European Communication Research and Education Association
MEDIAPOLIS Dossier
Deadline: January 15, 2023
Edited by Linda Kopitz (University of Amsterdam) and Pei-Sze Chow (University of Amsterdam)
https://www.mediapolisjournal.com
“The world will look different if we move care from its current peripheral location to a place near the center of human life” (Tronto 1993)
This dossier takes as its starting point the notion of care as “our individual and common ability to provide the political, social, material and emotional conditions” (Care Collective 2020) for a more sustainable, connected and caring world. We are interested in exploring care as something that can be ‘designed’ – and situated in design.
‘Smart’ cities, ‘connected’ cities, ‘sustainable’ cities, ‘cognitive’ cities – these approaches to urban imaginations are deeply entangled with ideas and promises of technology that will serve to care for human and non-human inhabitants and the world at large, to improve our individual and collective well-being and to offer answers to the challenges of climate change.
Such ideologies seek to position the human at the center of the design process, while simultaneously emphasizing technological innovation as essential means to achieve ‘care’. Big data, artificial intelligence, software solutions, digital twins, and other such digital tools are drawn on in both utopian and dystopian imaginations of urban futures. From current architectural projects like Saudi Arabia’s The Line in NEOM and South Korea’s Eco Delta Smart Village to contemporary science fiction films like Tiong Bahru Social Club (2020), questions of sustainability, technology and care become almost indistinguishable from each other. If we understand “architecture as a condition for care” (Krasny 2019), exploring how caring cities are represented, designed and (ultimately) built points us to the complex connections between imagination and practice.
Some of the questions we are interested in:
# How does care become material in the imagination and construction of cities?
# How can (audio)visual representations not just construct, but also critique urban imaginaries?
# How do contemporary urban imaginaries connect to historical ideas of care and caring spaces?
# Can cities be ‘smart’ without technology?
# In what ways does caring for infrastructures lead to more (or less) caring spaces?
# How can we critique the neoliberal capitalist undercurrents that drive these design processes and imaginations?
# What are the ethics and impacts of designing happiness and well-being into urban communities via digital approaches? Is ‘care’ always ‘connected’?
# How can we approach care as both a concept and a method?
We invite contributions from diverse fields, including, but not limited to, urban studies, film/television studies, sociology, geography, gender studies, political studies, philosophy, new media theory, disconnection studies, history, and so on. We are especially interested in contributions exploring ‘Caring Cities’ from a global and interdisciplinary perspective including artistic research and architectural practice.
Please submit an abstract of your proposed article (300 words) and a short bio (100 words) to Linda Kopitz (l.kopitz@uva.nl) and Pei-Sze Chow (p.s.chow@uva.nl) by 15 January 2023. Authors will be informed of the selection within two weeks after the deadline. Full articles (3000-4000 words) will be due in April 2023 and will subsequently go through an anonymous peer review process. The dossier is scheduled for the May/June 2023 issue.
Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture is an interdisciplinary online journal of media and urban culture. We publish research across multiple academic fields — including, but not limited to, media studies, urban studies, geography, film, architecture, art history, visual culture, digital humanities, sound, and music.
December 8, 2022
I am pleased to invite you to the next in the series of IPRA Thought Leadership webinars. The webinar The digital era: is traditional PR dying? will be presented by Mohammed El Batta on Thursday 8 December 2022 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (unadjusted).
What is the webinar content?
The webinar will discuss how traditional PR has evolved in the digital era. The discussion will shed light on how digital and social media are becoming mainstream PR and how agencies and clients are now focusing more on digital PR than traditional channels. The webinar will highlight, with examples from the Middle East region, how integrating digital marketing into PR campaigns is now a necessity and will reveal the best ways to generate media coverage in the digital era.
How to join
Register here at Airmeet. (The time shown should adjust to your device’s time zone.)
A reminder will be sent 1 hour before the event.
