ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline: February 15, 2022

Preliminary title: The Return of Propaganda

Editors:

• Göran Bolin (Professor, Södertörn University)
• Risto Kunelius (Professor, Helsinki University)

Contact: 

• Göran Bolin: goran.bolin@sh.se
• Risto Kunelius: risto.kunelius@helsinki.fi

Important dates:

• Deadline for extended abstracts: 15 February 2022
• Deadline for full submissions: 1 September 2022
• Peer review: October 2022–December 2022
• Expected publication: Spring 2023

Background and aim

Digitisation has brought with it increased opportunities for individuals, organisations, and loosely formed groups to produce and disseminate information. This new infrastructure has undermined traditional gatekeepers and led to a more plural landscape of information and opinions, creating a media landscape where quality control and accuracy of disseminated knowledge and facts has become increasingly difficult to maintain. At the same time, the potential power to control datafied flows in the platformed media environment of communication has become more centralised and opaque, raising questions about “networked propaganda” and data as a source of social and political power. In recent years, we have witnessed new forms of foreign interventions through social media in national elections, as well as the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories during times of military and civil crises, for instance, the Ukranian–Russian war and the Covid-19 pandemic. Legacy news media have increasingly come under attack from populist movements at the same time as authoritarian political forces are using digital media and datafied techniques to question key democratic institutitions in society. Global tech companies have not only become incredibly rich, but have also acquired unprecedented power to control communication networks and flows.

This twin process of fragmentation of communication infrastructures and centralisation of their control capacity coincides with the rise of new social political movements (on both sides of traditional left–right divides) and formation of new political divisions and identities.

A number of neologisms have thus entered into the vocabulary of research and public debate – such as “fake news”, ”misinformation”, “disinformation”, and “post-truth” – which has revived discussions on persuasion, strategic communication, strategic narratives, soft power, information management, and other concepts for what was once termed propaganda.

The current moment (conjuncture) calls for a collective and critical reflection by the community of communication scholars. This effort demands robust empirical evidence of the dynamics changing information environments and new methodological innovations for better analysis of data-driven communication, but also a reinvigorated conceptual debate.

At the same time – as the history of the field (communication research) is intimately intertwined with the social and political power of media and communication – this points to the need for reengaging with earlier theories of propaganda (for example, contributions by Harold Lasswell, Jaqcues Ellul, Edward Berneys, Hanna Arendt, and Noam Chomsky), paradigm encounters (in the field of communication research) around media power and effects, as well as theoretisations about earlier transformative moments.

How can we read contemporary discussions in the light of previous thinking about political, state, or commercial propaganda and related phenomena? What lessons can be learned from earlier theories, formed in different political and cultural conjunctures and media landscapes? How are new media technologies adopted for strategic purposes, and what does that mean for theorising communication? What new evidence is there of the “return” of propaganda in the digitalised, conflictual, and networked media landscape? What are most promising and innovative methods that could harness communication research with better tools to take part in these debates?

We invite scholars around the world to address these questions in scholarly reflections that can be descriptive, analytical, as well as normative, and can relate to topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Conceptual discussions of propaganda, strategic communication, misinformation, soft power, and adjacent terms
• The relationship between authoritarian and populist movements and newer forms of propaganda
• The role of hacking and algorithms in manipulation of information
• Historical accounts of the development of strategic communication technologies
• Historicizing of the phenomenon of propaganda (strategic communication, PR, etc.)
• Analysis and accounts of national and regional characteristics of propaganda (e.g., Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa)
• Propaganda and ideology: The propaganda model revisited
• Propaganda and digital information management
• Empirical analysis of (past or present) dis/misinformation campaigns
• Analytical and/or methodological approaches to propaganda
• Propagandistic representations in fiction and documentary

Procedure

Those with an interest in contributing should write an extended abstract (max. 750 words)  where  the main  theme (or argument)  of the intended article is described. The abstract should contain the preliminary title and five keywords. How the article fits with the overall aim of the issue – to critically reflect on the dynamics changing information environments, propose innovative methodological approaches for analysing data-driven communication, and reinvigorate the conceptual debate around propaganda – should be mentioned. 

Send your extended abstract to Göran Bolin (goran.bolin@sh.se) and Risto Kunelius (risto.kunelius@helsinki.fi) by 15 February 2022.

