ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Convergence (special issue)

Deadline: October 9, 2020

Guest Editors:

• Aleena Chia (Simon Fraser University) aleena.chia@sfu.ca
• Paolo Ruffino (University of Liverpool) p.ruffino@liverpool.ac.uk

Since its inception, the humanistic field of digital game studies has been concerned with the politics and aesthetics of interactivity and its delimitation of player agency in relation to other screen-based media. Drawing from media and cultural studies, the humanistic study of games has adopted normative frameworks that divide audiences into active and passive, and media into new and old, in order to evaluate players’ power over and participation within architected environments. Today, discussions about agency in games has diversified from the analysis of interactive forms (Manovich 1996; Laurel 1997; Ndalianis 1999) to include considerations about the contexts of participation and co-creation in game production (Banks 2013; Joseph 2018) diversity and inclusion in game representations and communities (Ruberg and Shaw 2017; Gray and Leonard 2018; Stang 2019), and affordances of bodies, devices, and platforms (Keogh 2018; Brock and Fraser 2018; Nieborg and Poell 2018) that make up assemblages of play (Taylor 2009; De Paoli and Kerr 2010; Apperley and Jayemanne 2012). In 2018, The Velvet Light Trap featured a special issue on power, freedom, and control in game studies, and GAME: Italian Journal of Game Studies is planning a special issue on “Claiming Video Game Agency as an Interdisciplinary Concept.”

Agency continues to be a keyword in game studies. Agency is, however, at an inflection point in the cognate fields of critical theory and media studies. Marxist feminists have proposed ecological frameworks for living ethically in the Anthropocene by reconceptualizing capitalism through complex interdependencies and multispecies commons instead of the agency of individuals or institutions (Roelvink and Gibson-Graham 2009; Tsing 2015). Post-humanists have critiqued Western humanist ideals of reason and autonomy as masculinist, ethnocentric, and anthropocentric (Braidotti 2016) and proposed cognitive assemblages to understand linguistic and volitional acts as emergent from nonconscious biological and algorithmic processes and environments (Hayles 2017). According to this scholarship, once we shift the primary unit of analysis from the properties of objects and boundaries of bodies to intra-acting phenomena, it becomes clear that “agency is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfigurings of the world” (Barad 2007: 141). This shift requires a reworking of causality, which has been undertaken in game studies by decentering hegemonic play practices configured around goal-based challenges and mastery (Keogh 2018), and by using speculative design to challenge assumptions about humans as separate causal agents in locative media’s material entanglements with devices, interfaces, and infrastructures (Leorke and Wood 2019).

This special issue continues this line of inquiry by tracing connections between intra-acting agencies at different scales throughout the assemblage of play. By curating cases that connect devices and bodies to game forms, genres, and governance across infrastructural, material, and discursive scales, this special issue aims to inflect posthuman concerns in ongoing debates about interactivity, inclusion, participation, and co-creation in games. Guided by the pragmatism of the feminist eco-humanities, this special issue will deploy theories and consider methods (Hamilton and Taylor 2017) to politicize ways of conceptualizing, designing, and organizing games for agency beyond human centrism. How can critical game scholars address and advocate for more inclusive, democratic, and sustainable forms of play, understood as performative outcomes of an array of interdependencies between humans, environments and non-human entities? As an artistic and economic expression of the mediated technicity of our current age, videogames crystalize the conundrum of individual agency that has beset our screens and bedevilled our politics. Videogames also embed critiques of this conundrum that are often ambivalent but occasionally trenchant. How can critical game scholarship on post-human agency intervene in pressing debates about persuasive technologies’ manipulation of human volition and its long shadow over the mechanisms and institutions of collective decision-making that constitute democracy?

Prospective authors are invited to address the questions above, or expand the line of inquiry towards new critical trajectories.

Submission information:

Please submit a 500 word abstract inclusive of essential bibliography, and short bio (150 word) to both aleena.chia@sfu.ca and p.ruffino@liverpool.ac.uk

• by Friday 9th October 2020
• Notification of acceptance: end of October 2020
• First draft due: February 2021
• Publication: February 2022

*More detailed publication timeline to follow

A selection of authors will be invited to submit a full paper. Please note that acceptance of abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will be put through the journal’s peer review process.

For any question please contact the guest editors:

• Aleena Chia (Simon Fraser University) aleena.chia@sfu.ca
• Paolo Ruffino (University of Liverpool) p.ruffino@liverpool.ac.uk

References

Apperley, T. and Jayemane, D., 2012. Game studies’ material turn. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 9(1), pp.5-25.

Banks, J., 2013. Co-creating videogames. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Braidotti, R., 2016. Posthuman critical theory. In Critical posthumanism and planetary futures (pp. 13-32). Springer, New Delhi.

Brock, T., Fraser, E. 2018.Is Computer Gaming a Craft? Pre-hension, practice and puzzle-solving in gaming labour. Information, Communication and Society 21(9): 1219-1233.

De Paoli, S. and Kerr, A., 2010. The assemblage of cheating: How to study cheating as imbroglio in MMORPGs. The Fibreculture Journal, 16.

