ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Deadline for proposals (EXTENDED): November 30, 2022

Edited by Willemien Sanders and Anna Zoellner

Media occupy an increasingly central position in our everyday lives, facilitated by the development of increasingly smaller and smarter screens and sophisticated digital, interactive infrastructures. The mediatisation of society entails that the production of media is no longer limited to the field of audio-visual culture, communication and entertainment (such as film, television, radio, advertising, PR, and gaming) but pervades a range of other areas, including, but not limited to, governance, education, health care, tourism, the military, religion, and sports. In these areas, media content in the form of audio, video, apps, virtual and augmented reality, and social media is increasingly part of everyday practices.

Expanding the field and focus of existing media production research, this book explores this trend of media production in non-media domains. With non-media domains we mean domains other than legacy media (print, radio, television, film, and social media). Our focus lies on the production of media content that is not intended for communication to a wider public, such as popular and news media, and that is instrumental rather than intrinsic in its purpose: these media serve as a means to achieve some other goal. They facilitate professional and everyday practices (and will, arguably, often replace previous practices that did not include audio-visual media). In that sense, they are oriented to a specific professional/practice field. This includes media such as nutrition apps, serious games for military training, and augmented reality in tourism. In all these cases, the media texts are a means within a mediatised practice in a non-media domain. Propaganda material or public health communication, for example, would not fall in this category.

This kind of media production for non-media sectors is by nature interdisciplinary. It requires a mix of skills, techniques and technologies and therefore the collaboration of people from different sectors and work roles. We provisionally label this ‘cross-sector’ media production, to refer to the collaboration between the media sector and other sectors. This book explores how cross-sector media production functions, how different professionals collaborate – having different occupational identities, bringing in different perspectives and relying on a wide variety of work cultures, epistemologies, and ethics.

Topics may include but are not limited to the following technologies:

• virtual reality
  
• augmented reality
  
• web 2.0, web 3.0
  
• apps
  
• holograms
  
• serious games
  
• websites
  
• other sound and screen applications
  

Topics may concern but are not limited to the following sectors:

• education
  
• health care
  
• manufacturing
  
• sports
  
• travelling
  
• commerce
  
• home appliances
  
• design
• fine arts

The book will be structured in three corresponding sections: (1) theoretical debates on its origin and related developments, to discuss how we can understand cross-sector media production better; (2) methodological debates about such research, to explore methodological implications, challenges, and approaches; and (3) empirical research of cross-sector media practices, to investigate these particular production contexts including their conditions, processes and practices.   

Section 1

For this section we invite contributions that address the origins and conceptualisation of cross-sector media production. Contributions will discuss theoretical approaches and histories of digitalisation, mediatisation, platformisation, innovation and other relevant theories in different domains, with a focus on what these mean for cross-sector production specifically. The section will address various developments (technical, social, cultural, legal) that facilitate and co-shape cross-sector media production by setting and extending boundaries.

Section 2

The second section of the book discusses the investigation of cross-sector media production as research process. For this section we invite contributions that explore theoretical, epistemological, methodological and other challenges as well as solutions in the study of cross-sector media production practices. This section problematizes taken for granted research methods and approaches and invites discussion of alternatives and new directions, including those that go beyond conventional ethnography, as well as those instigated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Section 3

Drawing on empirical research of cross-sector media production practices, the chapters in this section will explore the assumptions, interests, and challenges when producing media in such cross-sector production contexts. This includes how media makers navigate the ideas and demands within a non-media domain in relation to their own expertise and preferences. The section explores what kind of values, expectations and cultures underlie cross-sector media production. It also looks at the epistemologies, competencies and best practices for the different occupations involved. 

Submission details

Please send proposals for chapters before the deadline of Wednesday, November 30, 2022. Proposals should be between 500-800 words, excluding notes and referenced sources. In addition, short bios for each author (150 words) should be included. Please indicate for which section you are proposing your chapter.

Proposals and any inquiries should be sent to the editors: w.sanders@uu.nl and  a.zoellner@leeds.ac.uk

Decisions will be communicated in January 2023. Chapter manuscripts are expected to be submitted in June 2023.

Media Production in Non-Media Domains – Researching cross-sector media production will be published in the Springer Media Industries series, edited by Bjørn von Rimscha and Ulrike Rohn.

November 30, 2022

On November 30, 2022, from 6.00 to 7.00 pm, the next event of the European Media Salon will take place on the topic "Communicative AI, Human-Machine Communication and the Automation of media and Communications: Taking a societal view“. 

