ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Mediální Studia (Media Studies) - Special Issue

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Andra Siibak, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Risto Kunelius, François Heinderyckx, and Ilija Tomanić Trivundža - Introduction to Special Issue

STUDIES

Lisa Schulze - Exploring moving interviews: A three-step approach to researching how wheelchair users navigate PDF

Francesco Bonifacio - Encountering algorithms in the urban space: a matter of knowledge. An enactive ethnography of riders’ work PDF

Lydia Kollyri - De-coding Instagram as a Spectacle: A critical algorithm audit analysis PDF

Berit Renser - “Am I really cursed?” self-disclosure in a spiritual Facebook group: conceptualizing networked therapeutic culture PDF

Josephine Lehaff - They get a lot of news from Facebook: The impact of social media on parental news modeling in the digital media landscape PDF

Bissie Anderson - The relational UX: Constructing repertoires of audience agency in pioneer journalism practice PDF

Marina Rossato Fernandes - Partner or model? The Latin-American perception of the EU in the supranational audiovisual policies PDF

About the Journal

Mediální studia / Media Studies (ISSN 2464-4846) is a peer-reviewed, open access electronic journal, published in English, Czech and Slovak twice a year. Based in disciplines of media and communication studies, it focuses on analyses of media texts, media cultures, media professionals practices, and media audiences behaviour. We especially support the emphasis on the dynamics of local-global knowledge on media and its mutual connections. The journal is indexed in Scopus, MLA, Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL), and European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS).

Contact: medialnistudia@fsv.cuni.cz

August 10-12, 2022

Hybrid format

Submission deadline: 28 February 2022

54th Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association

Hosted by the Department of Language and Communication Studies and the MultiLEAP (Multiliteracies for social participation and learning across the life span) profiling area of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Conference theme

The past two years of ongoing restrictions caused by the worldwide pandemic have shown the importance of the visual in the everyday. Our lives have become more visual than ever before – from intense visual-sharing practices with relatives and friends, video conferencing and online education, to the visual presence of pandemic contexts in cityscapes, artistic practices in local communities, media feeds including charts and graphs, and creation of remixed images as a commentary to the crises. It has become clear that we increasingly need visual literacy in terms of image creation, reception and visual thinking. Therefore, in these current unpredictable (visual) times, we aim for the impossible – to envision the futures of visual literacy.

We invite scholars, educators, students, and practitioners from all over the world to discuss theoretical insights and to share research, artistic, and educational practices around the concept of visual literacy and/or in dialogue with multimodality, multi-sensory experiences and multiliteracies. The concept of visual literacy has been used for over five decades in education, art, museum studies, information design, photography, and new literacies research, but currently we have reached the point when we need to (re)build and (re)discover the (new) connections between the variety of theories, disciplinary traditions and educational practices in visual literacy and beyond.

Presentation types

• Paper presentation (onsite and online)

Presentations (20 min + 10 min discussion) by one or more speakers are meant to introduce ongoing or completed projects related to visual literacy in any discipline or area of practice. Theoretical contributions are also welcome. For this format participants can choose to present online if they are not able to travel to the conference site. There will be an online session stream in addition to the onsite parallel sessions.

• Multimedia paper presentation

The Multimedia Paper Session (60 min) will have a dedicated slot in the program without any parallel sessions. Each presenter will have a separate spot to display any materials through which they want to present their work, e.g., poster(s), photographs, drawings, multimedia, etc. This format is a less formal opportunity to discuss work-in-progress, educational experiments, pedagogical practices, or introduce completed projects to the audience in a more interactive way. Presenters will have about one minute for a pitch talk, after which they will have the possibility to discuss their work with the members of the audience, supported by the multimedia artifacts of their choice.

• Workshop (60-90 min)

Workshop proposals should briefly describe the topic and the plan for the workshop. We encourage interactive formats that engage the workshop participants into either creation or sharing of ideas and experiences. Conference organizers can provide basic office supplies, if needed.

• Online Juried Art Exhibition

There is a possibility to submit art work of any kind in a digital format for the curated Online Art Exhibition that will be introduced during the conference. In addition, artists will have a possibility to introduce their work during the conference in a roundtable discussion. For more details, see the separate Call for Artists.

Proposal submission and deadline

Proposals for the paper presentations, multimedia papers and workshops should be submitted online as 300-500 -word abstracts with the title, using this online FORM. Submissions for the Virtual Art Exhibition should be made using this FORM. We will not consider any submissions sent by email.

Submission deadline: 28 February 2022

Please note: there will be no deadline extension for the abstract submissions in this conference!