Scholars invited to submit a full manuscript (6,000–8,000 words) will be notified by e-mail after the extended abstracts have been assessed. All submissions should be original works and must not be under consideration by other publishers. All submissions are submitted to Similarity Check – a Crossref service utilising iThenticate text comparison software to detect text-recycling or self-plagiarism.

• Visit Crossref to learn more about Similarity Check

After the initial submission and review process, manuscripts that are accepted for publication must adhere to our guidelines upon final manuscript delivery. You may choose to use our templates to assist you in correctly formatting your manuscript.

Download a manuscript template (docx, 31 kB)

Read the full instructions for authors

About Nordic Journal of Media Studies

Nordic Journal of Media Studies is a peer-reviewed international publication dedicated to media research. The journal is a meeting place for Nordic, European, and global perspectives on media studies. It is is a thematic digital-only journal published once a year. The editors stress the importance of innovative and interdisciplinary research, and welcome contributions on both contemporary developments and historical topics.

• Read the aims & scope of NJMS

About the publisher

Nordicom is a centre for Nordic media research at the University of Gothenburg, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom publishes all works under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence,  which  allows for non-commercial, non-derivative types of  reuse  and sharing with proper attribution.  All works are published Open Access and are available to read free of charge and without requirement for registration.  Authors retain copyright. 

• Read our editorial policies
• Visit Creative Commons to learn more about our CC licence

Special issue of Media Practice and Education Journal (March 2023)

Deadline for 500-word Abstract Submissions: 15 March 2022

Guest editors: Patrícia Nogueira, Ana Carvalho and Joana Pestana

disrupting.surveillance[@]ismai.pt

We invite submissions for a special issue of The Journal of Media Practice and Education on the topic of Disrupting Surveillance

Deadline for Full Papers: 31 July 2022

Expected date of publication: March 2023

Surveillance in the 21st Century is characterized by ubiquitous data collection, storing and analysis, both visual and algorithmical, leading to a world of networked media and to diagnoses of surveillance and platform capitalism (Zuboff, 2019; Srnicek, 2017). In contemporary screen culture, namely with the omnipresence of surveillance devices, society has become a space of control (Pisters, 2012). Besides the ubiquitous surveillance, materialized by the proliferation of CCTV cameras scattered everywhere - in indoor and outdoor, public and private spaces - each one of us carries a personal camera, daily capturing everything around us, including ourselves and others, sharing our interests, the places where we go, the daily activities we do, the products we consume… actively contributing to a self-monitored society, or more precisely, to “societies of control” (Deleuze, 1992). Therefore, surveillance is not just an external act, it is a voluntary, embodied everyday practice, which increasingly becomes an integral part of everyday life. It presents new sorting and controlling practices that promote new forms of visibility and control, new modes of power, as well as unintended consequences and disadvantages. Whereas such a scenario seems unavoidable, scholars and artists have been raising numerous questions to critique and reimagine the social and political landscape of contemporary surveillance society, refusing to indulge “technological determinism” (Jordan, 2008; Smith & Marx, 1994). While some artists and practitioners appropriate and repurpose surveillance images and technologies to interrogate the realm, others question the surveillance status quo by proposing strategies of disruption and escape. The special issue therefore aims to provide a space for discussing strategies of subversion and alternatives concerning various forms of surveillance through technological means, relating to the crossover between artistic practices and technologies. The themed issue encourages bringing together a range of artistic, critical and scientific perspectives, affording visibility to recent artistic practices and research works, and exploring, broadly, the interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding contemporary surveillance and, particularly, how surveillance practices intersect with visual technologies, visual culture, and moving image studies. The issue aims to interrogate a manifold of perspectives, from the aestheticization of surveillance to networked images, by exploring their intersections and derivations. We propose to discuss the way in which contemporary visual arts are contributing to the creation of new approaches and perspectives to interrogate the societies of surveillance, re-imagining and proposing alternative futures.

As so, we are seeking contributions of full papers that explore the intersection of Surveillance, Arts, and Technology from various perspectives. We are particularly interested in papers focusing on the practice-based media-arts research and analysis, its communication and circulation that respond to one or more of the special issue strands.

