ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Papers on Language and Literature

Deadline: August 10, 2020

PLL (Papers on Language and Literature) invites reviews of current books on topics relevant to independent, avant-garde, experimental and art film for publication in PLL’s upcoming special issue (vol. 57) due in 2021.

Please send a review proposal and CV (including the list of publications) to the guest editor, Dr. Kornelia Boczkowska (kornelia.boczkowska@gmail.com) by August 10, 2020.

Authors of accepted proposals will be expected to write a book review (1,000 words) by September 10, 2020.

Papers on Language and Literature is published quarterly at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It is indexed in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, Art Abstracts, Art Source, Humanities Abstracts, Art Index, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, DIALNET.

Suggested titles (but other proposals are more than welcome):

• Devereaux, Michelle. /The Stillness of Solitude: Romanticism and Contemporary American Independent Film/. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
• Goldberg, Marcy and Ian Wooldrige. /Minor Cinema: Experimental Film in Switzerland/. JRP Ringier Kunstverlag AG, 2020.

• Heck, Kalling. /After Authority: Global Art Cinema and Political Transition/. Rutgers University Press, 2020.
• Hobbs, Simon. /Cultivating Extreme Art Cinema: Text, Paratext and Home Video Culture/. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
• Howes, Seth. /Moving Images on the Margins: Experimental Film in Late Socialist East Germany/. Boydell & Brewer, 2019.
• Kiejziewicz, Agnieszka. /Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film/. Peter Lang, 2019.
• King, Geoff. /Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value/. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.
• Ma, Ran. /Independent Filmmaking Across Borders in Contemporary Asia/. Amsterdam University Press, 2019.
• Murphy, J. J. /Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, Psychodrama, and the Screenplay/. Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Rees, A.L. /Fields of View: Film, Art and Spectatorship/. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
• Remes, Justin. /Absence in Cinema: The Art of Showing Nothing/. Columbia University Press, 2020.
• Sheehan, Rebecca A. /American Avant-Garde Cinema's Philosophy of the In-Between/. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Sinwell, Sarah E.S. /Indie Cinema Online/. Rutgers University Press, 2020.
• Youngblood, Gene. /Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition/. Fordham University Press, 2020.
• Walley, Jonathan. /Cinema Expanded: Avant-garde Film in the Age of Intermedia/. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Willis, Holly. /New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image/. Columbia University Press, 2019.
• Zimmermann, Patricia R. /Documentary Across Platforms: Reverse Engineering Media, Place, and Politics/. Indiana University Press, 2019.

March 26, 2021

University of Pennsylvania (USA)

Deadline: September 1, 2020

As COVID-19 spreads across the globe and poses multiple crises to nations and humanity, our previous assumptions of community, mobility, personhood, and even society itself are called into question. Widespread border closure and travel disruptions have rendered conventional forms of sociality difficult. Lockdown, social distancing and work-from-home orders have affected different social groups in vastly different ways, with clear adverse impact on women, racial minorities, and the working poor. Pandemic narratives proliferate on social media and news networks.

Individuals in different world regions articulate different if not conflictual meanings of self, community, justice, and the nation in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political elites in some nations propagate narratives of virus nationalism and populism and violently exclude and stigmatize certain social groups.

In a world troubled by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative for researchers to rework our theoretical assumptions and frameworks as we embark on new empirical and theoretical inquiries. The Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania seeks to bring together a group of scholars for an interdisciplinary workshop to examine these important issues and explore new research agendas. We particularly welcome empirical research which takes historical, critical, cultural, and political-economic approaches to the study of the following topics:

-New and radical practices and visions of technologies in the COVID-19 pandemic

-Changing narratives of borders, communities, and mobility

-The resurgence of racism and right-wing nationalism

-Gender and the crisis of social reproduction

-Evolving patterns of media/tech activism and surveillance, and their implications for future social movements

-Narratives of identity, solidarity, emotions, personhood, social justice, and nationalism

-Artificial intelligence, automation, and other technologies in economic, political and social processes

-Comparative studies of risks, vulnerabilities, and pandemic narratives across time and space

Please submit extended paper abstracts of 500-800 words in English to cdcs@asc.upenn.edu before September 1, 2020 with “COVID Workshop” in the subject line. The authors of accepted proposals will be invited to present the full paper at a workshop on March 26, 2021 hosted by the Center on Digital Culture and Society. Depending on the pandemic situation, the workshop may be virtual or in-person. If in-person, the workshop will be held at the University of Pennsylvania and organizers will cover the invited authors’ travel and accommodation. If the workshop is held virtually, organizers will pay an honorarium to invited speakers. Presented papers will be published in a special journal issue and/or as an edited book. The workshop will be co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Open University - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Qualification Type: PhD

Location: Milton Keynes

Funding for: UK Students

Funding amount: See advert text.