Gray, K.L. and Leonard, D.J. eds., 2018. Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice. University of Washington Press.

Hamilton, L. and Taylor, N., 2017. Ethnography after humanism: Power, politics and method in multi-species research. Springer.

Hayles, N.K., 2017. Unthought: The power of the cognitive nonconscious. University of Chicago Press.

Joseph, D.J., 2018. The discourse of digital dispossession: paid modifications and community crisis on steam. Games and Culture, 13(7), pp.690-707.

Keogh, B., 2018. A play of bodies: How we perceive videogames. MIT Press.

Leorke, D. and Wood, C., 2019. ‘Alternative Ways of Being’: Reimagining Locative Media Materiality through Speculative Fiction and Design. Media Theory.

Manovich, L., 1996. On totalitarian interactivity. Posting on www. rhizome. com. Retrieved May, 25, p.2008.

Murray, J.H., 1997. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Simon and Schuster.

Ndalianis, A., 1999. " Evil will walk once more": phantasmagoria-the stalker film as interactive movie?. New York University Press.

Nieborg, D.B. and Poell, T., 2018. The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society, 20(11), pp.4275-4292.

Roelvink, G., Gibson, K. and Graham, J., 2009. A postcapitalist politics of dwelling: Ecological humanities and community economies in conversation.

Ruberg, B. and Shaw, A. eds., 2017. Queer game studies. U of Minnesota Press.

Stang, S., 2019. “This Action Will Have Consequences”: Interactivity and Player Agency. Game Studies, 19(1).

Taylor, T.L., 2009. The assemblage of play. Games and Culture, 4(4), pp.331-339.

Tsing, A.L., 2015. The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.

Press Start

Deadline: October 1, 2020

Following the success of the “Digital Heroisms” online conference, we’re excited to announce a call for papers for the Press Start special issue which explores fantasy, the digital, and the concept of heroism. Press Start is an open access, peer-reviewed student journal that publishes the best undergraduate and (post)graduate research from across the multidisciplinary subject of Game Studies. The CFP is open to both under and postgraduates who contributed to the conference, as well as other students inspired by the topic. To submit, you must be a registered student or within one year of graduating. Please see and adhere to the Press Start submission guidelines (https://press-start.gla.ac.uk/index.php/press-start/about/submissions).

"The power of the fantasy increases if it offers us something genuinely new and compelling. The limitations of our own corporeality can be abolished or the ground rules changed to give us new experiences.” Kathryn Hume (2014, p. 165)

Where readers once understood heroism through a Gilgamesh, a Frodo or a Katniss, the digital subject can now figure heroism through actions, decisions, and events that are in many ways their own. Video gaming has an especial talent for creating heroes that are lived-through by their users, whether this is via the experience of leading characters such as Link through the temples of Hyrule; via choice-based play utilising avatars such as Frisk of Undertale fame; or by creating entirely unique personas in role play games such as Dragon Age. In a contemporary moment enabled and mediated by a multiplicity of digital spaces, the way we conceptualize heroism will be both enabled and contaminated by games, the virtual, and ever-increasing screentime. The realm of the digital, functioning as a receptacle of imagination, can equip players with the means to express the self. Digital spaces can serve as a conduit for both ludic and fantastical impulses. Heroic research must adapt to this interactive environment—its places, its communities, its values—if it is to keep a handle on the heroic constellation formed of informatic, computational, and digital materials.

Fantasy scholars and authors alike have sought to define the fantasy genre. Whether that be as experienced by characters as “hesitation” (Todorov, 1970, p. 68), a loose genre that can be described as a “fuzzy set” (Attebery, 1992, p. 12), or as being “the mirror of mimetic literature and its inner soul” (Mendlesohn, 2008, p.59), digital iterations of fantasy have enhanced and extended our capability to experience the immersion of fantastic worlds. Though fantasy video games may pay tribute to the literature from which the genre sprang, each form with its differing modes of performance allows the fantastic an opportunity be presented in all of its heterogeneity; players are given the opportunity to experience a new kind of protagonism, a heroism that enables the player to effect and interact with fantasy narratives. The interactivity offered by video games can enable players to experience the self in new ways, whether that be through choice-based narratives, the player-led exploration of a walking simulator, or via avatars that enable players to live the “posthuman fantasy of extending the human subject beyond itself” (Boulter, 2015, p. 3) and craft fantasy personas.

The issue will be seeking submissions on themes such as, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Defining/constructing digital heroism
• The converging interests of fantasy and digital heroism
• Digital and fantastic video game environments and their effect on heroism
• Fantasy video games and avatar creation
• Fantastic VR experiences, the self, and digital heroism
• The social/theoretical implications of digital iterations of fantasy
• Considerations of digital spaces as fantastic ones
• Heroic fantasy video game character(istics)
• Considerations of what heroism means in the digital age
• Problems with digital heroism
• Digital heroism examined through:
• Convergence culture
• Participatory culture
• Feminism
• Postcolonialism
• Queer Studies
• Disability Studies

Please email a 250-300 word abstract to g.cohen.1@research.gla.ac.uk by October 1, 2020. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out within a couple weeks and full papers will be due by January 1, 2021.

