ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Recent evidence on the state of mental health among academics paints an alarming picture. Faculty members and PhD students around the world run a high risk of developing mental health issues, such as psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and burnout, at some point in their career. Many of them seek professional help either through their institution or on their own as the availability of institutional support structures varies greatly across universities. 

Overall, studies consistently point to a much higher prevalence of mental health issues among academics compared to most other working populations. COVID-19 has intensified work-related stress for many scholars, but the problem clearly predates the pandemic. The structural conditions of academic work, such as high publication pressure, fierce competition, and a culture of constant evaluation, are known to contribute to unhealthy levels of occupational stress. 

Despite such growing awareness of mental health issues in the academic world generally, we know relatively little about the situation in the field of media and communication studies more specifically. To address this deficiency, ECREA – together with several other international associations of scholars – participates in a joint endeavor to map the state of mental health in scholars of media and communication.

The first step in this effort is an online survey administered to media and communication scholars in late September and early October 2022. The aim of the survey is to gauge the scale of mental health issues in our field, identify structural conditions that produce greater vulnerability, and point to potential ways of improving the situation. The study was initiated and is coordinated by Thomas Hanitzsch and Antonia Markiewitz (both from LMU Munich) and Henrik Bødker (Aarhus University).

Start the survey (active until October 18th, 2022): https://survey.ifkw.lmu.de/AMHiMCS/

Special Issue of Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook

Deadline: October 1, 2022

Deadlines: Abstracts of 400–500 words, together with a brief biographical note, should be submitted by 1 October 2022. Please email these directly to belen.puebla@urjc.es and sgomez@uva.es

Full papers of 6500–7000 words are due on 15 December 2022.

Description and Thematic Areas: 

The contemporary challenges facing the political culture are to be seen as risks to the well-being and proper functioning of democratic systems.

A functioning democracy requires that the role of the media, as vehicles of political socialization, but also as instruments of participation and public opinion, be taken into account. Consequently, the media are seen as both parts of the problem and part of the solution.

The scope of the Special Issue, ‘Pop Politics on a Mutable Screen’, attempts to broaden the vision of political communication beyond hard news and to consider that the messages received by the audience increasingly include soft news and media associated with entertainment and popular culture.

From cinema and television to video games, through the different social platforms and the figure of the prosumer.

For this thematic issue, we invite theoretical and empirical contributions that explore how technological change affects and is affected by political communication processes and what characteristics make up the politainment. We would like to explore a wide range of topics involving political communication, entertainment, digital engagement, platformization, infotainment, screen time and alternative forms of communication as their central themes.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Audiovisual content platforms with politainment formats, selective consumption, and social audiences.

• Viral political content distributed through social media and platforms.

• Gamification, politicking and digital games with political content.

• Myth and ideology in contemporary video games

• Ideological polarization, political spectacularization and hate speech through the reception of information on social networks.

• Social algorithms in personalized information dissemination of spectacular political content.

• Complexity and political discourses in entertainment contexts.

• Mobilization and democratic constraints in the new digital ecosystem of the ideological polarization

• Strategic use of entertainment in social networks for online campaigning and political engagement.

• Democratic consequences and citizen perception of politainment.

The role of the prosumer of political infotainment on the internet.

• Characteristics, transmedia narratives and formats of the new political fiction in cinema and television.

• Political storytelling: storytelling by politicians for strategic purposes.

• Music entertainment to generate engagement among social audiences and other uses of music by political parties.

• New strategies in digital campaigns, disguised advertising through infotainment, and gate-watching techniques to generate campaign content.

• Political personification of politics and appearance of the political figure in unusual media and formats.

• Representation of politicians in political infotainment content.

• Emergence of political movements in new media.

• Technification of politics.

• Political ethics in infotainment.

Full CFP can be found at: https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/66825/1/NewCinema_Pop_Politics_on_a_Mutable_Screen_CfP.pdf

The full author guidelines can be read at: https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/8890/1/NL_NFC.pdf

Special Issue in Digital Journalism

Deadline: November 11, 2022

Guest Editors: Gregory Perreault, Maxwell Foxman, Phoebe Maares, Valerie Hase

This special issue in Digital Journalism invites submissions that theorize, describe, or contextualize epistemological shifts in journalism production. We welcome theoretically-informed and empirically-rigorous articles (using quantitative, qualitative, computational, and/or mixed methods) as well as conceptual articles that speak globally to related issues, including but not limited to:

• (Meta-)theoretical frameworks, discourses, and methodological approaches for studying epistemologies of digital journalism production
  
• The influence of emerging or under-researched news forms and genres (e.g., lifestyle journalism, fashion journalism, gaming/video journalism, podcast journalism, data journalism) on knowledge claims and production in the news.
  