Artificial Companions like voice-based agents, social robots, bots on Twitter and other platforms, systems of automated generation of journalistic content are increasingly spreading. These technological developments are seemingly associated with a major change in the media environment and the ways in which we communicate, challenging our understanding of the nature, actors and borders of communication. Yet, to media and communication scholars, this shift is similar to the development of the Internet towards the commercialized Web 2.0 and associated platforms. At the same time, the public, but also media and communication research, has a persistently limited view of this automation of communication. There is little discussion and research on what consequences this has for societal communication and human agency as a whole. Instead, the discourse is either dominated by techno-utopian views, or comparatively “narrowly” focused on the interaction of humans and machines as happening in a vacuum, while the research is often instrumental on the “improvement” and “implementation” of such systems. In this event of the European Media Salon we want to discuss how critical and sociologically informed research on communicative AI, human-machine-communication and the automation of communication should look like, which sees these as part of societal communication. 

Discussants: 

• Leopoldina Fortunati (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldina_Fortunati) 
  
• David Gunkel (https://www.gunkelweb.com) 
  

For more information on the event, visit: 

https://www.european-media-salon.org/events/communicative-ai-human-machine-communication-and-the-automation-of-media-and-communications-taking-a-societal-view 

To register for this and future events, email: 

EuropeanMediaSalon@uni-bremen.de 

University of Salzburg

The University of Salzburg (Dept. of Communication Studies) is inviting applications from  qualified candidates for a faculty position at the level of PhD student [Dissertant/in] in the chair of  Communication Policy and Media Economics. The department looks for candidates who could  contribute to the research of the department, including the Euromedia Ownership Monitor  (EurOMo), a project funded by the European Commission which deals with media ownership  transparency in Europe. The dissertation should address areas such as media and internet  policy/governance, media structure, and critical political economy of media and communication.  Focus is preferably Austria or Europe, but comparative analysis with other countries/regions are  also welcome.​​

Additional information: 

• Start of employment: 1st March, 2023 
• Duration of employment: 4 years 
• Weekly hours: 30 (20 for faculty projects and teaching, as assigned by the head of the unit) 
  
• Job description: scientific support of research, teaching (from year 3) and administrative tasks; own research/PhD dissertation, cooperation with research proposals  (conceptualisation, writing, and submission), support of planning and conducting  conferences. 
  
• Supervision by Prof. Josef Trappel 
  
• Requirements: 
  
• • Diploma or Master in communication studies or related social sciences 
  • Fluency in English 
  • Willingness to learn German within 2 years (fluency by the time of application is an  asset) 
  • Willingness to live in Salzburg 
• Desired qualifications: 
• • Previous experience in researching issues of media policy and economics 
  • Knowledge of the relevant literature 
  • Experience with qualitative and quantitative methods of communication science 
  • Publications of scientific papers on these topics 
• Remuneration: € 2.294 (gross, 14× year) 
  
• Submission by email – including CV, letter of motivations and relevant documents – to  bewerbung@plus.ac.at with reference to GZ A 0232/1-2022, on or before 23 November 2022. 
  
• For information, please email the contact person of the chair, Prof. Sergio Sparviero, at sergio.sparviero@plus.ac.at 
  

April 4-5, 2023

University of Paris Panthéon-Assas, France

Deadline: December 1, 2022

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the conference Media and sexist and sexual violence. Inform, denounce, raise awareness, which will take place on April 4 and 5, 2023 at the University of Paris Panthéon-Assas.

Proposals must be sent no later than December 1, 2022 to the following address: mediavss2023@gmail.com

The organizing committee:

Charlotte Buisson, Maëlle Bazin, Cécile Méadel, Giuseppina Sapio, Jeanne Wetzels

------ 

Argument

This symposium aims to question the role of the media in the production of information about sexual and gender-based violence (hereafter referred to as SGBV), which we understand as ‘a multiplicity of types of coercive, non-hierarchical acts imposed by men to control women and any people who do not belong to the hegemonic masculine, throughout their lives’ (Connell, 2014; Buisson and Wetzels, 2022: 4). Thus, our approach to violence is based on the concept of a continuum (Kelly, 1988), making it possible to apprehend the different forms of this violence in their plurality and to define them by the way they are linked together. Such violence manifests itself in several forms: physical, verbal, psychological and sexual, as well as economic and administrative. It forms part of relationships of domination intertwined with other factors such as race, age, social class, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity (Crenshaw, 2005; Diederich, 2006; Direnberger and Karimi, 2019).

