European Communication Research and Education Association
University of Zurich, Switzerland
The Media & Internet Governance Division (Prof. Dr. Natascha Just) of the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich invites applications for an open position of Senior Research and Teaching Associate/Postdoc (80%). Start of employment: at the earliest possible / upon agreement.
The Media & Internet Governance Division studies media policy and media economics in the convergent communications sector. Alongside research on traditional mass media, the division focuses on Internet Governance and Platform Studies. The successful applicant will work on dedicated topics that align with the division's research program.
Further information and application details: https://jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stellen/senior-research-and-teaching-associate-postdoc-position-media-internet-governance-division-ikmz/21f37d67-c170-4b92-ad39-72eae07c6f58
Review of applications starts immediately, but the position will remain open until a qualified candidate is found.
Please contact Alena Birrer, MA (a.birrer@ikmz.uzh.ch) if you have any further questions.
NECSUS (Special section)
Deadline: March 5, 2024
https://necsus-ejms.org/cfp-autumn-2024_enough/
How much is enough? Who has enough and who is deprived of it? What is the use of limits – and of pushing past them? For this special section of NECSUS, we encourage more reflection about the notion and meaning of #enough and invite media scholars to problematize the notion from aesthetic, industrial, environmental, historical, economic and (socio)political perspectives.
Like other industries, the media sector runs on overproduction. Whether in news journalism, the music industry, or print magazines, media companies often put out large volumes of content or copies to maintain a competitive presence in the market. At the same time, these new releases are programmed to become obsolete in short seasonal cycles, requiring more production and faster consumption. Content libraries are constantly expanding and require bigger, more efficient data centres, pushing at the limits of storing, archiving, and accessing media. Between an increasing library of media content and an awareness of the environmental cost of hosting digital content, thinking about #Enough also connects the material and immaterial dimensions of media consumption. Is there ever enough content? The critique of growth-based economic models and the emergence of perspectives such as degrowth (cf. Hickel; Coyle), circular, or ‘doughnut’ economics has started to resonate in cultural policy and media sustainability discussions. How can these ideas transform media studies and industry research in particular? Are regulations like, for instance, carbon budgets for media productions viable ways to determine how much is enough? What could be the specific contributions of media, and of media studies, to broader discussions about limits and sufficiency? #Enough is necessarily also a question about justice. Global inequality extends to media representations and industries, where minoritised voices and experimental approaches struggle to break through the volume of repetitive content. This question also connects to practices of remaking, rebooting, and reusing existing narrative and formats, something Martine Beugnet has referred to as Hollywood’s ‘potential exhaustion of its own form’ (2017). In a more frugal media landscape, what spaces would open – or close – for new visions and underrepresented voices?
On the other side of overproduction, concerns about overconsumption underpin common anxieties about media and wellbeing. Digital technologies and social media have been held responsible for widespread mental health issues, prompting several European countries to attempt to curb media use, for instance by banning smartphones in schools. In doing so, the notion of enough traverses the line discourses of excessive media consumption and the construction of a sufficient – healthy – ‘media diet’. Can a notion of enough help media scholars articulate critical stances towards these developments? Questions of excess trouble the border between morality and aesthetics, in representation and form. From Triangle of Sadness to White Lotus, The Menu to Succession, critically acclaimed and highly successful films and television series of the past years have highlighted themes of excessive wealth and luxury, while also centering characters that do not – but aspire to – belong to these worlds of privilege. In doing so, these media examples also challenge their own industrial conditions of possibility, in turn resonating with larger political discussions about taxation and the (re)distribution of wealth. Can enough become too much? Contrasting this mediated excess, the idea of a more ‘minimalist’ way of living resonates through diverse media examples. From television shows like Tidying Up with Marie Kondo to highly popular YouTube channels like Clutterbug, the mediation of decluttering and (re)organising constructs the idea that ‘less’ might be more than enough. At the same time, the suggestion to ‘own’ less is looped back into cycles of consumption and commodification through products, services, and media promoted as crucial in achieving a minimalist lifestyle.
Approaching enough from a labour perspective – beyond but entangled with questions of industrial production and consumption – also points to emerging strategies and structures of feeling that question the drive for endless self-optimisation and productivity. Individual interventions like the ‘Email Charter’ by Chris Anderson and Jane Wulf and public guidelines like France’s ‘Right to Disconnect’ move the discursive framing of work between expectation and exhaustion. Widely reported social media trends such as ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘lazy girl jobs’ are pitched against the ‘hustle’ or ‘grindset’ as forms of individualised resistance to unrealistic expectations and absent structures of support. Rejecting (over)work opens up discussions about current economic practices and fits into broader reflections on the political value of refusal, recently affirmed by feminist scholar Bonnie Honig. At what point have we worked enough? Enough – with an exclamation point – can also be a resounding political statement, drawing a line against the perpetuation of systems of violence, exploitation, dispossession, and extraction. It can draw attention to historical injustice and start to imagine a different future beyond it. How have social movements and activist media understood this call? At the same time, the notion of #enough has also become entangled with the populist call for more (national) control of economies and borders.