Important dates:

• Abstract submission opens: 10 January 2022
• Abstract submission deadline: 28 February 2022
• Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2022
• Conference dates: 10-12 August 2022

About IVLA and annual conferences

The International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) was founded by John Debes of Kodak and Clarence Williams of the University of Rochester. Lida Cochrane, an early and long-time member, recalled that Debes was writing programs at Kodak expounding the ideas that “visuals are a language … in order to use and create pictures … you are using a language and…visual literacy then came into being.” In 1968, Debes and Williams, along with a selected group of people interested in various aspects of visuals in education and communication met to plan a conference on visual literacy. This group initiated IVLA with the first conference in March 1969, when about 350 people from many disciplines gathered in Rochester to present papers and discuss their theories and applications of visuals. Since then, the association members and participants have traveled the world. Symposia and then conferences have been held each year and starting in 2001, the annual conference became truly international when it began to travel outside the US every third year. Conferences have been hosted in England, Sweden, South Africa, Cyprus, Brazil, Canada, among others, and many states in the U.S. Connecting & Sharing – Envisioning the Futures of Visual Literacy is our 54th conference, hosting the third online art exhibit.

More information

For more information on the conference program, keynotes, location and travel, visit the conference website: https://ivlaconference.org or https://ivla.org/ivlaconference2022

A Special Issue of Asian Journal of Communication (Call for Papers4th Draft)

Deadline: February 15, 2022

Guest Editors:

1. Dr. Jin-Ae Kang, Associate Professor, School of Communication, College of Fine Arts and communication, East Carolina University, USA; (kangj@ecu.edu)

2. Dr. YoungJu Shin, Associate Professor, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University (Youngju.Shin@asu.edu )

3. Dr. Do Kyun Kim, Richard D’Aquin/BORSF Endowed Professor, Department of Communication, College of Liberal Arts, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (do.kim@louisiana.edu ).

4. Dr. Peter J. Schulz, Director of the Institute of Communication and Health at the University of Lugano, Switzerland, and Professor of Communication Theories and Health Communication (peter.schulz@usi.ch ).

In recent years, Anti-Asian sentiment has notably increased across different countries. Especially, hate crimes against Asian populations have surged since the start of the COVID19 pandemic (Pillai, Yellow Horse, & Jeung, 2021). In fact, hate crime targeting Asians in 16 of the largest US cities had increased 149 percent between 2019 and 2020, while overall reports of hate crimes declined by 7 percent over the same period (Martin & Yoon, 2021). According to the research conducted by Pew Research Center (Ruiz, Edwards & Lopez, 2021), one-third of Asian Americans expressed their fear of racial discrimination or anti-Asian terrorism, and 45 percent actually experienced diverse incidents caused by impulsive or systematic racism. In addition, a recent survey report presented that 40 percent of US adults believed that more people have expressed racist views toward Asians since the pandemic began (Ruiz, Horowitz, & Tamir, 2020). The situation is the same in European countries. Janke and Schäfer (2021) reported that 74 percent of Asian descents in Germany experienced derogatory nonverbal expressions, facial expressions, or gestures, while 27 percent experienced institutional exclusion and 11 percent experienced physical assault. They also pointed out almost 85 percent of respondents believed that Asians were responsible for the spread of the COVID19 pandemic in Germany. Anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.K. have also increased by 21 percent during the first three months of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019 (Grierson, 2020).

Responding to such empirical incidents, academic society has called for studies regarding the racism against Asians (Gao & Liu, 2021). Some studies focus on the psychological issues about of anti-Asian stigma, while the others try to understand such incidences through sociological approaches (i.e., Misra et al., 2020; Wu, Qian & Wilkes, 2021). However, anti-Asian sentiment and crimes should be reconsidered from the communication perspective as communication is a fundamental cause of and shapes psychological bias, social discrimination, and political environment against Asians. However, the recent literature shows a very narrow scope that tends to deal with anti-Asian phenomenon and historically endured sufferings of Asians as a temporary trend during the COVID 19 pandemic. Therefore, this special issue aims to pinpoint the causes, processes, consequences, and solutions of the anti-Asian sentiment from diverse communication perspectives.

There are still many unaddressed points. Stereotypical and prejudiced narratives toward Asians such as model minority, yellow perils, or hyposexuality of Asian women in media representation have prevailed even before the COVID-19 crisis and continued to exacerbate during the pandemic (Li & Nicholson, 2021). Hate speech and polarization in social media incite prejudice toward Asian Americans and causes racial stigma associated with the spread of the coronavirus. However, there is still little research on the influence of social media on anti-Asian racism. The overt and covert racism against Asians needs further investigation in the interpersonal and organizational communication settings (Woo & Jun, 2021). More importantly, extant literature barely addresses how Asians take actions to react to and cope with discrimination and combat against anti-Asian racism. Anti-Asian racism prevalent in Asian counties also need to be addressed to better understand anti-Asian racism in and out of the Asian continent. Therefore, more effort should be made to explore the prolonged social issue of discrimination and prejudice against Asians, beyond the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This special issue focuses on the phenomenon of anti-Asian sentiment, with perspectives from media representation, interpersonal and organizational contexts, and social movement. We invite papers that analyze the causes, dissemination, and consequences of anti-Asian racism from the communication perspectives related to social support, social media, international relations, immigration, social movement, prejudice, micro-aggression, inter-group dynamics, etc. Additionally, we welcome manuscripts that address the role of communication and activism and their influences on dismantling racism and prejudice against Asians.