Hours: Full Time

Placed On: 24th July 2020

Closes: 7th September 2020

Reference: 13238

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has available one full-time PhD studentship funded by the Research and Evaluation budget allocated as part of The Open University’s Access and Participation Plan (APP) approved by the Office for Students (OfS) in April 2020. It is a collaborative award with Access, Participation and Success on ‘Critically examining race, racism and decolonisation at The Open University.’

The numbers of Black, people of colour, Asian and minority ethnic or ‘BAME’ students entering higher education have increased in the UK. However, persistent disparities in the attainment, experience and progression of these students compared to white students have been identified. Student-led anti-racist campaigns, such as Why is my Curriculum White (UCL) and Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford, have led some Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to prioritise work to remove inequalities in outcomes for ‘BAME’ students and ‘decolonise the curriculum’.

All HEIs that charge above basic fee levels in England are required to have an approved APP as a condition of registration, setting out how they intend to spend a proportion of fee income over the basic £6,000 fee (£4,500 for part-time students) to deliver initiatives that support students who face the most challenges to enter higher education and achieve equitable outcomes. In the latest submission ambitious targets to close the awarding gap for ‘BAME’ students have been set and a significant amount of activity is underway to transform The Open University.

This doctoral thesis will aim to identify social, structural and institutional barriers that enable racial disparities in student experience and critically examine ‘anti-racist’ and/or ‘counter-racist’ initiatives and attempts to ‘decolonise’ The Open University. The studentship is a unique opportunity to critically theorise what it means to ‘decolonise’ the UK’s largest academic institution and distance learning provider. We aim to provide a broad mandate to the candidate, so that they can have scope for exploring avenues of research that interest them in relation to the project.

Awards for UK residents cover all tuition fees and provide a maintenance grant at the standard RCUK rate (£15,285 p.a. in 2020/21) and a £1,000 Research Training Support Grant. Non-UK citizens may be eligible to apply.

The Open University is internationally recognized for innovative research across the Arts and Social Sciences. We host a number of major AHRC- and ESRC-funded research projects. We have a strong commitment to cross-disciplinary work, to national and international public engagement, and to creative partnerships with a range of non-university partners.

The Access, Participation and Success (APS) Strategy provides a strategic framework for the delivery of The Open University’s agreements on access and widening participation across the four nations of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). These agreements commit the University to successfully deliver initiatives that support students who face the most challenges in entering and succeeding in higher education. The APS team will bring considerable experience, from working with colleagues across The Open University and wider higher education sector, to inform this doctoral studentship.

We invite candidates from all backgrounds and ethnicities and particularly, although not exclusively, Black, people of colour and minoritised candidates. Applicants should have an undergraduate degree (or an equivalent) in an arts or social sciences subject. A masters' degree or equivalent training in social research methods is preferred but not essential. We encourage candidates who will take an open and fresh approach to this exciting and highly relevant project at a moment when dismantling racism within higher education is at the top of the agenda.

The successful applicant would be expected to begin their studies in February 2021.

How to apply

Anyone interested in applying should follow the link to The Open University job website where full details of the opportunity are provided: http://www.open.ac.uk/about/employment/vacancies

For general enquiries about this studentship please contact Julia Downes, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: julia.downes@open.ac.uk

For general enquires about postgraduate study in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences please contact Sara Haslam, Director of Research Degrees: sara.haslam@open.ac.uk

Application forms and details on how to complete your research proposal are available from http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/research-degrees/how-to-apply

Completed application forms, together with a research proposal and a covering letter should be sent to FASS-PhD-Applications@open.ac.uk

Closing date: noon Monday 7 September 2020

Equal opportunity is University Policy.

Roskilde University

The Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, invites applications for a fully funded position as postdoc in datafication and journalism studies from November 1, 2020 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position is limited to a period of 2 years.

The postdoc is part of the research project DataPublics funded by the Velux Foundation Denmark. The project is located at Roskilde University, and the successful applicant will be associated with the research groups Journalism and Democracy and Audiences and Mediated Life at the Department of Communication and Arts. The successful applicant will work in close collaboration with the project leader Associate Professor Jannie Møller Hartley and the Velux-research group around the project DataPublics, assistant professor Mette Bengtsson and PhD student Morten Fisher Sivertsen.