For this special section of NECSUS we welcome contributions that engage with the theme #enough in varying media forms. As an interdisciplinary journal, we are interested in critical discussions on film, television, (audio)visual art, digital and social media, and other media, approached from different theoretical, academic, and methodological perspectives. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
We also invite submissions on the intersection between academic research and artistic practice – especially ones drawing excess and scarcity conceptually or methodologically. We look forward to receiving abstracts of 300 words, 3-5 bibliographic references, and a short biography of 100 words by 5 March 2024 via this online form. On the basis of selected abstracts, authors will be invited to submit full manuscripts by 15 July 2024 (5,000-8,000 words) which will subsequently go through a blind peer review process before final acceptance for publication. Please check the guidelines at: https://necsus-ejms.org/guidelines-for-submission/
NECSUS also accepts proposals throughout the year for festival, exhibition, and book reviews, as well as data papers and proposals for guest edited audiovisual essay sections. Please note that we do not accept full manuscripts for consideration without an invitation.
Edited volume for Palgrave Macmillan's Global Ethics Series
Deadline March 31, 2024
David Ramírez Plascencia (Universidad de Guadalajara, México) and Rosa María Alonzo González (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, México) invite abstracts for the edited collection “Ethical and Legal Dilemmas of Artificial Intelligence in Latin America”, which will be submitted to Palgrave Macmillan. The editorial has already expressed great interest in the project.
In 2024, due to the global popularization of applications such as ChatGPT, there has been a renewed interest about Artificial Intelligence on considering its potentials, not only for commercial and entertainment activities, but in the financial, scientific, and belligerent sectors. ChatGPT’s capacities have reinvigorated the excitement for developing AI systems and apps that are able to emulate the human capacity of acquiring and applying knowledge. However, along with the enthusiasm, there are worries and deliberations: the use of AI to cheat at school, ethical dilemmas regarding the employment of automatized weapons at battlefields, privacy and security threats related with the companies that develop digital media apps, and the potential risks leaving the financing and defense systems under control AI systems.
The main goal of this volume is to analyze, from a critical and comparative approach, the potential benefits of using artificial intelligence to surpass traditional social and economic problems in Latin America, but to understand, at the same time, the perils and potential barriers derived from the adoption of this technology. Such as the lack of proper legal frameworks and the latent ethical conflicts of using these applications, particularly considering the protection of users from the mistreatment of private data or the use of deep fake to promote misinformation. In addition, the challenges of introducing this app in a region such as Latin America with deep economic and technological disparities, not just at local, but at regional level and global level among the North and the South. Would the adoption of AI reduce this gap, or on the contrary, will the eruption of this novel technology bring more disparity.
We look for contributions on relevant cases that analyze the ethical and legal dilemmas of incorporating Artificial Intelligence in diverse socio-economic fields in Latin America. Topics associated with inclusion of AI in the production of news (fake news, deepfake, labor precarization), algorithms and genre disparity, the inclusion of AI in education, the prospective impact of AI developments in climate change, the incorporation of AI to combat criminality or in internal and regional conflicts, the development of AI to solve social problems such as pollution and traffic in large metropoles like Mexico City or Sao Paulo, and to promote public transparency and accountability. But at the same time, analyzing the challenges of using this disruptive technology: the potential threats to the regional economy, the invasion of privacy and the misuse of citizen’s data, among other key issues.
You are warmly invited to send us your proposal (maximum three authors per chapter), please include a brief bio for every author (no more than 250 words with titles, affiliations, and contacts) and an abstract (500 words without references). Please send the proposal to the following addresses: davidram@udgvirtual.udg.mx (mailto:davidram@udgvirtual.udg.mx) and rosa.alonzo@uabc.edu.mx (mailto:rosa.alonzo@uabc.edu.mx)
Please feel free to contact us with any of your questions.
May 15-17, 2024
Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication, Universitat de València. València, Spain
Deadline: February 29, 2024
We invite researchers, scholars, and students to submit their papers to the sixth edition of the International Conference “Media and Governance in Latin America”. This year, the conference will be jointly organized with the R&D project “News puzzlement: Precarised quality, over(dis)information and polarization”.