As this special issue strives to create and continue the social discourse on anti-Asian racism and, simultaneously, contribute to preventing further anti-Asian racism, we hope to provide researchers, practitioners, and policy decision-makers with insights for communicative policy making and campaigns for social change to promote justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the global community.

We welcome diverse theoretical and methodological approaches for this feature topic. Possible topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to:

1. Media representation of Asians: Media coverage on Asians and anti-Asian hate crimes

2. Cross-national and/or cross-cultural comparative studies of anti-Asian sentiment

3. Intra-Asian racism: Anti-Asian racism that are found within Asian countries such as hostile sentiment against Africans or Indians in China, or against Chinese in Korea or Japan.

4. Influence of COVID-19 on anti-Asian sentiment and racism

5. Social media, free speech, and anti-Asian hate speech

6. Anti-Asian hate crime and mental and physical health

7. Interpersonal communication about anti-Asian racism, coping strategies, and social support

8. Issues of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion regarding anti-Asian prejudice in an organization setting: leadership prototypes, stereotypes and micro-aggression in workplaces, etc.

9. Diversity, inclusion, and equity issues focusing on Asians or anti-Asian sentiment among the professionals in media industry such as journalism, public relations, advertising, film, etc.

10. Activism among Asians against anti-Asian racism: activism in digital media, social change, mobilization, and political engagement of Asians or Asian ethnic organizations

11. Communication strategies responding to anti-Asian sentiment and hate crime

12. Effects of anti-Asian sentiment / crime in schools including K-12 and higher education

Information about submission

Extended abstracts should include the title of the paper, the purpose of the study, the uniqueness of the study, and the theoretical and/or methodological approach. The length of an extended abstract would be between 500 - 800 words (excluding references). All submitters should provide their affiliation, position, email address, and short bios (50-100 words each). Please send your abstract as one word file with the subject line: [Asian Journal of Communication] Feature Topic by Feb 15th ,2022.

A complete manuscript should be between 6000 and 9000 words in length, including tables, references, figure captions, endnotes. An abstract with about 150 words should be presented on the first page of the complete manuscript. All complete manuscripts should be submitted following the Asian Journal of Communication standard submission process (see here: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rajc20&page=instructions).

Timeline:

Extended abstract submission deadline: February 15th, 2022

Decision for abstract acceptance deadline: March 1st, 2022

Full paper submission deadline: June 30th, 2022

First round review decisions: August 15th, 2022

First round revisions due: September 30th, 2022

First Publication Decision & (if needed) Return for the second revision: October 30th, 2022

Second round revisions due November 20th, 2022

Final editorial decision: December 15th, 2022

References

Gao, Q., & Liu, X. (2021). Stand against anti-Asian racial discrimination during COVID-19: A Call for action. International Social Work, 64(2), 261–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872820970610

Grierson, J. (2020). Anti-Asian hate crimes up 21% in UK during coronavirus crisis. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/anti-asian-hate-crimes-up-21-in-uk-during-coronavirus-crisis

Janke. C.& Schäfer, C. (2021). Frequent anti-Asian attacks in Germany during COVID-19, Mediendienst Integration, https://mediendienst-integration.de/artikel/frequent-anti-asian-attacks-in-germany-during-covid-19.html

Li, Y., & Nicholson, H. L. (2021). When “model minorities” become “yellow peril”—Othering and the racialization of Asian Americans in the COVID‐19 pandemic. Sociology Compass, 15(2), e12849-e12861. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12849

Martin, T. M. & Yoon, D. (2021). From BTS to Britain, Anti-Asian Racism Gets New Attention outside the U.S. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-bts-to-britain-anti-asian-racism-gets-new-attention-outside-the-u-s-11617201163

Misra, S., Le, P. D., Goldmann, E., & Yang, L. H. (2020). Psychological impact of anti-Asian stigma due to the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for research, practice, and policy responses. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(5), 461. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000821

Pillai, D., Yellow Horse, A. J., & Jeung, R. (2021). The Rising Tide of Violence and Discrimination Against Asian American and Pacific Islander Women and Girls. https://stopaapihate.org/wpcontent/uploads/2021/05/Stop-AAPI-Hate_NAPAWF_Whitepaper.pdf

