ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Special issue of TMG – Journal for Media History.

Deadline (Abstracts): May 16, 2022

Contemporary research predominantly conceives of ‘new media’—i.e., media worthy of scholarly attention—as digital media and computer technologies (Peters, 2009; Borah, 2017). Media historical scholarship has responded to this in various ways. Media archaeologists, for example, argue that historicising media helps to counter teleological perspectives concerning the current digital media landscape, as well as the corporate-fed idea that present-day media are more disruptive and transformative than ever. Others seek to historicise the current media ecosystem and its conceptual underpinnings to investigate claims of their supposed “newness” (Balbi, Ribeiro, Schafer & Schwarzenegger 2021). Media history at large has thus shifted from a central focus on traditional mass media towards a more diverse set of research ambitions, also including transnational media histories.

However, media and technologies that emerged or prospered over the course of the 1980s and 1990s have largely been neglected, some exceptions notwithstanding (e.g., Arceneaux 2005; Moe & Van den Bulck 2016; Slootweg 2018; Verhoef 2022). This is problematic, for it results in a gap in our socio-cultural knowledge. After all, scholars have abundantly made clear that media histories form an apt prism through which to analyse ‘a rich web of cultural practices and ideas’ (Douglas 1987: xv). Seminal works have highlighted the societal changes that older media technologies, such as the telegraph (Czitrom 1982), telephone (Fischer 1992), radio (Douglas 1987) and television (Spigel 1992) engendered and reflected—yet there is a dearth of similar histories pertaining to the 1980s and 1990s. An earlier special issue of TMG—Journal for Media History sought to bring electromagnetic media such as video back into the limelight. More needs to be done, however. We believe that encouraging 1980s and 1990s media histories is imperative to understand historical developments such as burgeoning individualisation, consumerism or neoliberalism—developments which continue to affect our lives today. In short, 1980s and 1990s media technologies moved fast and broke things, too.

This special issue of TMG—Journal for Media History aims to give media historical research into the 1980s and 1990s a new impetus. Which sources can be used and on what empirical grounds can we construct histories of those media that have fallen through the cracks of traditional and current media historical inquiry? We welcome a variety of disciplines and approaches to make a head start in realising our ambition to present these histories. Contributions can, for instance, focus on well- and lesser-known media technologies such as the Walkman, videodisc, CD-I, Datasette, Teletext, pager/beeper, cell phone, Discman, various home computer systems or video game consoles (e.g., the NES). Media that underperformed in one market, but flourished in others, also qualify. Relevant topics and themes for this special issue might include, but are not limited to:

• media histories as a lens to reflect on wider socio-cultural developments, to ‘chart the desires and concerns of a given social context and the preoccupations of particular moments in history’ (Sturken & Thomas 2004: 1).
• the social construction of media and technologies, including popular consciousness, discourses and imaginaries and the ways in which such media were advertised.
• media archaeological investigations of forgotten and neglected media technologies from the 1980s and 1990s
• various legacy media from the 1980s and 1990s that are important to understand their purported convergence during the current digital media landscapes (cf. Balbi 2015)
• the exhibition of media. Consumer electronics exhibitions and trade events such as Firato (Amsterdam) and Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) were crucial cultural intermediaries in the dissemination of media and technology.
• other intermediaries that helped promote and adopt media, such as designers (e.g. du Gay et al. 2017) and sites where users, consumers and/or producers convened, such as hobby clubs (e.g. Veraart 2011).

Since the majority of media histories tend to focus on the English-speaking world, we also welcome contributions that focus on other countries or regions around the globe.

Submission guidelines​

Contributions should be in English. Abstracts should present the main research question(s), scientific literature, method, and case study the authors plan to use. They should not exceed 500 words. Please submit your abstract via e-mail to 80sand90smediahistories@gmail.com. Abstract submissions are due on May 16 2022.

Manuscripts: 6,000-8,000 words (including notes). Deviations are possible, subject to the agreement of the editors. Authors are to submit original papers that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Final acceptance depends on a double-blind peer review process of the manuscripts. The expected publishing date of this special issue of TMG—Journal for Media History is in autumn 2023.

Contributions that receive positive reviews but are not accepted for the special issue may be considered for publication in another issue of TMG—Journal for Media History.