Over the past twenty years, many disciplines have taken up the issue of SGBV: psychology (Salmona, 2018; Pache, 2019), law (Le Magueresse, 2012 and 2021; Moron-Puech, 2022), medicine (Jouault, 2020), political science (Boussaguet, 2009; Delage, 2017) and sociology (Debauche and Hamel, 2013; Le Goaziou, 2013 and 2019; Brown et al., 2020; Lacombe, 2022). Different fields have been studied, such as armed conflicts (Audouin-Rouseau, 1994; Virgili and Branche, 2011; Cohen and Nordas, 2014), public space (Coutras, 1996; Condon and Lieber, 2005; Dekker, 2021), the family (Hamelin et al., 2010; Dussy, 2013), and work (Baldeck, 2021).

But SGBV has rarely been discussed by researchers in terms of its media coverage. While this question is the subject of studies abroad, particularly in English-language research (Bullock, 2007; Charlesworth and McDonald, 2013; Easteal et al., 2015; De Benedictis et al., 2019), this is far from being the case within French-language research, including in France itself. However, many dissertations in progress will soon be extending this state of the art (Beaulieu, Buisson, Itoh, Khemilat, Ruffio and Wetzels: see bibliography). The few existing studies focus on the media, but this research mainly focuses on femicide (Guérard and Lavender, 1999; Sapio, 2017, 2019, 2022) or on domestic violence; it particularly analyzes the press, and more specifically the daily press (Mucchielli, 2005; Hernández Orellana, 2012; Sépulchre, 2019; Lochon, 2021).

Institutions are increasingly vigilant about the role played by the media in the visibility and prevention of SGBV: in this sense, it is interesting to note that the Istanbul Convention, ratified by France in 2014, appeals to the ‘Participation of the private sector and the media’ in order to ‘to set guidelines and self-regulatory standards to prevent violence against women and to enhance respect for their dignity’ (art. 17). And, in a note written by Margaux Collet in the same year for the French High Council for Gender Equality, she emphasizes, among other things, that it is crucial to include articles relating to acts of violence against women in the ‘Politics’ section of newspapers, rather than in the ‘Other news’ section; it is also inadvisable to use the ‘words of the aggressor to create a headline’ or to use expressions such as ‘crime of passion’, a formula still very frequently found in the regional daily press (Ambroise-Rendu, 1993; Houel and al., 2003; Sapio, 2019). For its part, in March 2019, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted new Recommendation on Preventing and Combating Sexism, noting that: ‘Another aggravating factor is where the reach, or potential reach, of the sexist words or acts is extensive, including the means of transmission, use of social or mainstream media and the degree of repetition.’

The persistence of sensitive areas in media discourse – despite these recommendations – stems, among other things, from the structural characteristics of journalistic circles (Neveu, 2000; Damian-Gaillard and Saitta, 2020; Damian-Gaillard et al., 2021) which are not immune to the sexist logics of the society in which they exist. The composition of the editorial staff, the training and the conditions of recruitment and development of journalists are significant factors in producing information, as shown by the results of the Global Media Monitoring Project (Biscarrat et al., 2017; Breda, 2022). Thus, certain culturally and historically situated journalistic practices and traditions persist.

While they are partly responsible for the propagation of hate speech and harmful narratives about SGBV, the media also play a fundamental role in the prevention and denunciation of the latter, by opening up spaces for the production of ‘counter- discourses’ (Baider and Constantinou, 2019) and responses to stigmatization, ranging from ‘destigmatization’ (Bazin and Sapio, 2020) to ‘resignification’ (Paveau, 2020). In some cases, journalists themselves can provide metadiscursive reflections on media productions; this is the case with the collective known as Prenons la Une, which endeavours to take a critical look at the problematic aspects of journalistic writing.

Presentation of themes for papers

We are calling for proposals from different disciplines: information and communication sciences, history, sociology, semiology, law, political science, linguistics, and more broadly from any interdisciplinary approach able to shed light on the production, circulation and reception of media productions on SGBV. We thus subscribe to a broad vision of the notion of media, focusing not only on traditional information media – the press, television, radio, online media and other social media – but also on all media structures as defined by Benoit Lafon (2019), encompassing the publishing industry and exhibitions, as well as proto-media such as posters and engravings. Please note, however, that this call for papers relates only to informational discourse: we have excluded fiction and entertainment from our scope. Research on music, for example, will not be taken into account, especially since a symposium on the subject will soon be organized. Studies analyzing the media coverage of SGBV from a comparative perspective (international, over time, comparing different objects/platforms and types of violence) are welcome. Proposals can fall under one or more of the five proposed themes.