Articles in Press Start are normally expected to be 3000-5000 words in length, but for this special issue, longer papers of up to 8000 words (including references and abstracts) will be considered. Informal enquiries may be directed to Gabe Elvery Cohen (g.cohen.1@research.gla.ac.uk) and Francis Butterworth-Parr (f.butterworth-parr.1@research.gla.ac.uk), or feel free to join our friendly Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PressStartJournal/, as well as the Digital Heroisms Discord server (https://discord.gg/bk3Nbqd) where we will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

References:

Attebery, B. (1992). Strategies of fantasy. Indiana University Press.

Bioware. (2014). Dragon age: Inquisition [Multiple Platforms]. Electronic Arts.

Boulter, J. (2015). Parables of the posthuman: Digital realities, gaming, and the player experience. Wayne State University Press.

Collins, S. (2008) Hunger games. Scholastic.

Fox, T. (2015). Undertale [Multiple Platforms]. Toby Fox.

Hume, K. (2014). Fantasy and mimesis: Responses to reality in Western literature. Routledge.

Mendlesohn, F. (2008). Rhetorics of fantasy. Wesleyan University Press.

Nintendo EPD. (2017). The legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild [Nintendo Switch]. Nintendo.

Sandars, N. K. (1972). The epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin.

Todorov, T. (1975). The fantastic: A structural approach to a literary genre. Cornell University Press.

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1994) The fellowship of the ring. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Special Issue - Journal of Alternative and Community Media

Deadline: October 1, 2020

Guest Editors:

• Tanja Dreher, University of New South Wales, Australia 
• Pieter Maeseele, University of Antwerp, Belgium 
• Susan Forde, Griffith University, Australia

The Journal of Alternative & Community Media (JOACM) publishes research that helps explain the shifting media environment, and the ways in which people use alternative forms of media and communication. Issues of concern to the journal include the nature and distribution of media power; access to and participation in media; media practices of communities and social movements; and the possibilities of emerging technologies and new media.

This special issue of the Journal of Alternative and Community Media is inspired by papers from the OURMedia gathering in Brussels, 2019; and the planned (but cancelled) post-conference to the ICA 2020, to submit papers on the theme,  Community and Activist Media: Resistance and Resurgence’.

Planned publication is September, 2021.

We call for academic papers alongside contributions from alternative media practitioners who will contribute to a special section, ‘Essays from the Frontline’.

Context 

From the resurgence of white supremacy and authoritarian rule to rapidly changing technologies and the rise of social media; and from the precarious state of journalism to state crackdowns on dissent and the ‘free press’, community and activist media face multiple ‘disruptions’ and challenges. While the 21^st century media environment offers increasing opportunities for ‘voice’, the challenges for community and activist media are practical, political and fundamental. At the same time that this is occurring in community and activist media, scholars in this field are often working at the intersection of research and activism, a theme explored in the 2019 OURMedia gathering.

This special issue will bring together engaged scholars to explore the challenges and opportunities for community and activist media at a time of unprecedented pressures – considering new resurgences, and enhanced opportunities for resistance. Additionally, paper proposals at the intersection of research and activism are most welcome; and by extension, papers which draw connections between scholarly activism (scholactivism) and media activism, emanating from a key theme of the OURMedia conference, are also sought.

Key questions to be explored include:

• What is the role of activist and community media in contemporary social justice struggles – including anti-racist work in the context of resurgent racisms, and intersectional work in the context of anti-feminist backlash? What are the possibilities for resistance and transformation?
• How can we best analyse and respond to white supremacist and far-right media?
• How do community and alternative media enable voices that are marginalized or excluded from the ‘mainstream’ to be heard – what can we learn (or not) from their practices?
• What is the role and value of established ‘community’ media when social media platforms enable a proliferation of voice?
• What have we learned from the legacy of platforms such as Indymedia, and how can it inform our structures, agendas and goals for the future?
• How does one integrate activism and scholarship? What are the tensions between the ‘scientific’ needs of research and commitments to social change and social justice?
• What is the state of news and current affairs – including news journalisms and issues-based talks programming – at a time of both technological and professional ‘disruption’?
• What does ‘community’ or ‘alternative’ media mean in the current digital media environment, which features a proliferation of non-mainstream voices?

The special issue welcomes participation from researchers and practitioners across community and activist media very broadly defined – including alternative media in all its guises, community media interventions, alternative journalism initiatives, citizens media, media activism and more. No APCs are charged.

Media activist and other practitioners who wish to contribute should contact Susan Forde directly (s.forde@griffith.edu.au) to discuss an alternative ‘Essays from the Frontline’ format to complement the suite of academic papers to be published in this special issue.

