ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

October 19, 2022

Aarhus University, Denmark (hybrid with onsite and online panels)

Deadline: July 8, 2022

Preconference of the ECREA Temporary Working Group “Communication and Sport”

The relationship between media and sport can for many good reasons be characterized as entirely strategic, both in a historical and contemporary perspective. In this one-day preconference hosted by Aarhus University on October 19 2022, the ECREA Temporary Working Group on Communication and Sport calls for papers exploring strategic dimensions of the sport-media nexus from diverse perspectives and on many levels. The aim is to share and nuance our existing knowledge about the many ways in which mediated communication about sport in Europe is developing in close connection with various forms of strategic concerns in the realm of sports, in media and/or wider societal contexts.

Abstracts between 300 and 500 words can be submitted by July 8, 2022.

For more than a century some sports and events have been vital content for certain media businesses to achieve pivotal strategic goals, like attracting more or new audiences/users, create traffic and data, and build up new markets, perhaps in connection with processes of rebranding. And for an increasing number of sports organizations and managers, partnerships and contracted collaborations with media organizations have been crucial elements in the development of still more complex business models involving a range of other strategic business partners. These formalized collaborations have together with more informal relationships with independent journalists all been important for the public image of many sports and organizations. Not to mention nations, regions or cities using hosting/organization of sports events of different scales as vehicles for social, economic or infrastructural development or a ‘soft power’ strategy seeking political and cultural recognition on a global or international scene.

Digitization has added new dimensions to this broad picture of strategic intertwinements between powerful media and sport, which we are interested in. The profession of journalism and the working conditions for journalists have changed profoundly, requiring new strategies from them to get access to sources and thus to produce sports content. We witness a wave of sports activism, where athletes use their status as (media-created) icons and the direct access to fans and the wider public on social media to pursue different sorts of (political) goals. Sports organizations on all levels in European sports increasingly engage in different forms of digitally facilitated sports activities, sometimes in close collaboration with new types of media businesses. Sports clubs and governing bodies communicate with a wide range of stakeholders via global digital platforms, and the commercially strong organizations build up their own professionally staffed media and marketing units, trying to produce data and get more leverage to the public image of their sports and events.

We call for papers which deal with historic and contemporary strategic dimensions in European sports communication, including both theoretical and analytical perspectives on the tensions, conflicts, many dilemmas and negotiations involved, like when power balances are changing and different strategic interests co-exist or merge around the same sport or event.

We invite abstracts between 300-500 words submitted in English language by July 8 2022 via e-mail to the Chair of the TWG JProf. Dr. Daniel Nölleke (d.noelleke@dshs-koeln.de).

To support the integration of as many scholars as possible, we invite to 1-2 onsite panels and 1 online panel. Please indicate clearly whether the abstract is for onsite or online presentation.

Authors will be notified about acceptance at the end of July.

Call for papers for a special issue of Nordicom Review and Invitation to Symposium at Stockholm University

November 10, 2022

Stockholm, Sweden

Deadline: September 1, 2022

Editors:

Andreas Widholm, Stockholm University (andreas.widholm@ims.su.se)

Mattias Ekman, Stockholm University (mattias.ekman@ims.su.se)

Important dates

• Deadline for extended abstracts: 1 September 2022
• Notification of acceptance to symposium (attendance voluntary): 15 September 2022
• Symposium at Stockholm University: 10 November 2022
• Invitation to submit full paper: 24 November 2022
• Full paper submission: March 2023
• Peer review process: Summer/Autumn 2023
• Expected publication (Open Access): January 2024

The Digital Human Sciences Research Hub and the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University and Nordicom invite scholars from a broad range of disciplines to submit extended abstracts for a special issue of Nordicom Review, focusing on the political, social, cultural, and juridical implications of digital technologies for a sustainable democratic information environment.

Accompanying the call, we welcome interested scholars to a symposium with the theme “Democracy and Digital Disintegration”. Our goal is to facilitate dialogue between researchers of various disciplines and create opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

The symposium will take place in the Film House in Stockholm and is free of charge. Acceptance of a paper for the special issue is not dependent upon participation in the symposium. Coffee, lunch, and dinner on the evening of 10 November is included for all participants. After the symposium, selected papers will be considered for the special issue.

