Mentors include: 

1.    Prof. Dr. Nico Carpentier (International Advisor for the AMCAP Spring  School from Czech Republic) 

2.    Prof. Dr. Pille Vengerfeldt (International Advisor for the AMCAP  Spring School from Sweden) 

3.    Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Eide (Norway) 

4.    Prof. Dr. Murat Askar (Ireland) 

5.    Prof. Dr. Svetlana Bodrunova (Russia) 

6.    Prof. Dr. Francois Heinderyckx (Belgium) 

7.    Prof. Dr. Bushra Hameedur Rehman (Pakistan) 

8.    Prof. Dr. Abida Ashraf (Pakistan) 

Who can apply? 

You can apply in two domains. 

1.    Participant (currently enrolled in PhD (Media/Communication/Social  Sciences with research focusing on media) 

2.    Observer (aspiring PhD scholars, faculty, and media professionals) 

How to apply? 

•    To be part of it as a participant you need to send an abstract (no  more than 1500 words) to amcap92ss@gmail.com 

•    To be part of it as an observer you only need to send an email to show  interest and intent. (no abstract required) 

Registration Fee: 

•    International Participant: 250 USD 

•    International Observer: 200 USD 

Fee must be paid right after receiving the acceptance letter. 

Deadlines: 

•    Abstract Submission/Email for observers: December 20, 2022 

•    Acceptance Notification: December 30, 2022 

For queries and details: 

Contact our Co-coordinators 

Dr. Saadia Nauman and Dr. Shazia Saeed at amcap92ss@gmail.com 

Edited by: Marie Heřmanová, Michael Skey, Thomas Thurnell-Read

Authenticity has become a buzzword for our times. And a new collection, Cultures of Authenticity, provides the first inter-disciplinary examination of authenticity, by analysing the concept in relation to travel and tourism, branding and marketing, popular culture, social media and political communication. Drawing on cases from around the globe, including Taiwan, Denmark, USA, China and Russia, established scholars and early career researchers have brought together the latest empirical and conceptual scholarship addressing authenticity and its centrality to debates about contemporary culture, media and society. In this way, the authors are able to pinpoint the growing significance of authenticity in the contemporary era, the various ways in which different disciplines approach the topic, and possible ways of advancing the field across disciplines.

As one of the editors of the book, Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read explained, 'as authenticity has been so prominent in various areas of academic research, we saw there was scope for a volume bringing together approaches from a range of disciplines such as media and communications, politics, cultural studies, sociology, tourism studies and heritage. The book showcases the similarities and differences in how different disciplines engage with the concept of authenticity and examine how it is claimed and who can claim to be authentic or not'.

https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/doi/10.1108/9781801179362

Alphaville Issue 26

Deadline: December 3, 2022

Issue 26 of Alphaville will focus on Home as a Site of Resistance - Editors: Anna Viola Sborgi and Elizabeth Patton.

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way we think about home and has illuminated structural, spatial, gender,  racial, and economic inequality. Intervening within a growing area of scholarly interest on mediated representations of the home (Schleier 2021; Wojcik 2010 and 2018; Rhodes 2017; Baschiera and De Rosa 2020; Patton 2020; Price 2021), this proposal seeks to focus specifically on practices of resistance centred in or on the home, working on a range of geographical areas and periods of time.

The forthcoming issue of Alphaville, to be published in Winter 2023, will apply a variety of methodologies, for example, archival research, comparative approaches, participatory documentary. Contributors are asked to widen the focus of existing scholarship to formats beyond the theatrical feature film, including home movies, VR documentaries, short films, and public film installations. 

Building on current debates in different areas of film and media studies–home movie studies, useful cinema, VR, media and activism, film and urbanism–the papers in this issue should highlight how film can archive the practices of resistance centered around the home and, at the same time, rewrite dominant accounts of domesticity.  Contributors should offer new perspectives on innovative possibilities for cinema and media studies to build new representational aesthetics, intervening in the politics of representation of marginalized communities. We are seeking proposals to complement an existing range of essays on Ireland, France, Portugal, UK, and the US. Of special interest are essays that examine the Global South or European countries not included in this range. Essays that take an historical perspective are also encouraged but not required.

The Editors invite contributors to investigate topics and issues including, but not limited to:

• precarity, and the home (evictions, displacement, inadequate housing)
  
• home as a space of labour
  
• homelessness
  
• housing affordability
  
• home as the centre of media production
  
• the role of the home for marginalized communities
  
• home and inequality
  
• representations of the home and social identity
  
• gender and the home
  
• home as an intersectional space
  
• the home and its relation to other spaces (urban, rural, the neighborhood) or/and other parts of the built environment (i.e. infrastructures)
  
• sheltering and crisis (i.e. COVID 19)
  
• housing as a human right
  
• home in relation to safety/unsafety and/or  stability/instability
  
• home and mobility
  

If you are interested in contributing to this special issue please send a 300-word abstract, 3-5 keywords, and a short biography by December 3, 2022 to Anna Viola Sborgi (asborgi@ucc.ie) and Elizabeth Patton (epatton@umbc.edu).