Film and Moving Images — the use, re-use, manipulation, and re-contextualization of surveillance, sousveillance, and self-surveillance moving and still images in contemporary film, video art and art installations, namely:

• The art of CCTV cameras / Cultural plays with CCTV;
• Drone images and aerial perspectives of control;
• Anthropocene and non-human gaze / imagery;
• Panopticism and cinematic surveillance: theories, practices, and representations;
• The relationship between voyeurism and surveillance;
• New visibilities of surveillance / Changing temporalities and spaces of surveillance;
• Surveillance art and the aesthetics of surveillance;
• Surveillance in post-colonial and decolonial film and art.
• Digital Art — How the arts, and in particular the digital arts, the philosophy and theory of art and the reflection upon the arts from other areas of knowledge, has been critically reflecting the contemporary networked landscape of surveillance:
• Photography, film and personal strategies of production and distribution through social media;
• Performance and the technologies for online communication;
• The relationship of bodies to surveillance technologies;
• Interactions, creativity and aesthetics of and with A.I.;
• Individualization and the collective intelligence in times of digital surveillance;
• Artificial environments, personal devices, big data and networks of control;
• Sound ecologies of surveillance and the use of surveillance technologies for digital creation and production.
• Critical Design and Visual Culture — interfaces, structures and technologies revealed or concealed in critical design works, and visual artworks that aim to disrupt surveillance and knowledge monopolies, delving into design fiction and speculative design and approaching broadly the following topics:
• Disrupting surveillance;
• Performative design and surveillance;
• Aesthetics and ethics of surveillance;
• Interfaces of and against surveillance;
• Wearable technology and interactive clothing;
• Structures and systems of resistance in design history;
• Alternative and speculative worlds.

To submit

Please send a 500-word abstract, and a 100-word bio per author to the guest editors at disrupting.surveillance@ismai.pt by 15 March 2022. Authors of accepted abstracts will be contacted in mid-April and invited to submit full contributions by 31 July 2022.

Style guide for authors

Issue Schedule

15 March 2022: 500-word proposals to be submitted (disrupting.surveillance@ismai.pt).

15 April 2022: Response from editors and, if successful, invitation to submit contribution.

31 July: Full Papers submission (5000 to 7000 words, incl. references).

August to November: Peer review period.

31 December: Submission of reviewed final papers.

March 2023: expected date of publication.

About the journal

Media Practice and Education is an international, peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality, original research. Please see the journal's Aims & Scope for information about its focus and peer-review policy. Please note that this journal only publishes manuscripts in English. Taylor & Francis is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review.

Issue Schedule

• 15 March 2022: 500-word proposals to be submitted (disrupting.surveillance@ismai.pt).
• 15 April 2022: Response from editors and, if successful, invitation to submit contribution.
• 31 July: Full Papers submission (5000 to 7000 words, incl. references).
• August to November: Peer review period.
• 31 December: Submission of reviewed final papers.
• March 2023: expected date of publication.

References:

Crawford, Kate (2021). Atlas of AI. Yale University Press.

Deleuze, Gilles (1992). “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, The MIT Press, vol.59. pp.3-7.

Jordan, Tim (2008). Hacking: Digital Media and Technological Determinism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Foucault, Michel (1991). Discipline and Punish - The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin.

Pisters, Patricia (2012). The Neuro-Image: A Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital Screen. Stanford University Press.

Smith, Merritt Roe & Marx, Leo (1994). Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Srnicek, Nick (2017). Platform Capitalism. Cambridge, Malden: Polity.

Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs.

ECREA Executive Board is organizing regular meetings every two months to exchange ideas and approve reports by different sub-committees led by the members of the Executive Board.

During the last two meetings (a hybrid meeting held on November 18-19, 2021 in Prague, and an online meeting on 7 January) the members of the Bureau of the Executive Board have provided updates about the planning of the Aarhus 2022 conference; Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt gave feedback about the outcomes of the Doctoral Summer School of 2021 and organization of the Summer School of 2022; and approved the report presented by Christina Holtz-Bacha of the 18th wave in the ECREA book series.

In addition to the previous initiatives led by the members of the executive board (e.g. ethics committee), several new sub-committees were launched on topics that are at the heart of the values of ECREA. For example, Zlatan Krajina is leading the work of the equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) sub-committee and Andreas Schuck is responsible for leading the subcommittee on minimising the environmental impact. In order to promote collaboration and to develop common actions between ECREA and Latin American Communication Researchers Association (ALAIC), a sub-committee was formed, led by Patricia Nunez Gomez.