Background and aim

The rapid and profound transformations associated with contemporary media systems have severe consequences for democracy and public debates. Social media play an increasingly central role for political participation, especially among young citizens, and digital platforms have significantly changed how political parties operate strategically to mobilise voters and influence public opinion. Furthermore, activists and social movements have access to new digital tools to raise awareness about their causes and to coordinate protests. Digital platforms have also become central venues for the distribution and circulation of news – by legacy media institutions as well as new alternative or “fake” media organisations. Hence, today’s citizens find themselves in a hybrid information environment, where the boundaries of traditional journalism, hyper-partisan news, political propaganda, and strategic (dis)information have become increasingly blurred.

Digital platforms are drivers of change towards a more globalised, interconnected, and socially integrated world. However, platforms simultaneously contribute to the disintegration of the citizenry. While algorithmic content recommendation systems may help people more easily navigate abundant information flows online, concerns have been raised that they may also contribute negatively to information diversity, prioritising content that corresponds to the worldviews and ideological preferences of individual users. Moreover, in addition to benefits such as facilitating public debate and mobilisation, the economic and technological infrastructure of social platforms have proved to fuel political polarisation, racism, and affective language use, making democracies increasingly vulnerable and open to manipulation and antidemocratic influences.

This global information environment raises questions related to algorithmic transparency, regulation of information, digital censorship, and freedom of expression online, reflected most recently in the European Union’s ban of RT and Sputnik, two of Russia’s most influential global propaganda channels. Elon Musk’s potential acquisition of Twitter as an alleged act of “securing free speech” is a harbinger of future changes, also in need of scholarly attention.

We aim for a collection of contributions with a clear interdisciplinary relevance for the Nordic region and beyond. We welcome contributions with longitudinal and/or comparative perspectives, as well as specific case studies that inform the Nordic and global context. We particularly welcome contributions employing innovative methodological approaches (qualitative as well as quantitative). Topics may include but are not limited to the following areas:

• Political news in mainstream and alternative media
• Political communication, activism, and digital propaganda strategies
• Integrative, transnational, and boundary-crossing aspects of digital media
• Affective platforms and politics of emotion
• Populism, racism, polarisation, and disintegrative aspects of digital media
• Practices of disinformation, manipulation, and “deep fakes”
• Discourses of disinformation (in politics, journalism, and other contexts)
• Fact-checking and source criticism
• Free speech, censorship, and regulation of information online
• The democratic challenges of algorithms and artificial intelligence
• Young citizens and digital media literacy

Procedure

Those with an interest in contributing should write an extended abstract (max. 750 words) where the main theme (or argument) of the intended paper is described. How the paper fits with the overall theme of the issue and symposium should be mentioned.

Send your extended abstract to digdis@ims.su.se

Scholars invited to submit a full manuscript (7,000–9,000 words) will be notified by e-mail after the symposium and after the abstracts have been assessed. All submissions should be original works and must not be under consideration by other publishers.

Contact

Questions about Digital Human Sciences Research Hub (DHV), the special issue, and related November symposium can be addressed to Andreas Widholm (andreas.widholm@ims.su.se) or Mattias Ekman (mattias.ekman@ims.su.se).

About Nordicom Review

Nordicom Review adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy and articles are published Open Access with no processing charges for authors. Nordicom Review includes research with relevance for the Nordic context and welcomes interdisciplinary submissions from a worldwide authorship, including both empirical and theoretical articles.

Read more about Nordicom Review here:

https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/nordicom-review

10.10.2022

Online pre-conference

Deadline: August 10, 2022

As some countries begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and while some countries are still experiencing significant levels of transmission and deaths, the field of crisis and risk communication has the opportunity to learn from the experiences of the last two years to consider:

• What impact in crisis and risk communication means across the field of communication?
• Is pandemic communication fundamentally different from crisis and risk communication?
• What are critical pedagogical, research, theoretical, amplification, and collaboration lessons have been learned through the pandemic?
• What critical themes of research and practice should be addressed in the short, medium, and long-term?
• What can be learned with a view to the communicative challenges that come with imminent wicked problems like climate change, mass migration, immigration, and other potential pandemics?
• In moving forward from 2022, how can our field meet crisis and risk communication needs across sectors?

We welcome abstract-based submissions addressing these themes as we begin to "Rethink Impact" for the European Communication Conference.

Moving ahead, we explicitly also invite presentations on topics that are not related to the pandemic but touch other topical themes, as well as methodological and theoretical issues et cetera.