• Shifting journalistic roles, especially journalists' openness and epistemological boundaries, often on emerging platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, podcasting platforms, or messenger apps
  
• Economic, technical, and cultural factors and contexts leading to epistemological shifts in what constitutes journalists and news, for instance the influence of time and economic pressure, precarity, new infrastructures and platforms for news consumption
  
• Audience participation or disengagement with epistemic practices, as well as acceptance or rejection of journalistic claims
  

Abstract deadline: 11 November 2022

Manuscript deadline: 24 February 2023

The full call can be found here: bit.ly/3qUVDcv

Special issue of Frontiers in Communication

Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 October 2022

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 April 2023

Editors: Sylvie Grosjean, Fred Matte, Maria Cherba, & Stephanie Fox

Description: 

Digital health technologies have emerged as a potential solution to transform health care systems into more sustainable organizations, and to support patient-centered care. A shift of health care from hospitals to patients’ homes is encouraged and facilitated by digital health technologies such as telemedicine, telecare-systems, mobile applications, tracking and sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based health technologies. These innovations provide new ways to communicate about health by playing an active role in how patients interact with health care providers or self-manage their disease at home. Technologies aiming to facilitate care at a distance (e.g., through teleconsultation or telecare systems), or to improve tailored health communication (e.g., by using mHealth or AI-based health technologies), affect care practices, care coordination, and social relations of care.

Over the past decade, social science and humanities research has documented changes in the organization of care and the redistribution of responsibilities. Oudshoorn (2011), for example, investigates the redistribution of roles among patients, nurses, and physicians during the implementation of a remote cardiac monitoring device. In the same vein, AI-based health technologies transform how health care systems relate with patients by providing more patient-centered and personalized care services. Some technologies are developed in clinical or hospital contexts to support personalized medicine or improve diagnosis. Others are developed for use by patients and caregivers in their everyday life, and to support self-care and improve access to personalized care resources.

These technologies provide access to tailored educational resources and enhanced health communication strategies. At the same time, their use presents complex social, organizational, communicational, and interactional challenges. Such challenges include building constructive relationships with technology, and improving health communication to engage people in self-care practices or limit possible physical, psychological, or emotional harms for patients. The integration of digital health technologies into clinical practice and the daily lives of patients thus remains a major challenge for health organizations.

This Research Topic will focus on various communication practices related to the use of digital health technologies by patients and/or health care providers and will explore:

(1) The ways in which these technologies reconfigure and transform health care organizations and the patient/provider interaction and relationship. For example:

- How should physical examinations at a distance be performed? How do health care providers create positive relationships at a distance with patients? And what communication skills should health care providers develop to perform teleconsultations?

- What sort of “invisible work” do patients and caregivers do when using telehealth technologies? What skills are needed to integrate these technologies into care practices?

(2) The social and affective relationships people develop with, and through, digital health technologies. Tracing the “sociability” of these innovations, to put it with Pols & Moser (2009, 161) “might teach us something about why people do or do not like to use [them], by attending to what norms or ‘normativities’ they enact, how they structure interaction, and thus in what ways technologies help to shape ways of living with disease.” For example:

- How do patients integrate (or not) telehealth technologies into their daily lives? What are the different ways of using them?

- How can these technologies support self-care practices? How do telehealth technologies reconfigure patient-physician communication?

- How does telehealth impact the coordination of care and the work of care teams?

Empirical studies focusing on the use of care technologies in real-life settings are encouraged (e.g., ethnographic, narrative or visual approaches, interaction analysis based on ethnomethodological approach, conversational analysis, or multimodal analysis).

Instructions: 

Abstract length: 1000 words (max limits)

Abstract format: Your abstract should simply be a summary of the article you plan to submit. Please include the following information in your abstract: purpose of the article, theoretical framework, method, results and discussion. 

To submit your abstract, click on this link, then on Submit (top right) and follow the instructions: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/40425/integrating-digital-health-technologies-in-clinical-practice-and-everyday-life-unfolding-innovative 

November 15-18, 2022

MeLCi Lab

Deadline (extended): September 30, 2022

The Media Literacy and Civic Cultures (MeLCi Lab) Autumn School “Media, gender, intersectionality and mediated social mobilizations”, to be held from 15th to 18th November 2022, aims to introduce PhD students to current discussions in the field, as well capacitate PhD students with a set of hands-on research skills that help them in their projects, supporting their professional development.

By adopting an integrative and multidisciplinary approach, the school will bring together several scholars for a set of workshops and communications to foster research skills related to scientific writing, dissemination, funding applications, and innovative methodologies. 

We will address topics about media representations of gender and sexualities, mediated activisms, civic mobilizations, ethics, etc.

MeLCi Lab Autumn School intends to be an inclusive space, and three equity grants will be available for students from underrepresented communities.

MeLCi Lab is currently looking for proposals of PhD students who want to apply for the Autumn School. 

These applications can be submitted until the extended deadline of the 30th of September.