Timeline

• Abstracts due October 1, 2020
• Full papers due December 10, 2020
• Reviews sent to authors February 15, 2021
• Revised manuscripts due April 30, 2021
• Paper acceptances notified June 30, 2021
• Publication September 2021

Please send your abstracts to the Guest Editors: 

Tanja Dreher, t.dreher@unsw.edu.au

Pieter Maeseele, pieter.maeseele@uantwerpen.be

Susan Forde, s.forde@griffith.edu.au

October 22-23, 2020

Online

Mini-conference hosted by the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA)

Deadline: September 18, 2020

Food correlates to a number of environmental issues from land and water use to pollution from pesticides and herbicides. Food production, packaging, and waste all impact the environment. Sustainable perspectives of food may also connect with morality, ethics, and spirituality. Of course, issues of labor and culture surface as well. Individual practices and social structures all come into how we feed ourselves.

Whether you take the perspective of a researcher, digging into interviews about food or analyzing food policies, for example, OR an artist who creates food-related sculptures or performance pieces, for example, OR a practitioner, helping local community members start gardens or cook with the veggies in their CSAs, for example, we’d love to hear what you know about how best to communicate for sustainable food.

The conference will be on October 22/23, 2020 depending on where you are in the world. We will select panelists for a more academic/artistic-focused panel and facilitators for an applied, practitioner-focused workshop. We recognize that there may be overlap in these categories and that your role does not preclude you from applying for one or the other. So, you can self-identify your proposal as either for the panel or workshop. All presenters must be members of the IECA at the time of the event.

Conference attendance will be open to everyone.

Submissions must focus on the theme of communicating for food sustainability. Please submit a 500-word summary of your presentation or workshop idea via email to Samantha.Senda-Cook@theieca.org  by September 18, 2020.*

Include in your proposal what time zone you’re in and if you are willing to present at an inconvenient time (e.g., early morning, late evening, or even the middle of the night where you live).

Nordicom Review Special Issue

Deadline: November 1, 2020

Editors: Pernilla Severson (Linnaeus University), Sara Leckner (Malmö University), Carl-Gustav Lindén (University of Helsinki). For any inquiries, please contact pernilla.severson@lnu.se

Media development as an academic field focuses on research questions spanning from technical, economic, and political issues to the social and the cultural spheres. Media development has implications for society in many ways. Since all media today are more or less digital, research has approached digital media by exploring “new” methods, like digital methods (Rogers, 2019) but also as action research methods (Deuze & Witschge, 2020; Wagemans & Witschge, 2019). Action research in, as well as for, media development is part of a transformation where media research is more and more considered to solve societal problems.

Often, action research is practiced in local settings, interacting with stakeholders within a shared place and space and who have a shared concern for issues related to this. Both the local and the digital seem to have stimulated the application and appropriation of more normative projects characterised by the methods and sometimes also ideological foundations that action research utilises. In this realm, several applied projects touch upon research and development and innovation projects, innovation themes in the creative industries, and social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

It seems as though local digital media projects – spanning from business models to technologies like artificial intelligence – aim to create and solve media organisations’ problems through collaboration between researchers, media organisations, and audiences. These kinds of projects exist on other levels too, for example in applied projects from the EU, Swedish Vinnova, and so forth.

Action research is an ideological approach as much as a set of methods (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003). It comes with a more or less interventionist and collaborative goal, like collaborative media (Löwgren & Reimer, 2013), participatory communication (Tufte, 2014), alternative journalism (Deuze & Witschge, 2020), and innovation and journalism (Wagemans & Witschge, 2019).

Participant-oriented action research strives for interaction and joint knowledge production where the decisive factor is that some form of social change occurs. The classical theoretical concepts worked with are those such as empowerment, participation, and the commons. At the same time, action research methods seem to be an important driver in the increasing pressure to demonstrate research impact, spurred by innovation and development using collaborative practices.

What do these intersections and boundaries of social change, innovation, and entrepreneurship mean for media scholars using action research in digital media research? And how can scholars meet and deal with the fact that action research is often criticised for the descriptive nature, lack of analysis, and low research contribution?

Hence, as with other methodological approaches, action research methods are developing. It is therefore important to discuss what such approaches mean and can be in relation to these contemporary media developments. The aim of this special issue is to invite a broad discussion of the boundaries of the field: the advantages and challenges with action research focusing on media development in the intersection of social change, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This special issue welcomes articles on all matters pertaining to developing what an action-research approach could and should mean for media development studies.

The purpose of this special issue of Nordicom Review is to define and understand action-oriented research practices in relation to media development, where media, communication, and journalism studies have discipline specificities and cultural contexts that beneficially will enhance understandings of action research. Nordic media development shows strong linkages to the welfare state and particular national culture values. In the commercial field, action research has been rebranded as design thinking and product development (Lundin & Norbäck, 2015). What does that mean in a context where action research is also mainly used as applied research, for improving media services and developing new forms of journalism through experiments and tests? Design thinking has become the main framework for developing commercial service, also in media and journalism. And how is the particular heritage of Scandinavian Participatory Design and participatory action research explored and utilised in relation to more studies now making use of action research, more or less with the ideological standpoint of empowering the weak and making social change?

Contributions to the special issue could address, but are not limited to, action research examples within media, communication, and journalism studies from various disciplines and cultural contexts, aiming to define and describe or critically discuss issues related to this.

Contributions can, for instance, focus on some of the following themes:

• Development of action research methods in digital media studies

• Collaborative development in media organisations
• New audience approaches and participatory business media models

• Inclusion and integration of less-resourced groups

• Contributions to action research theory and method building, for example, ethics.