Ruiz, N. G., Edwards, K. & Lopez, M.H. (2021). One-third of Asian American fear threats, physical attacks and most say violence against them is rising. Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/21/one-third-of-asian-americans-fear-threats-physical-attacks-and-most-say-violence-against-them-is-rising/

Ruiz, N. G., Horowitz, J. M. & Tamir, C. (2020). Many Black and Asian Americans say they have experienced discrimination amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/07/01/many-black-and-asian-americans-say-they-have-experienced-discrimination-amid-the-covid-19-outbreak/

Woo, B., & Jun, J. (2021). COVID-19 racial discrimination and depressive symptoms among Asians Americans: Does communication about the incident matter? Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-021-01167-x

Wu, C., Qian, Y., & Wilkes, R. (2021). Anti-Asian discrimination and the Asian-white mental health gap during COVID-19. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(5), 819-835. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2020.1851739

October 12-14, 2022

Örebro University, Sweden

Deadline: March 1, 2022

Welcome to the 26th Arab US Association for Communication Educators Conference (AUSACE). The conference will be hosted by and held in Örebro, Sweden between 12-14 October 2022.

The aim of this year’s conference is to explore and critique how journalism is redefining its identity and reimagining its practices against the economic, cultural, and technological challenges especially in a fake news era.

Studies show that fake news and false rumors spread six times faster on Twitter than any attempts to correct or clarify in response. Many more people are only seeing the first version of a story, not the following ones with updates, making it even more imperative that journalists get the facts right on the first go. Incidents of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have risen past their previous peak levels following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2010 Arab spring. Misinformation, hateful rhetoric and discourses about the motives, and citizenship status of these groups have all led to harassment, graffiti, and mass shootings. From fake news to the deep fake, being in a digital era expanded possibilities for fabrication and falsehood are endangering the fourth estate, especially when many people are turning their minds to the future of journalism.

Given crises in our political and cultural worlds, along with advances in multi faceted communication technologies, we must turn our attention to the future of journalism. How, in the future, are we to know the difference between truth, myth and lies? And how can our scholarship and education help? We are open to work that considers the role of journalism and journalists, as well as media and communication studies that consider professional cultures and practices, organizational and economic conditions, local and hyper local media, civic engagement and public sphere, text and content, and audiences.

We invite proposals that address this multifaceted phenomenon focusing on topics that include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Professional identities and organizational cultures

2. Local and hyper-local media

3. Social and civil functions of local journalism and impact on the public sphere

4. Participatory/citizen journalism, community media

5. Audience

6. Emerging trends in digital storytelling, immersive journalism, data visualization

7. New forms of journalism activism including but not limited to migrant journalism, political activism, etc.

8. How the public and journalists contribute to, perceive, and deal with misinformation, disinformation, and fake new

Successful abstracts will be considered for inclusion in a Special Issue proposal to be submitted to Nordic Journal of Media Studies and Cultural.

Working language for the conference is both Arabic and English.

Please send abstracts to Ahmed El Gody: ahmed.elgody@oru.se

For further inquiries regarding AUSACE, contact the President, Dr. Yousef Alfailakawi: yalfailakawi@yahoo.com

Key dates:

• Abstract of 250-500 words maximum submission is March 01, 2022.
• Authors notified of acceptance: April 04, 2022
• Full papers due: August 22, 2022

Please send abstracts to: Ahmed El Gody

For inquiries regarding AUSACE, contact the President,

Dr. Yousef Alfailakawi Yousef Alfaiakawi

Makings Journal (special issue)

Deadline: March 21, 2022

The theme for this special issue of Makings is ‘Creative Higher Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy’. The aim is to bring together research which explores curricula and pedagogies for Art, Design and Media courses, with an emphasis on practical arts and media production courses. We welcome submissions from emerging researchers and educators with limited experience of academic research. We encourage a diverse range of submissions from conventional to practice-based contributions (visual, video, audio, etc.) for the ‘Studio’ section of the journal .

Despite having an important role to play, the cultural and creative industries are among the most effected by the pandemic, resulting in a very challenging employment landscape for creative graduates. Over the last few years, we have witnessed significant changes in Creative Higher Education, specifically for practice-based subjects which have suffered from restricted access to resources and facilities. There are a highly diverse range of courses linked to the cultural and creative industries but there is relatively little knowledge about the pedagogy and curriculum offered through these courses (Cunningham and Flew, 2019). Inequalities of access to opportunities, digital poverty and ongoing insecurities across the cultural and creative industries workforce have heightened the need to tackle issues of social justice in the curriculum. Saha (2013) argues that a ‘critical multicultural pedagogy’ can only be developed through the students’ experience of making and engaging in creative processes to produce new narratives.