Theme 1 – The conditions of production of media content

For this theme we call for papers that question the professional logics at work in the visibility or concealment of SGBV within the media industries themselves. Proposals that address this perspective may relate, for example, to media that have built their editorial line around SGBV, but also to services or mechanisms created by the media industries so as to editorialize this violence: the creation of pools of journalists dedicated to these questions, the creation of posts as gender editors or the drafting of good practice guides and other editorial charters. Also, the violence that takes place within media companies themselves can be questioned, in particular by examining emblematic case studies such as the Ligue du Lol, the Patrick Poivre D’Arvor (PPDA) affair and the ‘Bas les Pattes’ (‘Hands off’) column published in Libération in 2015. A more general apprehension of this violence could enrich the reflections envisaged here. To what extent is it visible in media industries (Beaulieu, 2019)? Is it heard and/or addressed, and if so, by whom? What are the strategies used to fight against SGBV in these spaces? Conversely, by what mechanisms are they discredited or silenced? Finally, this theme will be an opportunity to consider the vocabulary (for example, the (non)use of the term femicide) and formats mobilized in the media field to place violence on the agenda (such as the interactive online map of the newspaper Libération to count femicides).

Theme 2 - Media representations of SGBV

Media discourses, whether ‘socially constitutive’ or ‘socially constituted’ (Fairclough, 1997), are not merely illustrative of the society that produces them but are considered in their capacity both to consolidate and to transform the latter. In other words, ‘journalistic writings are also social facts’ (Neveu, 2013: 64) that can reinforce sexist stereotypes (Coulomb-Gully, 2019), fuel violence and shape – by helping to naturalize them – stereotypical depictions of victims and attackers. Media devices can thus become the sounding board for hate speech defined ‘as any discursive or semiotic manifestation inciting hatred, whether ethnic, racial, religious, or based on gender or sexual orientation’ (Baider et al. Constantinou, 2019: 10). This type of discourse can either be characterized by violent formulations (from insults to verbal abuse) or it can be ‘disguised’, thus operating in a more insidious way. Without neglecting the contributions of feminist movements promoting, among other things, a critical scrutiny of media representations of SGBV (Ruffio, 2019; Lamy, 2021; Noetzel et al., 2022; Cavalin et al., 2022), we are asking for analyses of fact-based narratives attentive to the representations of the actors involved (victims, perpetrators of violence, witnesses, experts, politicians, activists), to the sources used by journalists (the police, the judicial system, local associations), to the images used and to the rhetorical devices deployed. These include the ‘other news’ style of information on SGBV; sensationalism; ascribing guilt to the victims; and the euphemization and even trivialization of SGBV (Burt, 1980; Benedict, 1992).

Theme 3 - Media circulation of testimonials

Going beyond the #MeToo phenomenon already studied by French researchers (Cavalin et al., 2022), this symposium aims to broaden the analysis of the testimony of violence through media other than social networks: television, radio, podcasts, cinema, press, and publishing. Who is behind the publication of these testimonies and to what extent does their publication contribute to the constitution of the public problem of SGBV? Does the appropriation of testimonies by mainstream media contribute to democratizing the subject? Does such an appropriation take place at the cost of depoliticization? How does the voice of victims circulate in media and cultural productions (to varying degrees of visibility), and can we identify particular characteristics from the profiles of the victims (public or anonymous personalities) and types of violence? By way of example, case studies could be based on testimonials on the radio (the Baupin case, Mediapart and France Inter [Buisson, 2022, forthcoming]); in the press (the Haenel case, Mediapart); on YouTube (Alix Desmoineaux, reality TV candidate, for Melty), in a book (Acquittée. Je l’ai tué pour ne pas mourir (Acquitted. I killed him so as not to die), by Alexandra Lange), on television (Delphine Leclerc, a victim of obstetric violence, in La Maison des Maternelles) or in a podcast (Ou peut-être une nuit, Charlotte Pudlowski).

We invite contributors to question the specificities of media platforms and their role in highlighting the power relations relating to SGBV testimonies, both for the audiovisual media (seating of guests, duration and modalities of exchanges between speakers, editing techniques, blurring of faces) and for the press (layout, anonymization, format, headings).

The place taken by the perpetrators of violence is also a subject for study. How do the media use the perpetrators’ words and does this editorial choice raise questions within the profession? Whether it is the sequence cut from the documentary Je ne suis pas une salope, je suis une journaliste (I’m not a slut, I’m a journalist), where Marie Portolano confronts Pierre Menès with the sexual assault to which he subjected her a few years earlier, or the ‘Lettre d’un violeur’ (‘Letter from a rapist’) published by Libération the same year, what does this tell us about editorial developments taking place within the media industries?

