ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

April 21-22, 2023

ESCS / IPL – Politécnico de Lisboa

Deadline: January 31, 2023

Dear ECREA colleagues,

On behalf of the Informal Media Literacy Group (GILM), we are pleased to invite all ECREA members to send proposals to the Call for Papers of the 6th Congress of Literacy, Media and Citizenship, which will take place next  April 21 and 22,  at the School of Communication and Media Studies (ESCS), Lisbon, Portugal.

The VI Congress on Literacy, Media and Citizenship – Digital Transition and Public Policies, promoted by GILM, is an initiative that aims to deepen reflection and debate around public policies that have been adopted nationally and internationally in the current scenario of digital transition. Today media literacy assumes its place as one of the key literacies for empowering all citizens, without exception. It is undeniable that, particularly in the context of European Union countries, this recognition has been accelerated by the role that media literacy can play in the unavoidable fight against misinformation and false online narratives, as well as in the fight against hate speech, which is expanding in digital environments, phenomena that threaten the strength of democracy and the full exercise of citizenship.

The event, which will take place on April 21 and 22, 2023, at the School of Communication and Media Studies – ESCS / IPL – Politécnico de Lisboa, aims to be an opportunity for decision-makers (policy makers, regulators, managers and directors of media outlets), to meet teachers and other educators, specialists in information and documentation sciences, researchers and higher education students, journalists and other media professionals, cinema and audio-visual professionals and other stakeholders. The organization of the congress invites researchers, educators and teachers, non-governmental organizations, specialists, and communication professionals to present their papers or poster proposals, whether they are studies, papers or projects that may fit in one of the following topics:​

• Current strategies of national and international public policies for media literacy;
  
• Prospects for an integrated and comprehensive national strategy for media literacy;
  
• Impacts of technological developments in the current communication universe;
  
• Digital transition and media literacy;
  
• New challenges in media education;
  
• Change of communicational paradigm and new business models;
  
• Impacts of COVID and war on media and information literacy;
  
• New media literacy projects and resources;
  
• Accessibilities and inclusive perspectives in media literacy;
  
• New dynamics of algorithms and message robotization;
  
• Manipulation of information in disinformation campaigns.
  

In this context, we invite you all to take part in the next Congress and we would be very pleased to see many ECREA members enriching our Congress with knowledge, experience, and ability to reflect on such current and pertinent topics.

Send your proposal

Looking forward to welcoming you in Lisbon, please accept my best regards,

On behalf of GILM

Fernanda Bonacho

February 9, 2023

Online

The IAMCR Publications Committee will be hosting the first in a series of talks exploring the politics of knowledge and its dissemination.

When: 9 February 2023, at 14h00 UTC / 09h00 New York / 14h00 London / 15h00 Paris / 17h00 Nairobi / 19h30 Kolkata / 22h00 Beijing. The event will last 90 minutes.

Pre-registration is required by 23h59 UTC on 07 February 2023. //  Register here.

Moderator: Prof Claudia Padovani, IAMCR Publications Committee.

Speakers 

• Prof Lucy Montgomery, Professor of Knowledge Innovation, Curtin University, Australia

Lucy Montgomery is the co-lead of the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative: a major strategic research project exploring how big data can help universities to understand their performance as Open Knowledge Institutions. 

• Dr Fereshteh Rafieian Najafabadi, Associate Programme Specialist, Science Technology and Innovation Policy, UNESCO. 
  

Location: The meeting will take place on Zoom. Attendees will receive their personal invitation at least 24 hours before the event begins.

Who can participate: The event is open to the general public, but space is limited. Pre-registration is required by 07 February 2023.  //  Register here.

About the series

This series of conversations, hosted by the IAMCR’s Publications Committee, will explore the possibilities of open access publishing, and ways of achieving greater diversity and inclusion in systems of knowledge generation and dissemination. Drawing on multiple perspectives from across the globe, the series seeks to discuss how we can achieve a genuinely participatory, multi-vocal epistemic landscape. This would foster a productive dialogue around knowledge exchange, co-creation, with an interest in understanding alternative epistemologies, methods, and pedagogies.

The series will have two strands: the first will look at the possibilities, potential and challenges of Open Access publishing, while the second will explore how communication and media studies can grow beyond dominant epistemologies.