• Critique of action research and participatory approaches in media, communication, and journalism studies.

• Innovation and entrepreneurship for local media
• Conceptual developments on action research for social change and social innovation.

• Action research as creating “real-life difference”, not always “creating solution”.

The selection of papers to be published will take place according to the following three-step procedure:

Step 1: Authors are requested to submit the title and abstract (600 words max. incl. references) of their papers along with five to six keywords and short bios (150 words max. for each author) to the special issue editors. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 November 2020, and the authors will be notified of the eventual acceptance by 20 December 2020 at the latest.

Step 2: If an abstract is accepted, the authors will be requested to submit full papers (7,000 words max. inclusive of any front or end matter) anonymised for double-blind review and formatted according to the Nordicom Review guidelines. The deadline for submission of full anonymised papers is 1 May 2021, after which a double-blind peer review will take place. Please note that an accepted abstract is not automatically an accepted article. The special issue editors reserve the right to reject articles that are not in line with Nordicom Review’s aims and scope, where the quality is insufficient, or the guidelines have not been followed.

Feedback from reviewers will be sent to authors by the end of July 2021 at the latest. The deadline for submission of revised manuscripts is September 2021. Planned publication is January 2022.

No payment from authors will be expected.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

https://www.nordicom.gu.se/…4_U

Liverpool John Moores University

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours: Full Time

Job Type: Academic

Salary: £41,526 - £51,034 per annum

Vacancy Type: Academic / Research Vacancies

Closing Date: 10/09/2020

Ref No: 3006

https://jobs.ljmu.ac.uk/vacancy/lecturer-or-senior-lecturer-in-practical-film-making-423608.html

The Liverpool Screen School seeks a highly motivated individual to work in the Film Studies department, with expertise and experience in fiction filmmaking.

The Liverpool Screen School, part of LJMU's Faculty of Arts, Professional and Social Studies, offers undergraduate programmes in Creative Writing, Drama, Film Studies, Journalism and Media Production, together with postgraduate courses in Film, Documentary, Immersive Arts, Creative Technology, International Journalism, Writing and Screenwriting.

Film Studies is a well-established programme with a growing research profile and reputation, particularly in Film Festivals, Transnational Cinemas, Documentary filmmaking, Black American culture, Sound and Audiovisual essays. The team currently comprises eight members of staff, all of whom are research and/or professionally active and play a part in delivering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

The Film Studies Programme at LJMU offers a hybrid model with all students undertaking theoretical/critical modules alongside practical filmmaking. The department is developing its strategic priorities in research, postgraduate provision, internationalisation, public engagement and enterprise activity. Reporting to the Programme Leader, you will contribute to these developments, whilst also undertaking teaching and administrative duties across the Film Studies portfolio: BA (Hons) Film Studies, BA (Hons) Creative Writing and Film Studies and our MA Film.

Liverpool, the most filmed in city in the UK outside of London, is an excellent base to make and teach media. Filmmaking in the city is set to grow exponentially with Twickenham Studios set to open a new development of production facilities and film stages in the very heart of Liverpool at the iconic Littlewoods Building. The city boasts a vibrant culture and LJMU is proud of its many connections with local media and arts organisations, including Liverpool Film Office, Lime Pictures, ITV and the BBC The Everyman and Playhouse, The Unity Theatre, The Royal Court Theatre, The Liverpool Philharmonic and The Liverpool Tate.

LJMU is an equal opportunities employer and welcome applicants from all background and communities irrespective of age, transgender status, disability, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion or belief. All our appointments are made on merit.

Informal enquiries may be made to Ruth Doughty, Programme Leader: Film Studies at the Liverpool Screen School, Email: R.J.Doughty@ljmu.ac.uk

Please note all of our vacancies will be closed to applications at midnight on the advertised closing date, unless otherwise stated.

April 8 - 9, 2021

Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC), Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Deadline: September 30, 2020

On suddenly sparse streets, artists confront the grim reality of the moment. With a nod to the anti-globalization movement or the music notes seemingly playing off the guest that has overstayed its welcome, both messages diagnose the ailment and gesture toward a hope for and belief in change. In a moment shaped by closures – of borders, stores, schools, offices, jobs, and, for many, a dream of “going back to normal” – what openings are made possible?

The second biennial early career conference by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania asks: What are post-pandemic politics? We understand post-pandemic, not as a myopic focus on COVID-19, but rather as an optic illuminating both persistent and emergent conditions of inequity and precarity. We also use post-pandemic as an opportunity to imagine new forms of politics, community, solidarity, and action.

We invite early career scholars, activists, artists, and journalists to reflect on the crucial role of communication in this moment of rupture and offer the following questions as a provocation for participants:

What can the critical study of global communication – in all its expansiveness and imaginative force – offer us in a moment when uncertainty, insecurity, and risk have saturated hegemonic imaginations of the global?

How might these times, which have both exacerbated and highlighted marginalization and oppression across global Norths and Souths and along lines of race, class, gender, and other axes of identity, move us towards justice and anti-oppression?