Read more: https://melcilab.cicant.ulusofona.pt/.../ii-melci-lab.../

Convergências (ISSN 2764-8435) has an open call for its issue in continuous flow. Master’s degree students, masters, doctoral students and doctors can submit articles. Undergraduate or specialization students, graduates and specialists can submit articles accompanied by an advisor professor who has a doctorate degree. For submissions, visit: https://revistas.unasp.edu.br/convergencias/about/submissions 

In addition to the continuous flow issue, Convergências publishes editions based on thematic dossiers related to its editorial proposal. The articles sent for publication in this category must be in line with the proposal suggested by the guest editors of the dossier and undergo the evaluation defined by our editorial policies. Dossiers can be proposed by researchers with a PhD and by PhD candidates in collaboration with PhDs, with a maximum of three people per dossier. To propose a dossier, fill in the form: https://forms.office.com/r/sN4fDrhu1y.

Convergências is an annual online publication focused on the academic field of Communication studies linked to the Adventist University of Sao Paulo (UNASP). Our editorial proposal welcomes contributions that address the communicational field and its relations with other social fields, such as religion, health, arts, politics, culture and the economy. Works that present empirical analysis, theoretical and methodological discussions are appreciated. The journal aims to contribute with the consolidation of research in Communications while dialoguing across the Humanities. The target audience is made up of students and professors from Brazil and abroad. Convergências does not charge submission or publication fees and offers its content for free, receiving scientific articles in Portuguese, Spanish, English and French in a continuous flow.

For more information, contact the journal's assistant editor, Thamires Mattos: mattos.thamires@acad.unasp.edu.br

November 24-26, 2022

Reykjavík, Iceland

Deadline: October 10, 2022

The Nordic Intercultural Communication Conference (NIC) 2022 will be held at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík on November 24-26, 2022.  

The deadline for proposals is October 10, 2022.  

Contributions from seasoned scholars as well as from students and practitioners interested in the various aspects of culture and communication are encouraged. The three keynotes speakers will adress the suggested conference themes, which are listed on the conference website. However, the conference themes are by no means limited to the suggested themes and the conference committee welcomes all proposals related to intercultural communication.   

Further information about applications and other practical information can be found on the NIC conference website:

https://vigdis.hi.is/en/events/nordic-intercultural-communication-conference-2022/ 

Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS)

Are you researching the social, political, media-related or cultural effects of digitalization? Do you want more freedom for your project and are interested in interdisciplinary exchange? A fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) releases you from your regular work obligations and opens up new perspectives.  

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

Become a member of the vibrant interdisciplinary research community at CAIS.

Apply until 31 October 2022 for fellowships starting from October 2023.

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

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

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

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

Deadline: October 7, 2022

Universidade Católica Portuguesa

The Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC), at the School of Human Sciences, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, is currently welcoming applications for the position of Post-doctoral Assistant Researcher in the area of Communication Sciences. The deadline for applications is 7 October 2022 (by 5 pm, Lisbon time).

The successful candidate will work at the Lisbon campus of Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and their activities will include the following:

• Designing research projects in the area of Media Studies and submitting these for assessment by financing entities in line with CECC's strategic plan for the period of 2022/2028;
  
• Publishing any research results in books and journals with national and international reach;
  
• Organizing scientific events in the area of Media Studies in line with CECC's strategic plan for the period of 2022/2028;
  
• Participating in national and international research networks whose objectives fall within CECC's strategic plan for the period of 2022/2028;
  
• Participating in CECC's internal events aimed at doctoral training and the promotion of scientific debate among peers;
  
• Participating in work meetings and internal reflection forums organised by CECC and its research groups, as well as in meetings that monitor strategic actions and ongoing activities. 
  

Remuneration and length of contract

Gross monthly pay shall be €3,230.21 plus meal allowance, to which will be added annual leave and Christmas allowances. The estimated duration of the contract is 70 months and will not, under any circumstances, be above 72 months.

Admission requirements

The following may apply: any national, foreign, or stateless candidates who hold a PhD in Communication Sciences or related scientific fields and who furthermore hold a scientific and professional CV that reveals a profile appropriate to the activities to be developed.  

Assessment criteria

The assessment criteria are as follows: scientific output and relevance, participation in scientific projects and conferences, student supervision, scientific dissemination activities, knowledge transfer, and other relevant activities and experience. The assessment process additionally includes an interview with the candidates ranked in the top three positions. The weighting of criteria is as follows:

Scientific and curricular path (SP):

a) Scientific and technological output: 80%;

b) Applied or practice-based research activities: 15%;

c) Knowledge extension and dissemination activities: 5%;

d) Interview (I).

An interview (I) will be conducted with the top three placed candidates, intended to clarify aspects related to their research. They will be asked to make a 10-minute presentation (including a PowerPoint presentation), in which they display their contributions to the research field. Interviewed candidates will be awarded a new classification in addition to the one initially indicated, based on the following formula:

• Final classification = 90% SP+ 10% I
  
• Formal application procedure
  
• Applications shall include the following documents:
  
• CV;
  
• PhD completion certificate, with indication of date of completion.
  

Applications are formalized by sending the required documentation to concursos.cecc.fch@ucp.pt. Applications must be submitted in English.

Candidates are advised to consult the full Public Notice for this Call for Applications, available at: https://fch.lisboa.ucp.pt/calls-opportunities-cecc