May 25-26, 2023

University of Salford, UK

Deadline: March 24, 2023

Two-day conference at the University of Salford, UK (on campus)

The development of social housing estates after the Second World War in Europe initiated in many cities the radical transition of urban environments from 19th-century dwellings to modern housing. The plans and hopes of architects, planners, and city councils when developing modern infrastructure and housing not only focussed on elevating living standards; modern housing estates were also believed to support the development of ‘new communities’ within which pre- existing and widespread social problems would dissolve.

Such modern developments appear in the material and visual culture (film, TV, art, literature, newspapers, etc.) between the 1950s and 1960s whereby artists observed and commented on the transition of urban quarters from blackened, often decaying 19th-century houses to modern tower blocks. The lives and living conditions in the old and new working-class quarters interested artists, filmmakers, and writers as much as the aesthetics of modern urban quarters. Both provided the backgrounds for commentaries on changes in society and modernisation. Films such as Albert Finney’s Charlie Bubbles in 1968 or Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 A Clockwork Orange utilised the imagery of this transition and offered commentary on the effects and social consequences of modernisation. TV soap operas such as Coronation Street (1960 – ), that were part of the ‘kitchen sink drama movement’ in the UK, also addressed social housing and modernisation efforts. The literary work of J.G. Ballard (High Rise, 1975) and B.S. Johnson (The Moron Made City, 1966) react to urban modernisation satirically and critically. In the fine arts, the topic and its social consequences were addressed multifacetedly; photographs by artists such as Shirley Baker, UK and Albert Renger-Patzsch, Germany juxtapose social housing and its inhabitants who appear alienated from the modern environment they find themselves in. Representatives of Art Brut and Art Informel were inspired by non-traditional subject matter and art production that was perceived as more genuine. Artworks such as Jean Dubuffet’s Parages fréquentés (Busy Neighbourhood), 1979 observed the asphyxiating nature of urban spaces. Others considered emotional conflicts, society and its development after the Second World War. Yuri Pimenov, on the other hand, worked in the context of the Soviet Union (Wedding on tomorrow’s street, 1962) and depicted the modernisation of cities and social housing as a beacon of hope and evidence of the improving living conditions of the working class.

Proposals are welcome from scholars in fields such as art and architectural history, media studies, urban studies, cultural anthropology, consumer studies and gender studies.

We are inviting papers that investigate topics such as:

- Representations of the Working-Class in material and visual culture (film, TV, photography, painting, literature, etc.)

- Architectural design and social engineering: theories on the transformative power of architectural design on behaviours of residents

- Mid-20th century narratives and histories of slum clearance, overspill estates and rehousing

- Challenges in architecture and planning concerning the process of slum clearance, rehousing, planning, building, and occupying mid-20th century social housing estates

- Stigmatiser and stigmatised. The role of news media in the stigmatisation process of residents and territories

- The roles of media in affirming and solidifying reputations of social housing estates and their residents

- The role of city councils in redeveloping urban ‘slums’

- The exclusion and inclusion of ‘slum dwellers’ in the planning and redevelopment processes

- Slum clearance and the short and long-term impacts of being ‘rehoused’

- Effects of media representations on memories of lived experiences

- Representations of the working class in the fine arts

Members of the Conference Programme Committee are:

• Tanja Poppelreuter. Reader in Architectural Humanities (Conference Chair)
  
• Andrew Clark. Professor in Sociology
  
• Ursula Hurley. Professor in English & Creative Writing
  
• Alaric Searle. Professor of Modern European History, Politics & Contemporary History Seamus Simpson. Professor of Media Policy
  

Please submit a title and 300-word abstract by Friday, March 24th, 2023 to: themodernbackdrop@salford.ac.uk

Each abstract should include the name and affiliation of the author(s), have a title, and be 300- words.

Venue Information: The conference will take place on campus at the University of Salford and registration is free of charge.

Tanja Poppelreuter

Reader in Architectural Humanities, University of Salford themodernbackdrop@salford.ac.uk

This two-day conference is part of the research project ‘The Modern Backdrop: Memories of Salford’ and is funded by the Paul Mellon Centre. https://hub.salford.ac.uk/modern-salford/

Tuesday, 30 May 2023 | 8:30 - 17:00

Off-site: The Creative School Catalyst, Toronto Metropolitan University

Deadline: February 3, 2023

Co-Sponsored: Urban Communication Foundation (UCF) and Activism, Communication and Social Justice, Global Communication and Social Change, Ethnicity and Race in Communication, and Popular Media and Culture with support from the University of Michigan.

