ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Defined as the overabundance of information on a given subject, infodemic has been described by the World Health Organization as one of the most serious problems we face as a society. This is an investigation carried out by researchers from the Nebrija_INNOMEDIA research group, trying to ellucdate how young adults access information and navigate media, social networks, and fake news. Answers are collected totally anonymously and only for scientific and academic purposes. The survey takes 5 minutes to respond: https://forms.gle/PoGip8CD98ochKeX6

QUT Digital Media Research Centre

The QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) in Brisbane, Australia, is currently seeking applicants for four five-year Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) positions. The four PDRAs contribute to an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship led by Professor Axel Bruns, a flagship five-year research project that investigates the Dynamics of Partisanship and Polarisation in Online Public Debate. The successful applicants will contribute to the Laureate's overall research programme, and lead specific research streams within the Laureate Fellowship. They will be mentored by the Laureate Fellow, Prof. Axel Bruns.

The Laureate Fellowship is situated within the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), one of eleven flagship University Research Centres at QUT. In addition to the Laureate team itself, the PDRAs will also have an opportunity to work closely with the other international research leaders, early-career researchers, and postgraduate research students in the DMRC. They will also co-supervise postgraduate research students aligned with the Laureate project.

Rapidly increasing partisanship and polarisation, especially online, poses an urgent threat to societal cohesion in Australia and other established western democracies; polarisation is also a critical cybersecurity concern when actively promoted by bad-faith actors to undermine citizens' trust in democratic institutions. By introducing an analytical framework that distinguishes four key dimensions of polarisation, the Fellowship aims to conduct the first-ever assessment of the extent and dynamics of polarisation in the contemporary online and social media environments of six nations, including Australia. The evidence is expected to enable an urgently needed, robust defence of our society and democracy against the challenges of polarisation.

Successful candidates will contribute to high-quality research activities relevant to one or more of the Laureate project's four research streams. They must demonstrate substantial mixed-methods expertise in digital and social media analysis, with a focus on one of more of the following research areas: journalism studies, media and communication studies, political science, social media analytics, computational social science, computational discourse analysis, social network analysis, issue mapping. They will also have an opportunity to contribute actively to the DMRC's overall research culture, including participation in strategic planning, research collaboration, and community-building, and to collaborate with other world-leading researchers at the DMRC.

Candidates must follow the application instructions at http://bit.ly/laureateteam. Note that applications must include a CV, response to selection criteria, and statement of research interests with respect to the aims of the Laureate project.

Applications are due by 30 January 2022, and open to Australian and international applicants. Subject to travel and visa arrangements, the Postdoctoral Research Associates should commence in mid-2022.

December 10, 2021

It is with great pleasure that we announce and invite you to participate in the final conference of the SMaRT-EU project. The conference will take place on December 10th, in online format, and will bring together researchers, practitioners and end-users to present and discuss the results of the project. The conference will also feature a number of speakers who will address topics related to new horizons and challenges for resilience towards misinformation and social media.

Save the date: 10 December 2021, from 9.30am (CET - Central European Time)

The full programme and registration available at http://smart-toolkit.eu/smart-eu-conference/

University of Fribourg

The Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences (SES) at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, invites applications for a 5-years PhD position at the Chair of Communication and Media Studies. The successful candidate will work as a teaching and research assistant at the Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM) and write a doctoral thesis under the direction of professor Thilo von Pape.

The DCM offers an outstanding and supportive research environment based on interdisciplinary and innovative collaborations at the interface between communication, media, business and society. Unique in its bilingualism, located in the heart of Europe, and renowned for its rigorous training and research, the University of Fribourg affords a decisive first step towards a rewarding research career.

Information

Start date: February 1st, 2022, or to be agreed

Contract duration: 5 years (1 year; renewable 4 years)

Employment rate: 100%; the salary will be established according to the guidelines of the University of Fribourg

Profile

Interests:

You are creative and enthusiastic about the theory and methods of empirical social research. You like working autonomously as well as in a multilingual team. You are interested in one or more of the following areas:

- qualitative or quantitative methods of social research,

- communication in digital contexts: social networks, smartphones, ...,

- uses, effects, and social and environmental issues of media innovations: equal access, everyday appropriation, social support, privacy, sustainability, …

- teaching through research.