Art, Design and Media courses have tended to prepare students as ‘industry-ready’, nurturing enthusiasm for cultural and creative industries work, sometimes with less opportunities for critical, ethical and socially engaged debates. The current insecurities facing Creative Higher Education and the cultural and creative industries sector present an opportunity to interrogate current practices and encourage educators to engage critically with the future of learning and teaching in Art, Design and Media courses. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has further problematised the sector, on the one hand demonstrating its vulnerability and underlying inequalities (Banks and O’Connor, 2021), whilst on the other hand demonstrating levels of agility and innovation in the face of lockdowns and economic crisis (Travkina and Sacco, 2020).

This special issue seeks to encourage research-informed teaching (curriculum and pedagogy), which explores contemporary debates for Art, Design and Media education. An exploration of Creative Higher Education Curriculum and Pedagogy could consider the following themes:

• Sustainability and Creative Higher Education Curriculum and Pedagogy
• Social justice and inequalities in Cultural and Creative Sectors
• Research informed curriculum for practice-based arts and media courses
• Creative thinking as a pedagogy to address sustainability in the curriculum
• DIY approaches to explore ethical and social justice in the cultural and creative industries
• Creative methodologies for teaching and learning
• Rethinking pedagogic pathways to creative and cultural work
• Critical Praxis: pedagogies and curriculums for change
• Educating in a pandemic: challenges and opportunities

Please submit a 300-word abstract for the journal’s next issue, themed “Creative Higher Education: curriculum & pedagogy” for a guest edited special issue of Makings – an open-access, peer-reviewed journal on the cultural and creative industries. Practice-based contributions (or contributions in the form of shorter think-pieces, essays, or in various multimedia formats) will be published in the Studio section of the journal. For more information please contact Annette Naudin annette.naudin@bcu.ac.uk. For more information about the journal and contributor guidelines please check Makings journal.

Timeline

Abstracts and acceptances:

Submission deadline for abstracts by Monday 21st March 2022

Acceptance by Friday 29th April 2022

Articles:

Final articles / contributions by Monday 4th July 2022

Revised articles / contributions by Monday 5th September 2022

Publication October / November 2022

Writing retreat (online):

There will be an invitation for early career or emerging researchers, whose abstracts have been accepted, to take part in an online half day writing retreat. This is an opportunity to develop your abstract into a full contribution in a supportive environment. The retreat will be facilitated by the special issue guest editors. This will take place in May 2022, exact date TBC.

Special issue guest co-editors

Dr Emma Agusita is a Senior Lecturer in Digital and Cultural Production and Media Communications at the University of the West of England. Emma has a background in creative production and a longstanding interest in the use of creative and media practices for social justice and civic participation. Her research interests include Creative and Participatory Pedagogies, Critical Visual Methodologies, Media Education and Creative Enterprise Education.

Dr Annette Naudin is Associate Professor with responsibility for Learning and Teaching at Birmingham Institute for Media and English. Annette is interested in the relationship between creative work and Higher Education curriculum and pedagogy. Annette has led a number of impactful research projects exploring cultural and creative industries work, cultural policy and inequality in the sector, working with organisations such as Arts Connect UK and Birmingham City Council. Annette is an Erasmus funded visiting Professor at the Latvian Cultural Academy.

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The Department of Communication Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev invites outstanding candidates to apply for a tenure-track position. Hebrew-speaking communication scholars are encouraged to apply.

Call for candidates closing date: March 1, 2022

Position starting date: October 1, 2022

To have the application considered, please submit the following documents in the link below:

• Cover letter that includes highlights of your profile
• Curriculum vitae (CV)
• Research statement that outlines main areas of current and future research
• Teaching statement that outlines teaching philosophy and areas
• Names, affiliations, and contact info of three or four referees (one from the supervisor; at least two additional “independent” referees)
• Two writing samples of recent research publications

Letters of reference will be requested from applicants selected for interviews.

The rank will be determined according to the selected applicant’s experience and achievements.

Link to apply: https://bguacademicrecruitment.force.com/Recruiters/VF_BGUPositions?Id=02i5I00000Aq1NN

For more information about the department see: https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/humsos/comm-Studies/Pages/about.aspx

For more information, please contact Prof. Galit Nimrod: gnimrod@bgu.ac.il

31 January - 4 February 2022 | Lisbon, Portugal

NOVA University Lisbon

Deadline: January 20, 2022

iNOVA Media Lab invites for the SMART Data Sprint 2022, which will be held from 31 January to 4 February in a hybrid format — online and in-person, at NOVA University Lisbon. The Sprint is part of the Digital Media Winter Institute, an annual meeting focused on digital methods. The next edition theme is about the Discussing Methods Making.