Background to IPRA
IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, was established in 1955, and is the leading global network for PR professionals in their personal capacity. IPRA aims to advance trusted communication and the ethical practice of public relations. We do this through networking, our code of conduct and intellectual leadership of the profession. IPRA is the organiser of public relations' annual global competition, the Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA). IPRA's services enable PR professionals to collaborate and be recognised. Members create content via our Thought Leadership essays, social media and our consultative status with the United Nations. GWA winners demonstrate PR excellence. IPRA welcomes all those who share our aims and who wish to be part of the IPRA worldwide fellowship. For more see www.ipra.org
Background to Mohammed El Batta
Mohammed El Batta is a marketing communications professional with over 23 years of experience with clients in the Middle East, Europe and USA. His expertise spans strategic corporate communications and campaign planning, crisis management, internal communications, media relations, as well as branding and event management. Mohammed spearheaded the launch of the Let’s Talk event series bringing together marketing communications professionals from across the Middle East. He has degrees in political science from the American University in Cairo.
Contact
International Public Relations Association Secretariat
United Kingdom
secgen@ipra.org
Telephone +44 1634 818308
December 9-10, 2022
Niš, Republic of Serbia
Deadline: November 25, 2022
Second International Scientific Conference
The Department of Communications and Journalism invites you to the international scientific conference “Меdia and Challenges of the Modern Society 2022“, held this year from 9th to 10th December, in an hybrid format (online and live).
This conference is organized with the aim of bringing together scientists and researchers in the field of communication, cultural studies and related disciplines and of exchanging scientific knowledge and experiences. The conference is thematically focused on the challenges that are faced by the media and society in the era of digital technologies; therefore, the framework topics of this year’s conference are the following:
• Traditional media in the era of digital technologies
• Digital and media literacy
• Public media services, media regulation and legal aspects
• Media ethics in the digital environment
• Social networks, digital platforms and media
The official languages of the conference are Serbian and English.
Application
The application should contain the following data:
• Affiliation
• The email address of the first author
• The title of the paper
• An abstract (maximum 250)
• Key words (maximum 5 words)
It should be sent to this email address: misd@filfak.ni.ac.rs
The application should be sent no later than November 25, 2021. The applications submitted within the given deadline will be given the feedback on participation by December 5, 2021.
Papers publication
The papers which are positively reviewed will be published in the the journal “Media Studies and Applied Ethics“, in 2023. The deadline for submitting papers in English is January 31, 2023.
Instruction for the preparation of papers for publication is available at the link: https://izdanja.filfak.ni.ac.rs/casopisi/2021/media-studies-and-applied-ethics-vol-ii-no-1-2021
Registration fee
The registration fee for participation in the conference is 6000 RSD / 50 EUR.
Registration fees in RSD should be paid to the account of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš 840-1818666-89, call number 74212142. Instructions for payment in euros are attached.
A dinner will be organized as part of the conference. It is an optional possibility, and the price of the dinner is 3000 RSD / 25 EUR.
When registering, be sure to indicate whether you are interested in dinner.
For additional information, please contact:
The Department of Communications and Journalism
Faculty of Philosophy in Niš
Ćirila i Metodija, 2, 18 000 Niš, Republic of Serbia
misd@filfak.ni.ac.rs
Media Studies and Applied Ethics (special issue)
Deadline (abstracts): 13 December 2022
Edited by Ana Milojevic (University of Bergen)
Datafication is changing every aspect of our society including journalism as one of the important fundaments of democracy. Following the news production phases (observation, production, distribution, and news consumption) Loosen (2018:4) distinguishes between four forms of datafied journalism: data-based journalism, alogrithmed journalism, automated journalism, and metrics-driven journalism. Different aspects of data driven changes in journalism have been examined in all those forms during last decades, but many blind spots are still to be filled. Therefore, the main aim of this special issue is to put audiences in the forefront of examining different forms of journalism datafication.
Namely, data journalism as the fast-growing phenomena has been attracting scholarly attention. However, most of the research has been focusing on identifying characteristics of data journalism as the emerging subfield (genres, methods, storytelling techniques) and its integration into organizations, practices, and education worldwide (e.g. Bhaskaran, Kashyap & Mishra, 2022; Fink & Anderson, 2015; Munoriyarwa, 2022; Young, Hermida, & Fulda, 2018; Wu, 2022), while far less is known about audience relation to data journalism.