Skills:

Ideally, you are proficient in the qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis applied in the social sciences; expertise in software tools (R, Python, NVivo, ...) is considered an additional asset.

Education:

You have obtained a Master’s degree in communication studies or in a closely related social science (sociology, psychology, …) with a focus on empirical research.

Languages:

Full proficiency in French and a good command of English. Notions in German and a commitment to perfect your language skills are appreciated.

Application

Questions:

Please address any questions regarding the position and/or the application to Jolanda Wehrli (jolanda.wehrli@unifr.ch), with the object “PhD position von Pape”.

Documents:

The application must contain:

- a cover letter specifying research interests and motivations,

- a CV containing the names of two academic references,

- transcripts of completed academic training,

- summary of the Master thesis on one page,

- other relevant certificates (e.g., TOEFL) or documents (e.g., evaluation of Master thesis).

The evaluation will focus on your academic record, interests, attitude, and the ensuing potential for academic success; it is committed to diversity and inclusion.

Deadline:

The application must be sent as one single PDF document to Jolanda Wehrli (jolanda.wehrli@unifr.ch) by December 1st, 2021.

Link to pdf of job opening: https://www.unifr.ch/dcm/en/assets/public/files/jobs/2111AssvonPape_en.pdf

French version: https://www.unifr.ch/dcm/en/assets/public/files/jobs/2111AssvonPape_fr.pdf

University of Georgia

The University of Georgia’s Department of Entertainment and Media Studies seeks to fill one position for a teacher and scholar of media visual entertainment. Appointment will either be at the Assistant tenure-track level or at the Associate level with tenure. The faculty member will teach four courses a year on an academic appointment (nine months). Preferred research emphases include but are not limited to post-broadcast television, diversity, intersectionality, and/or social movements.

Address questions to: Professor Anandam Kavoori, Grady College Search Committee Chair and Professor, Department of Entertainment and Media Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3154, (706) 542-4971 or akavoori@uga.edu

https://www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/230170

Comunicazioni Sociali

Deadline: January 10, 2022

Edited by Marco Cucco, Massimo Scaglioni, Anna Sfardini, Gertjan Willems

Website: https://comunicazionisociali.vitaepensiero.it/news-call-for-papers-cfp-sustainable-screenings-economic-touristic-and-cultural-impact-of-audiovisual-productions-on-the-host-locations-in-the-post-lockdown-era-5717.html

In the last twenty years, the relationship between media production and places has been a key topic in the field of media studies. Despite that, in the post-lockdown world this relationship still needs to be properly investigated since nowadays it embodies new meanings that invite media scholars to redefine their understanding of how media may serve and/or impact places and vice versa.

It is widely known that film and audiovisual shoots can have a positive impact on the host location economy: more tax revenues, new employment and facilities, etc. Sometimes, film and audiovisual products stimulate tourism too, which implies once again economic benefits. In both cases, they feed local pride and contribute to re-define the image and status of the host places. In the framework of the post-pandemic recovery, these two capabilities are receiving even more attention than in the past: tourism, for instance, was one of the sectors that suffered most due to the health emergency, and its relaunch is at the top of the agenda of many public institutions. Thus, the current scenario moves film and audiovisual production at the center of the action plans for the post-pandemic economy and society. However, all the current recovery policies base themselves on the concept of sustainability, and this raises the question how film and audiovisual production meet the concept of sustainability.

In the (post-)pandemic world, the capability of film and audiovisual production to serve places needs to be reconsidered through the lens of sustainability and its three pillars: economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability. This reconceptualization challenges the widely accepted idea of a win-win relationship between audiovisual production and places. In doing that, it invites to distinguish between good and bad practices, to investigate complex networks of stakeholders that pursue different goals, to adopt new research perspectives and research tools that allow media scholars to fruitfully address the most urgent issues on the political agenda.