If you have questions, please reach the editors, dr. Jesper Verhoef (Utrecht University) and dr. Tom Slootweg (University of Groningen), via 80sand90smediahistories@gmail.com.

Key dates:

Abstract submission deadline: May 16 2022

Authors receive confirmation of selection of papers: June 7 2022

Full paper submission deadline: November 16 2022

References

Arceneaux, Noah. 2005. “The World Is a Phone Booth: The American Response to Mobile Phones, 1981-2000.” Convergence 11 (2): 22–31.

Balbi, Gabriele. 2015. “Old and New Media. Theorizing Their Relationships in Media Historiography.” In Theorien des Medienwandels, edited by Susanne Kinnebrock, Christian Schwarzenegger, and Thomas Birkner, 231–49. Köln: Herbert von Halem Verlag.

Balbi, Gabriele, Nelson Ribeiro, Valérie Schafer & Christian Schwarzenegger, eds. 2021. Digital Roots: Historicizing Media and Communication Concepts of the Digital Age. Oldenburg: De Gruyter.

Borah, Porismita. 2017. “Emerging Communication Technology Research: Theoretical and Methodological Variables in the Last 16 Years and Future Directions.” New Media & Society 19 (4): 616–36.

Czitrom, Daniel. 1982. Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Douglas, Susan J. 1987. Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Fischer, Claude S. 1992. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Gay, Paul du, Stuart Hall, and Linda Janes. 1997. Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage.

Moe, Hallvard, and Hilde Van Den Bulck, eds. 2016. Teletext in Europe: From the Analog to the Digital Era. Göteborg: Nordicom.

Peters, Benjamin. 2009. “And Lead Us Not into Thinking the New Is New: A Bibliographic Case for New Media History.” New Media & Society 11 (1–2): 13–30.

Slootweg, Tom. 2018. “Resistance, Disruption and Belonging: Electronic Video in Three Amateur Modes.” PhD diss., Groningen: University of Groningen.

Sturken, Marita, and Douglas Thomas. 2004. “Introduction: Technological Visions and the Rhetoric of the New.” In Technological Visions: Hopes And Fears That Shape New Technologies, edited by Marita Sturken, Douglas Thomas, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, 1–18. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Veraart, Frank. 2011. “Losing Meanings: Computer Games in Dutch Domestic Use, 1975–2000.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 33 (1): 52–65.

Verhoef, Jesper. 2022. “The Epitome of Reprehensible Individualism: The Dutch Response to the Walkman, 1980-1995.” Convergence - Forthcoming.

Tabe Bergman and Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman (eds.)

Deadline: May 1, 2022

The war in Ukraine could well mark a sharp turning point in global history, as the West isolates Russia, which now appears to try to more closely align itself with non-Western powers. Though the long-term consequences of the conflict cannot yet be fully understood, many observers have noted that the world is going through one of the most dangerous phases in its history, with conflict between nuclear-armed states a real possibility.

The present moment calls for academics, journalists, and other experts to engage with the ‘first rough draft’ of history that is being produced and disseminated by the media. There exists an urgent need to explore the information war from all sides with the aim to understand the media’s role in war and, hopefully, peace. Specifically, academics and other experts can play a part in resisting the observed tendency of national and global media, especially during war, to silo themselves off by excluding voices that run counter to established state narratives.

The world’s chances to resolve the crisis will improve when people have ready access to the main, relevant perspectives and arguments from all sides to the conflict, and when they can avail themselves of informed critiques of the coverage by national media systems and global media outlets, and of insightful contextualization of the media, including the commercial and political interests they might have.

Therefore, we would like to invite abstracts for chapters that critically explore:

• National coverage of the war in Ukraine
• Comparative coverage of the war
• Coverage of the refugee crisis
• Propaganda and information warfare
• Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation
• Censorship by governments
• Censorship by private media companies
• Other topics that fit the call for chapters

We are especially keen on chapters that include an original, structured analysis of media content with any quantitative or qualitative method, and that reflect on strengths and weaknesses of the coverage, and on the relations between the media and other societal forces, including politics and economics.