Participants from around the world will connect to attend keynote lectures, short talks and join applied research projects. We are glad to receive Deen Freelon (School of Journalism and Media, the University of North Carolina, USA) and Katrin Tiidenberg (Osaluskultuuri professor / Professor of Participatory Culture BFM, Tallinn University, Estonia) with keynote talks, a masterclass with Warren Pearce (iHuman, the University of Sheffield, UK) and an opening talk with Janna Joceli Omena (NOVA University Lisbon, iNOVA Media Lab & Public Data Lab).

Applications open on November 15, 2021, and close on January 20, 2022.

Main audience: doctoral students and scholars interested in developing research from the perspective of digital methods.

See the call for applications on the #SMARTDataSprint research blog

https://smart.inovamedialab.org/2022-discussing-methods-making

September 18-21, 2022

Vienna, Austria

Deadline: March 7, 2022

RIPE@2022 conference

The 11th biennial RIPE conference is sponsored by ORF, Austria’s public service media (PSM) provider, and hosted by the University of Vienna. The conference theme invites paper proposals that are relevant for advancing understandings of journalistic theory and practice in the context of a complicated set of challenges related to digital disruption, globalization, commercialization, information disorder, and the importance of fair, free and independent information and news provision that has been a persistent responsibility of public service media organizations over the decades.

Elaboration of the Conference Theme

Digital technologies have created enormous disruptions for media systems and companies, and ushered in consequential shifts in economic as well as political power. More media of more types are motivated by commercial imperatives even as the editorial function has become endangered. New media platforms are increasingly influential and used sources for ‘news’ and information and resist being defined as media companies. The big tech big data corporations have substantial influence on public communication today. National PSM providers remain important in principle but are often at severe disadvantage in many respects, including economic funding, political support, commercial pressure and competition, channel proliferation, and fundamentally as a consequence of the enormity of changes in the scope and scale of competition.

Countries and populations around the world are challenged by trends summarized as fake news, mis- and disinformation campaigns, filter bubbles and the algorithmic production of personalized content – especially news. The collapse of editorial responsibility has resulted in a systemic condition characterized by nontransparency and unaccountability. All of this gravely endangers the health and vitalbity of the public sphere for democratic societies, and undermines PSM in both institutional and operational aspects. As people increasingly cruise the internet universe of commercial social media, trust and performance for quality journalism is seriously at risk.

The historic paradigm has prioritized the creation and maintenance of independent media based on professional, accountable journalistic skills and practices as an essential for democratic practice. For this reason, the press has been conceptualized as the Fourth Estate of power (alongside Executive, Legislative and Judicial) in democratic societies. This understanding of the institutional framework that has protected PSM’s role in the Fourth Estate is under attack from political and business interests in an increasing number of countries. PSM is under stress in traditional broadcasting and even more so in the online environment that is largely governed by commercial interests that manage a corporatized Internet with profound potential consequences given the powerful influences of social media. At the same time, societies are struggling to cope with massive social disruption manifest in polarization and fragmentation, nationalistic protectionism, xenophobic politics, sophisticated new forms of clandestine propaganda and cyber-strategies that seek to undermine democracy and foment unrest.

A series of crucial questions invite serious consideration: How can PSM keep pace with these dynamics and mitigate the damaging consequences of digital transformation? How can PSM effectively compete with the dominance of digital media giants and serve as a counterbalance? How can PSM resist the alarming constellation of pressures opposing them and develop appropriate answers to maintain their role and function as independent, trusted sources of truthful, fair and balanced information dedicated to serving the whole of society? How can PSM be distinctive in providing and defending Quality Journalism in the digital age, avoid being caught up in the problem of filter bubbles, escape the risk of unwittingly engaging with fake news, safeguard independence and advance media pluralism and content diversity?

The RIPE@2022 conference will address one of the most challenging contemporary topics facing PSM in the digital age. We invite paper proposals that are relevant to these concerns about the role of public service journalism as an essential and foundational part of the Fourth Estate to effectively challenge the negative impact of the fifth power.

Topics of Specified Interest

Empirical and comparative research is especially needed that addresses the following topics that will ultimately frame the workgroup structure for the RIPE@2022 conference in Vienna:

1. Policy developments affecting news and journalism for PSM organizations

• Comparative and/or indepth analysis of trends and changes in media policy affecting PSM’s role and function as a news and current affairs provider

• Challenges in the growth of populist politics and the politization of information for partisan interests

• Complications and potential solutions for policy affecting domestic information and news provision given the proliferation of transnational actors and pressures

• Other topics and aspects related to media policy and legal developments affecting PSM news and current affairs journalism, especially challenges to safeguards for independence

2. Developments in journalistic and editorial practice in the digital media environment

• Addressing sophisticated forms of propaganda from domestic and international sources that are intentional and strategically designed to stir unrest and undermine democracy

• Internal strategies and policies developed by PSM organizations to cope with a range of challenges involving fake news, filter bubbles, mis- and disinformation, etc.