This academic conference provides a platform for in-depth discussions and analysis of the challenges faced by quality journalism in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. The thematic sessions explore various aspects of media, governance, and journalism, shedding light on the impact of precariousness, the informational disorder, and technological advancements on the profession. By bringing together renowned researchers and experts, the congress aims to foster dialogue and generate insights that can contribute to the advancement of quality journalism in the regions.
We welcome submissions that cover a wide range of topics related to the following thematic areas:
1) Media Systems, Pluralism, and Good Governance: This session seeks to examine how the traditional and new media interact with political and economic elites, and how such relationship influences censorship, clientelism, populism, and media ownership concentration. By addressing these issues, we seek to understand the importance of media systems that promote pluralism and good governance for a healthy democratic society.
2) Media and Political Representation: This session focuses on journalistic practices and organizational dynamics that promote dialogue, tolerance, and diversity. It explores how the media address issues related to unequal power relations, violence, inequality, corruption, and the representation of protest and social unrest. Additionally, it examines the extent to which digital communication platforms incorporate previously marginalized topics and actors, such as racial, gender, and class inequality, as well as indigenous communities, women, and LGBT+ minorities.
3) Precariousness and Safety Risks: This session analyses the effects of various crises on the journalism profession. It explores the impact of precariousness, work overload, violence, pressure, threats, and harassment on the health and practices of journalists. The session aims to promote reflection on the threats to professional autonomy and well-being posed by job insecurity and external pressures.
4) Quality Journalism: This session focuses on media companies’ funding and business models and their impact on journalists’ working conditions and the quality of information. The session welcomes theoretical research on the definition and evaluation of journalistic quality, as well as empirical studies on social responsibility, deontology, ethical codes, and the hybridization of informative and promotional content.
5) Communication for Social Change: This session analyses the impact of various agents of change, such as civil society groups and the independent media, on the public visibility of diverse voices and controversial issues. It explores the impact of digital technologies on citizens’ and civic organizations’ reappropriation of the digital media for advancing their voices.
Keynote Speakers:
Submission Guidelines:
Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished work. Abstracts should be around 500 words and include: title, name and affiliation, contact information, keywords, brief theoretical framework and main (provisional) findings. All submissions will undergo a peer-review process, carried out by an international panel of experts.
The official languages of the conference are English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and we welcome both abstracts and presentations in these three languages.
The conference will take place mainly face-to-face, but we will reserve some panels for online presentations from scholars based at the global south.
Important Dates:
- Abstract Submission Deadline: 29 February 2024
- Notification to Authors: 10 March 2024
- Conference Dates: 15, 16 and 17 May 2024
Publication Opportunities:
High-quality papers will be selected for publication in an international peer-review journal or edited volume, subject to a separate review process.
Registration Fees:
(The fee includes coffee breaks and lunch)
General Fee: 100 €
Online presenters: 60 €
Students: 40 €
If you have any queries, please don't hesitate to contact us at mediagovernancevalencia@gmail.com
We look forward to your submissions and seeing you in Valencia!
Sincerely, the organising team:
Dolors Palau (Universitat de València, Spain)
Sara García Santamaría (University of Bristol, UK)
Guillermo López (Universitat de València, Spain)
Ximena Orchard (Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile)
Jairo Lugo-Ocando (University of Sharjah, U.A.E)
Paola Sartoretto (Jönköping University, Sweden)
February 15, 2024
Brussels (Belgium)
It is invitation to the conference ‘Monitoring Mediascapes for Democratic Communication in Europe’, in Brussels on 15 February 2024.
With the conference we are marking the end of the 3-year project Mediadelcom - the most comprehensive study of its kind done in Europe identifying the risks and opportunities for deliberative communication in today's polarized Europe. With more than 60 major elections scheduled worldwide in 2024, including within the European Union, and arguments that democracy itself could be at stake, now is an apt moment to focus on deliberative communication – a prerequisite of deliberative democracy.
The event includes:
You can see more details about the event in the attached documents. If you want to attend in person, please register via this link. If you want to watch online no registration is needed. You can watch online here.
Deadline: March 31, 2024
In October 2024, the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication celebrates its 50th anniversary.
We will celebrate the half-century anniversary of the establishment of the Faculty as a department of Sofia University with a jubilee collection "Media and Communication. 50 Years of the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication".
The thematic scope of the collection is broad and includes: research on topics related to the theory, history and transformations of communication, journalism and media; the theory, history and strategies of public communication; the theory, history and development of book publishing and editorial and publishing activities; the theory and research of content management and communication management or comparative theoretical developments in the field of media and communication.