If you would like to participate, please send an abstract of maximum 500 words and a bio of 150 to 200 words to the editors. Routledge has expressed interest in publishing the book. Once the abstracts have been selected the full book proposal will be submitted to the publisher.

Timeline

Abstract deadline: 1 May

Abstract decisions: 30 May

Full chapter deadline: 1 December 2022

Chapter length: 6 to 7 thousand words

Contact

Tabe Bergman: Tabe.Bergman@xjtlu.edu.cn

Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman: Johearnsbranaman@uic.edu.cn

Forthcoming

Hearns Branaman, Jesse Owen and Tabe Bergman (eds.). 2022. Journalism and Foreign Policy: How the US and UK Media Cover Official Enemies. London: Routledge.

October 2022

Abstracts Deadline: 1 June 2022

Organised by the Cultural Theory Cluster at the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, at Birmingham City University, ‘Disruption, Voice and Listening’ is a 2-day free online ‘flipped conference’ in October 2022, exploring the interplay between ‘disruption’, ‘voice’ and ‘listening’.

Disruption, Voice, and Listening invites proposals that consider the critical role of disruption in shaping our contemporaneity, and its relationship to the politics of voice and listening. Through a range of contributions that will include presentations, articles, podcasts, or vlogs, we want to explore the narratives of continuity and disruption. Sited within a department whose research activities have been disrupted like those of many universities, the flipped conference will serve as a platform to consider issues including the breakdown of authority exposed by the pandemic, polarising ‘culture war’ tactics, the ‘crises’ of migration, rights and social movements. How does these relate to neoliberal ideologies and practices, and neoliberalism’s heroisation of ‘innovative disruptors’? Throughout, we want to pay attention to whose voices make up both the status quo and its interruption. Can we now think of the seismic events of the past two years as disrupting a set of otherwise continuous narratives? Who controls such rifts, and how? Whose voices are enabled by recent disruptions, and whose are silenced?

Bringing together ‘disruption’ and ‘listening’, our key questions include:

• How can an ethics of listening be cultivated that is itself disruptive to conventions of authorized political discourse?
• How can techniques of collective listening disrupt processes of mediating the public sphere determined by power?
• Can listening as a political process challenge ‘culture war’ tactics which push people into taking one side or another?
• How might we learn from activist and artistic practices, movements, and campaigns that have tried to create spaces for unheard, marginalised voices?
• How do forms of disruption create space for marginalised voices, or alternatively, shut them down?

As a ‘flipped conference’, the speaker will deliver a 10-15 minute presentation (video and audio formats also welcome) complemented by a ‘position statement’. The position statement can be read by participants as a ‘conversation starter’, enabling a more dialogic presentation format. The ‘position statement’ can take the form of a classic blog post, a short podcast, or vlog (equivalent to 800-1000 words). These will be hosted on the BCMCR website (bcmcr.org), and the Post Pandemic

University website (https://postpandemicuniversity.net/). Delegates will be encouraged to read ‘position statements’ before the event.

We also welcome alternative formats for presentation, including performances, artworks and poetry.

Subthemes

Disruption and politics

• Disruption as intrinsic to neoliberalism and authoritarian populism: ‘innovative disruption’, spectacle, and ‘disaster capitalism’ (Klein 2008); states of exception’ (Agamben 2005).
• Disruption as catalysing new ways of thinking: as ‘natality’ (Arendt 2004) and ‘acts’ (Isin 2012).
• Forms of disruption (for example caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate emergency) that are tolerated by the state and capital.
• Disruption as a performed narrative. The intended and unintended audiences for such narratives.

Disruption, voice, scales and social movements

• Acts that emerge as a disruption (for example, protests, industrial action, etc).
• The disruption of forcing issues into public debate
• Disrupting the global North/South hierarchies.
• Disruptions which create enabling spaces to marginalised groups to share their experiences and voice.

Disruption and temporality

• Forms of 'rhythmic unconscious' (Alhadeff-Jones 2019) which the liminal space-time of a crisis/disruption conjure up.
• The tempo and temporality of crisis.
• The beginnings and ends of disruption, and its framing and narration.
• Disruption as creating liminal spaces and the emergence of new possibilities but also as potentially shutting these spaces down.