The next meeting of the Executive Board will take place in March 11.

Andra Siibak, General Secretary

Editors: Sandra Marinho, Pilar Sánches-García

This book explores the challenges of teaching journalism and communication in an ever-changing media environment. It considers the classroom as a space of “trial and error” and, therefore, of necessary innovation. It brings together professors and students from different universities across Europe to recount their teaching and learning experiences. The book also provides training proposals which offer an insight into the ongoing international debate on which teaching trends and practices can be effective in the digital environment. As such, the text will contribute to strengthening the university teaching of professional communicators based on technological innovation and critical thinking.

Purchase here: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7586-8

Deadline: February 15, 2022

We invite scholars, educators, professors, and practitioners from all over the world to write a chapter of the upcoming book about animation to be published January 2023 where the past, present and future of animation will be analyzed. The title is a work in progress. It would be published in English in the USA and Canada and in Spanish for distribution in all Spanish speaking countries. It has broad lines of research.

For clarification, it is a research book, not a dissemination book.

It has the following characteristics:

• Abstract 500 words
• Keywords: 7
• Article: 7,000-8,000 words
• Text in English, when approved the author will send it in Spanish as well.
• APA 7.
• Unpublished article/chapter.

At least 30 bibliographic sources not more than 10 years old, unless they are highly justified.

Dates: February 15, 2022, Summary 500 words, Keywords: 7, the proposals are studied, and the selected chapters are reported before the end of the month.

Estimated dates: For the investigation of the article, June 1 as the first draft. Blind peer review to be in first correction on July 31, article finalized and approved September 1 and published in January 2023.

Send you proposals or enquiries to: raqubeni@ucm.es

Comunicar (special issue)

We would like to announce that the latest issue of Comunicar, 70, has been recently published with the title 'New challenges for teachers in the context of digital learning'. As on previous occasions, the journal has a Special Issue section. All articles are available full text and free of charge on our official website (www.comunicarjournal.com).

Teachers' perspectives for a critical agenda in media education post COVID-19. A comparative study in Latin America: Julio-César Mateus | Pablo Andrada | Catalina González-Cabrera | Cecilia Ugalde | Sebastián Novomisky

ICT and Media competencies of teachers. Convergence towards an integrated MIL-ICT model: Alfonso Gutiérrez-Martín | Ruth Pinedo-González | Cristina Gil-Puente

Student satisfaction with online teaching in times of COVID-19: María-Consuelo Sáiz-Manzanares | Joana Casanova | José-Alberto Lencastre | Leandro Almeida | Luis-Jorge Martín-Antón

Critical media literacy to improve students' competencies: Walter-Antonio Mesquita-Romero | Carmen Fernández-Morante | Beatriz Cebreiro-López

Families' perception of children's academic performance during the COVID-19 lockdown: Noemí Serrano-Díaz | Estíbaliz Aragón-Mendizábal | Rosario Mérida-Serrano

Latin American professors' research culture in the digital age: Romel González-Díaz | Ángel Acevedo-Duque | Víctor Martin-Fiorino | Elena Cachicatari-Vargas

Communication bibliometric research in Latin American scientific journals (2009-2018): Jesús Arroyave-Cabrera | Rafael Gonzalez-Pardo

Disinformation and multiliteracy: A systematic review of the literature: Jesús Valverde-Berrocoso | Alberto González-Fernández | Jesús Acevedo-Borrega

Engagement and desertion in MOOCs: Systematic review: Odiel Estrada-Molina | Dieter-Reynaldo Fuentes-Cancell

Exploring cyber violence against women and girls in the Philippines through Mining Online News: January Febro-Naga | Mia-Amor Tinam-isan

In active indexations in 2021/22, Comunicar is top worldwide: 2nd in the world in SCOPUS and 7th in the world in JCR (top 1% and 3% in the world; percentile 99% and 97%).

- In JCR-JIF it is Q1 in Education, in Communication and in Cultural Studies (1st in Spanish).

- It is 1st in FECYT Metrics; 1st in DIALNET METRICS.

- In GOOGLE SCHOLAR METRICS is the 2nd journal indexed in Spanish in all areas; 2nd in REDIB (out of 1,199 journals).