What other ways of coming together, collective action, and organizing have been brought to the forefront of dominant imaginations, and what ways of being and living remain possible outside their ambit?

We invite a range of interventions, be they artistic, activist, academic, or some combination thereof, on post-pandemic politics in the context of global communication. Possible topics may include:

• Affect (paranoia, exhaustion, anxiety, grief, joy, shame, pressure, hope, etc.)
• Communication and Rights (privacy, freedom of speech, harassment, etc.)
• Connectivity (broadband, virtualization of life, audience practices, etc.)
• Data science (Big Data, small data, profiling, tracing-and-tracking, etc.)
• Discipline and Surveillance: (state, corporate, and community surveillance, violence through surveillance, internet of things, artificial intelligence, etc.).
• Globalization and Communication (the global and the local, North-to-South, South-to-South, South-to-North processes, transnationalism, nation, borders and citizenship, etc.)
• Humor (memes, online humor, entertainment, political satire, etc.)
• Inequalities (digital inequalities, communication inequalities, structural inequalities, like those related to gender, race or ethnicity, class, sexuality, and others.)
• Infrastructures and Materialities (communication and media infrastructure, power concentration, etc.)
• Journalism (news productions, news reception, misinformation, polarization, etc.)
• Labor (precarious labor, gig economy, unionization, etc.).
• Media representations ((in)visibilities, audience reception, etc.).
• Social Movements and Activism (digital activism, feminist activism, anti-racist movements, etc.)
• Visual and sound communication (videos, photographs, visual and sound interventions, etc.)

Date and Place:

If held in-person, the conference will be on April 8 and 9, 2021 at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, US. It will be held remotely if the circumstances do not allow gatherings.

Submissions:

Contributions can take the form of academic papers or other creative and multimodal works (audio submissions, short film or documentaries, or creative writing). Please, follow the specific guidelines for each type of submission. Submit your work using this form.

Review Process:

Submissions will be reviewed based on clarity, significance, relevance, creativity, and how well they respond to the conference theme. Only submissions that meet the submission guidelines will be considered. For any questions about the submission or review process, please reach out to cargcfellows@gmail.com.

Funding:

If the conference can be safely held in-person in April 2021, we have a small amount of funds to support participants. Please indicate in the form if you would be interested in being considered for this.

Deadline: The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2020.

This conference is the second biennial early career conference at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Its inaugural conference was held on March 27 and 28, 2019 and featured a keynote conversation at Slought, a not-for-profit organization based at the University of Pennsylvania, entitled “Practicing Decolonization,” as well as presentations by 13 early career scholars.

https://cargc.asc.upenn.edu/call-for-proposals-cargc-fellows-conference-on-global-communication-and-post-pandemic-politics/

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

The College of Communication at Boston University believes that trustworthy, high-quality communication that engages diverse audiences is an essential underpinning for a functioning society. The college invites applications for the Dalton Family Professor, who will use new and emerging media to engage colleagues and communities to address societal challenges, such as in social and economic justice, civic participation, media literacy, science/health communication, urban life, and environmental sustainability. This is a tenured, in-residence position with responsibilities for teaching, research, public engagement and support for the initiatives and curriculum of the College. We seek a forward-looking, dynamic thinker with an international reputation for scholarship and/or professional achievement in emerging communications.

The College believes that communication, as an essential tool for enhancing understanding for all communities and human endeavors, must embrace cultural and social diversity in order to achieve true excellence in our research and academic programs. BU has redoubled its commitment to more fully embody its founding principles. To that end, we are especially eager to have join our ranks a colleague who supports our institutional commitment to ensuring BU is inclusive, equitable, diverse, and a place where all constituents can thrive.

Candidates for this endowed position should present qualifications suitable for appointment as a full professor at Boston University, based on a record of scholarship and intellectual leadership. The Dalton Family Professor should demonstrate a record as a respected researcher, academic or professional in emerging and new media. The professor should have a demonstrated ability to engage students and the public in understanding the role communication plays in identifying, elucidating and solving major societal challenges that have arisen from neglecting the value of human diversity and beneficiaries of structural power. The position presents extensive opportunities for cross-disciplinary pursuits across the College, the University and with national and international institutions.

Boston University’s College of Communication strives to build understanding through education, practice, and discovery in communication. In supporting that mission, the Dalton Family Professor will provide scholarly expertise and important leadership to the university. The role will help COM bring value to communities at the university, and globally through scholarship, experimentation, and contributions to public conversation.

The Professorship is endowed by the Dalton Family, including Nathaniel Dalton, a Boston University trustee, and a Boston University School of Law graduate.

We request a curriculum vitae and a letter of interest as well as the names of three references. Applications may be sent by mail or preferable, by email as a PDF document to:

Maureen A. Mahoney

Associate Dean

College of communication

Boston University

640 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston, MA 02215

Email: maclark@bu.edu

Inquiries may be made to comdean@bu.edu or 617-353-3488. All will be kept confidential.

Review of Materials will begin September 1, 2020, and continue until the position is filled. The estimated start date for the successful candidate is July 1, 2021.