Activist and art disruptions, disruptions in urban space

• Interventions within urban spaces.
• The potential for ‘innovation’ in disruptive artistic practices in the age of institutionallysanctioned socially engaged arts practice.
• The institutional response/absorption/neutralisation of disruptive art practices (Charnley 2021).

Disruption, migration, and citizenship

• How migration disrupts imperial legacies.
• How migrant solidarities and migrant voices disrupt an anti-immigrant habitus and consensus.
• How transversal solidarities (Yuval-Davis 1999) disrupt and transform authorized scripts of how to act as a liberal national citizen, and what ‘performative citizenship’ (Isin 2017) offers as a conceptual frame for examining this issue.

Disruption and the neoliberal university

• The disrupted university (for example, teaching/learning during the pandemic) and attempts to learn from these or alternatively impose ‘business as usual’.
• The fetishization of “disruptive innovators” within neoliberal academic cultures.
• The emergence of alternative/para-academic institutions, industrial action in universities, disruptions of hierarchies within academic cultures.

Timescales

• 1 June CFP deadline; responses by mid-June 2022
• 12 Sept deadline for blog posts, podcasts and vlogs
• 5 and 13 October: Provisional online event dates

Proposal submissions

Please send submissions, including title, 250-word abstract and contact information to disruptionvoicelistening@gmail.com.

I am pleased to invite you to the next in the series of IPRA Thought Leadership webinars. The webinar The missing middle: lessons for communicators will be presented by Tommaso Di Giovanni, Vice President of Global Communications, Philip Morris International on Thursday 14 April 2022 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (unadjusted).

What is the webinar content?

Misinformation is rampant, and often used to drive opposition to progress. Overcoming misinformation is particularly challenging for PMI, because of historical mistrust and skepticism. The webinar will describe how PMI affiliates around the world are countering misinformation and overcoming entrenched biases to promote science-driven change.

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 Tommaso Di Giovanni

Tommaso Di Giovanni is Vice President of Global Communications at Philip Morris International (PMI). He leads a global team of 150+ communicators working to elevate PMI’s mission for open and meaningful dialogues on how to accelerate the achievement of a smoke-free future, where cigarettes are replaced with less harmful alternatives, in 100+ diverse markets.

Contact

International Public Relations Association Secretariat

United Kingdom

secgen@ipra.orgTelephone +44 1634 818308

COMUNICAR 71, special Issue

We would like to inform you that the latest issue of Comunicar 71 has been recently published with the suggestive title: Hate speech in communication: Research and proposals. As on previous occasions, the journal has a monographic section and a wide variety of items in its miscellaneous section. All articles are available full text and free of charge on our official website.

Adolescents' motivations to perpetrate hate speech and links with social norms

Sebastian Wachs | Alexander Wettstein | Ludwig Bilz | Manuel Gámez-Guadix

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-01

Hate speech and social acceptance of migrants in Europe: Analysis of tweets with geolocation

Carlos Arcila-Calderón | Patricia Sánchez-Holgado | Cristina Quintana-Moreno | Javier-J. Amores | David Blanco-Herrero

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-02

Hate speech analysis as a function of ideology: Emotional and cognitive effects

Natalia Abuín-Vences | Ubaldo Cuesta-Cambra | José-Ignacio Niño-González | Carolina Bengochea-González

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-03

A systematic literature review of the representations of migration in Brazil and the United Kingdom

Isabella Gonçalves | Yossi David

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-04

When negativity is the fuel. Bots and Political Polarization in the COVID-19 debate

José-Manuel Robles | Juan-Antonio Guevara | Belén Casas-Mas | Daniel Gómez

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-05

Twitter and human trafficking: Purposes, actors and topics in the Spanish-speaking scene

Alba Sierra-Rodríguez | Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado | Domingo Barroso-Hurtado

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-06

Special Education Teacher's professional development through digital storytelling

Ozgur Yasar-Akyar | Cinthia Rosa-Feliz | Solomon Sunday-Oyelere | Darwin Muñoz | Gıyasettin Demirhan

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-07

Detection of traits in students with suicidal tendencies on Internet applying Web Mining