• New approaches to news and current affairs provision and programming, including formats and genres intended to serve either general or particular populations

• PSM’s role and ambitions in news provision at the international level

• Challenges and developments in journalistic codes of ethics for PSM today, and the need for independence in practice and provision

• Other topics and aspects affecting PSM news and current affairs journalism

3. Challenges and opportunities posed by commercial interests as the fifth power

• Ways and degrees to which the rise of commercial power and pressures can be reasonably understood as posing a 5th power or estate in contemporary democracies

• Strategies, developments and impact of commercial news on PSM’s position and capacity. May be targeted to one or more levels of engagement (local, national, global, etc.)

• Changing competitive dynamics and related challenges as well as opportunities this creats for PSM news organizations and operations

• Linkages between state interests and commercial interests affecting the capacity of PSM journalism to remain free, truthful, critical and independent

• Other topics and aspects related to the rise of commercial pressures on PSM journalism

4. Challenges and developments in news and current affairs across relevant platforms

• Cross-platform journalistic and editorial strategies and practices in news provision today

• Emerging technological opportunities and threats for PSM news production and provision

• Organizational and operational restructuring initiatives in the area of news and current affairs, especially as these are a response to commercial and other competitive pressures

• Requirements, complications and competencies related to online news provision by PSM companies

• Partnerships with other public and private sector organizations or companies in the development of strategies and operations to enhance PSM news and current affairs services

• Other topics and aspects related to organizational and operational developments in PSM journalism

5. Criteria for PSM as the Fourth Estate in the digital ecology

• The role and regulatory framework of PSM in terms of requirements or expectations for distinctiveness in its mission and remits in the digital ecology

• Criteria for safeguarding accountability and independence from political and business interests in the governance and practice of journalism today

• Approaches for guaranteeing universality and accessibility for society with a focus on innovation

• Strategies and practices for building and maintaining public trust and institutional credibility in PSM news and current affairs provision

• Other topics and aspects related to strengthening PSM’s essential role and functions as a vital part of the 4th Estate for democracies in the era of digital media

6. Declining trust in public institutions, alternative publics and strategic alliances

• Explaining the decline of public trust in institutions and the implications for PSM both as an institution and especially in news and public affairs provision

• Challenges and opportunities for PSM journalism in supporting the exercise of citizenship in the digital media environment

• The nature, concerns and dynamics of alternative publics with a focus on relationships with established institutions

• How mistrust is being handled by PSM news and journalism in organizational and content provision in increasingly polarized environments

• The identification, construction and management of strategic alliances to combat mistrust and strengthen the journalistic value of PSM news and current affairs provision

Submission Requirement

Paper proposals can be submitted via a link that will be available on the conference website (https://ripe2022.univie.ac.at) shortly (third week of January 2022). You need to register in the internal system of the University of Vienna before you can submit a proposal. A registration link can be found at the bottom of the registration page, to which you will be redirected after clicking on the submission link mentioned above.

During the registration process you will have to enter information about you and your institution. If there are several authors, you can add them and their institutions during the later submission process.

Please enter the following information into the online submission form:

• the paper’s working title,

• an extended abstract (max 1,000 words) addressing the six elements for evaluation (provided below)

• the two working group topics the paper is most closely related to.

Additionally, the abstract (including the paper’s working title) needs to be uploaded as a Microsoft Word file. Please make sure that your Word file is anonymized and does not contain any indication of the author(s) either in the text or in meta data.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed (double-blind) by a scientific committee. The evaluation criteria are:

• Relevance to the conference theme and fit with one of the working group topics.

• Newness or originality of the research (empirical) or essay (philosophical)

• Theorization and general importance

• Research methods and design (for empirical papers)

• Key findings and implications for theory

• Relevance for PSM management and practice

Empirical research is highly valued, but we also welcome insightful philosophical, critical and theory-driven papers. Comparative research is important.

RIPE conferences focus on substance, dialogue and results. We therefore limit acceptance to about 60 papers and each is assigned to one of the workgroups.

Submissions are due 7 March 2022

Decisions about acceptance will announced on 11 April 2022 including further details regarding the submission of the completed papers. Completed papers are due on 15 August 2022.

The conference happens over 2.5 days with a welcoming reception the night before the first day and the inaugural RIPE General Assembly on the afternoon of the third day. The conference language is English.

Conference fees will be announced at a later date. The fee will cover conference meals, events and materials, but not hotel accommodation or travel. Based on the level of interest, a non-obligatory social programme might be planned for the day after the conference at an additional cost for those interested to participate. The RIPE conference does not supplement personal travel costs.