The research project Data Publics examines what the ever-increasing amount of data available in our society means to Journalism, and thus sheds light on the changes in the relations between the news media and the news users. In recent few years, big tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon have taken on an increasing role in news distribution, and their increased importance is changing not only the journalism as we know it today, but also the news media ecosystem itself. At the same time, news organizations have big data sets about the behavior of the news user, just as the news user can partly personalize his news consumption through filters and partly subject to filtering through various algorithms. In other words, the data affirmation has fundamentally changed the news journalism, and this project examines what it means and what consequences it has for the democratic conversation and public connection.

The ideal candidate is an excellent media studies scholar, who has experience in digital infrastructure studies – particularly the new empirical and methodological developments in social and digital media. The candidate should be familiar with or have a strong interest in a transdisciplinary methodological approach, and experience with the field of media production studies. The ideal candidate will also have a strong interest and experience in audience studies and journalism studies.

Closing date: September 15th, 2020

See more and apply HERE.

August 24 - September 4, 2020 (online)

Maastricht Summer School, Maastricht University

Deadline: August 10, 2020

The focus of this course is on critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and news framing. A key objective is to enable you to design an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts). You can read more about the course content, course objectives and recommended literature below. You also find there the link to the timetable. To apply for the course, please visit the DreamApply website

Course Description

The tweets of US-President Donald Trump, the heated social media debate on Greta Thunberg and the many angles on migration stress the pivotal role of texts and images in our societies. This course teaches you the analytical skills to study the possible meanings of textual and visual media representations.

Interactive lectures offer you concepts and methods to examine what combinations of words and/or visual elements mean in terms of a broader debate in society. These lectures further help you to understand how national identities and power relations affect the interpretations of media representations. Your individual assignment concerns a short paper, in which you apply a method to study one or two news articles, cartoons or social media posts.

Dr Leonhardt van Efferink developed an exclusive Summer School template that helps you to write a well-structured course paper. On top of this, he offers individual feedback in class and active personal tutoring by e-mail. Finally, his support includes a simple framework to develop focused, consistent and transparent research questions.

Below you find the course objectives, timetable and suggested literature. The course fee is €399. If you have any further questions, please contact course leader Leonhardt at l (dot) vanefferink (at) maastrichtuniversity (dot) nl

Main objectives

1. Designing an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts).

2. Developing a research method that draws on critical discourse analysis, social semiotic analysis and/or news framing analysis, in line with your research objectives.

3. Explaining the role of the national and ideological contexts in which (social) media content is being produced.

4. Understanding the complexity of text-image relations and their role in meaning-making processes.

5. Producing a research design and dataset for your thesis or dissertation that is manageable.

Timetable

Since the first edition was quickly fully booked, Maastricht Summer School decided to organize a second edition of this course. This edition will last from 24 until 4 September 2020, with daily teaching hours limited to three hours at most. Teaching days will start at 13.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2) and end at the latest at 16.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2). This makes it easier for students from far away countries to deal with the large time differences. Please check Leonhardt's website for most up-to-date version of the timetable: https://vanefferink.com/en/media-representations-and-research-methods-summer-school-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing/

Literature

Leonhardt has based this course on publications in various languages (see overview below for some examples). You are not required to do pre-course reading. However, if you would like to do so, you are advised to select one of the publications below. You can also contact Leonhardt for tailor-made reading advice.

1. Caple, H. (2013) Photojournalism. A Social Semiotic Approach.

2. Dahinden, U. (2006). Framing. Eine integrative Theorie der Massenkommunikation.

3. D’Angelo, P. (ed.) (2018) Doing News Framing Analysis II. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.

4. Geise, S., & Lobinger, K. (eds.). (2013). Visual Framing. Perspektiven und Herausforderungen der visuellen Kommunikationsforschung.

5. Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis.

6. Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to do Critical Discourse Analysis.

7. Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.

8. Royce, T. D. (2006). Intersemiotic Complementarity. A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In T. D. Royce, & W. Bowcher (Eds.), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse (pp. 63-109).

9. Van Gorp, B. (2010) Strategies to take the Subjectivity out of Framing Analysis. In P. D’Angelo, & J. A. Kuypers (Eds.), Doing News Framing Analysis. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives (pp. 84-109).

10. Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds., 2016) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies.