Iván Castillo-Zúñiga | Francisco-Javier Luna-Rosas | Jaime-Iván López-Veyna

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-08

Booktokers: Generating and sharing book content on TikTok

Nataly Guiñez-Cabrera | Katherine Mansilla-Obando

https://doi.org/10.3916/C71-2022-09

The relationship of Twitter with teacher credibility and motivation in university students

Facundo Froment | Alfonso-Javier García-González | Julio Cabero-Almenara

Deadline: June 15, 2022

Esports research is a field with conflicting definitions and multiple perspectives. Despite the differences between approaches to esports, all emphasize its technological specificity and competitiveness. In the last decade, esports has ceased to be seen solely as entertainment for the youth and has become the fastest-growing area in sports. This view is supported by the increase in the number of events organized, their popularity among millions of viewers, and the growing number and professionalization of gamers. Traditional sports are still generally larger in size and reach than the biggest esports, with substantially more revenues and larger player salaries in traditional sports. However, esports is quickly catching up, given the growing number of broadcasted games and events, tournament prize pools, availability of media rights, and increasing advertising and sponsorship potential of esports games. Despite the increasing popularity of esports, the research is still in its nascency. After an initial descriptive stage, the focus shifts from explaining what esports is to a more nuanced understanding of multiple phenomenon present in the industry.

This minitrack aims to provide insight into esports’ theoretical development and practical understanding without excluding any methodological approach or scientific disciplines. Conceptual, theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions that enrich our understanding of esports are welcome.

Given the diverse goals of this minitrack, possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Business, e.g. discovering esports consumers’ motivations; designing effective marketing tools; understanding players’/esports’ networks and organizations; gamers/fans as consumers; esports finances and revenues; esports management and governance
• Cognitive Science/Psychology, e.g. studying factors influencing athletes’ performance; their abilities and skills; cognitive and behavioral differences between athletes; team management.
• IT, e.g. using game telemetry, biometrics, user-generated data, or text mining to study esports; team dynamics; interactions of players; in-game performance.
• Sociology, e.g. gamers’ and athletes’ interactions and identities; live events and streaming dynamics; gender issues (gender gap).
• Media Studies and Communications, e.g. cultural examinations; relations between esports, traditional sports, and the media; offline spaces versus live-streaming, understanding esports in terms of virtual versus real; how technology mediates gaming and how esports’ communities fit here.
• Law, e.g. copyright issues, intellectual property.
• Health, Wellness and Medical Sciences, e.g., health and wellness of players; comparing esports and traditional sports; esports as ‘real’, ‘genuine’ sports or new quality.
• Technology, e.g. augmented, virtual, mixed and extended reality; haptic technology and gaming.

Authors of accepted papers have the option to fast-track extended versions of their papers to: Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports. Rejected manuscripts will be recommended to be submitted to JEGE for further review.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Author Instructions: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/

Esports minitrack website: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-55/internet-and-the-digital-economy/#esports-minitrack

IMPORTANT DATES:

April 15, 2022: Paper submission begins (through HICSS systems: https://hicss-submissions.org/)

June 15, 2022: Paper submission deadline (11:59 pm HST)

August 17,2022: Notification of acceptance/rejection

September 22, 2022: Deadline for authors to submit final manuscript for publication

October 1, 2022: Deadline for at least one author for each paper to register for the conference

MINITRACK CO-CHAIRS:

Piotr Siuda (Primary Contact)

Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz

piotr.siuda@ukw.edu.pl

Maciej Behnke

Adam Mickiewicz University

macbeh@amu.edu.pl

David P. Hedlund

St. John’s University

hedlundd@stjohns.edu

Deadline: June 15, 2022

Research of the Internet as a site for communication and networking has focused mostly on legal practices. Recent years have nevertheless seen a significant increase in cybercrime, including illegal commerce being conducted on various platforms. In the public eye, much of it is associated with the non-indexed Dark Web, but research tells us that it is likewise present on many clear web sites and being conducted via numerous social media and instant messaging services.

Rarely a day goes by without cybercrime being reported in the media. Examples include online trading in narcotics and other illicit goods and services, the hijacking of individual accounts and organizational systems, extortion, exit scams, fake investments in cryptocurrencies and even blatant information manipulation for financial gain.