June 30 - July 1, 2022

University of Amsterdam

Deadline: March 15, 2022

Keynote Speakers: Dr Benjamin Stevens (Trinity University) and Dr Rutger Allan (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

This interdisciplinary two-day workshop is devoted to the construction of fantastical worlds across various narrative media from antiquity to the present.

In recent years, media and literary studies have drawn attention to the process of constructing ‘imaginary’ or ‘secondary’ worlds. We define these fantastical universes as fictional worlds that involve creatures and/or events whose existence and/or occurrence is impossible in our actual world. Being often heterotopic and heterochronic and endowed with their own geographies, populations, histories, governments, etc., fantastical worlds may in complex ways reflect, contrast, and/or transcend ordinary reality.

Yet while this phenomenon is generally considered to originate in Tolkien, fantastical worldbuilding can be recognised in antiquity as well. Recent studies in classical literature and receptions have emphasised the fantasy-like quality of classics like Homer’s Odyssey, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Plato’s eschatological myths (Rogers & Stevens, 2017: 8-9; Nightingale 2002a, 2002b), while linguists and narratologists have brought to light literary devices that might be used by ancient authors to construct fantastical worlds and mediate the audience’s experience of them (e.g., Allan 2020; de Jong 2009; Ryan 1991).

Rarely, however, has the connection been made between the classical and contemporary construction of fantastical worlds, let alone between classics and modern media studies. The overarching aim of the workshop is to launch such an interdisciplinary discussion in search of a comparative, diachronic perspective on fantastical worldbuilding.

Principally, the workshop will focus on the how of fantastical worldbuilding, i.e., on the devices and techniques used in different times and media to create a fantastical world, as well as the ways in which this world is presented as different from yet somehow anchored in reality.

We invite papers that address one (or more) of the following research questions:

1. What devices do authors or artists use to construct fantastical worlds? (E.g., common ground management, deixis, the general rendering of time and space)

2. How are these fantastical worlds anchored to the audience’s actual world, and what devices are used to express this relationship? (E.g., metalepsis, immersive/enactive devices, shifts in the deictic centre)

3. How do fantastical worlds encourage the audience to reflect on the actual world? (E.g., metaphor, metonymy, contrast)

4. What differences and similarities exist between the construction of fantastical worlds in different periods and different media?

5. How are the devices used by ancient authors to construct fantastical worlds reused (consciously or unconsciously) in later times?

We are interested in contributions from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds that discuss the construction of fantastical worlds in or across different media (e.g., written narratives, drama, film, television, video games). Papers may focus on single narratives, authors, and periods, or discuss fantastical worldbuilding techniques more broadly, e.g., from a theoretical, comparative or reception point of view.

The workshop will take place in Amsterdam on the 30th of June and the 1st of July 2022. Should the state of the pandemic require it, the workshop will be held on the same days as either a hybrid or a virtual event.

We invite submissions for 25-minute presentations. To register your interest, please submit an anonymous abstract of max. 400 words (excluding references and bibliography) to constructingfantasticalworlds@gmail.com by the 15th of March 2022. Your name and affiliation should be included in the body of your email. We aim to respond no later than the 15th of April.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions: Caterina Fossi (c.fossi@uva.nl), Merlijn Breunesse (m.r.e.breunesse@uva.nl) and Koen Vacano (k.vacano@uva.nl).

This workshop is generously funded by the OIKOS research groups Language of Literature, Classical Literature: Theory and Contexts, and Classical Receptions and Traditions and by Anchoring Innovation and the Anchoring Innovation work packages Discourse & Rhetoric, Literature & Art, and Reception of Antiquity.

Bibliography:

Allan, R.J., 2020: “Narrative Immersion: some linguistic and narratological aspects”, in Huitink, L.; Grethlein, J. and Tagliabue, A. (eds), Experience, Narrative and Literary Criticism in Ancient Greece, Oxford, 15- 35.

de Jong, I.J.F., 2009: “Metalepsis in Ancient Greek Literature”, in Grethlein, J. and Rengakos, A. (eds), Narratology and Interpretation. The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature, Berlin, 87–115.

Nightingale, A.W., 2002a: “Toward an Ecological Eschatology: Plato and Bakhtin on Other Worlds & Times”, in Branham, R. B. (ed.), Bakhtin and the Classics, Evanston, IL, 220-249.