Organizers: Matthew Bui (U of Michigan), Myria Georgiou (London School of Economics), Germaine Halegoua (U of Michigan), Dave Colangelo (Toronto Metropolitan U), Sherry Yu (U of Toronto)

This preconference convenes scholars and practitioners interested in topics such as the mediated representation of urban (sub)communities; digital rights and inequalities; datafication; and communication and social change. Participants will reimagine the role of urban communication research and praxis in effecting more equitable, sustainable futures amid multiple convergent crises including housing, poverty, and climate change. Work foregrounding questions of power and inequality from local, global, and/or transnational lenses, underrepresented regions and communities is encouraged.

Registration Fee: $75.00 USD, registration will open in January, by invitation-only.

Call for Papers

This full-day post-conference will convene scholars and practitioners to discuss and reimagine the role of urban communication and urban technology research and praxis. Participants are invited to engage with urgent and emerging questions about power and inequality amid multiple convergent crises, including but not limited to housing, poverty, discrimination, and climate change. The event aims to create an open and collaborative environment for discussing themes and challenges related to urban communication but also opportunities to advance ethical and equitable futures for and through urban communication, technology design, and policy through scholarship and activism. Work foregrounding questions of power and inequality from local, global, and/or transnational lenses, underrepresented regions and communities is strongly encouraged. The post-conference is driven by a number of key questions:

• How are digital and data-driven technologies embroiled with various political, social, and economic campaigns for change within local, transnational, and global urban contexts?
  
• What is the role of grassroots movements in exploring and articulating novel and creative interventions for urban technology and urban communication? How are such campaigns enmeshed in ongoing sociocultural and political struggles for power?
  
• What are the ethical and practical considerations for how to engage with marginalized groups and communities around urban technology and data? How are (urban and digital) policy and design implicated in these issues?
  
• What are the connections between datafication and digitalization and the persistence of–and alleviation of–“wicked problems” (e.g., poverty, homelessness, climate change)?
  
• What issues and themes shape the sub-field of urban communication and urban technology now and in the future? How can current and emerging scholarship and praxis re-imagine urban communication, infrastructures, and exchanges?
  

The ICA post-conference welcomes interdisciplinary conversations and participants from fields such as media, information, and communication; science and technology studies (STS); urban planning and architecture, sociology, and the urban humanities, among others.

Please submit 300-word abstracts, including your name, affiliation, and 150-word bio to the link below by 20 January 2023. Notifications will be sent out by 10 February 2023. Registration will open in March 2023. Please contact organizers for inquiries regarding travel and registration stipends.

The post-conference is co-sponsored by the Urban Communication Foundation (UCF) and supported by the ICA Activism, Communication and Global Change interest group; Ethnicity and Race in Communication division; and Popular Media and Culture division (with further support from the University of Michigan).

All presenters will be considered for inclusion in a special issue or other publication or venue to be discussed among participants and organizers during the conference. Beyond these intellectual exchanges, we also hope to use the post-conference as a space for networking and mentorship for researchers from a variety of disciplines and career stages.

Submission Details

Abstract submission and short deadline: 3 February 2023

Submit abstracts, short bios, and travel assistance (or fee waiver) requests to this link: https://forms.gle/Z2u2B6RySEAg1929A

Inquiries of submission should contact Dr. Matthew Bui, U. of Michigan, mattbui@umich.edu, subject line “ICA 2023 Postconference”

CICANT (Lisbon, Portugal)

CICANT - Research Centre for Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies is accepting applications for 6 doctoral research scholarships.

Description

Between January, 16th and the 30th of April (11.59  p.m. lisbon time) a call is open for 5 (five) national research grants and 1 (one) mixed research grant, hereinafter referred to respectively as National Doctoral Research Grant and Mixed Doctoral Research Grant, in the area of Media Arts and Communication Sciences under the FCT Research Grant Regulations (RBI) and the Research Grant Holder Statute (EBI). The grants will be funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the Collaboration Protocol for the Funding of Doctoral Research Fellowships within the European Universities Alliance for Film and Media Arts (FilmEU), signed between FCT and the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias. The work to be carried out under the scope of the grants will be hosted by the R&D Unit - CICANT - Research Centre for Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (ref: 5260), at Lusófona University - Lisbon University Centre.

Deadline for applications

The call is open from January 16th to April 30th 2023 (23h59, Lisbon time). 