This minitrack aim is to give insights and develop a theoretical and practical understanding of issues related to cybercrime without excluding any methodological approaches. We welcome conceptual, theoretical, empirical and methodological papers that enrich our understanding of illegal online practices. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Trading in illicit goods and services online
• The use of the Dark Web as a marketplace or information sharing environment
• Using social media and instant messaging services for illicit trading
• Ransomware
• Phishing and scamming
• Cryptomarkets and cryptocurrencies
• Information manipulation for commercial gain
• Dark Web deception, risk, security, and privacy
• Differences between legal and illegal online trading
• Regional differences in cybercrime
• Investigative techniques and methods for cybercrimes

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Author Instructions: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/

Esports minitrack website: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-55/internet-and-the-digital-economy/#cybercrime-minitrack

IMPORTANT DATES:

April 15, 2022: Paper submission begins (through HICSS systems: https://hicss-submissions.org/)

June 15, 2022: Paper submission deadline (11:59 pm HST)

August 17,2022: Notification of acceptance/rejection

September 22, 2022: Deadline for authors to submit final manuscript for publication

October 1, 2022: Deadline for at least one author for each paper to register for the conference

MINITRACK CO-CHAIRS:

Tuomas Harviainen (Primary Contact)

Tampere University

tuomas.harviainen@tuni.fi

Piotr Siuda

Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz

piotr.siuda@ukw.edu.pl

Robert W. Gehl

Louisiana Tech University

rgehl@latech.edu

Juho Hamari

Tampere University

juho.hamari@tuni.fi

June 16-18, 2022

Online conference

Deadline for extended abstracts: Sunday April 3, 2022

Conference website: www.mediatingscale.com

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Prof Benjamin Bratton (University of California, San Diego)
• Dr Joshua DiCaglio (Texas A&M University)
• Dr Zachary Horton (University of Pittsburgh)
• Dr Bogna Konior (NYU Shanghai)
• Dr Thomas Moynihan (University of Oxford)
• Laura Tripaldi (University of Milano-Bicocca)

The problem of scale has historically been discussed primarily within the confines of specific disciplinary contexts (biology, geography, mathematics, etc.), however it is increasingly emerging as a transdisciplinary concern. Similarly to the ways in which contemporary problems exceed disciplinary boundaries, and require heterogeneous approaches in order to be productively understood, the future orientation of our strategies for addressing those problems must engage with the full scalar spectrum of our planetary existence. Global crises such as pandemics or climate change disturb the human comfort of the mesoscale and require us to grapple with the underlying material reality, including molecular as well as global processes.

The COVID-19 pandemic proved that the biological, chemical, and epidemiological reality is indifferent to the cultural and political narratives conjectured by the human vectors of transmission. A post-pandemic world needs to learn the lessons from this ‘revenge of the real’ (Bratton, 2021) and recognise the complexity of the world which cannot be reduced to myopic projections and illusions. As global society is affected by ‘mega processes’, our orientation towards the future should be guided by reason, and a planetary politics which exceeds the logics of the nation-state and includes the whole physical universe (Mbembe, 2019).

In order to access different scalar perspectives, humans have always constructed mediating devices. Instruments such as the telescope or the microscope provided an insight into the scale of reality beyond human visual perception, and demonstrated that ‘the invisible makes up a continuum of reality with the visible’ (Blumenberg, 1987, p. 618). More recent examples of scalar media include the James Webb Space Telescope, mediating the spatial and temporal scale of the universe through an analysis of infrared light, as well as potentially shedding light on the local condition of far-off planets. It contributes to a wider process in which scientists use numerical data from telescopes and satellites to help imagine worlds and places which can be made sense of on a human scale (Messeri, 2016). Computational technologies also help us conceptualise some of the most pressing scalar problems. Inequalities related to labour relations and the distribution of resources can be traced through the mineral materialities of media devices and the cartographies of electronic waste (Parikka, 2015), whilst the concept of ‘climate change’ is an epistemological accomplishment of planetary-scale computation (Bratton, 2019). The history of media and technologies is a history of evolving modes and scales of perception and knowledge, and cultural texts such as Powers of Ten, Fantastic Voyage, Alice in Wonderland, and Gulliver’s Travels have been discussed as motivating thinking about scale (Horton, 2013, 2020; DiCaglio, 2020, 2021). Recent scholarship has also emphasized the necessity for developing a theory and a vocabulary of scale itself, foregrounding the ongoing negotiations between scalar alterity and scalar access (Horton, 2020), and placing scale ‘at the intersection of a transformation of the world and a transformation of ourselves’ (DiCaglio, 2021, p. 9).