Theme 4 – The mechanisms and language of prevention and awareness

The language used about the prevention and/or awareness of SGBV can foster a critique of existing norms and promote behaviours that can prevent and/or subvert it, but they can also function as receptacles for these same norms, despite their initial aims. In this perspective, the book Quand l’État parle des violences faites aux femmes (When the state speaks of violence against women) by Myriam Hernández Orellana and Stéphanie Kunert is an essential contribution that points out the limits and contradictions of institutional communication in France. Based on the analysis of a corpus of government campaigns, the authors underline the paradoxical nature of the language used in institutional communication where ‘women’s power to act is almost non-existent [...] while the State, as a tutelary speaker, systematically addresses them in the imperative (in particular by enjoining them to “break their silence”)’ (2014: 90-91). We therefore invite contributors to extend these observations by working on other French or foreign government initiatives, and on institutional campaigns led by associations and communities such as the Hubertine Auclert centre in Île-de-France. We are also looking for work analyzing educational content dealing with SGBV such as comics (Les Crocodiles by Thomas Mathieu and Mon vagin, mon gynéco et moi (My vagina, my gynecologist and me by Rachel Lev) and Instagram accounts (@stopfisha; @disbonjoursalepute), to mention just a few examples.

There are relatively few studies of the language used to prevent SGBV (Bruneel, 2018; Stassin, 2019; see also theme 4 of the ‘(Cyber)harcèlement’/‘(Cyber)harassment’ symposium), and there are even fewer relating to the reception of the language and mechanisms for preventing violence against women (Potter and al., 2011; Romero, 2020; Sapio, 2020; Basile-Commaille and Fourquet-Courbet, 2021; Léon, 2021).

In this theme, we are also interested in media platforms and digital mechanisms when they are mobilized within the framework of a mediation with the perpetrators of violence, with the victims and the actors in the field (Oddone 2020; Sapio 2023), and in the framework of restorative justice. Recent years seem to have witnessed an increasing number of initiatives, such as the app developed by the Marseille city hall to fight against SGBV on the beach and the website ‘deposetaplainte.fr’.

Theme 5 – The sensitive corpus of data: emotions and commitment in research  

Studying practices and media discourses relating to SGBV can place researchers who come into contact with them in a situation of emotional vulnerability, in some cases identified as a ‘vicarious syndrome’ (Bourdet, 2021). But what can be said and done about such emotions experienced during research? We invite contributors to reflect on this question by foregrounding their places as social and political subjects. How does ‘our fieldwork, especially when it is difficult or painful, modify us, both as people and as researchers?’ (Paveau, 2013). How can repeated exposure to stories and images of violence affect research? What should we do when the media language that we study revives personal traumas? While the emotions experienced are likely to hinder scientific reflection, they can also trigger a power to act (Paveau, 2013), an ‘emotional charge (émotricité)’ (Le Cam and Ruellan, 2017), and lead to the development of new hypotheses for research (Dalibert, 2021). The researcher may also not feel any particular emotions, and then feel at odds with the social reactions that people expect in the discussion of sensitive subjects.

In this theme, we are also interested in the place of affects in the relationship to fieldwork, and more specifically to the corpus of data, something much less often studied in existing research: for example in the process of data collection, during which a feeling of guilt towards the victims (Dussy, 2013) or sometimes one of joy (Joël, 2015) can emerge. Finally, there is the question of the conditions for sharing research results: how are we to talk about sensitive and gruelling data? What place should be given to victims and aggressors? Should we anonymize victims, or on the contrary give them a face and a name when they are sometimes reduced to a mere statistic (Salles, 2021)? How are we to communicate stories and images of violence without thereby rekindling their pain (Julliard, 2021)?

Submission guidelines

Paper proposals should be sent to: mediavss2023@gmail.com by 1 December 2022.

In order to guarantee the double-blind evaluation process, please send us (in Word format) :

• a first anonymous document with your paper proposal of a maximum length of 500 words (specifying the title, the axis(es) in which the proposal fits, an abstract presenting the research question, a brief review of the literature and/or theoretical perspectives, elements of methodology) as well as an indicative bibliography.
  
• a second document specifying the title of your paper and a bio-bibliographical note of 150 words maximum in which your name, first name, institutional affiliation, and a brief presentation of your research themes and main publications appear.
  

Notification of acceptance will be sent in mid-January 2023.