Student reviews (from LinkedIn recommendations)

1. “I found Leonhardt very well familiar with all the dynamics of his class room, as he very efficiently caters to the need of all his students coming from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds.” – Sadia from Pakistan

2. “Leonhardt is a great lecturer who knows his subject matter. I found his inclusive approach particularly useful in teaching media analysis techniques.” – Koen from Belgium

3. “Not only did Leonhardt demonstrate a high level of expertise in the subject, but he also helped his students understand difficult concepts in a very accessible way, effectively bridging the gap between theory and practice, and fostering fruitful discussions in class.” – Carolina from Brazil

Comparative Cinema

Deadline: September 15, 2020

https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema/announcement/view/79

Over the last ten years, the biopic has been carried out by many relevant filmmakers —within and beyond the mainstream— and it has become a key genre in contemporary cinema. This fact is attested by titles like 'Carlos' (Olivier Assayas, 2010), 'J. Edgar' (Clint Eastwood, 2011), 'Hannah Arendt' (Margarethe von Trotta, 2012), 'Camille Claudel 1915' (Bruno Dumont, 2013), 'Saint Laurent' (Bertrand Bonello, 2014), 'Steve Jobs' (Danny Boyle, 2015), 'Neruda' (Pablo Larraín, 2016), 'Snowden' (Oliver Stone, 2016), 'First Man' (Damien Chazelle, 2018), 'Loro: International Cut' (Paolo Sorrentino, 2018), 'At Eternity’s Gate' (Julian Schnabel, 2018), 'Bohemian Rapsody' (Brian Synger, 2018), 'The Traitor' (Marco Bellocchio, 2019), 'Judy' (Rupert Goold, 2019), 'Rocketman' (Dexter Fletcher, 2019) and 'A Hidden Life' (Terrence Malick, 2019). At the same time, documentary biopics have increased, as in the case of 'George Harrison: Living in the Material World' (Martin Scorsese, 2011), 'The Salt of the Earth' (Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, 2014), 'Amy' (Asif Kapadia, 2015), 'Diego Maradona' (Asif Kapadia, 2019) and 'Pavarotti' (Ron Howard, 2019).

The diversity among these titles is proof of Belén Vidal’s statement in the prologue to the volume 'The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture' (Belén Vidal and Tom Brown, eds., 2014): the term biopic —usually undervalued as a synonym of narrative restrictions and aesthetic conservatism— is also used to name a space that is open to formal experiments. That is the reason why, in the past decade, this genre has also received renewed attention in the academic world, with volumes like 'Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre' (Dennis Bingham, 2010), 'Biopic: de la réalité à la fiction' (Rémi Fontanel, ed., 2011) and 'Invented Lives, Invented Communities: The Biopic and American National Identity' (William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer, eds., 2016).

In this issue of 'Comparative Cinema', we want to approach the biopic from the specific perspective of comparative cinema. How much does the story of a lifetime allow to compare aesthetic and narrative differences between two separate works? Which biopic elements are especially relevant for a comparison? Rather than discovering what the comparison between two biopics reveals us, we are interested in how such comparison can be articulated and in finding out which of its elements can be the most fruitful. Some lines of work are suggested:

Biopic and life: biopics privilege certain moments of a trajectory. Which of the life chapters are the most revealing of narrative and aesthetic differences? Between the personal and the professional life, which one of them has a greater impact on the comparison between different biopics?

Biopic and film time: by its very definition, the biopic is developed throughout a long, well delimited period. How can the length of the portrayed period, the length of the film and the time dedicated to each event be compared between different works?

Biopic and star studies: biopics entail professional challenges for performers because they can strengthen or renew their star persona. How can a biopic be compared to other performances by the same actor? How can the real character and the previous roles of the performer be compared through specific gestures?

Biopic and authorship: some filmmakers have transformed the biopic into a sign of identity. Is it possible to find common elements between different biopics directed by the same author? How much do the author’s other films —not biopics— influence these biopics?

Biopic and documentary film: many characters have been biographed both in documentaries and fiction films. Moreover, the fiction biopic can sometimes include real images. How can comparison between a documentary biopic and a fiction biopic be articulated? How much does the biopic allow to approach methodologies about documentary film?

Priority shall be given to papers focused on cinema from the 2000-2020 period (or papers containing, at least, one film from this period in their comparison). Papers must be between 5000 and 6000 words long, including footnotes. The texts (in a Word format) and the images accompanying them must be sent through the RACO platform, available on the website of the journal.

This special issue is also open for publishing interviews that have been previously agreed with the editors. Suggestions can be sent to comparativecinema@upf.edu.