Submissions

Applications and supporting documents for the application set out in this call for applications must be submitted by email to cicant@ulusofona.pt , with the subject of the email being "candidatura a bolsa de doutoramento - COFAC/ULHT/FilmEU-FCT/2023". Each candidate may submit only one application, under penalty of cancellation of all applications submitted. The provision of false statements or plagiarism by the applicants will lead to the cancellation of the application without prejudice to the adoption of other sanctionary measures.

More information

For more details and to apply: https://cicant.ulusofona.pt/careers-opportunities/opportunities/808-open-call-for-6-research-fellowships-for-doctoral-students-filmeu

Please direct questions to: cicant@ulusofona.pt

May 25, 2023

Toronto (Canada)

Deadline: January 31, 2023

Pre-conference at the International Communication Association conference, Toronto, 25 May 2023 (Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel)

The deadline is 31 January, 2023. Accepted participants will be notified by 28 February 2023.

As editors of the journal Media, War and Conflict we propose that this is the ideal time to assess how new actors, technologies, and global power struggles have challenged the relationship between media and conflict in the 15 years since our first issue was published in April 2008. Disinformation and propaganda studies have moved into the sphere of mainstream media and politics, where extant research in the field of war and media has not always been acknowledged. Journalistic institutions face continued pressures on their authority as the leading interpreters of unfolding events, while reporters on-the-ground are threatened, jailed or murdered with apparent impunity. The images and videos captured on ever-present smart devices not only serve as ‘weapons’ in the legitimation of military and political actions, they also transform the aesthetic and moral understandings of war for observing citizens. Notions of ‘participative war’ (Merrin 2018) and ‘radical war’ (Ford and Hoskins 2022) proffer new characterizations of the current era, understanding digital connectivity as intertwined with the conduct of war and the precarity of security (human, food, climate, national, transnational). 

It is important to remember the human lives at the center of these broader technological and conceptual shifts, raising questions regarding how (dis)information mobilizes and impacts the communities involved. Human rights organizations and open source investigation teams employ forensic techniques with a diverse range of imaging and computational technologies to expose war crimes and advocate for those seeking justice (Ristovska 2021; Smith and Watson 2022). Documentaries and creative research methods can bring activists, filmmakers and scholars together to raise awareness and generate solidarity for those facing insecurity and violence. But whose voices are being mobilized in processes such as these, why and how? Ordinary people are also using new technologies in unprecedented ways, bringing to question the relationship between agency and power, and yet inequalities persist. We encourage critical questions about the inequalities of war including the gendered nature of war, intersections of body and space, and the limitations and discriminations for expressions of voice and visibility enabled by supposedly democratizing communication technologies. Does accessibility to diverse ‘voices’ and counter-narratives actually have any discernable impact on decision-making and accountability in war planning and conduct?

This pre-conference intentionally does not refer to specific wars or locations, and encourages research from regions that traditionally receive less scholarly and media attention.

The Media, War and Conflict journal has a thriving community of contributors, many of whom participated in a 5th anniversary conference in London, a 10th anniversary conference in Florence, and we would use this 15th anniversary conference in Toronto to expand this community by bringing in new and early career scholars. ICA 2023 will be a milestone in this continuing journey. 

Potential subjects for papers could include:

-The visual economy of war, photojournalism, and emergent digital visual cultures

-Mediated forensics (Smith and Watson 2022), open-source intelligence (OSINT), surveillant technologies, and crowdsourcing in the visualization of war

-Grassroots and alternative media challenges to official narratives of war and peace

-The gendered and/or ethnocentric nature of war reporting

-Frameworks for understanding the new ecologies of war: ‘everywhere war’ (Gregory 2011), ‘participative war’ (Merrin 2018), ‘radical war’ (Ford and Hoskins 2022)

-Disinformation, ‘fake news’ or falsified imagery in war and conflict situations

-How the climate crisis is associated with conflicts around the world in media discourse

-How media platforms (TikTok, Telegram) are reimagining the way citizens encounter war experiences

-Creative, narrative and visual methods in war and peace research

-Artistic, film, performance and practice projects

-Decolonizing the field of war and media

-Witnessing, ethics and spectatorship

-Memory, commemoration and archives

-Strategic narratives and legitimation of war/peace

-Media coverage of political violence, uprisings, riots and terrorism

-Reporting of military scandals, abuse, and war crimes

We intend this pre-conference to be a welcoming space to forge new interdisciplinary collaborations across visual communication, journalism studies, digital culture, international studies, and beyond. We are keen to hear about artistic, film, performance and practice projects in addition to news and social media studies, and encourage research on conflicts and political violence from regions that traditionally receive less scholarly and media attention.