Established in 1947, the College of Communication (COM) at Boston University is a large college with a department specializing in Journalism, as well as a department of Film & Television and a department of Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations. COM’s student population exceeds 2,000 annually, including undergraduates, graduate and PhD’s. The College integrates a strong liberal arts core with a heavy focus on preparing students for careers as communication professionals. Our faculty is a blend of traditional academicians and widely experienced professionals. Located in the “hub of education” and a major media market, Boston University’s College of Communication offers prospective faculty members a wealth of opportunities for collaborative efforts in academic and professional spheres.

Boston University is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

October 24, 2020

Online/ School of International Communications, University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Deadline: September 20, 2020

We are excited to announce this year’s Chinese DiGRA conference, hosted by the School of International Communications at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China on the 24th of October 2020. Given the current restrictions on travel, we are planning this year’s Chinese DiGRA as an online event. Papers will be presented via Zoom to registered conference attendees, and there will be Q&A sessions as usual. While we would much prefer to be inviting everyone to Ningbo, there are some advantages to the online format: this year, we encourage people to submit and present in Chinese or English, and we will be providing subtitling for all the presentations.

Conference themes

We invite submissions on any aspect of Chinese games, game industries, game design and gaming cultures. We also invite submissions from people located in the Chinese-speaking region who are researching any aspect of games. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Analyses of game design and development traditions and practices in the region
• Representation, diversity and inclusiveness in ‘Chinese’ games and game (development/play) cultures
• The Chinese game industries and their future possibilities/weaknesses
• Critical analysis of the Chinese game industries
• Gaming and production cultures in specific ‘Chinese’ regions
• China as the biggest videogame market in the world
• Critical analyses of ‘Chinese’ games and games popular in China
• Critical considerations of future game development in the Chinese-speaking region
• Local game design issues
• Specificities regarding computer games within Chinese cross-media environments
• Computer games and playability in the context of interactive art and creative media
• Government policy on production and consumption of games
• Esports in the Chinese speaking region and beyond
• The history of Chinese games and gaming
• Comparative analyses of Chinese and other games, game industries and game cultures

The Chinese DiGRA conference facilitates networking amongst game scholars working in the Chinese-speaking region. Therefore, apart from the above topics we also encourage submissions from scholars located in the Chinese-speaking region working on any aspect of game research.

Format:

Submissions can be in English or Chinese.

Please submit a maximum 1000 word (or 1700 characters) extended abstract.

Important dates

• September 20th: Deadline for submissions
• September 30th: Decisions announced. Presenters receive additional practical information about how to record and submit their presentations (we recommend PowerPoint with voiceover or the free and open software OBS [Open Broadcast Software])
• October 1st: Conference registration opens
• October 7th: To facilitate subtitling, we ask all presenters to send us a video (or a PowerPoint presentation with voiceover) and transcript of their presentation in advance. We will translate and subtitle the video/PPT with voiceover. The presentation will be broadcast at the conference, and this will be followed by a live Q&A session.
• October 24th: Conference.

How to submit

Please email a pdf version of a maximum 1000-word/1700 character (excluding references) extended abstract no later than September 20th, 2020 to Chinesedigra2020@nottingham.edu.cn. Please make sure to include “CDiGRA2020 Submission” in the subject line of your message. Extended abstracts will be selected by conference and program chairs based on their academic rigor and relevance to the themes of the conference. Note that the extended abstracts do not need to be anonymous. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by the end of September. Accepted authors will have an opportunity to submit their extended abstracts for inclusion in the DiGRA Digital Library. For questions regarding paper submission and the topics of the conference, or for questions on the conference, please contact Chinesedigra2020@nottingham.edu.cn.

Organization description and history

Chinese DiGRA is a regional chapter of DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) focusing on game research relevant to Chinese speaking countries and the surrounding regions. Chinese DiGRA aims to enhance the quality, quantity, and international profile of games research in the Chinese-speaking context, by developing a network of game scholars and researchers working in the Chinese-speaking world and/or on aspects of Chinese games and gaming cultures, forging links between academic and professional researchers on games, supporting teaching and PhD development in the region, and disseminating and promoting Chinese game scholarship around the world. Chinese DiGRA is run by a board comprised of top academics in the fields of Chinese games research from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. You can find more information on Chinese DiGRA, including papers from previous conferences, at our website.

Keynote speaker: To be announced.

Organising committee of Chinese DiGRA 2020 Conference

• Dr Bjarke Liboriussen (Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham Ningbo China)
• Dr Paul Martin (Associate Professor, University of Nottingham Ningbo China)

Internet Histories

Deadline: September 1, 2020

Muira McCammon and Jessa Lingel at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication are seeking abstracts for a forthcoming co-edited special issue with  Internet Histories. Details are below. Please note that if authors' abstracts are accepted and if their papers make it through the peer review process, no payment will be expected; there are no Article Processing Charges (APCs) associated with this special issue.