Questions/submissions should be directed to the Head of the Crisis Communication Section, Audra Diers-Lawson (Audra.Diers-Lawson@kristiania.no).

Humanities and Social Sciences Online

November 1, 2022

Often unified by the concept of the “cinematic city”, different approaches in film studies tend to examine urban space through three main angles. Films shot within the build environment may record - perhaps unwillingly- its current dynamics, architecture and urban planning (city as background), consciously use the representational value of specific places for narrative purposes (as character) or directly comment on the socio-political conditions and memories of a city (as subject). However, it can be argued that most of these discussions eventually converge to a double question: how does cinema reflect upon the past, present and future of a city and how do films reinforce or contest narratives and myths and affect the collective urban experience.

Following our previous special issue on urban themes in Russian and Soviet cinema, this year we turn our focus to the Balkans. Often described as the “other” of Europe, “insufficient European”, or a “specter haunting Western culture” (to use the Maria Todorova’s provocative description), the countries and people of the Balkan Peninsula more often than not are seen as a geographic and culturally unified unit of measurement, against which Europeans can prove their superiority. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Balkan wars as well as breakup of Yugoslavia, led the newly formed Balkan states to assert distinct national identities, mainly structured around religion and language. The collective amnesia of

a multiethnic past is however negated in everyday practices where cultural footprints proliferate (linguistic and culinary p.e.), the result of a century-long multicultural blend and the Ottoman presence in the region.

The special issue is intended to discuss Balkan urban space and architecture through a cinematic perspective, and further explore elements linking urban studies with film studies. We are particularly interested in contributions discussing fiction films or documentaries focused on specific urban spaces of the Balkans, significant constructions, major cities or lesser-known towns and villages. We are also interested in itinerary films that map the peninsula through their passage from different built environments.

Suggested topics (non-exhaustive list):

• Urban space, planning, architecture on screen
• Common aesthetic trends between architecture and cinema
• How films record urban dynamics and practices and comment upon them
• How films reinforce or resist dominant narratives about the identity of a city
• Topographies of memory and places with socio-historical significance
• Cinema as the vehicle touncoverhushedorerasedstories
• Urban manifestations of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic past.
• Cities a score places for political protest and resistance
• The experience of displaced persons in alien urban environments
• Internal migration towards cities and external migration towards Western urban centers

Contributions should be in English

Proposals of 250-500 words for contributions that deal with any aspects of the above themes should be sent to Antonis Lagarias at antonislagarias@eefb.org by July 15th 2022

Stylistic guidelines for contribution can be found https://eefb.org/contribute/

Contact Info:

Antonis Lagarias at antonislagarias@eefb.org by July 15th 2022

Contact Email: antonislagarias@eefb.org

URL: https://eefb.org/contribute/

Are you our new communication officer?

From July-August 2022, Salome will hand over her position as Communication Officer of our Section to someone new.

We encourage early career scholars to consider applying for this vacant position and see this as an opportunity to train communication skills, develop your organizational skills and significantly expand your network.

If you are a senior researcher, be sure to forward this vacancy to promising new talent!

You can apply until 10 June. Below you find more information about the job description. Of course, you can always contact us with your questions.

Academia always has something to say to the broader audience, but, unfortunately, the core messages are often not inefficiently conveyed to the target groups. Therefore, our ECREA Children, Youth, and Media Section is dedicated to sending messages that engage and inform young scholars, academics, and also other stakeholders to increase their impact in Children, Youth, and Media research and practice. We consider our communication strategy as a way to achieve that goal. Having that in mind, we count on our new Communications Officer, who will join our diverse team working from all parts of Europe. We expect someone to have a thorough knowledge and experience of communications tools, enthusiasm and discipline to fulfill the communication needs of our section. Please, read the description of expectations below and join us, if you are interested:

If you join our team, you will be leading the following activities:

• Attend the management meeting (about 8 times a year)
• Managing the section’s social media channels (Twitter/Facebook internal group)
• Preparing the newsletter depending on the updates from the section (about 5 times a year): brainstorming topics, writing the draft of the newsletter, putting it in a template, and distributing through the section's listserv, and social media)
• Planning and facilitating the informal online meetings (about 4 times a year)

Please note, that this is a volunteer and remote position. Depending on your talents and your own ideas and availability, together we will look for a feasible way to implement our section’s communication strategy. There is certainly room to come up with your own ideas and make your own mark.