We most politely invite you as our colleagues and partners to participate with a scientific text in the jubilee collection and hope that you will be interested in getting your work published by FJMC.
We are looking forward to receiving your papers by 31 March 2024 at the following email address: nauchen@fjmc.uni-sofia.bg.
Christine E. Evans, Lars Lundgren
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546904/no-heavenly-bodies/
The compelling and little-known history of satellite communications that reveals the Soviet and Eastern European roles in the development of its infrastructure.
Taking its title from Hannah Arendt's description of artificial earth satellites, No Heavenly Bodies explores the history of the first two decades of satellite communications. Christine E. Evans and Lars Lundgren trace how satellite communications infrastructure was imagined, negotiated, and built across the Earth's surface, including across the Iron Curtain. While the United States' and European countries' roles in satellite communications are well documented, Evans and Lundgren delve deep into the role the Soviet Union and other socialist countries played in shaping the infrastructure of satellite communications technology in its first two decades.
Departing from the Cold War binary and the competitive framework that has animated much of space historiography and telecommunications history, No Heavenly Bodies focuses instead on interaction, cooperation, and mutual influence across the Cold War divide.
Evans and Lundgren describe the expansion of satellite communications networks as a process of negotiation and interaction, rather than a simple contest of technological and geopolitical prowess. In so doing, they make visible the significant overlaps, shared imaginaries, points of contact and exchange, and negotiated settlements that determined the shape of satellite communications in its formative decades.
About the authors
Christine Evans is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her first book, Between Truth and Time: A History of Soviet Central Television, received an Honorable Mention for the 2017 USC Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies.
Lars Lundgren is Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University. His work has been published in Media History, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, and the International Journal of Communication.
May 30 - June 1, 2024
University of Catania, Italy
Deadline: March 11, 2024
https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2024/
One of the salient aspects in the recent dynamic transformation of public opinion is the process of integration between national and European communication spaces, which together increasingly converge on a scenario of complex global interdependencies. While this integrative trend was taking shape, itself a topic of debate and controversy, the European arena had to deal with new challenges, that mainly derived from a succession of global crises (economic, migratory, pandemic, war). These challenges, as well as generating geopolitical and economic instability, have highlighted a further and deeper impact of the transformations of the communication context, such as digitalisation, platformisation, polarization and the set of phenomena that cluster around the imprecise and debated concept of post-truth.
The crisis phases have highlighted the progressive shift towards the European sphere of many issues that previously featured in national contexts of debate and policy-making. This has made this process of Europeanization an object of persistent attention in flows of political communication, and given integration itself a structure of polarized politicization.
Due to the growing importance of the Union and the greater prominence of European-level issues in national political-media systems, it can be hypothesized that the phase of European elections as "second-order" elections in member countries has ended. One significant aspect is that they have become an object of interest for some foreign governments who, through the propagation of fake news and propaganda, attempt to influence the choices of citizens and governments to the point of undermining the integrity of the elections. At the level of individual states, we note the role of populist parties and their leaders, who are accused of spreading content of dubious veracity to influence electoral contests and referendums. These processes are considered a threat to the values of civil coexistence and public debate, and trust in democratic institutions.
The increased salience of the issues now found in European public space poses challenges to the agency of organized civil society. The structure of national public spheres has in fact changed, giving greater space to new actors with the ability to set agendas and influence public debate. In this context, a different methodological approach has made it possible to overcome the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy of participatory processes in the process of integrating the European communication space. It thus seems appropriate to pay attention to the communicative activities of social movements that operate at a trans-national level (e.g. environmentalists), and to those of interest groups that expand their activities towards the European dimension (trade unions, businesses and consumers). Worthy of interest are the movements of protest, sometimes labeled as populist, which mobilize simultaneously in various European countries, displaying networked transnational connections.
These processes are discursively articulated within a media ecosystem that is significantly influenced and distorted by phenomena of intolerance and incivility present in digital environments; communicative exchanges become radicalized and the very frames of the issues are influenced, causing the polarization of the arenas of debate.
The world of journalism has followed the process of Europeanization of national spheres and their politicization, often from a critical perspective, underlining the inadequacy of the Union's institutional responses and calling for their reform. This is accompanied by a crisis of journalism, characterized by loss of legitimacy of traditional media, which faces the affirmation of a framework of extreme fragmentation in information practices. It is necessary to deepen our understanding of the transformation of the news generation process, the impact on the role of journalists and editorial staff as gatekeepers and guarantors, and what adaptation and reaction strategies are in place, in the face of the complexity of the debate on information in European space.