What follows is a summary of the call, which can also be found at the following link: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/…ms/

Rationale & Motivation

This special issue explores internet histories through the lens of “platform death” as a way of understanding how digital communities grapple with absence, invisibility, and disappearance. Collectively, the contributions in this issue will address the cultural, geopolitical, economic, and socio-legal repercussions of what happens when various corners of the Internet fail, decline, or expire. As a point of departure, we assume that platforms can bring together a wide set of actors, from politicians to parents, teens to technologists, spies to free speech activists; they can serve as a stage where people gather, argue, develop personal relationships, and jockey for divergent futures (Marvin, 1988; Pearce, 2011; Baym, 2015; Lee, 2017; Gillepsie, 2018).

But what becomes of platforms when they fade, fail, or fall from publi  favor? What can dead and dying platforms tell us about the internet’s growth and stagnation, its present and futures? We seek to complicate, document, and build on the narratives of platform change, collapse, death, precarity, and frailty that scholars (Gehl, 2012; Chun, 2016; Belleflamme & Neysen, 2017; Gomez-Meijia, 2018; Helmond & van der Vlist, 2019) and tech journalists (Kircher, 2016) have highlighted over the past two decades.

Recent scholarship has focused on the rise and resilience of certain tech enterprises, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter (e.g. Burgess & Green, 2009; Vaidhyanathan, 2018; Jackson, Bailey, & Foucault Welles, 2020), but much of this research has privileged big platforms over the small, surviving digital communities over the dead, and Silicon Valley-born-and-bred design thinking over that birthed outside tech hot spots. Studies imagining the demise of Big Tech platforms (Ohman & Aggarwal, 2019) and tracing consumer resistance to digital media (Katz & Aspden, 1998; Portwood-Stacer, 2013) have largely ignored both the values and frailties of Small Tech in great depth. While historical and contemporary research has addressed the themes of digital departure (Wyatt, 1999; Baumer et al., 2013), disappearing mediums (Gehl, 2012; Suominen et al., 2013; Ballatore & Natale, 2016), and user mortality (Leaver, 2013), it has largely left the theme of “platform death” to the wayside. Another key absence in this literature is attention to platforms and communities outside the U.S. and Europe.

With the above gaps in the literature in mind, the impetus for this special issue came from a forthcoming panel in the Communication History Division at the May 2020 International Communication Association’s Annual Conference, “Dead and Dying Platforms: The Poetics, Politics, and Perils of Internet History.” When organizing the panel, over 20 different scholars in six countries writing on the histories of specific, bounded platforms expressed interest. Though not all could be included in the final panel, many articulated a desire to contribute to a special issue, such as this one, focusing on the promises and perils of single platforms through the lens of Internet history. This special issue seeks to bring together diverse thinkers and scholars with expertise in a range of dead and dying platforms.

Description of CFP Procedure

We aim to bring together contributors active in the fields of history, communication, media studies, law, economics, psychology, internet studies, library and information science, queer theory, journalism studies, and related scholarly domains. The topic of contributions may include, but are not limited to:

* The rise and fall of specific platforms, including discussions on the challenges, factors, and policies responsible for their decline – and rebirth.

* Archival techniques and theoretical frameworks for resurrecting and reimagining dead platforms

* Comparative investigations of platform precarity

* Explorations of the laws, economic forces, and social trends that underlie the historical analysis of platforms that have survived to the present day

* Memory narratives and counter-narratives of platform users, designers, and advertisers

* Media refusal, disconnection and techno-skepticism

* The offline repercussions and cultural reverberations of platform death

* Rhetorics and metaphors of the describe platform death and failures of platform governance (i.e. kill switches)

* The ethnographies, pre-histories, and afterlives of dying digital communities

* Quantitative and qualitative methodologies that can operationalize platform collapse

* Interconnections between the frailties of Small Tech and the failures of Big Tech

* Ways in which the rise and fall of certain platforms are geographically asymmetrical and asynchronous

* Media change, materiality, everyday experience, and nostalgia

* The ontological and epistemological challenges of considering platforms as dead, dying, or alive

* Historiographies of platforms created, used, and/or dismantled outside the United States

* Studies of platforms whose deaths have not received significant Anglophone press coverage

* Analysis of the implications of platform death for international and global discussions of Internet pasts and futures

Although papers do need to be written in English, we especially welcome writing that explores platforms whose histories are rooted in understudied countries, areas, cultures, and digital communities. We particularly encourage submissions about platforms launched, used and/or remembered outside of Silicon Valley.

Submissions & Time Schedule

Abstracts (500 words maximum) should be emailed to deadplatforms@gmail.com by September 1, 2020. Any questions about the CFP can be sent to the co-editors, Muira McCammon (muira.mccammon@asc.upenn.edu ) and Jessa Lingel (jessa.lingel@asc.upenn.edu). Notification about acceptance to submit an article will be sent out by 1 October 2020. Authors of accepted abstracts are invited to submit an article by 1 February 2021.

Final versions or articles are asked to keep within a 6,000 word limit.

Please note that acceptance of abstract does not ensure final publication as all articles must go through the journal’s usual peer review process.

— 1 Sep 2020: due date for abstracts

— 1 Oct 2020: notification of acceptance

— 1 Feb 2021: accepted articles to be submitted for review

— Feb 2021-May 2021: review process and revisions