If you are interested, please send your CV and a motivation letter (no more than 500 words) explaining why you are applying for the position and what you would like to contribute to the section. Send your application to ecreacymcom@gmail.com until June 10th, 6 pm CET.

We are looking forward to receiving your application.

Should you have any questions, please email us at ecreacymcom@gmail.com

May 27, 2022

Online symposium

Deadline (registration): May 26, 2022

Water is the medium through which we experience many of the impacts of climate change: in droughts or floods, in melting glaciers, rising sea levels and more. Accordingly, visualisations of water or its absence have been at the core of climate change media discourse for decades and have shaped popular perceptions of this crisis. In recent years, ‘water resilience’ has increasingly been embraced as a tool for addressing the impacts of climate change and other ongoing stressors; not only as a tool for adaptation, but also as a tool for mitigation that addresses the water-energy nexus and greenhouse gas emissions from water infrastructure. However, water resilience scholarship is still primarily focussed on the physical, technological and managerial aspects of the climate crisis, while issues of social justice, power and politics are at the margins of the debate. As such, the transformative potential of climate and water resilient futures goes unrecognised.

This symposium aims to bring together the overlapping conversations around resilience, climate, water, communication and politics in order to advance social justice and reduce climate-induced water vulnerability. 

Keynote speakers:

Prof. Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Warwick), author of Media and Water: Communication, Culture and Perception

Dr Filippo Menga (University of Bergamo), author of Water and Power in Central Asia and co-editor of Water, Technology and the Nation State

Registration is via Eventbrite – registration is open until May 26th (a day before the event).

Timetable:

10:00-11:15 Opening Keynote Talk:

Opening greetings by Prof. Melissa Leach (IDS).

Keynote lecture by Prof. Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Warwick): Amphibious Screens – Sustainable Cultures of Water

11:30-12:50 Session 1: News, media and water resilience:

• Swati Jaywant Rao Bute (Jagran Lakecity University): Role of news channels in running media campaigns for water conservation projects in India
• Edson Capoano, Alice Balbé & Pedro Rodrigues Costa (University of Minho): Analysis of Brazilians comments on the water issue on Twitter
• Nelson Okorie (Pan-Atlantic University): Media Framing, Climate Change and issues of Water Security in South Africa
• Shai Kassirer (University of Reading): “Israel Is Drying, Again”: Framing Resilience in Televised Water Conservation Campaigns

12:50-13:20 Break

13:20-14:40 Session 2: Water (in)justice in Jamaica and India

Henrice Altink (University of York): “No water”: the unequal impact of drought in Jamaica in the 1990s.
Shruti Jain (Institute of Economic Growth Delhi) & Bhupen Singh (Uttarakhand Open University): Essentiality of Rights for Building Resilience Climate and Water Politics in Uttarakhand Himalaya
Farhat Naz (Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur): Dynamics of Water Access: Trust and Mistrust at the International Border Line
Asrarul Haque Jeelani (Jawaharlal Nehru University): No Water No Votes: Electoral Right as a Political Tool for Dealing with Water Distress

15:00-16:20 Session 3: Water, technology and public perception

• Piotr Szpunar (University at Albany): Walled Shores, Waning Future
• Christina Walter (Universität Augsburg): Digital Technologies for Water Resilience? Examining the Discourse on Digital Water
• Biliana Gaume, Pascal Verhoest, Joke Bauwens, Petrus te Braak and Marijke Huysmans (Vrij Universiteit Brussel): Food for Thought A Survey on the Acceptance of Crops Grown with Treated Wastewater
• Ruhil Iyer (IDS), Jeremy Kohlitz (University of Technology Sydney), Nicole Klaesener-Metzner (UNICEF) & ​Sue Cavill, (UNICEF): Water management for hygiene and sanitation in the climate crisis: Programming lessons from South Asia and the Pacific

16:30-18:00 Closing Keynote Talk:

Dr Filippo Menga, University of Bergamo: Spectacular Environments: Framing the Global Water Crisis in Troubled Times

For further details contact s.kassirer[at]reading.ac.uk

Registration is via Eventbrite

23-25 November 2022

Berlin, Germany (HIIG Berlin, ZeM Potsdam)

Deadline: June 20, 2022

Autonomy has been a multifaceted term for centuries that was and remains a key concept in discussions about individuals and societies alike. More recently, autonomy has gained a renewed relevance and additional meanings in the context of technical innovation, where it is ubiquitously employed in variations of “autonomous systems”. It is often associated with independently moving or self-controlling machines such as drones, vehicles or robots, or more generally with a wide range of automation processes. In this broad understanding, 'autonomous' becomes an attribute for (artificial) intelligence or (machine) learning and is used synonymously with self-determination or adaptability. At the same time, the term invokes (at least) one other meaning: a relational understanding of autonomy that denotes individual and collective processes that are embedded in infrastructures and conditioned by them. It is only in relation to and in the context of media, rules, norms, laws, practices, architectures, materialities or machines that the idea of autonomy acquires any meaning at all.