Nightingale, A.W., 2002b: “Distant Views: ‘Realistic’ and ‘Fantastic’ Mimesis in Plato”, in Annas, J. and Rowe, C. (eds), 2003: New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, Washington, DC, 227-47.

Rogers, B.M. & Stevens, B.E. (eds), 2017: Classical Traditions in Modern Fantasy, Oxford.

Ryan, M.L., 1991: Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory, Bloomington and Indianapolis.

Wolf, M.J.P., 2012: Building Imaginary Worlds. The Theory and History of Subcreation, New York & London.

Wolf, M.J.P. (ed), 2018: The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds, New York & London.

May 25, 2022

Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Paris)

Deadline: January 31, 2022

ICA Pre-conference

This is a final reminder of our call for contributions for a pre-conference in Paris, 25 May 2022, which will be dedicated to the intellectual legacy of our former colleague, Professor Jay G. Blumler. Please submit abstracts or enquiries to the email address blumlerpreconf@gmail.com. Deadline is 31 January 2022.

Hosted by: Center for Political Research at Sciences Po, University of Zurich, University of Leeds

With sponsorship of the ICA Political Communication and Global Communication and Social Change divisions.

Format : Preconference; Half day

Date : Wednesday, May 25 , 2022

Location: Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Paris)

Time : 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Former ICA President Professor Jay G. Blumler was instrumental in establishing political communication as a recognised academic field in Britain in the 1960s, and his writing spanned Global Communication and Political Communication.

His pioneering work with Denis McQuail, in which they applied uses and gratifications theory to understand how voters responded to television election coverage injected a degree of methodological rigour and normative insight to the study of political communication that characterised his many subsequent books and articles. Jay continued to lecture and publish until shortly before his death in 2021.

In 1995 Blumler and Gurevitch described a ‘crisis of Public Communication’. This comprised six main components:

i) a degree of de-politicisation, due to the centre-stage movement of politically independent media into the political process, encouraging an incursion of media personalities into politics;

ii) dissemination of an over-supply of oxygen for cynicism;

iii) projection of a highly pejorative, over-simplified and in many cases probably unfair stereotype of the standard politician as someone who cares only for power and personal advancement;

iv) that less and less of the political communication diet serves the citizen role—due to a predominant presentation of politics as a game (at the expense of coverage of policy issues) and the provision of ever-shorter soundbites;

v) the catapulting of the press into a position of surrogate opposition, imbuing much reporting with qualities of challenge, criticism and exposure at the expense of giving credit where it is due;

vi) the emergence of a “chronic state of partial war” between politicians and journalists.

In celebration of Jay’s remarkable intellectual legacy the ICA divisions of Political Communication and Global Communication and Social Change invite colleagues from around the world to address the question, Is there still a crisis of public communication? This preconference was conceived to offer answers from a range of perspectives and spaces.

Established scholars whose work has engaged with Blumler’s scholarship are invited to provide research-driven reflections upon the pre-conference theme, with particular attention to the following sub themes:

• The condition of the democratic public sphere

Blumler’s starkly-stated critique was that ‘communications as presently organised is sucking both the substance and the spirit out of the politics it projects’. For him, this amounted to a systemically-rooted crisis of democratic citizenship. We invite contributors to discuss the extent to which the concept of ‘crisis’ describes the current condition of the public sphere; whether we might now be in what Philip Schlesinger has called a ‘post-public sphere’; and what, if anything, might be done to address the normative shortcomings of the empirical public sphere.

• The condition of public service broadcasting

Blumler looked to public service broadcasting to offer an alternative to the most egregious failings of the commercial mass media. He argued that ‘For all of its weaknesses as an institutional model, the BBC’s embeddedness within values of public service has led to profoundly civilizing consequences’. However, he went on to catalogue and critique the ‘gradual dilution of the civic mission of the public service broadcaster’. We invite contributors to consider whether the PSB model can help to revitalise democratic citizenship. If it can, what form should that model now take? If not, what is the alternative to the principles of PSB?