The time limit for receiving papers is the 15th of September 2020.

August 10-21, 2020 (online)

Maastricht Summer School, Maastricht University

Deadline: July 10, 2020

The tweets of US-President Donald Trump, the heated social media debate on Greta Thunberg and the many angles on migration stress the pivotal role of texts and images in our societies. This course teaches you the analytical skills to study the possible meanings of textual and visual media representations.

Interactive lectures offer you concepts and methods to examine what combinations of words and/or visual elements mean in terms of a broader debate in society. These lectures further help you to understand how national identities and power relations affect the interpretations of media representations. Your individual assignment concerns a short paper, in which you apply a method to study one or two news articles, cartoons or social media posts.

Dr Leonhardt van Efferink developed an exclusive Summer School template that helps you to write a well-structured course paper. On top of this, he offers individual feedback in class and active personal tutoring by e-mail. Finally, his support includes a simple framework to develop focused, consistent and transparent research questions.

Below you find the course objectives, timetable and suggested literature. The course fee is €399. If you have any further questions, please contact course leader Leonhardt at l.vanefferink (at) maastrichtuniversity.nl

Main objectives

1. Designing an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts).

2. Developing a research method that draws on critical discourse analysis, social semiotic analysis and/or news framing analysis, in line with your research objectives.

3. Explaining the role of the national and ideological contexts in which (social) media content is being produced.

4. Understanding the complexity of text-image relations and their role in meaning-making processes.

5. Producing a research design and dataset for your thesis or dissertation that is manageable.

Timetable

The course will last from 10 until 21 August 2020, with daily teaching hours limited to three hours at most. Teaching days will start at 13.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2) and end at the latest at 16.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2). This makes it easier for students from far away countries to deal with the large time differences. Please check Leonhardt's website for most up-to-date version of the timetable: https://vanefferink.com/en/media-representations-and-research-methods-summer-school-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing/

Literature

Leonhardt has based this course on publications in various languages (see overview below for some examples). You are not required to do pre-course reading. However, if you would like to do so, you are advised to select one of the publications below. You can also contact Leonhardt for tailor-made reading advice.

1. Caple, H. (2013) Photojournalism. A Social Semiotic Approach.

2. Dahinden, U. (2006). Framing. Eine integrative Theorie der Massenkommunikation.

3. D’Angelo, P. (ed.) (2018) Doing News Framing Analysis II. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.

4. Geise, S., & Lobinger, K. (eds.). (2013). Visual Framing. Perspektiven und Herausforderungen der visuellen Kommunikationsforschung.

5. Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis.

6. Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to do Critical Discourse Analysis.

7. Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.

8. Royce, T. D. (2006). Intersemiotic Complementarity. A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In T. D. Royce, & W. Bowcher (Eds.), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse (pp. 63-109).

9. Van Gorp, B. (2010) Strategies to take the Subjectivity out of Framing Analysis. In P. D’Angelo, & J. A. Kuypers (Eds.), Doing News Framing Analysis. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives (pp. 84-109).

10. Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds., 2016) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies.

Student reviews (from LinkedIn recommendations)

1. “I found Leonhardt very well familiar with all the dynamics of his class room, as he very efficiently caters to the need of all his students coming from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds.” – Sadia from Pakistan

2. “Leonhardt is a great lecturer who knows his subject matter. I found his inclusive approach particularly useful in teaching media analysis techniques.” – Koen from Belgium

3. “Not only did Leonhardt demonstrate a high level of expertise in the subject, but he also helped his students understand difficult concepts in a very accessible way, effectively bridging the gap between theory and practice, and fostering fruitful discussions in class.” – Carolina from Brazil

December 10-11, 2020

International Workshop, Leuphana University Lüneburg

Deadline: August 15, 2020

Confirmed Speakers:

• Ursula Biemann
• Esther Leslie
• Annie McClanahan
• Yvonne Volkart

It has become a truism that capital circulates, that data, populations and materials flow, that money offers liquidity. Investigating the production of these movements and states from a logistical perspective, the proposed workshop focusses on issues of endless, frictionless circulations and continuous flow to investigate their specific logic.

Our assumption is that nothing circulates or flows without also being regulated. This places us within the discussions of environmentality, of regulation, modulation and control through the environment and qua processes of becoming-environmental. Focussing on concrete spaces of circulation, flow and liquidity, as well as their cultural (re)presentation, we want to discuss whether there is a cultural logic of environmentalization that revisits and perhaps radically revises the notion of the cultural logic of late capitalism famously described by Fredric Jameson.