Authors will be notified of editors’ decision by 17 December 2022. Following acceptance, authors will be required to submit their completed articles of 5,500–6,000 words that fully adhere to Alphaville Guidelines, MLA and House Style by Wednesday 1 March 2023.

Feel free to contact us for any questions and queries.

June 19-21, 2023

King’s College London, Bush House, 30 Aldwych, London WC2B 4BG

Deadline for Proposals: 15 January 2023

A Three-Day International Interdisciplinary Conference

Co-organisers: Professor Paul McDonald, Kings College London; Professor Andrew Spicer, University of the West of England Bristol

We invite proposals for papers, panels, or roundtables conceptualising, defining, analysing, discussing, or mapping relationships between media industries and locality. Proposals are invited from across the full breadth of media industries research. We hope the conference can provide an inclusive inter-disciplinary meeting ground, so welcome proposals from all disciplinary traditions relevant to the topic.

The importance of locality to the media industries has been widely debated through a range of perspectives. Harvard economist Michael Porter claimed that ‘clusters’ – which he defined as ‘geographical agglomerations of firms that collaborate and compete with each other’ – provide ‘enduring competitive advantages in a global economy’ through local knowledges and relationships ‘that distant rivals cannot match’ (1998: 78). Studies of clustering activity in media industries have focused on ‘a specialized form of clusters designed to produce mediated content’ (original emphasis, Picard 2008: 4), recognizing how these take form in both planned and organic ways, but also the different types of cluster that emerge from such developments (Komorowski 2016 and 2017).

Porter’s emphasis on the economic significance of location has been challenged by other studies that focus on the significance of historical factors and the importance of long-term cultural traditions. In his seminal The Cultural Economy of Cities (2000), Allen J. Scott argues that place has a particular significance for creative production because of the ways in which locality and culture are intertwined. Places, he argues, leave ‘deep traces on the form and cognitive meanings’ of creative products emerging from ‘localized systems of industrial activity’. These ‘symbolic and sentimental assets’ derive from the ‘distinctive historical associations and landmarks’ that make each particular place unique (2000: 3).

Discussing how the concentration of film and television production in Louisiana formed ‘Hollywood South’, Vicki Mayer (2017: 3) focused on the ways in which ‘life in a film economy shapes and is shaped by its location’. A focus on locality can therefore ground our understanding of how media industries are actually inhabited and lived, but also how media workers contribute to the formation of locations. Analyses of cities as ‘sites of passage’ (de Valck 2007: 9) connected through the ‘film festival circuit’ (Loist 2007), or of global television marketplaces (Havens 2006; Choi 2021), illuminate how industries temporarily congregate to exchange and circulate media in and through specific locations. Other studies have investigated the representational dimensions of locality in media industries (e.g., Brunsdon 2007; Young 2022): the importance of locations to narrative, iconography, and characterisation (places as characters) and the ways in which these contribute to imagining and imaging a sense of regional identity and consciousness. There has been significant work on where media production takes place (e.g., Ganti 2012; McNutt 2021) as well as the specialized facilities in which media production is performed (e.g., Goldsmith and O’Regan 2005), the operational and emblematic role of media buildings (Evens 2022), of local place-making activities including media tourism and ‘places of the imagination’ (Reijnders 2011), and the ways in which places accrete symbolic images (‘brands’) for international consumption.

Analyses of ‘the world media cities network’ (Krätke 2003), ‘global media cities’ (Hoyler and Watson 2012), ‘film cities’ (O’Regan 2018) and ‘media capitals’ (Curtin 2003) highlight the importance of global cities as loci for media creativity and flows. At the same time, attention has also been given to concentrations of media industries in marginalised centres (e.g., Haynes 2007 on Lagos) and regions (e.g., Szczepanik 2021 on Central and Eastern Europe). While perennial tensions between ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ have a long history, these have become more urgent and pressing over the last decade. In many countries this has an explicitly political dimension with governments directing – or encouraging through regulatory systems – the deployment of increased resources into regional screen production in an attempt to strengthen local economies and identities thereby encouraging more diverse and sustainable screen industries that support a range of voices.  The importance of locality and spatial plurality has been accentuated in an era of accelerating internationalisation of the media industries in which Public Service Media (PSM) are losing audiences to satellite channels or streaming platforms that operate to a global commercial logic. However, the streamers’ business models are themselves changing and, as Ramon Lobato argues (2019), this new logic does not entirely displace or supersede the older logics of analogue broadcasting but introduces new layers of spatial complexity that need to be investigated and analysed. This invites a broader question: why, how, and where are networked forms of media reconfiguring the spatial organisation of media industries?