In the strand of the algorithmic journalism research, studies of user interactions with algorithms have been more prominent and diversified, including user perceptions of news personalization process (Monzer, 2020), experiences of news recommender systems (Wieland, 2021), and satisfaction with algorithmic news selections (Swart, 2021; Thurman et al. 2019). However, as Shin (2022: 1168) underlines, “little is known about the ways through which readers understand and actualize the potential for trust or affordances in algorithmic journalism”.
Also, significant body of research considers audiences in form of audience analytics and metrics as central for journalism transformation, including journalistic roles (Belair-Gagnon, Zamith, and Holton, 2020), news values (Kristensen, 2021), news selection (Lamot and Van Aelst, 2020), and journalistic norms and routines (Ekström, Ramsälv and Westlund, 2021). However, this area of research is mainly focused on editors’ and journalists’ work and decision-making processes. Much less attention has been given to data-analysts as growingly important actors in media, companies providing analytics to media, existing metrics and infrastructures for audience datafication.
Therefore, we invite submissions that theorize or empirically study the role of audience datafication in journalism, as well as audience interaction and engagement with data-based and algorithmic journalism. More precisely, studies that aim to answer: How is data journalism perceived, consumed, and valued in different contexts? What kind of audience needs data journalism gratifies? Does data journalism foster audience engagement? Second, we seek submissions that examine how users perceive algorithmic features and experience algorithm systems in the context of algorithmic journalism. Third, we welcome papers that focus on the role of various technological agents and non-journalist actors that intervene in the use of audience analytics and metrics in newsrooms.
Timeline:
Abstract deadline: 13 December 2022
Manuscript deadline: 31 March 2023
No Payment from authors will be required. More information on the call:
https://izdanja.filfak.ni.ac.rs/casopisi/media-studies-and-applied-ethics
For further details please contact Ana Milojevic
(ana.milojevic@gmail.com)
References:
Belair-Gagnon, V., Zamith, R., & Holton, A. E. (2020). Role orientations and audience metrics in newsrooms: An examination of journalistic perceptions and their drivers. Digital Journalism, 8(3), 347-366.
Bhaskaran, H., Kashyap, G., & Mishra, H. (2022). Teaching Data Journalism: A Systematic Review. Journalism Practice, 1-22.
Ekström, M., Ramsälv, A., & Westlund, O. (2021). Data-driven news work culture: Reconciling tensions in epistemic values and practices of news journalism. Journalism, DOI: 14648849211052419.
Fink, K., & Anderson, C. W. (2015). Data Journalism in the United States: Beyond the “usual suspects”. Journalism studies, 16(4), 467-481.
Kristensen, L. M. (2021). Audience Metrics: Operationalizing News Value for the Digital Newsroom. Journalism Practice, DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2021.1954058
Lamot, K., & Van Aelst, P. (2020). Beaten by Chartbeat? An experimental study on the effect of real-time audience analytics on journalists’ news judgment. Journalism Studies, 21(4), 477-493.
Monzer, C., Moeller, J., Helberger, N., & Eskens, S. (2020). User perspectives on the news personalisation process: Agency, trust and utility as building blocks. Digital Journalism, 8(9), 1142-1162.
Munoriyarwa, A. (2022). Data journalism uptake in South Africa’s mainstream quotidian business news reporting practices. Journalism, 23(5), 1097-1113.
Shin, D. (2022). Expanding the role of trust in the experience of algorithmic journalism: User sensemaking of algorithmic heuristics in Korean users. Journalism Practice, 16(6), 1168-1191.
Swart, J. (2021). Experiencing algorithms: How young people understand, feel about, and engage with algorithmic news selection on social media. Social media+ society, 7(2), 20563051211008828.
Thurman, N., J. Moeller, N. Helberger, and D. Trilling. 2019. “My Friends, Editors, Algorithms, and I.” Digital Journalism 7 (4): 447–469.
Wieland, M., Von Nordheim, G.(2021). One Recommender Fits All? An Exploration of User Satisfaction With Text-Based News Recommender Systems. Media and Communication, 9(4), 208-221.
Wu, S. (2022). Asian Newsrooms in Transition: A Study of Data Journalism Forms and Functions in Singapore’s State-Mediated Press System. Journalism Studies, 23(4), 469-486.