Starting from these considerations, this special issue of Comunicazioni Sociali invites international scholars to discuss the economic, touristic, and cultural impact of audiovisual productions (films, documentaries, scripted and unscripted TV products) on the host places considering both the contemporary unprecedented scenario and the concept of sustainability. Case studies able to enrich or contest the achieved understanding of the relationship between media and places are particularly encouraged. We invite abstracts from different research perspectives (a.o. Film and Television Studies; Media Industry Studies; Sociology) that address the following topics:

• Good and bad practices in the relationship between different stakeholders: production companies, local institutions, population
• Green protocols in the audiovisual production
• Sustainable screen-induced tourism practices and apps
• Local people’s reactions to audiovisual shoots and screen-induced tourism
• The impact of audiovisual products in defining local reputation and in promoting/branding places
• Circulation of national media products and national brand image
• Media induced tourism and media pilgrimages
• Audiovisual place and local tourism: national or local data, trends, opportunities, good or bad case studies
• European and national green policies for the audiovisual industry
• Methodologies for investigating sustainable screen-induced tourism

Submission details

Please send your abstract and a short biographical note by January 10, 2022 to:

• redazione.cs@unicatt.it
• m.cucco@unibo.it
• massimo.scaglioni@unicatt.it
• anna.sfardini@unicatt.it
• gertjan.willems@uantwerpen.be

Abstracts should be from 300 to 400 words of length (in English). All submissions should include: 5 keywords, name of author(s), institutional affiliation, contacts details and a short bio for each author. Authors will be notified of proposal acceptance by January 28, 2022.

If the proposal is accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit the full article, in English, by April 3, 2022.

Submission of a paper will be taken to imply that it is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

The articles must not exceed 5,000/6,000-words.

Contributions will be submitted to a double blind peer review process.

The issue number 2/2022 of Comunicazioni Sociali will be published in September 2022.

“Comunicazioni Sociali” is indexed in Scopus and it is an A-class rated journal by ANVUR in: Cinema, photography and television (L-ART/06), Performing arts (L-ART/05), and Sociology of culture and communication (SPS/08)

April 7-8, 2022

University of Seville, Spain

Deadline: February 20, 2022

Welcome to the GENDERCOM (Gender & Communication) congress that will be held on 7 and 8 April 2022 in hybrid mode (online and in person), at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Seville. Paper proposals (abstracts) in English, Spanish and Italian can be submitted until 20 February 2022. The selected papers will be published in the Scientific Journal Ámbitos de la Comunicación and by the publishing houses Dykinson and Fragua.

GENDERCOM began its journey a decade ago (2012). Since then, every two years it proposes a debate on gender controversies in communication. The complexity of social networks has both increased phobias towards sexual diversity and has also promoted initiatives to claim other ways of understanding the heteronormative sexual identities within patriarchy.

In the 7th edition, in addition to issues such as discrimination due to gender or representations of sexual identities, we want to highlight the debate on new masculinities. Full equality will only be possible if we reconsider the shortcomings of the patriarchal construction of the male model to achieve more open, horizontal and communicative models from a plural understanding of masculinity. The thematic axes proposed for this edition are eight, including Studies and debates on new masculinities in communication and other scientific disciplines and Hate speech relating to gender identity.

For more information and to see all eight thematic axes, visit the congress website https://gendercom.org/

To submit your paper proposal for the congress, visit https://gendercom.org/propuestas/ 

June 24-25, 2022 (Friday-Saturday)

Budapest, Hungary

Deadline: November 20, 2021

Conference website and CfP: https://sites.google.com/view/hodj2022/cfp

Keynote Speakers:

• Mark Deuze (University of Amsterdam)
• Laura Ahva (Tampere University)

Call for Papers:

Although the shared past of digitization and journalism stretches back at least to a half-century, digital journalism history is a field still in formation. Building on the momentum of the recent "historical turn" in digital media and internet studies, the aim of the conference is to bring together an interdisciplinary network of scholars to interrogate digital journalism histories and to start a global critical exchange on various approaches to and aspects of historicising digital journalism.