Two types of in-person participation are invited:

• 10 minute paper or practice presentation: We are interested in scholarly and practice contributions that speak to the above themes. Prospective presenters should submit an abstract of up to 300 words. Submissions will be selected by the conference committee on the basis of originality and relevance to the conference theme, and to ensure a diversity of viewpoints and geographic origins. Presentation submissions are open to people at any stage of career. Due to time constraints, practice-based submissions should primarily be spoken presentations about the practice (with possible clips or images). We hope to further promote practice work through our associated preconference website.
  
• Poster presentation: PhD researchers and early career scholars are also invited to submit an abstract of up to 300 words for a poster presentation addressing the preconference themes. This can be ‘work in progress’. The poster session will allow for feedback from an assigned mentor and other pre-conference participants and organisers.

We will be prioritizing in-person participation but can look into remote options if needed.

Abstracts, indicating which type of participation is requested (paper or poster), should be emailed to the organisers at: k.j.parry@leeds.ac.uk . The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 31 January, 2023. Accepted participants will be notified by 28 February 2023. 

Five travel bursaries of up to $120 will be available to qualifying participants. Bursaries will be available for participants from Tier B and C countries and ECRs to encourage a diversity of experience and expertise. Priority will be given to those from Tier B and C countries, before ECRs from Tier A. The Media, War and Conflict Journal, and the ICA Visual Communication Studies Division sponsor these bursaries. Details of how to apply for a travel bursary will be provided to accepted poster or paper presenters upon notification of acceptance. Bursary recipients will have to pay for registration, and the bursary will act as a waiver retrospectively. If this causes any problems, we can discuss with recipients.   

Provisionally, all presentations will be considered for inclusion in a special anniversary issue of Media, War & Conflict.

Registration will be via the ICA website and will open in March 2023. Non-participating delegates will be accepted within the capacity limitations of the venue. Registration fee will be $120 to cover the two refreshment breaks and lunch provided by the on-site conference hotel.

Note: you do not have to be an ICA member to attend a pre-conference, nor do you need to register for the main conference. Attendees will need to create an ICA profile to register.

Organisers:

• Katy Parry, University of Leeds (lead contact: k.j.parry@leeds.ac.uk)
  
• Piotr Cieplak, University of Sussex
  
• Sarah Maltby, University of Sussex
  
• Dina Matar, SOAS, London
  
• Tanner Mirrlees, Ontario Tech University
  
• Ben O’Loughlin, Royal Holloway, London
  
• Holly Steel, University of Leeds
  

Sponsors: This pre-conference is sponsored by the Media, War & Conflict Journal (SAGE) and the ICA Visual Communication Studies Division. It is also affiliated with the ICA Journalism Studies division.

June 14-16, 2023

University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 31, 2023

Doing Women’s Film and Television History is back in 2023! Join us at the University of Sussex for the 6th edition of this leading international conference on women’s film and television history.

Confirmed Keynotes:

• Professor Sally Faulkner (University of Exeter)
  
• Professor Terri Francis (University of Miami)
  

The sixth edition of the conference, will foreground the history of the distribution, marketing and promotion of women's work and how this shapes its visibility, significance and impact on audiences and on the work of other women directors and producers. Our title references both the technologies of broadcast and digital distribution as well as evoking the flows between women’s work in different spaces, times and places. Our definition of ‘women’ is an inclusive one.

Starting with the festival-based events of the early 1970s – such as the first New York International Festival of Women’s Films, the Women’s Event at Edinburgh Film Festival, the Toronto Women and Film Festival, the Washington Women’s Film Festival, etc. – feminist filmmakers, scholars and critics have sought outlets for the production, distribution and exhibition of women’s work. Since then, initiatives and programmes that aim to foster women’s film and media production and showcase their work have spread more widely and more recent campaigns addressing the persisting gender inequalities within film and media industries around the world have been continuing this historical project of claiming space. We ask ‘How can these calls for a change in the structures that perpetuate the marginalisation and/or exclusion of women’s work from mainstream channels of cultural production, distribution and exhibition be informed by historical perspectives?’.

We are particularly interested in the work of female-identified and feminist programmers, commissioners, critics, distributors, festivals and archivists, exhibitors of various kinds in promoting and showcasing women's work and making it available in specific periods and to future generations. We also suggest some emphasis on the way changing technologies, platforms and channels have been used by women or impacted women's roles in production and distribution in cinema, television and media more generally and in historical comparisons of how this has happened at different moments.