Young, M. L., Hermida, A., & Fulda, J. (2018). What makes for great data journalism? A content analysis of data journalism awards finalists 2012–2015. Journalism practice, 12(1), 115-135.
Methodological Developments in Visual Politics & Protest (special issue)
Deadline: December 15, 2022
War streaming on Instagram, propaganda in press photography, refugee activism on TikTok - recent European crises have shown images and videos as essential tools of communication in politics and protest, a trend mirrored in the increasing use of visual data in research methodologies. Visual data may capture practices of visual, performative, or non-verbal communication, text-image relationships, the development of visual formats, notions of aesthetics, as well as underlying meanings of symbols and codes. Extant research has since captured different elements of visual politics and protest, including social history (e.g. protest photography), political commentary or affiliation (e.g. through memes or profile picture overlays), social cues in political communication (e.g. in the form of GIFs, filters, or emoji), visual activism practices (e.g. culture-jamming, sousveillance video coverage, graphic flesh-witnessing, or video activism), and visual forms of information documentation and distribution (e.g. infographics).
Even so, new creative practices have at times challenged research practices, for example with regards to image authenticity and appropriation in mis- and disinformation campaigns (e.g. deepfakes), the role of platform affordances in new visual formats and spaces (e.g. short videos on TikTok), (mis)interpretation and differing levels of visual literacy in communications, trust in image data as factual evidence, and opaqueness in the production of visual materials. These critical debates have been particularly contentious in the arena of politics and protest, where visuals have been seen to shape political opinion and discourse, electoral campaigns, war coverage, and Covid-19 data visualisations.
In response to these trends, we are looking for methodologically oriented papers on visual politics and/or protest. This may include methodological discussions, new methods or approaches, worked examples or case studies, research on emerging visual digital phenomena, or submissions linking theory to methodology surrounding digital culture, data, or methods. Foci may be based around methods of data collection, analysis, visualisation, theorisation, or other methodological areas.
On a broad level this may include (but is not limited to):
We are open to different article structures. However, articles should have clear contributions in the arena of methodological research by outlining or describing new methodological approaches, innovations, strategies, or frameworks. As such, they should draw on methodological scholarship in the wider field.
Submission & key dates
Extended abstracts of 400-500 words excluding reference list (references are optional) are due 15th December 2022 and should be directly to the special issue editors - see email info below. Final articles should be submitted directly via the journal website of the Journal of Digital Social Research (https://www.jdsr.io/) and have a word count of up to 8500 words inclusive of everything (abstracts, reference list, notes).
Further details
This followsonfromtheECREAonlinepre-conferenceon,whichtookplaceon6thand7th October 2022 with a keynote by Dr. Jing Zeng (University of Zurich), a series of lightning
talks, and a panel discussion with speakers Dr. Stefania Vicari, Dr. Shana MacDonald, & Dr. Jing Zeng. This special issue call follows on from the pre-conference workshop “Visual Politics & Protest - Methodological Challenges” organised by the ECREA Visual Cultures section (see https://visualculturesecrea.wordpress.com/). Submissions to the special issue call are open to everyone. For added context, the programme can still be viewed on the pre-conference website: https://cutt.ly/visual-politics-ecrea, along with a list of references discussed during the conference.
In the case of both questions or submissions, please email us directly on the below indicated email addresses.
Special issue team
Suay Melisa Özkula, University of Trento suaymelisa.ozkula@unitn.it
Hadas Schlussel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem hadas.schlussel@mail.huji.ac.il Danka Ninković Slavnić, University of Belgrade dninkovic@yahoo.com
Doron Altaratz, The Hadassah Academic College doronal@edu.hac.ac.il
Tom Divon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem zem1987@gmail.com
The Database of Variables for Content Analysis DOCA has been available for more than half a year. Therefore, we now want to conduct a survey to find out how DOCA has been used in research and teaching so far, which benefits the database has had, and which improvements and thematic extensions would be desirable.
We would be very grateful if you would fill in the short questionnaire (maximum duration 10 minutes): https://www.hope.uzh.ch/doca/Survey
We will publish the results of the survey as soon as possible.