Against this backdrop the Infrastructures of Autonomy conference’s main objective is to address said conditions, structures and relations that constitute both human and machine autonomy. This also entails the various interpretations of the concept of autonomy.

In particular, papers are invited that address the following core themes:

• Conceptual aspects: This core theme reflects on the historical and philosophical roots that shape today’s debates on autonomy and automation. We pick up on the feminist discourse of “relational autonomy” that established the irreducibility of interdependence and relatedness for normative theories of autonomy. We posit that there is a troubling tension between industrial and digital automation that benefits consumerist subjects and the struggle for autonomisation that is dependent upon the suspension of automatic responses made by moral subjects. This struggle has always relied on external means of suspension and establishing new habits. For example, what is the contribution of technical,  economic or public infrastructures to the normative claims and ethical or political practices of autonomisation? How does the extended conception of rationality that explicitly includes artefacts relate to the findings of infrastructure studies? Is autonomy always “scaffolded”? What can automated data capture and processing contribute to the struggles for autonomisation? Or does this automation of so many aspects of life rather interfere with these struggles? Lastly, if autonomisation depends on uncovering and suspending habits in the sense of dis-automatisation, how can the conspicuous tension between this dis-automatisation and the automatisation of infrastructures be conceived without falling back into a simple opposition?
• Technologies: This core theme is primarily driven by the idea of so-called “autonomous systems”, a term often used to describe a degree of (machine) agency without human oversight or control. These phenomena necessitate a reflection of agential hybrids – intricate human/machine networks of distributed agency and responsibility – and lead to questions on the varying degrees of automation and the contexts and structures of human/machine relations and interaction. What are the conditions of autonomy in “autonomous systems” – from planning and implementation to interaction with them; is it conceivable at all to make autonomy programmable? Which concept of learning is applied in “self-learning systems”? We are also interested in exploring the configurations of machine autonomy, may it be enacted or prescribed to these technical objects, and understanding its relationship(s) to human autonomy in the varying contexts that exist today.

• Bodies: The third core theme focuses on the somatic aspects and cognitive requirements of (human) autonomy. This refers to those premises of autonomy that are associated with socio-cultural constructs of human dis/ability, but also includes the role of affects, non-conscious cognitions and ‘automatic’ habits that counter the prevalent idea of the conscious and autonomous mind. The material dimension of technology plays an important role in these considerations, namely in settings of human-machine interaction, leading to questions of interface design, the ‘bodily’ presence of machines and the complex aspect of their potential to enable or constrain human agency and autonomy. We are interested in discussing how infrastructures in interaction with bodies shape, enable or prohibit autonomy; what performances of bodily autonomy might look like; and how this entanglement and enactment changes with new mechanical and digital infrastructures. In particular, we would like to address how the practice of care for one's own and other bodies is changing under the conditions of a computerised world. 

All these major themes are to be understood as highly interconnected with the effect of 

mutually constituting dynamic infrastructures of autonomy.

We believe the discourse on infrastructures of autonomy is highly relevant beyond a theoretical perspective, since it touches upon issues with high stakes and severe consequences, such as:

• autonomous weapon systems
• robotics and smart technologies in the field of care work
• health care applications and technologies
• autonomous systems in the field of machine learning
• smart housing and smart cities
• ...

We welcome contributions from scholars of diverse disciplines, such as the arts, cognitive science, computer science, cultural studies, design studies, literature and film studies, media and communication studies, philosophy, psychology, political science, science and technology studies or sociology. Interdisciplinary approaches (e.g., those combining social, cultural and technical perspectives) are particularly encouraged.

Submission process

• Abstracts of approximately 300 to 500 words in length (excl. references) should be submitted no later than 20 June 2022 to autonomy@hiig.de
• Speakers will be notified by 30 July 2022

It is planned to publish selected papers.