This three-day conference welcomes a variety of international and intersectional perspectives relating to experiences and histories of working practices, and/or researching the work of women film/media practitioners and its circulation within and across cultural spaces.

Our call for papers is geared towards, but is not strictly limited to, historical perspectives on the following topics:

• Intergenerational and transnational dialogues between filmmakers and programme producers, past and present
  
• Archiving and preservation
  
• Distribution and exhibition including new technologies and their impact on national production economies and initiatives and on access for new and diverse producers and audiences.
  
• The impacts and limitations of gender/equality initiatives and projects past and present e.g., the F-rated campaign, ACTT/BECTU/BFI /Directors UK campaigns, class actions etc.
  
• Intersectional approaches/challenges to the visibility of/in women’s work (class, race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, disability, etc.)
  
• The marketing and/or self-presentation of women directors, producers, actors and other personnel across time.
  
• Educational programmes, curricula and the dissemination of women’s work – challenging canons and creating counter-histories.
  
• Feminist filmmaking within and outside mainstream channels and currents.
  
• Lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans women’s activism in media production, distribution and exhibition.
  
• Intersectional ecofeminism and sustainability in film and media production, distribution and exhibition

Proposals for twenty-minute presentations must include the title of the presentation, a 250-word abstract and a brief biography of the author(s). Pre-constituted panels of three speakers may also be submitted, and should include a 250-word panel rationale statement, as well as individual abstracts.  We welcome practice-led contributions which address women’s histories in film, television and audio/visual media; for these please submit a 250-word description, running time, display requirements and links to a 5 minute excerpt and full work. If accepted, practice-led contributions may be presented as part of panels or as a limited number of separate sessions/screenings and/or made available to delegates online.

Please submit your proposals here: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/4473/submitter

Deadline for proposal submission (EXTENDED): 31 January 2023

Please note the conference will be in person with some opportunities for remote participation.

Conference enquiries: womensfilmtvhistoryconference@sussex.ac.uk

3-5 July 2023

Università di Pisa (Pisa, Italy)

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 23, 2023

www.digitalfashion.ch/factum23

Conference Chairs

• Nadzeya Sabatini, Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdansk, Poland) & USI – Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland)
  
• Teresa Sádaba, ISEM Fashion Business School, University of Navarra (Madrid, Spain)
  
• Alessandro Tosi, Università di Pisa (Pisa, Italy)
  
• Veronica Neri, Università di Pisa (Pisa, Italy)
  
• Lorenzo Cantoni, USI – Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland)

The Conference

Hosted by the Museo della Grafica Palazzo Lanfranchi, of the University of Pisa and of the Pisa municipality (Italy) the Department of Civilization and Forms of Knowledge of the University of Pisa and of the Pisa municipality (Italy), the Conference “FACTUM23 Fashion communication: between tradition and future digital developments” is a major academic event. It aims to promote theoretical and empirical interdisciplinary work on how various communication practices impact upon fashion industry and on societal fashion-related practices and values. In particular, the relation between tradition and innovation, as well as the impact of new technologies, digital communication and the internet will be under scrutiny. A satellite event – the opening of the exhibition on “Fashion, Sport & Tourism” will be held at the Museo della Grafica, highlighting the close relationships among those three domains of human experience, culture, and society.

FACTUM23 Conference is the third event in the series of conferences on fashion communication. The first one took place in 2019 in Ascona (Switzerland) and it was organized by USI – Università della Svizzera italiana, while the second one was held in 2021 in Pamplona (Spain) and hosted by the University of Navarra and the ISEM Fashion Business School.

Both conferences had their proceedings published by Springer:

·        2019: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-15436-3

·        2021: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-81321-5

Hereafter the main goals of the Conference:

·          to consolidate Fashion Communication as an academic field

·          to establish and consolidate an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars in the field of Fashion Communication

·          to share methodological approaches

·          to expand the dialogue between communication studies, heritage studies, and Fashion-related disciplines

·          to support junior researchers

Topics of interest

The major topics of interest focus on communication aspects in the Fashion domain. They include but are not limited to:

·        Communication of sustainability and ethical issues in fashion

·        Corporate communication in the fashion domain

·        Digital fashion communication (e.g. digital media channels, blogging, User Generated Contents, online reputation, NFT)

·        Fashion brands and communication with consumers

·        Fashion communication in the retail environment

·        Fashion shows and fashion films as a communication object

·        Gamification in fashion

·        Intangible Cultural Heritage dimension of fashion

·        Intercultural Communication in Fashion

·        Media in fashion

·        Visual communication in fashion

·        Visual communication in fashion, sport, and tourism

·        Relationships between fashion, sport, and tourism

Paper formats and submissions

·        Full Papers: presenting a major original contribution, up to 12 pages in length.