With this conference, our ambition is to map the broad spectrum of frameworks and attitudes towards scale, reflecting on how scalar thinking should orient our visions towards the future. We are interested in the role of scalar media, technologies, scientific theories, models and concepts in confronting the scalar disjunction between human sensory and cognitive capacities, and the scale of reality independent of our perception. We believe these questions are crucial to developing the multi-scalar thinking required to address some of the most urgent global issues including automation, planetary governance, or the climate crisis. This conference will therefore explore ways of framing the problem of mediating scale, and the stakes involved in addressing epistemological barriers to facing contemporary problems at an appropriate scale.

We welcome contributions from across disciplines whose work is relevant to the question of mediating scale.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• approaches to scale in media studies
• history and archaeology of scalar media
• politics of scale in visual cultures
• scale and political tactics (including local vs global organising)
• planetary politics and governance
• existential risks, including climate change
• the science and politics of geoengineering
• scientific models and model-world relations
• reductionism, antireductionism, and complexity theory
• theories of scale, rhetoric of scale
• timescales, geologic time, deep time, longtermism

Submission guidelines:

We are inviting submissions for 30-minute talks in English that address the conference theme.

Please send an extended abstract of 600-900 words and a short biography to mediatingscale@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is Sunday April 3rd 2022. Responses will be sent out in mid-April.

Conference details:

This online conference will be free to attend but registration will be required. The conference will be streamed live with recordings of the keynote presentations available afterwards on YouTube. For more information, please see the conference website: www.mediatingscale.com and if you have any questions, please email mediatingscale@gmail.com

Organised by Dr Oliver Kenny (Institute of Communication Studies (ISTC), Université Catholique de Lille) and Magdalena Krysztoforska (University of Nottingham).

The event is hosted and funded by the Institute of Communication Studies (ISTC), Université Catholique de Lille.

Bibliography:

Blumenberg, H. (1987). The Genesis of the Copernican World. MIT Press.

Bratton, B. H. (2019). The Terraforming. Strelka Press.

Bratton, B. H. (2021). The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World. Verso.

DiCaglio, J. (2020). Scale Tricks and God Tricks, or The Power of Scale in Powers of Ten. Configurations, 28(4), 459–490.

DiCaglio, J. (2021). Scale Theory: A Nondisciplinary Inquiry. University of Minnesota Press.

Horton, Z. (2013). Collapsing Scale: Nanotechnology and Geoengineering as Speculative Media. In K. Konrad, C. Coenen, A. Dijkstra, C. Milburn, & H. van Lente (Eds.), Shaping Emerging Technologies: Governance, Innovation, Discourse (pp. 203–218). IOS Press / AKA.

Horton, Z. (2020). The Cosmic Zoom: Scale, Knowledge, and Mediation. The University of Chicago Press.

Mbembe, A. (2019). Bodies as Borders. From the European South: A Transdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 4, 5–18.

Messeri, L. (2016). Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds. Duke University Press.

Parikka, J. (2015). A Geology of Media. University of Minnesota Press.

IJFMA Vol. 7 No. 3 (2022)

Deadline: April 3, 2022

Editor: Manuel José Damásio

One of the main goals of the European Universities Initiative is to establish transnational alliances of higher education institutions from across the EU that share a long-term strategy focussed on sustainability, excellence, inclusiveness, mobility and European values. One of the main challenges to be addressed by these alliances concerns the definition of governance and management structures, not only during the pilot period but also in the long run. Although a variety of models have already been implemented inside the existing alliances, several issues remain to be clarified, specially outside the alliances and related with their legal statute in the European arena for education and research transformation.

To discuss these issues and further deepen the reflection around the European Universities Initiative, the FilmEU alliance is organising a conference entitled “Future Governance models of the European Universities” that will take place in Brussels, Belgium on the 5th of May 2022.