If you have any questions, you can contact the conference organisers via autonomy@hiig.de. For more information, visit our website at hiig.de/en/infrastructures-of-autonomy/.

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG)

Thomas Christian Bächle & Theresa Züger

Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM)

Bernd Bösel & Jan Distelmeyer

June 21-22, 2022

Lublin (Poland)

Deadline (registration): May 31, 2022

We would like to invite mediatization and communication scholars to take part in academic discussion devoted to the rapid mediatization changes - being evoked, enabled or fostered by media- and technology-related arrangements and taking place in different domains. The conference (a hybrid form) is organized by: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Institute of International Studies - University of Wroclaw, and Research section: Mediatization – Polish Communication Association. A keynote speech will be given by: Professor André Jansson (Karlstad University): The uneven costs of connection: Measuring mediatization under COVID19.

Read more: https://www.umcs.pl/en/mediatization2022.htm

October 19, 2022

Aarhus (Denmark) & Beijing (China)/Hybrid conference

Deadline: June 15, 2022

Communication History section & International and Intercultural communication section

Language: English

The growth and influence of emerging transnational media and technology corporations are transforming global communication. Various international scholars have developed different analytical instruments in order to account for the rise of these companies, focusing especially on the powerful home governments of these firms, the country-specific-advantages, media system models, and the transcultural implication for such business expansion and content distribution (e.g. Thussu, 2000; Halin & Mancini, 2012; Nordenstreng & Thussu, 2015; Panibratov, 2015; Teer-Tomaselli et al., 2019; Tang, 2020; Thussu & Nordenstreng, 2020).

In global media history, the term of “emerging” embodies both relativist and transformative implications as the opposition to the dominant powers. From early Japanese companies’ digital disruption in the United States on manufacturing specialized devices (like digital cameras) to Chinese and South Korean telecommunication companies’ competence in mobile devices and network services worldwide; from the Bollywood and Brazilian media conglomerates’ competition with predominant media counterparts in the region to the Korean Wave impact in global entertainment consumption; from Russian and Chinese internet companies’ alternative growth in the domestic and regional markets to the South African Naspers Group becoming the parent company of Europe’s largest consumer internet firm, the fast development, business relocation and strategic capital move of emerging transnational companies is changing—visibly and invisibly—the landscape and infrastructure base of global media and communication industry.

On the one hand, such changes nourished business and cultural diversity and further transcend national and cultural boundaries. On the other hand, it also raised critical questions towards intercultural conflicts and the fragility and resilience of the global cultural ecosystem. The technology competition between the United States and China, for example, signals the “securitization” trend of policymaking in the communication industry and rising concerns over risks in data protection, information security and democracy. It also illustrates fundamental constraints of emerging companies to challenge US hegemony in the field of media and communication and extends discussions about cultural imperialism following the technology and culture decoupling in related societies. A new dimension of transcultural communication is in great need to understand the characteristics and ambitions of transnational media and technology corporations: their rising influence on the global (commercial) media system, their future move in the global race to dominate information technology, their impact on international and intercultural communication and relations, and their promises for the responsibilities to the nature, community, and world society for the next generations.

This conference welcomes research papers that try to understand the rise of emerging media-technology power from interdisciplinary perspectives, with a special focus on the trans-nationalization process of these media and technology firms and the transcultural communication challenges they have been facing in their business development, expansion, concentration, implementation, legitimization, and related (organizational, institutional, and societal) discourses. Topics include but are not limited to:

• The politics, economy and culture of emerging media and tech companies.
• The transnational growth & influence of emerging media and tech companies in the regional markets, mature markets, and third-party markets.

• Transcultural implications of the rise of emerging media and tech companies (e.g., their impact on transcultural protest movements, or on everyday communication)

• The relevance, roles, and implications of alternative movements and/or counter-movements in media and tech industries.

• Transcultural communication formats and content by emerging media and tech companies.
• Global public discourse around emerging media and tech companies, and their business strategies applied for brand building or rebuilding.

• The technology and culture decoupling amid the US-China power competition, and its impact on (lessons to) transnational corporations in other countries.

• Theoretical reflections on the changing paradigm of cultural imperialism, transcultural communication, technology diffusion and soft power in the case of media and tech companies (e.g., their role in cultural homogenization, uni-channelization, and monopolization processes).