·        Research Notes: presenting an in-progress research (e.g.: by a PhD candidate), up to 6 pages in length.

All types of research are invited for the application, including empirical/case studies, evaluation/impact studies, assessments, etc. Theory development: adaptations of existing theoretical frameworks to better explain how communication formats work in the fashion domain, and measurement issues of the new formats of fashion communication are especially invited.

All contributions should be innovative and should advance the knowledge base of related fields.

All papers should be formatted according to the provided template, available online, at www.digitalfashion.ch/factum23

Submit your paper here: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=factum23 

All papers will be double-blind peer-reviewed by experienced researchers who are members of the scientific review committee. To ensure blind-review process, please, keep your submission anonymous. Final acceptance will depend on whether the author(s) can adequately address review comments to the satisfaction of the reviewers.

Conference proceedings

Accepted papers will be published in an Open Access Proceedings volume by Springer.

The conference proceedings will be indexed by Scopus.

Key dates

Papers are required no later than 23 January 2023 (extended)

Notification of acceptance will be provided by 20 February 2023

Final papers should be submitted by 20 March 2023

Location and venue

The Conference will take place at the Museo della Grafica Palazzo Lanfranchi of the Università di Pisa and the Pisa municipality (Italy), as well as in other historical buildings of the city.

For further inquiries, please, contact:

Nadzeya Sabatini, PhD

Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication

USI – Università della Svizzera italiana

Lugano, Switzerland

nadzeya.sabatini@usi.ch

Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (March 2024) 

Abstract Deadline (500 words): February 1st, 2023 

Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): June 1st, 2023

Co-editors: Ayleen Cabas-Mijares (Marquette University) and Sharon Adetutu Omotoso (University of Ibadan) 

Feminist political communication underscores feminist intersections, forms, and strategies of power relations in the transmission, interpretation, and usage of political information (Omotoso & Faniyi, 2020). Although these have been largely undertheorized and underexplored, the pursuit of the global sustainable development goal of gender equality has aided more critical considerations of the discords, crisscrosses, accomplishments and/or setbacks encountered by women across geopolitical spaces.  

As scholars extensively investigate the obstinate underrepresentation of women in parliaments and governments as well as threats to women’s rights worldwide, critical communication studies have not paid much attention to the place of feminism as political proposition and collective movement that impacts the lives of millions of women in the Global South. Consequently, much of concerns about women’s involvement in politics for decades has been discussed within political studies.   

With acknowledgement to the critical scholarship that provides comprehensive nuances of feminist political communication on a global scale, the epistemic invisibility (Omotoso, 2020) of feminist political communication within expanding Global South contexts (Shome, 2019) leaves a gap in communication studies as well as comparative politics. Feminisms in the Global South have long histories of calling for alternatives to neoliberalism, neocolonialism, ethnic and ecological annihilation. However, neoliberal and postfeminist sensibilities have attempted to depoliticize feminism, turning it into a quest for personal empowerment instead of a political movement driven by collective action (Dosekun, 2015, 2020; Dutta, 2021; Gill, 2016). Additionally, heteropatriarchal states and right-wing nationalist movements have invoked women’s rights to stigmatize and justify violence against Black and people of color, particularly Muslims, worldwide (Farris, 2017). These erasures and mischaracterizations underscore the urgency of critical communication studies about feminist mobilizing and how it continues to provide tools for anti-colonial resistance. 

To this end, this special issue aims to theorize and showcase critical examinations of feminist political communication from the Global South, given its evolving peculiarities in terms of geopolitics, location, identity, ownership, and agency. With the goal of highlighting critical cultural communication approaches autochthonous to feminist methodologies and practices of the Global South, the special issue aims to present perspectives that have taken center stage in Southern contexts and have often contributed to stronger South-South relationships in feminist politics and activism. This special issue endeavors to center marginalized voices, epistemologies, axiologies, and ontologies while drawing attention to the importance of alternative theorizing and thinking, ultimately providing homegrown solutions to local challenges.  

We seek contributions specifically using qualitative methods and critical/cultural theoretical approaches rooted in critical communication scholarship that present nuanced discourses and practices around feminist political communication.  