On the basis of this framework, the call for papers solicits contributions that investigate the transformation of the national and European public sphere with particular attention to the challenges posed by crises, disinformation and manipulation phenomena. The areas investigated are those of electoral campaigns, strategies implemented by political actors and civil society and by traditional media, the impact of platformization processes on the fields of political communication, journalism and all other forms of communication.
Theoretical and empirical analysis papers are welcome, with research designs that include qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods methodologies.
Some possible relevant topics, though this is not intended to be an exhaustive list:changes that have occurred and new communication scenarios in the increasingly close and complex relationship between political communication and the public sphere;
Paper proposals must include: name, affiliation and email address, a title and an extended abstract with bibliographic references (600/800 words excluding bibliography), 3 key words. The proposers must also explicitly indicate whether they request the paper to be taken into consideration, after the conference, for publication in the magazine "Comunicazione Politica". In the event of an equal evaluation by referees, the authors who have indicated this option will have priority in selection for the conference.
Useful information on how to write an abstract for AssoComPol conferences is available in the “Abstract Instructions” section (https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2024/ under construction)
Deadline for sending proposals: 11 March 2024
Acceptance notification: 25 March 2024
Complete papers must be sent by May 22, 2024 to the conference paper room (accessible after login)
Scientific committee: Cristopher Cepernich, Marco Mazzoni, Rolando Marini, Antonio Martella, Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Melissa Mongiardo, Mariaeugenia Parito, Rossana Sampugnaro, Hans-Jörg Trenz, Douglas Ponton.
Local organizers: Rossana Sampugnaro, Francesca Montemagno, Mariaeugenia Parito, Martina Faia, Patrizia Santoro.
Secretaris: Melissa Mongiardo, Antonio Martella, Cesar Crisosto.
May 16-18, 2024
İstanbul Bilgi University İstanbul (Türkiye)
Deadline: February 15, 2024
https://futuresofcom.bilgi.edu.tr/#
Contact E-mail Address: futuresofcomm@bilgi.edu.tr
Hosted by İstanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Communication, the Global Communication Association invites you to submit your abstracts and panel proposals for the 16th annual convention to be held in İstanbul, Türkiye, between May 16-18, 2024.
A significant aspect of modernity enabled by media and communication technologies has been the collapse of time and distance. Global connectedness through social media platforms, flow of information through the internet, real-time communication through smartphones, and virtual meetings via Zoom have historically been credited for making the world a more connected place. However, unforeseen predicaments of new technologies have raised concerns about the lack of control over their use, the potential biases of machine visions and thinking, and their potential to facilitate crime as well as security and privacy breaches.
However, the contemporary technological assemblage does not allow time for such critical reflections. Paul Virilio suggests that ‘the faster the technology advances, the more accidents we will see’. He described the internet as ‘“the best and the worst of things…the advance of a limitless — or almost limitless — communication; and at some point, it is also the disaster — the meeting with the iceberg — for this Titanic of virtual navigation.’.’’
The Titanic metaphor refers to the disastrous nature of the contemporary technological assemblage and the gradual disappearance of the gap between the implementation of new technologies and the emergence of their adversary effects. The conference takes the increasing speed of technological development in the field of media and communication as its starting point and explores how and whether, if at all, the predicaments parallel and/or supersede the promises of the implementation of new technologies.
The GCA invites research papers exploring any aspect of issues related to the theme of the conference, including but not limited with the following topics:
Important Dates
Submissions due: February 15, 2024
Acceptance notification: March 1, 2024
Conference: May 16-18, 2024
May 10, 2024, Accompanying events: 9 and 11 May, 2024
Hybrid: Lublin & Online
Deadline: March 20, 2024
Organizers: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, University of Wrocław , Polish Communication Association, Mediatization Section
To address mediatization we have invited the renowned keynote speaker Andreas Hepp (Universität Bremen) who will give a keynote speech on:Datafication, automation and communicative AI: Toward a redefinition of mediatization research (personal presentation; see the abstract here). We open our conference to a wide range of topics related to mediatization and media studies in general, and therefore welcome all papers that address the topics listed below:
DETAILS: https://www.umcs.pl/en/ms-cfp.htm
SUBSCRIBE!
ECREA
Chaussée de Waterloo 1151 1180 Uccle Belgium
Who to contact
About ECREA Become a member Publications Events Contact us Log in (for members)
Help fund travel grants for young scholars who participate at ECC conferences. We accept individual and institutional donations.
DONATE!
Copyright 2017 ECREA | Privacy statement | Refunds policy