• The role of social media

Blumler described social media as possessing a ‘vulnerable potential’ to improve public communication – and went on to outline a strategy for making this happen. We invite contributors to explore that potential as well as its manifest vulnerability. We are equally interested in contributions from those wishing to argue that the maturation of ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff 2019) and ‘datafication’ (Meijas and Couldry, 2019) are fundamentally altering what constitutes public communication.

Two types of in-person participation are invited:

Ø Prospective ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS should submit an abstract of up to 500 words elaborating their perspective. 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. Up to nine roundtable participants will be selected, and will each be given 5 minutes at the start of the roundtable to outline their perspective.

Ø PhD researchers and early career scholars will be invited to submit an abstract of up to 500 words for a POSTER PRESENTATION addressing the preconference theme through original theory and research. Up to 15 poster presenters will be selected and will be matched with an experienced scholar participating in the event for one to one discussion of their project.

Abstracts, indicating which type of participation is requested (roundtable or poster), should be emailed to the organisers at blumlerpreconf@gmail.com . The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 31 January, 2022. Accepted participants will be notified by 28 February 2022.

Selected poster presenters will be expected to provide a paper of up to 4000 words by April 29, 2022. A prize will be awarded for the best paper as determined by the organising committee.

Two travel bursaries of up to UK £200 will be available to qualifying participants from outside of (World Bank defined) high-income countries. These are sponsored by the University of Leeds School of Media and Communication. Details of how to apply for a travel bursary will be provided to accepted poster presenters upon notification of acceptance of their paper. Bursary recipients will have their registration fee for the preconference waived.

Provisionally, all presentations will be considered for inclusion in a special issue of a leading journal in the field.

Registration will be via the ICA website and will open in March 2022. Non-participating delegates will be accepted within the capacity limitations of the venue. A nominal fee for registration is anticipated and will be announced at the ICA website. We anticipate providing a recording of the roundtable discussion for later viewing online.

Organisers:

• Stephen Coleman, University of Leeds
• Frank Esser, University of Zurich
• Julie Firmstone, University of Leeds
• Katy Parry, University of Leeds
• Chris Paterson, University of Leeds
• Thierry Vedel, Sciences Po

EDITED BY Aleena Chia; Ana Jorge and Tero Karppi

2021, Rowman & Littlefield

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538147405/Reckoning-with-Social-Media

Once celebrated for connecting people and circulating ideas, social media are facing mounting criticisms about their anticompetitive reach, addictive design, and toxicity to democracy. Known cumulatively as the “techlash,” journalists, users, and politicians are asking social media platforms to account for being too big, too engaging, and too unruly. In the age of the techlash, strategies to regulate how platforms operate technically, economically, and legally, are often stacked against individual tactics to manage the effects of social media by disconnecting from them. These disconnection practices—from restricting screen time and detoxing from device use to deleting apps and accounts—often reinforce rather than confront the ways social media organize attention, everyday life, and society.

Reckoning with Social Media challenges the prevailing critique of social media that pits small gestures against big changes, that either celebrates personal transformation or champions structural reformation. This edited volume reframes evaluative claims about disconnection practices as either restorative or reformative of current social media systems by beginning where other studies conclude: the ambivalence, commodification, and complicity of separating from social media.

Introduction and Chapter 6 are available open access, respectively at: https://rowman.com/webdocs/reckoningwithsocialmediaintroduction.pdf and https://rowman.com/webdocs/reckoningwithsocialmediachapter6.pdf

ToC

Introduction: Reckoning with Social Media in the Pandemic Denouement: Aleena Chia, Ana Jorge, and Tero Karppi

Why Disconnecting Matters? Towards a Critical Research Agenda on Online Disconnection: Magdalena Kania-Lundholm

The Ontological Insecurity of Disconnecting: A Theory of Echolocation and the Self: Annette N. Markham

‘Hey! I’m back after a 24h #DigitalDetox!’: Influencers posing disconnection: Ana Jorge and Marco Pedroni

Privacy, energy, time and moments stolen: Social media experiences pushing towards disconnection: Trine Syvertsen and Brita Ytre-Arne

Quitting Digital Culture: Rethinking Agency in a Beyond-Choice Ontology

Zeena Feldman

Ethics and Experimentation in The Light Phone and Google Digital Wellbeing: Aleena Chia and Alex Beattie

From digital detox to 24/365 disconnection: between dependency tactics and resistance strategies in Brazil: Marianna Ferreira Jorge and Julia Salgado