As digital journalism has been re-configured by socio-historical contradictions of communication and complexities of its technological innovations, journalism scholarship should continuously strive for enhancing critical exchange to advance studies that intersect with numerous disciplines, theoretical approaches and methodological traditions. Emphasis of the conference is on the plurality of histories instead of one single digital journalism history, acknowledging diachronic as well as synchronic complexities of social relations, political contingencies, cultural traditions and power configurations between journalism and digitisation. Instead of enforcing one great master narrative, the conference aims to offer a space to embrace the co-existence of parallel, sometimes complementing, often conflicting historical investigations and narratives.

By aiming to explore the intersections of history, culture, digital technology and journalism, the conference welcomes papers and panels that are grounded on diachronic or synchronic explorations of digital journalism "pasts", while elaborating the relevance of its historical findings for digital journalism "futures". The conference invites theoretical and methodological reflections on historicising digital journalism as well as original single case studies or comparative inquiries into the phenomena from the decades of the long digital revolution of journalism. The conference welcomes papers that examine the digital journalism histories of the global "centers" and we especially encourage inquiries from the "peripheries" of digital journalism development and scholarship.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

- Mythologies of technology: reconsidering "dead" and "new" technologies in journalism

- Transforming social control in the digitized newsroom: investigating separation and integration tendencies

- Re-configuring the labour process in digital journalism: between standardisation and creativity of digital news production

- Digital platforms, tools and practices in journalism: from Teletext, CD-ROMS and Minitel to www, smartphones and social media

- Changing skillsets in digital journalism: deskilling, reskilling, upskilling newsworkers

- (Dis)continuities of forms and genres in journalism

- Labour relations of digital journalism: standardisation, precarisation, entrepreneurialism

- Liquefied identities of digital journalism: boundary work between "online" and "offline" journalists, "professional" and "citizen" journalists, journalists and "technologists", "journalists" vs "bloggers"

- Re-inventing journalistic profiles: from "mouse monkeys", "meta journalists" to "robot journalists"

- Digitized audiences between participation and commodification

- Business models of digital journalism: from legacy media ecosystem to platform capitalism

- Ethical, legal and regulatory issues of digital journalism: from www to automation

- Particular online journalistic genres moving online: digital music, sport, food journalism

Technical details and important dates

Deadline for submitting abstracts and panel proposals is November 20, 2021 (CET).

Please submit all submissions via this online form: https://forms.gle/NJEdtriuqi4AkFSAA

Panel proposals should consist of 3 or 4 papers, and all the paper abstracts belonging to a proposed panel should be submitted individually through the form. The maximum length for panel and paper abstracts is 400 words.

Conference talks will be 15 minutes long followed by 5 minute long discussions.

Further information will be found on the constantly updated website: https://sites.google.com/view/hodj2022/

Organizers and contact information

The conference will be held at Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), and is jointly organised by the Department of Sociology and Communications, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, BME and the Social Communication Research Centre, University of Ljubljana (UL).

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers:

• Dr. Tamas Tofalvy, Associate Professor (BME) tofalvy.tamas@gtk.bme.hu
• Dr. Igor Vobic, Associate Professor (UL) igor.vobic@fdv.uni-lj.si

February 21-25, 2022

Strobl, Austria

Deadline: November 22, 2021

How should we govern our news ecology in the digital age? Digital platforms bring several challenges to news production, distribution and consumption, ranging from concerns on the economic sustainability of this activity to questions regarding trust building and legitimacy. There is pressure on European policymakers to provide solutions to ensure a healthy news ecology.

This Winter School invites students to write a manifesto on European news politics beyond platforms, relying on input by a team of experienced and emerging scholars: Aukse Balcytiene, Leen d’Haenens, Michaël Opgenhaffen, Colin Porlezza, Susana Salgado, Helle Sjøvaag, Tales Tomaz and Josef Trappel. Participants pay a nominal fee of 50 EUR that covers accommodation (full board hotel) and excursions. We welcome PhD and advanced Master students.