Thank you and best regards,
Edda Humprecht
May 25, 2023
Toronto, Canada
Participants should focus on specific metaphors, groups of metaphors, discourses around metaphors, and reconstruct their histories over time and in certain cultural settings. The local and global dimension of metaphors is indeed crucial and the organizers aim to have a broad representation of different sets of metaphors in different cultures.
Metaphors have also to do with digital media theory. Metaphors are useful tool to make theories, they can be transversal to different fields and disciplines or, on the contrary, they increase the fragmentation of media and communication theories. Also in this case, the preconference aims to bring together scholars able to link empirical case studies of digital metaphors over time and theoretical perspectives on the relevance of these metaphors.
Please send your abstract of max 250 words to gabriele.balbi@usi.ch and carlos.scolari@gmail.com by 15 January 2023. Remember to include in the abstract the category or categories to which your submission refers to:
This preconference will have a peculiar structure and aims: it is made of classic presentations, but also would stimulate reflections on specific workshops/hackathon in which these and other metaphors will be discussed. The final aim is to create a group of scholars which could be later contribute to an edited book we plan to publish from the precon. For this reason, this preconference might be just the first workshop and others may follow in the future months.
Important dates:
Organization: conference organized by Gabriele Balbi (USI – Università della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland) and Carlos A. Scolari (Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Barcelona, Spain)
Division Affiliation: ICA Communication History Division
Sponsor: University of Toronto – St. Michael’s College
Venue: McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology (Coach House), 39A Queens Park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario
More info here: https://digitalmetaphors.wordpress.com/
June 19-21, 2023
Newcastle University, University of Sanctuary
Deadline: December 9, 2023
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
Comunicação e Sociedade, vol. 43
Deadline (EXTENDED): December 11, 2022
Thematic editors: Daniel Brandão (CECS, Universidade do Minho, Portugal), Nuno Martins (ID+, Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave, Portugal) and Rachel Cooper (PETRAS, Lancaster University, United Kingdom)
The growing presence of digital technologies in citizens’ daily lives has resulted in a constant enhancement of the unexpected. Spontaneity and reactivity assume an increasingly prominent role in the communication universe, inevitably influencing social dynamics.
Faced with a highly mediated and mediatised world, communication has attained significant power. A dispersed power shared between different protagonists. A power that is not always identifiable and often tends to be more associated with rumour and crisis than with information and clarification. This power of communication, more and more horizontal, challenges established power bases.
What role can design play in this mediation of interpersonal and global communication?
In its most varied perspectives and disciplines, design can be an important contribution to the construction of more informed, enlightened and, consequently, fairer societies. Whether in a supervisory capacity, deconstructing and decoding graphic, photographic, animated representations and all kinds of narratives of high cosmetic-manipulative content; or in the proposal of models, prototypes or the most varied type of solutions that seek to contribute to an active citizenship and respond to the challenges and dilemmas of digital and contemporary societies. In fact, design is much more than a tool of mere aesthetic operation. It also has a relevant role in the organisation of information, in the construction of narratives and, consequently, in the suggestion of meanings.
This thematic volume of the journal Comunicação e Sociedade invites national and international academics and researchers from different areas of design, communication and digital technologies to share scientific work developed on emerging topics, such as:
KEY DATES
Proposals submission (full manuscript): September 5 to December 11, 2022
Notification of acceptance: January 8, 2023
Deadline for the submission of the final article (PT and EN): March 19, 2023
Publication: June 2023
Comunicação e Sociedade is an open-access academic journal indexed in several databases, including SCOPUS.
https://revistacomsoc.pt/index.php/revistacomsoc/announcement/view/44
November 25-26, 2022
Berlin, Germany
The Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM) and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) would like to draw your attention to the conference „Infrastructures of Autonomy“, which will take place on November, 25-26th at HIIG (Berlin, Germany). The conference will be opened with a Keynote address from Beate Rössler (University of Amsterdam).
For more information on Keynote and event regestration please visit: https://www.hiig.de/en/events/infrastructures-of-autonomy-i-conference-opening/
For more Information on conference and regestration please visit: https://www.hiig.de/en/events/infrastructures-of-autonomy/
SUBSCRIBE!
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