Scientific committee

Laurence Allard (Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, IRCAV)

Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, CHCSC)   

Maëlle Bazin (Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, CARISM)

Laetitia Biscarrat (Université Côte-d’Azur, LIRCES)   

Laurie Boussaguet (European University Institute, Florence)

Charlotte Buisson (Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, CARISM)

Maxime Cervulle (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, CEMTI)   

Marlène Coulomb-Gully (Université Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès, LERASS)

Pauline Delage (CRESPPA-CSU, CNRS)

Sophie Dubec (Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, IRMÉCCEN)

Eric Fassin (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, LEGS)

Isabelle Garcin-Marrou (Institut d’Études Politiques de Lyon, ELICO)

Josiane Jouët (Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, CARISM)

Cécile Méadel (Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, CARISM)

Sandy Montañola  (Université Rennes 1, ARÈNES)

Bibia Pavard (Université Panthéon-Assas, CARISM)   

Giuseppina Sapio (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, CEMTI)

Florian Vörös (Université de Lille, GERIICO)

Jeanne Wetzels (Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, CARISM)

Organizing committee

Charlotte Buisson   

Maëlle Bazin   

Giuseppina Sapio   

Jeanne Wetzels   

Cécile Méadel

Arielle Haakenstad

Edited by Kirill Postoutenko

Forty years ago, German historian Reinhart Koselleck coined the notion of ‘asymmetrical concepts’, pointing at the asymmetry between standard self-ascriptions, such as ‘Hellenes’ or ‘Christians’, and pejorative other-references (‘Barbarians’ or ‘Pagans’) as a powerful weapon of cultural and political domination. Advancing and refining Koselleck’s approach, Beyond ‘Hellenes’ and ‘Barbarians’ explores the use of significant conceptual asymmetries such as ‘civilization’ vs. ‘barbarity’, ‘liberalism’ vs. ‘servility’, ‘order’ vs. ‘chaos’ or even ‘masters’ vs. ‘slaves’ in political, scientific and fictional discourses of Europe from the Middle Ages to the present day. Using an interdisciplinary set of approaches, the scholars in political history, cultural sociology, intellectual history and literary criticism bolster and extend our understanding of this ever-growing area of conceptual history.

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PostoutenkoBeyond

International Journal Film and Media Arts , Vol. 9 No. 1 (2024)

Deadline: May 10, 2023

Guest Editors:

• Niinimaki Kirsi (Aalto University)
  
• Alexandra Cruchinho (Lusófona University)
  
• José Carlos Neves (Lusófona University)
  

The International Journal of Film and Media Arts welcomes a selection of high-quality papers for an edition dedicated to FL_Fashion Sustainability – International Conference, held by Lusófona University (Lisbon, Portugal), from 3rd to 5th November 2022. This issue is aligned with the FL_Conference edition, in which the theme was - Fashion, Media and Sustainability.

This call, however, accepts proposals for papers from outside the conference.

It is increasingly important to discuss Sustainability in all its variants, at the economic, environmental, and social levels, especially when the focus is on areas such as fashion, whose industry is one of the most responsible for the environmental damage that has been observed, increasingly, over recent times.

If, on one hand, the theme of sustainability refers us to the environmental aspect, it is emergent to discuss this theme under a social perspective where minorities are involved in important processes for the communities, where knowledge and values are valued and citizens, who, at the beginning, could be kept in a much more discrete life in the environment that surrounds them, are inserted in the active life. Papers in which the sustainability approach can be widened, e.g. through lowering the environmental impacts through new design approaches, new kind of aesthetic understanding and even including critical discussions and experimentations are welcome.

Economic sustainability is crucial to the success of business, brands, industry, small and medium-sized enterprises and is also an important area to keep in focus in the discussion. A new kind of economic understanding, new business models and even the aspect of degrowth in the fashion context could be one important track in sustainability knowledge.

This issue of the International Journal of Film and Media Arts invites fashion designers, film-makers, fashion teachers, artists and researchers to submit papers that deal with but are not limited to the topics of:

- Fashion Sustainability;

- Fashion Trends Communication;

- Fashion and Audiovisual for Sustainability;

- Tradition and Identity;

- Education for Sustainability.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Full Papers are to be submitted by 10th May 2023.