A selection of papers accepted to the pre-conference will be published in a Special Issue of Journal of Transcultural Communication (De Gruyter) in Spring 2023.

Keynote roundtable discussion (confirmed speakers):

• Daya Thussu, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Dwayne Winseck, Carleton University
• Stephen Croucher, Massey University
• Delia Dumitrica, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Fei JIANG, Beijing Foreign Studies University
• Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera italiana

Abstract submission: 15 June 2022 (300-500 words for individual abstract; 1,200 words for panel proposal): https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=ecreaprecon2022temtc

Notification of accepted abstracts: 1 July 2022

Submission of extended abstracts for Special Issue: 30 September 2022

Conference contact: zhan.zhang@usi.ch

For more details of the preconference and journal publication call-for-paper, please visit: https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jtc/html

Organizer Committee:

• Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera italiana
• Zhan Zhang, Università della Svizzera italiana
• Romy Woehlert, Kindervereinigung Leipzig e.V.
• Fei Jiang, Beijing Foreign Studies University
• Deqiang Ji, Communication University of China

Observatorio (special issue)

Deadline (EXTENDED): June 10, 2022

The search for solutions to complex problems in the information ecosystem – such as collective disinformation, hate speech and political polarisation – puts increasing pressure on the pivotal importance of leveraging the pedagogies and practices in Media Literacy. In the words of Paul Mihailidis (2018, p. 1). “As new media tools and technologies further disrupt the core relationship among media, citizens, and society, media literacy is in a fight for civic relevance”. Indeed, growing evidence supports Media Literacy’s role in improving civic participation and engagement (Frau-Meigs et al., 2017; Jenkins, 2020; McDougall, 2019; McDougall et al., 2019; Mihailidis, 2014).

Algorithms, digital footprints, and echo chambers lead to a “data loop” (Mathieu and Vengerfeldt, 2020, p. 117), making content and data circulate over and over between audiences and media. These new contexts of mediatization pose questions to the democratic realm and intensify the questions about democracy at diverse levels. This includes what Milan and Trére call “data poor” (2020, p. n/a), especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, putting in perspective the recurrent universalization of western narratives (Milan and Trére, 2019).

From the media research perspective, media studies need to consider the ethics and integrity of the research and innovative methodologies that better address current challenges. This can imply using new and traditional methods and qualitative and datafied research approaches in a needed and yet unusual combination (Lê and Schmid, 2020). In doing this, we also must distinguish between making ethical choices and implementing ethical solutions; understand how to make pedagogical choices that are ethical; and to be accountable for the constant possibility of observing unintended consequences (Holmes et al., 2021) .

Among these new methods, approaches like arts-based research are becoming particularly relevant for the field of communication and media studies, as acknowledged by Carpentier and Sumiala (2021), by proposing the articulation of artistic repertoires with social sciences and humanities research, in order to produce as well as to communicate academic knowledge. Hybridity, multimodality and participation are here key-words, which may enable academic research to go beyond its traditional audiences and to reach and engage with other publics.

For the Observatorio (OBS) journal special issue on “Media Literacy and Civic Cultures”, we welcome contributions related (but not limited to) with the following sub-themes:

– Participation and digital citizenship

– Participation in the datafied society

– Inclusion of underrepresented groups in digital media practices

– Intersectionality and activism(s)

– Ethics, audience research and datafication

– Innovative methodologies: big data and qualitative data

– Innovative methodologies: arts-based research in communication and media studies

Publication timeline

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts are refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Dates are indicative – to be confirmed.

Submission deadline for full-papers: 10-06-2022 (EXTENDED)

Notifications of reviews sent to authors: 20-06-2022

Submission deadline for final full-papers: 12-09-2022

Publication of full-papers in special issue: 20-10-2022

Special issue Editors

• Célia Quico – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT
• Manuel Pita – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT
• Maria José Brites – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT
• Carla Sousa – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT

To potential Authors

Please submit your proposals via the Observatorio website, according to their format standards for publication: http://obs.obercom.pt/index.php/obs/about/submissions#onlineSubmission

About Observatorio (OBS)

Observatorio (OBS*) e-journal is a quarterly academic publication, free of charge, in the field of Communication Studies, which accepts and publishes texts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Italian, French and English. Its formula of Open Access allows authors to have the maximum of public exposition of their work, thus we encourage readers and authors to register and submit their work for upcoming issues.

Source: http://obs.obercom.pt/