Abstract Submission: 3rd April 2022

Read more: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijfma/announcement/view/154

August 29-30, 2022

Copenhagen, Denmark

Deadline: May 15, 2022

Keynotes: Helen Kennedy (University of Sheffield) and Sally Wyatt (Maastricht University)

The conference is organized by the ADM Nordic Perspectives research network, an interdisciplinary research network comprising scholars from anthropology, computer science, media and communication studies, philosophy, law, health informatics, STS, information studies, sociology and more. The network is directed by Minna Ruckenstein (University of Helsinki), Stefan Larsson (Lund University) and Stine Lomborg (University of Copenhagen).

Call for papers

Current approaches to automated decision-making (ADM) systems have a tendency to treat the society as a landing site upon which algorithmic technologies make an impact (Pink et al. 2022). They are promoted with ideas of efficiency and optimisation, seamless transitions just as the Internet was once sold to us as a “superhighway” or “global town square” (Wyatt 2004, 2021). But this is not how these technologies work in practice, on the ground, in specific organisations and settings; and moreover, these concepts and metaphors are not neutral – they contain within them assumptions about how society does and should work.

In this conference, we are interested in alternative conceptualisations of ADM, which imagine a more nuanced and diverse social space; not anticipatory projections into the future but grounded in everyday experience. How do people adapt to the requirements of ADM systems, or dream with algorithmic technologies? We are interested in studies that conceptualise ADM systems in unexpected ways, and develop metaphors and evocative stories, which can promote alternative understandings and more socially sensitive framings to guide the development and governance of new technologies. The ultimate goal is to promote a different vocabulary of concepts and values, to give novel directions for understanding algorithmic developments.

Our conference aims to counter the trend of unmoored speculation by focusing on socio-technical developments within their organisational and everyday contexts (Kennedy 2018). We will promote empirically grounded perspectives to current algorithmic systems, and how they are envisioned in contemporary guidelines and strategies, highlighting the people behind algorithms, what they do when they build, promote and evaluate technologies. We invite ethnographic, participatory and case-based contributions from a range of disciplines, including media and communication studies, anthropology, law, computer science, sociology, information studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Studies that describe how ADM systems develop, transform, fail and are renewed are of particular interest for thinking about the expected and the unexpected consequences of algorithmic technologies.

We are particularly interested in ADM in public sector developments, but these often intertwine with the goals of private companies and involve public-private partnerships. We encourage research engagements that demonstrate the different spectres of value that promoters, designers, regulators, and users advocate. While we explore how visions and values emerge in technology-mediated practices, we want to move across different sectors of society to see differences and similarities across the health field, social work, education, insurance, finance, and media. In order to reach beyond current debates, we ask questions like: What would it mean to think of credit scoring in terms of ‘solidarity’ or predictive policing in terms of ‘care’? How can we preserve human autonomy in relation to ADM systems, and what kind of autonomy it is? What are the knowledge exchanges and translations, that take place when algorithmic technologies become an integral part of decision-making processes?

References

Kennedy, H. (2018). Living with data: Aligning data studies and data activism through a focus on everyday experiences of datafication. Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy, 2018(1), 18-30.

Pink, S. et al (2022). Everyday Automation: Experiencing and Anticipating Automated Decision-Making. London & New York: Routledge.

Wyatt, S. (2004). Danger! Metaphors at work in economics, geophysiology, and the Internet. Science, technology, & human values, 29(2), 242-261.

Wyatt, S. (2021). Metaphors in critical Internet and digital media studies. New Media & Society, 23(2), 406-416.

Practical information:

Reframing ADM is arranged by the ADM: Nordic Perspectives research network, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. Participation is free of charge, but seats are limited, and registration is mandatory. Abstracts of 20-300 words excluding references must be sent to adm-nordic@hum.ku.dk no later than 15. May 2022.

Timeline:

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15. May 2022

Notification of acceptance: 1. June 2022

Deadline for registrations: 30. June 2022

Conference: 29-30. August 2022

Conference venue: University of Copenhagen, South Campus, Karen Blixens Plads 8, 2300 Copenhagen S. Denmark.

Questions or queries regarding the event should be directed to the local host Stine Lomborg, slomborg@hum.ku.dk.