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: 

• Critical communication, feminist politics, epistemicide, and knowledge production. 
  
• Communicating feminist political epistemologies of the Global South. 
  
• Critical analyses of practices and phenomena that characterize feminist political communication strategies in the Global South. 
  
• Decolonization and feminist political communication. 
  
• Gender expansiveness and feminist politics in Global South contexts. 
  
• Media (mis)representations of women in politics in the Global South. 
  
• Development communication and politics for social change. 
  
• Intersectionality, theory and praxis in political communication. 
  
• South-South relationships and collaborations in transnational feminist politics. 
  
• Politics of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality in the postcolonial reality. 
  
• Feminist methodological and theoretical interventions in political communication. 
  
• Imperialism, white supremacy, and femonationalism. 
  
• Feminist media and mediated activism across the Global South. 
  
• Futures of feminist political communication in Global South. 

Submission Instructions: 

Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (two-page) CV by February 1, 2023, to the guest editors of the special issue at ayleen.cabasmijares@marquette.edu, and sa.omotoso@ui.edu.ng. Please include all co-editors on your email submission. 

Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by March 1st, 2023, and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references, in Word format, following the 7th APA style) to the guest editors by June 1st, 2023.  

NOTE: Only accepted articles will be asked to submit to ScholarOne (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cccr). Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication of a full essay, which will be subject to anonymous peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors at the above email addresses. 

Guest editors’ bios: 

Ayleen Cabas-Mijares is an assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Marquette University. Using a critical/cultural lens, Cabas-Mijares examines the relationship between media, journalism, and social change, specifically the role of media in the constitution and political strategies of social movements. Cabas-Mijares’ work centers phenomena in the context of Latin America and the Latinx diaspora. Her research has been published in Journalism, Journalism Practice, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and Visual Communication Quarterly. 

Sharon Adetutu Omotoso, a Senior Research Fellow in the Gender Studies Unit of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria is also Coordinator, Women’s Research and Documentation Centre (WORDOC). She has published significantly in her areas of research interest including Applied Ethics, Media & Gender studies, Political Communications, Philosophy of Education, Socio-Political Philosophy, and African Philosophy. Sharon co-edited Political Communication in Africa (2017) and edited the book ‘Women’s Political Communication in Africa (2020). She is currently working on broad gender contexts of theorizing African political communication. 

References 

Dosekun, S. (2015). For western girls only? Post-feminism as transnational culture. Feminist Media Studies, 15(6), 960-975. 

Dosekun, S. (2020). Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 

Dutta, N. (2021). “‘I like It Clean’: Brazilian Waxing and Postfeminist Subjectivity among South Asian Beauticians in London.” Frontiers in Sociology, 6, 646344. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.646344 

Farris, S. R. (2017). In the name of women's rights: The Rise of Femonationalism. Duke University Press. 

Gill, R. (2016). “Post-postfeminism?: New Feminist Visibilities in Postfeminist Times.” Feminist Media Studies, 16(4), 610–630. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2016.1193293 

Omotoso, S.A (2020) ‘Hairiness and Hairlessness: An African Feminist View of Poverty’ In Dimensions of Poverty. eds.  Beck, Valentin, Hahn, Henning, Lepenies, Robert. Springer Publishers: Chams 

Omotoso, S.A & Faniyi, O. M. (2020). Women‘s Recipe for the African Policom Stew. In Omotoso, S. (Ed.) Women‟s Political Communication in Africa (pp.1-8) Springer Publishers: Chams. 1-8pp.  

Shome, R. (2019). Thinking culture and cultural studies—from/of the Global South. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 16(3), 196-218. 

Edited by: Silke Fürst, Daniel Vogler, Isabel Sörensen and Mike S. Schäfer

Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS) is a peer-reviewed journal of communication and media research with platinum open access: https://www.hope.uzh.ch/scoms/. The journal is edited by Jolanta Drzewiecka, Silke Fürst, Katharina Lobinger, and Thilo von Pape. It is the first time SComS publishes three issues in one year.

Issue 22(3) has just been published and can be accessed for free https://www.hope.uzh.ch/scoms/issue/view/312. It includes a Thematic Section on “Changing Communication of Higher Education Institutions” as well as a General Section comprising studies on the value of face-to-face communication in a world where digital communication technologies are omnipresent as well as on the framing of an Imam. The issue contains a dissertation summary, a discussion on working conditions of early career scientists and is complemented by one book review.