May 2022

Online conference

Deadline: January 14, 2022

Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, UK

Conference Theme: Regulating African Digital Media

The call for papers below can also be viewed using this link: https://bcmcr.org/call-for-papers-regulation-of-old-and-new-media-forms-in-africa/. Please share widely with your networks.

Increasingly more African countries are instituting laws, procedures, and policies, seeking to regulate the media ecosystem. Governments typically justify such approaches to regulation as a way to combat the negative consequences of online media usage, such as hate speech and mis/disinformation. This trend generally reflects the historical application of censorship laws that have targeted the critical press and journalistic autonomy (Obijiofor et al., 2016). The implications of this are considerable. What we are witnessing is the integration of two regulatory paradigms – for the traditional and digital media – into one, with the potential for state authorities to expand blanket censorship from media to citizen expression in ways that mirror the politics of regulation. A central issue at play here is the struggle over the appropriation and exercise of power over collective voices, with consequences for democracy, plurality, independence, dissent, and freedom.

No doubt, media and digital regulation have intensified in recent years across the globe in what has been described as the “regulatory turn” (Flew et al., 2021, p. 208). The aim, it seems, is to manage the disruptive effects of the usage of media technologies. What has been largely overlooked, however, is an overarching investigation of this trend in Africa. This is in spite of the reality that state interventions such as social media bans, which are becoming common on the continent, are disruptive in themselves. Meanwhile, the few scholarly collections which have examined separate angles of the subject have done so predominantly from the traditional media lens only (Chan-Meetoo, 2013; Sampaio-Dias et al., 2019). For instance, Chan-Meetoo’s (2013) edited collection considers how African journalists negotiate regulatory and ethical requirements demanded of them. Other works have looked at regional or linguistic peculiarities in traditional media regulation on the continent (de la Brosse and Frére, 2012; Limpitlaw, 2021). What has also been neglected is the fact that new media platforms are mainly domiciled in the West, bearing implications for digital sovereignty in Africa.

Furthermore, research centred on Africa has barely considered emergent regulatory practices that cover the traditional media, online harms, social media, blockchain technologies, privacy concerns, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the wider internet of things. This conference thus creates a space for researchers to build on previous scholarly work and to share, discuss and debate contemporary regulatory interventions in media technologies across Africa in attempts to regulate disruption, and their impact on societies. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Press and broadcasting regulation
• Social media regulation and online harms
• Online broadcasting regulation
• The politics of regulation
• Internet and social media bans
• Regulation as disruption
• Regulating/regulated disruption
• Platform governance and self-regulation in Africa
• Regulatory frameworks, methods, and methodologies
• Online privacy and data concerns
• Regulation, the balance of power, and digital sovereignty
• Punitive media registration
• African Union, multi-stakeholderism, and media regulation
• Regulating artificial intelligence and other new media technologies in Africa

We also invite conceptual papers and reflections on alternative, and perhaps homegrown approaches that can be exploited at the national and/or regional level on the continent to address the challenges of media and digital regulation.

Keynote Speaker: Dr Hayes Mabweazara, University of Glasgow

Abstract Submission

Please send a 300-word abstract proposal for a 20-minute presentation by 14 January 2022 to regulationafrica@protonmail.com.

Proposers will be notified of the outcome of the selection by 7 February 2022.

Abstracts should be in MS Word format and should include name, position, institutional affiliation, email address of proposer(s), and a 150-word biography.

Conference Details

Conference registration will open in early April 2022 and the conference schedule will be released afterwards. The conference will be held on Zoom and will be organised weekly in a panel format in May 2022. To make this work, a single panel (90 minutes long) will be scheduled for each of the Tuesday afternoons (UK time) in May 2022. Further details on timing will be confirmed to selected participants.

Special Issue Publication

Shortly after the conference, we will invite full papers based on the presentations for publication in a journal special issue to be announced. In your abstract submission, please indicate whether you would like your contribution to be considered for the special issue publication. Interested contributors should please note that full papers will be requested by September 2022.

About BCMCR

The Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR) was established in 2009 to develop excellent research as a core activity within the Birmingham School of Media. Our team of independent researchers at Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR) generates work of internationally excellent standard. BCMCR aims to produce distinctive, collaborative work within the field of media and cultural research.

Best wishes

Conference Organising Committee

For enquiries, please contact Vincent Obia (Vincent.Obia@mail.bcu.ac.uk) and Sulayman Bah (Sulayman.Bah@mail.bcu.ac.uk)

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Heinisch, M.A., Prof. Dr. Christina Holtz-Bacha, Prof. Oscar Mazzoleni, Ph.D.

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