These perspectives variously foreground the importance of linkages between media industries and locality. Yet the Covid pandemic disrupted those links. Remote and hybrid working became habituated across all areas of professional life. In the media sector specifically, impacts materialized with the movement of media conventions and festivals online, threats to the future of location-specific entertainment such as music venues, and greater use of commercial livestreaming as an outlet for large-scale media events. Cumulatively, with these and other developments, we might therefore ask: to what extent is locality retaining importance for the media industries?          

Proposals can be for single research papers, or pre-constituted panels and roundtables. Topics to be addressed include but are not limited to the following: 

•  Locality in media production networks
  
• Locality in media and communication infrastructures
  
• Spaces and places as media production locations
  
• Media companies and attachments to place
  
• Civic/social role of media companies
  
• Media companies and urban renewal
  
• Media and the built environment
  
• Cities as media distribution hubs
  
• Environmental impacts of media on places
  
• Media ‘clusters’/‘hubs’
  
• ‘Media Cities’
  
• Media industry events, e.g., festivals, conventions
  
• Spaces and places of media work
  
•  Locality and the production and circulation of diasporic media
  
• Media and urban or rural/regional economies
  
• Media and urban or rural/regional policy
  
• Media tourism
  
• Media industries and place branding

Proposal guidelines

Proposals are welcomed in three categories and should be submitted through the following links:

1)      Open Call Papers (https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fform.jotform.com%2F223075189624359&data=05%7C01%7CAndrew2.Spicer%40uwe.ac.uk%7C62738e0b715f4a4e4d6908dac2587e4b%7C07ef1208413c4b5e9cdd64ef305754f0%7C0%7C0%7C638035982592869376%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=6IQjNw24TaEiRXXrpx8IhEIiPUQOCBkHEck2kXYa26c%3D&reserved=0)

Format: solo or co-presented research paper lasting no more than 20mins.

 2)      Pre-constituted Panels (https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fform.jotform.com%2F223074632587359&data=05%7C01%7CAndrew2.Spicer%40uwe.ac.uk%7C62738e0b715f4a4e4d6908dac2587e4b%7C07ef1208413c4b5e9cdd64ef305754f0%7C0%7C0%7C638035982592869376%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xTrhdePdQbQlxAOMXU31o9yQ1Kax3P6aPVkRoACWc3c%3D&reserved=0)

Format: 90mins panel of 3 x 20mins OR 4 x 15mins thematically linked solo or co-presented research papers followed by questions.

3)      Pre-constituted Roundtables (https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fform.jotform.com%2F223083000136338&data=05%7C01%7CAndrew2.Spicer%40uwe.ac.uk%7C62738e0b715f4a4e4d6908dac2587e4b%7C07ef1208413c4b5e9cdd64ef305754f0%7C0%7C0%7C638035982592869376%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=16l68tHVGw1K2mMd%2Bndd20%2Bbz7PvnpOY4i8w52XcIno%3D&reserved=0)

Format: 90mins interactive forum led by a chair bringing together 4 to 6 participants (including the chair as a participant if speaking as well as chairing) to offer short (up to 6 minute) position statements or interventions designed to trigger discussions around a central theme, issue, or problem. As such, a roundtable does not involve the presentation of formal research papers but rather is designed to create a forum for the participants and audience to engage in a shared discussion. The format is flexible and can be adapted to allow members of the roundtable to introduce exercises or other activities where appropriate.

Delegates can make TWO contributions to the conference but only ONE in any category, i.e., presenting an open call paper and participating in a roundtable will be permitted but presenting two open call papers will not be. Chairing a panel or roundtable will NOT count as one of those contributions.

Papers (either open call or as part of a pre-constituted panel) maybe presented individually or by a pair of co-presenters.

When submitting a proposal, each presenter/co-presenter/participant is required to provide:

• name
  
•  institutional affiliation (if any)
  
• contact e-mail address
  
•  short professional biography (max. 100 words)
  

In addition, different proposal categories require the following:

    1)      Open Call Papers

    •        title

    •        abstract of no more than 400 words

    •        3-5 keywords

    •        3-5 sources relevant to the paper

 2)      Pre-constituted Panels

    •        nominated chair (either one of the presenters or another delegate)

    •        panel rationale of no more than 400 words

    •        3-5 key words

    •        individual proposals (presenter/co-presenter details, title, abstract, keywords, sources) for 3 x 20mins OR 4 x 15mins research papers

    3)      Pre-constituted Roundtables

    •        nominated chair (either one of the presenters or another delegate)

    •        rationale of no more than 400 words

    •        3-5 key words

    •        details for each participant accompanied by a statement of no more than 100 words outlining a participant’s intended contribution

    Paul McDonald (Paul.McDonald@kcl.ac.uk)

    Andrew Spicer (Andrew2.Spicer@uwe.ac.uk)