Overcoming Forced Disconnection: Disentangling the Professional and the Personal in Pandemic Times: Christoffer Bagger and Stine Lomborg

Disconnecting on Two Wheels: Bike touring, leisure and reimagining networks: Pedro Ferreira and Airi Lampinen

Analogue Nostalgia: Examining Critiques of Social Media: Clara Wieghorst

ICA Pre-conference 2022

May 26, 2022 (12:30-17:00)

On-site and online

Submission Deadline: February 14, 2022

ICA Visual Communication division website is here

Results Released March 1

Division Affiliation: Visual Communication Studies Division, Popular Media and Culture Division, and Computational Methods Division.

Organizer Contact: Mary A. Bock, mary.bock@austin.utexas.edu

DESCRIPTION

Social media are visual media. Every day, users upload billions of photos and hundreds of thousands of hours of video to the internet, and media producers are encouraged to use still and moving images to attract viewers (Evelith, 2015). Images document the lives of ordinary people, celebrities and pets. They are also used to inform, persuade and deceive. Exploring the role of the visual online and in pop culture is essential to understanding the nature of social media.

Yet images are often harder to research than text. They pose methodological challenges in terms of data collection and analysis, and are therefore left out of many analyses of social media. Considering that images are cognitively and emotionally more powerful than words alone, this is problematic.

This Pre-Conference is designed to maximize dialogue about researching visuality in social media among scholars at all career levels, including students, early-career, mid-career and senior scholars. Students and early-career scholars will have the opportunity to present research and works-in-progress for feedback from mid-career and senior scholars. A session is planned for mid-career and senior scholars to present their research. The event will conclude with a methods workshop focusing on techniques and strategies for researching visuality in social media. To that end, we invite extended abstracts of no more than 2,500 words pertaining to, but not limited to, the following topics:

Celebrity: How is celebrity represented and visually constructed on social media? In contrast, how are the quotidian and banal aspects of life represented and visually constructed in such contexts?

Technology: How has the ubiquity of higher-quality cameras and editing software/apps changed the way non-professional users are able to brand themselves or construct themselves as “celebrities” or influencers? Which techniques of visual production are used in social media? Which techniques are tied to old media, and which might represent new forms of visual communication?

Methods: What methods, technologies, and tools are being developed that can assist researchers in the study of images and video on social media? How might researchers adapt existing systems for social media analysis? What sort of automated or big data analyses might best be employed by visual researchers? Where might those analyses be limited compared to small data projects? What challenges do visuals pose for social media researchers, and how might they be overcome?

Optics: What differences exist between video and still imagery online and in social media? What about graphic design, such as animated GIFs? Are there differences in the way the forms are deployed online? How are optical, audio and editing techniques employed in social media?

Semiotics: What sorts of signs predominate on social media? How are they understood, used, or constructed by users? How have signs evolved?

Narrative: How do developments of ephemeral “story” sharing, live-streaming and other similar social media features change the nature of storytelling and representation online? What stories emerge from the mixing and matching shared audio tracks with video and imagery?

SCHEDULING DETAILS

The pre-conference will include three events:

• A poster session for the students and emerging scholars with mentoring from mid-career and senior scholars
• A research session for up to five of the mid-career and senior scholars who served as mentors for the poster session
• A computational research methods workshop

The poster session will allow students and early-career scholars to display their research and works-in-progress for feedback from the mentor scholars.

The traditional research session will allow the mentoring scholars to present research.

In the methods workshop session, students, early-career, mid-career and senior scholars confer together on research methods for visual data collection and analysis. In this workshop, all pre-conference participants will discuss methodological approaches for visual data collection and analysis in current networked media environments and avenues and guidelines for best practices — as well as any ethical concerns that arise in the course of such research.

This pre-conference will be designed as a hybrid to maximize opportunities for participation. It will use video conferencing as necessary to enable remote engagement.

If the pre-conference needs to be moved fully online because of COVID-19, we will adapt to a fully virtual format and organize synchronous mentoring and workshop sessions (grouped according to time zones) over Zoom.

How to participate/register

Click here to submit to the pre-conference

Registration is open to all and will be available at a later date.

The fee to attend is $30.

We encourage students, early-career scholars and those from the Global Majority to participate. A limited number of waivers will be available.