Please submit to: 

anna.coutinho@ulusofona.pt  or https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijfma/about/submissions

Schedule for publication:

Submission of full paper: 10th May 2023

Feedback on full papers: 8th September 2023

Final revisions: 30th January 2024

Publication date: May 2024

More information is available at https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijfma/announcement/view/170

MADS MØLLER T. ANDERSEN

In this book, Mads Møller T. Andersen examines the methodological challenges that arise when studying creativity and creative processes in media industries, arguing that the field of media studies still has much to learn about how these industries facilitate their own creative processes. Andersen introduces and utilizes a theoretical framework of five traditions in creativity to guide readers through five different methods of approaching and understanding the concept of creativity, exploring whether media scholars should abandon current, romantic understandings of creativity in favor of more progressive and nuanced definitions. Ultimately, Andersen considers and offers examples of how, as a discipline, we can design studies of creative processes that also address what we still don’t know about creativity in these contexts. Scholars interested in media studies, cultural studies, and research methods will find this book particularly useful.

Purchase the book here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666901696/Researching-Creativity-in-Media-Industries

Polish Communication Association

We kindly invite you to participate in the 5th edition of the Young Media and Communication Scholars Mentoring Program of the Polish Communication Association. The Mentoring Program is addressed to Ph.D. and MA students who want to develop their research competencies under the guidance of renowned Polish researchers. Participation in the program is free of charge.

Applications (in Polish or English) will be accepted until December 2, 2022. Application form and detailed information about mentors are available here: https://www.ptks.pl/en/programs/pca-mentoring-program 

We are looking forward to your applications!

If you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact the program coordinator, Roksana Zdunek: mentoring.fmmik@gmail.com

November 18, 2022

Online

ECREA Post-conference sponsored by Communication History section & International and Intercultural communication section 

Organizer

China Media Observatory, Università della Svizzeraitaliana (Lugano, Switzerland)

Journal of Transcultural Communication (De Gruyter)

Co-organizer

School of International Journalism and Communication, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Institute for a Community with Shared Future, Communication University of China

Program

10.00-10.15 (UTC+8) Opening Ceremony

Chair: 

Deqiang Ji, Managing editor, Journal of Transcultural Communication; Professor, Communication University of China

Opening remarks:

Gabriele Balbi (recorded), Chair of ECREA Communication History Section; Associate Professor, Institute of Media and Journalism, Università della Svizzera italiana

Mélodine Sommier (recorded), Chair of ECREA International and Intercultural Communication Section, Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University of Jyväskylä

10.15-11:30 (UTC+8) Chinese Technology Companies in Asia and Africa

Chair: Sixian Lin, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Discussant: Dianlin Huang, Communication University of China

Interdisciplinary Research in Globalization Strategies and Insights of Chinese Enterprises -- Taking performance of TikTok in India as an example

Li, Rui; Zhai, Beibei

Beijing Foreign Studies University

Politicizing the Chinese Emerging Media Companies: A Case Study of the Rise and Fall of TikTok in India

Zhang, Xiaoyu

Communication University of China

The Localization, Growth and Closure of ByteDance’s Helo in India: A Case Study of Chinese Social Media Giant’s Third-world Gold Rush

Xu, Nuo

Peking University

An abortive de-othering attempt: TikTok's discipline of African-related short videos by Chinese living in Africa and the re-stereotyping of African images

Tan, Yuchen

Communication University of China

11:30-11:45 (UTC+8) Tea Break

11:45-13:00 (UTC+8) Platforms, Globalization and Cultural Boundaries

Chair: Can Cui, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Discussant: Deqiang Ji, Communication University of China

Umbrella global platform of Tencent eSports industry in China

Zhao, Yupei;Lin, Zhongxuan

Zhejiang University;Jinan University

The cross-genre dissemination of platformed cultural contents: Computing how algorithms erode cultural boundaries in China

Ma, Lide; He, Yuan; Zhao Xiuli; Ren, Beijia

Beijing Normal University; Hebei University

The Influence of TikTok’s Involvement in Global Governance Through Cooperation with UN Agencies on Its Brand Image Building

Xia, Mengyi

University of Macau

13.00-15.00 (UTC+8) Lunch Break

15.30-17.30(UTC+8) /08.30-10.30(CET) Branding and Rebranding of Technology Companies 

Chair: Deqiang Ji, Communication University of China

Discussant: Daya Thussu, Hong Kong Baptist University

A Post-Colonial analysis of transcultural news frames – A case study of Facebook’s rebranding

Ditlhokwa, Gopolang; Cann, Victoria E.