Read more: https://euromediapp.org/winter-school/quality-of-european-news-ecology/

April 29-30, 2022

Örebro University, Sweden/online

Deadline: December 1, 2021

In Spring 2022, Örebro University will hold an international workshop focusing on the rich interpretations that Ingmar Bergman's work has been generating over the last seven decades, and on the impact of Ingmar Bergman on and in film history and in different cultural contexts.

Being one of the main representatives of European modernist cinema, Ingmar Bergman’s oeuvre has been the subject of heated debate and various readings. The rapid canonization of his work after his international breakthrough in 1956 has tended to reinforce an interpretation of Bergman as "the auteur", usually written from a high art perspective. As Bergman-scholar Maaret Koskinen repeatedly pointed out, discourses around Bergman were always a mix between high art and the popular, both at home in Sweden and abroad. His films attracted a variety of audiences seeking redemptive messages, liberal agendas, religious transcendence, and/or eroticism. Beyond his titles, Bergman's strong public image as quintessential modernist filmmaker has usually functioned as a productive intersection of (sometimes contradictory) images, interests and discourses. Bergman has been alternatively seen as an artist, the main voice of Swedish cinema, a creative genius between cinema and other media, a transcendental artist or a clown, as well as a danger to the national youth, a source of moral disorder or a ‘too theatrical’ filmmaker. Given the different (national) contexts and time periods, one could argue that each audience has generated its own ‘Bergman’.

This workshop aims to bring together scholars interested in shedding light on some of these contexts and film cultures, as we believe that understanding Ingmar Bergman’s interpretations is also a productive way of understanding how a significant part of film history has been seen and commented on, adopted and adapted, written and read. Bergman was a filmmaker, but for cinephiles, critics, and audiences around the word he was also more than that: the images projected on the Swedish auteur function as a telling example that film history can not be just reduced to a history of its films. In this regard, this symposium sees itself as a timely contribution to the analysis of film culture, that is, the institutions, discourses, places and practices that are not films but without which there would be no films. This relates, in the tradition of New Cinema History, to the cinema as a site of cultural exchange, but it also goes beyond and includes discourses in specialized magazines, practices at institutions such as film clubs, festivals, film schools etc. New Cinema History as a field is in nature transdisciplinary – a variety we wish to maintain in our workshop – such as memory and oral history research, social and economic historiography, geography, social anthropology, ethnography, cultural and memory studies, and area/urban studies. We therefore encourage participants from a variety of academic backgrounds to participate (such as, but not limited to, film and media studies, anthropology, art and cultural history). Additionally, we aim to include global, comparative, and/or peripheral perspectives on this topic.

Considering these aspects, this workshop is interested in contributions that could, but are not limited to, illuminate some of the following subjects:

• A Swedish auteur: Bergman’s reception in different local and/or national film cultures & political climates;
• International, transnational, world cinema; Bergman as brand: commerce of auteurism;
• Audience reception in terms of admissions, circulation, oral history, emotional experiences;
• High and Low: Critical reception, cinephilic anxieties, canonisation;
• Artistic reinterpretations of Bergman (adaptations and remakes);
• Gendered audiences, gendered history; women portrayed by men;
• Religious interpretations / catholic vs protestant;
• Paratextual information informing the interpretations;
• Beyond the auteur / back to the auteur? Contemporary readings on Bergman;
• And Bergman in popular cinema, TV and other media.

The workshop will take place 29 & 30 April 2022, and will be held at Örebro University, with the option of participating online. Jan Holmberg, CEO of the Ingmar Bergman Archive in Stockholm, will give a keynote presentation.

In conjunction with the workshop, a follow-up volume in a leading academic publishing house is planned.

Please submit full contact information, a short biography that explains your background and field (of no more than 300 words) and an abstract (of no more than 500 words) on the topic you would like to work on to the following address: IBoutoffocus@gmail.com

The call for papers will close on 01.12.2021. The authors of selected contributions will be notified by 15.01.2022 if the proposal has been accepted.

We are looking forward to your proposal!

Jono Van Belle (Örebro University, Sweden)

Fernando Ramos Arenas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)

María Paz Peirano (Universidad de Chile, Chile)