Given the increasing permeation of everyday lives by computational technologies, scholars have observed the emergence of a new power constellation. While Katherine Hayles sees a general “movement of computation out of the box and into the environment” (2009, 48), Florian Sprenger’s account of an environmental mode of regulation concentrates on “the interaction between environment and surrounded and their mutual dependence” (2019, 62). Erich Hörl observes that power works “through the control of environmental variables” (2018, 155). Can we, by addressing the issue of flows, circulation and/or liquidity uncover a logic – and perhaps even a cultural logic – of this environmentalization?

For further information and more details please visit http://liquidity-flows-circulation.org/

Please send us your 500-word proposal for a 30-minute paper as well as a short biographical note to denecke@leuphana.de by August 15, 2020. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

September 24, 2020

Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University

Deadline: July 31, 2020

During the last decade we were witnessing the rise of automated journalism and application of artificial intelligence tools in the newsrooms. From simple use of templates to highly sophisticated automated content production, omnipresent algorithms, news on social networks, fake news production and its detection became our everyday media practice. AI has slowly but unstoppably entered the media landscape. The rise of AI brought wide scale of problems and questions.

Organizers call for proposal addressing, but not limited, to following themes:

Theme 1. Newsgathering

-Data gathering, real time monitoring, data harvesting

-Data verification, automated fact checking

-Crunching big data, data extraction

-Applications of AI journalism – case studies

Theme 2. News Production

-Text creation

-Automated narratives from big data

-Visual materials creation (videos, graphics, infographics)

-Influence of AI on newsroom organization, routines

-Copyright of AI produced content

Theme 3. News Distribution

-Targeted distribution

-Personalization, algorithms, social bubbles

-Human vs. machine interaction, human supervision

-Information correlation

-Fake news elimination vs. fake news production

Theme 4. AI Ethics

-New skills in the newsroom related to AI adoption

-Journalistic education related to AI journalism

-Threats and opportunities of AI journalism

-Responsibility for AI journalism

Keynote speaker: 

Professor Charlie Beckett (LSE Media and Communications, POLIS)

Important dates:

• Deadline for abstract submissions *before 31. July*
• Notification of acceptance will be sent before 31. August
• Deadline for conference registration 15. September
• Date of the conference 24. September

Conference fees:

-Early birds before 31. July - Students 50 Euro, Regular 75 Euro

-After - Students 75 Euro, Regular 100 Euro

Practical information:

-Abstract should be written in English, contain clear outline of argument, and between 300 and 500 words long.

-Presentations should be no longer than 12 minutes.

-Conference will take place at Faculty of Social Sciences Charles University in Prague. Conference will be streamed online and recorded for further access.

Contact:

Send the abstracts to: aijournalism@fsv.cuni.cz

A Theme Issue of Valuation Studies

Deadline: September 15, 2020

https://valuationstudies.liu.se/…ion

What happens when we “digitize” practices of valuation and what are the implications? What are the opportunities and limits of existing analytic tools for understanding new forms of digital valuation? What vistas and perspectives do emerge for research into valuation?

This theme issue of Valuation Studies will explore novel, cross-cutting approaches to problematizing, analyzing, and examining the intersection of digitization and valuation in contemporary societies. Contributions are welcome from a number of approaches to the study of valuation practices, including sociological, anthropological, cultural, political, semiotic, historiographic, legal, institutional, critical, and organisational. Potential research themes include, but are not limited to:

* Linkages between digitization, valuation, and accountability

* The relationship between digital and other modes of valuation

* Issues of bias, discrimination, and gaming in digital valuation

* Innovative methodologies for studying digital valuation

* The roles and relevance of automation in digital valuation

* The relationship between digital valuation and new modes of governing

* How different modes of sensing the world (digital or otherwise) are valued

* How agency is redistributed by digital valuation systems

* Questions of privacy, ownership, and control

* Due process, recourse, and contestability

* Historical analyses of digital valuation practices

Expressions of interest should be submitted in the form of an extended abstract (about 1,000 words). Selected authors will be invited to submit full papers for peer review.

Important dates

September 15, 2020: Extended abstracts due

October 15, 2020: Notification of authors

April 15, 2021: Full papers due

Full call for papers: https://valuationstudies.liu.se/…ion

Questions and inquiries: digitalization.valuation@gmail.com

Editors: Francis Lee (Chalmers University of Technology); Andrea Mennicken (London School of Economics); Jacob Reilley (Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg); Malte Ziewitz (Cornell University)