Communication University of China; University of Colorado

The achievement and dilemma of Bytedance on glocalization

Xie, Siqi;Liu, Liuni; Li, Suju

Shenzhen University; Beijing Kuaishou Technology Co., Ltd.; Zhongjin Innovation (Shenzhen) Asset Management Co., LTD

The Super App Strategy: How Tencent combines platformization, infrastructuralization, conglomeration, and financialization in China’s app economy

Jia, Lianrui; Nieborg, David; Poell, Thomas

University of Sheffield; University of Toronto; University of Amsterdam

Netflix as a policy actor: Transnational strategy in Ibero-America

Marina Fernandes, Luis Albornoz

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

17.30-19.30(UTC+8) /10.30-12.30 (CET) Keynote Roundtable Discussion

Chair: Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera italiana

Invited Speakers:

Daya Thussu, Hong Kong Baptist University

Dwayne Winseck, Carleton University

Stephen Croucher, Massey University

Fei Jiang, Journal of Transcultural Communication; Beijing Foreign Studies University

*Final Remarks from Beijing site

Deqiang Ji

19.30-20.30(UTC+8) /12.30-13.30 (CET) Lunch Break 

20.30-22.30(UTC+8) /13.30-15.30 (CET) Panel FOUR: Transcultural Challenges in Business Practice and Beyond

Chair: Mélodine Sommier, University of Jyväskylä

Discussant: Mélodine Sommier, University of Jyväskylä

Huawei Space in Italy

Negro, Gianluigi

Siena University

Cultural Homogeneity or Cultural heterogeneity? Questioning the changing corporate culture among emerging technology companies

Ely Luthi, Zhan Zhang

Università della Svizzera italiana

Intercultural experience learning in Metaverse and VR world

De Masi Vincenzo

United International College (UIC) Beijing Normal University

Being Chinese Online – Discursive (Re)production of Internet-Mediated Chinese National Identity

Wang, Zhiwei

University of Edinburgh

*Final Remarks

Zhan Zhang, Università della Svizzera italiana

Mélodine Sommier, University of Jyväskylä

Special issue of New Media & Society

Deadline: February 15, 2023

Discussions about young people’s access or experiences with online pornography underpin most discussions and concerns about their experiences online more broadly. There is usually consensus among public, policy, and academic pundits that experiences with online/mediated sexual content are or can be potentially harmful for young people (Tsaliki, 2016). For instance, recent media outlets monitor the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office and call for a ‘cracking down’ of regulatory activity for online pornography sites, which will force them to prove they are preventing children’s access to their content (Solon, 02/09/2022). This pressure rejuvenates similar calls invoked by the 2017 Digital Economy Act--which required online pornographic sites to implement strict access rules to people under 18-years old--and the Online Harms White Paper that was put in force to cover the Act’s gap concerning sexual content on social media (Thurman & Obster, 2021).

Effects-laden approaches assuming online pornography’s effects on young people dominate the debates around children’s sexuality more broadly and online pornography specifically, while approaches drawing from cultural studies and porn studies contextualise young people’s negotiations with online pornography in historical, cultural, and social terms. Growing academic research is putting play and consent in the research and sex education agendas (McKee et al, 2020) and also using porn literacy as an analytical framework to understand how young people transform their experiences and their knowledge of the conventions of the genre into a discourse about sexuality (Buckingham & Chronaki, 2014). Discussions about sexting (Albury, 2016), pornography’s position in sex education (Goldstein, 2019), and porn literacy education are being shaped more systematically and are informing current debates.

A key term in almost all debates about young people’s experiences with online pornography is ‘harm’ and the ways in which it is interpreted, negotiated, discussed, and unpacked by young people themselves. This special issue will address young people’s perceptions and interpretations of the notion of harm in experiences with online sexual content. Papers should address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• How do young people unpack the notion of harm when talking about online pornography?
  
• How do young people who acknowledge a degree of harm in their own experiences with online pornography talk about it?
  
• To what extent is harm working as an umbrella concept including negotiations about representation, consumption, intimacy, consent, or rights?
  
• How do young people account for online pornography in the broader context of sex education and porn literacy?
  
• How is the notion of harm in young people’s experiences with online pornography conceptualised in different cultural contexts and the current historical moment?
  
• What are the methodological and ethical challenges in researching young people’s experiences with online sexual content?
  

Abstract submission:

Please submit abstracts of maximum 500 words to Despina Chronaki (dchronaki@jour.auth.gr). Abstracts should include information about the epistemological stance of your research, a short methodological note, and prospective findings. Submission deadline is no later than 15 February 2023. Full papers will be due 30 October 2023.

Guest editors:

Dr Despina Chronaki, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, dchronaki@jour.auth.gr

Associate Professor Debra Dudek, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Australia, d.dudek@ecu.edu.au

Giselle Woodley, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Australia, g.woodley@ecu.edu.au