ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Institute of Communication and Media Studies (ikmb), University of Bern

The position will be available from April 1st, 2020 (or by appointment) for an initial period of three years. It is intended to serve the purpose of scientific qualification (doctorate).

Tasks:

• collaboration in a research project (inter alia analysing media usage in the online sector & con- ducting automated content analyses)
• teaching of courses in the BA Social Sciences
• contribution to the general tasks of the Institute

Requirements:

• above-average degree in communication science, a related social science discipline and /or in informatics
• strong interest in online and political communication
• very good skills in the methods of empirical social science
• affinity for computational methods
• ability to work in a team

We offer:

An attractive working environment awaits you at the Institute for Communication and Media Science at the University of Bern: a collegial team, cooperation and exchange, as well as the freedom to de- velop your own ideas. Employment adheres to the regulations of the Canton of Berne.

The University of Bern strives to increase the proportion of women in research and teaching and there- fore urges qualified female candidates to apply.

Applications (letter of motivation including research interests / ideas, CV (if available incl. list of publications), certificates, a central chapter of the master thesis / another publication) should be mailed as a pdf file by March 17th, 2020 to Prof. Dr. Silke Adam (silke.adam@ikmb.unibe.ch). For further information, please contact Prof. Dr. Silke Adam. The job interviews will take place at March 26th / 27th.

May 28-29, 2020

Szeged, Hungary

Deadline: March 20, 2020

XXVI. Annual Conference of the Hungarian Political Science Association

The last 30 years provide an adequate perspective for political science to evaluate the transition of 1989-1990. With three decades’ hindsight, we can reconsider all that seemed obvious during the transition and recognize what was unforeseen in the midst of the events. Re-evaluating the transition is not only about 1989 and 1990, the opposition movements, the roundtable discussions and the first free elections, but also about the system that was established by these events and processes. If the democratic transitions can be considered the basis of the new Central Eastern European democracies, then do they inevitably lead to the present or do we need to pay more attention to what happened after 1990. Ten years ago, we have organized a conference in Szeged with the title “Crisis – Election – Democracy” based on the assumption that “Hungarian democracy have been facing previously unseen challenges, its stability is decreasing, political parties emerge out of the blue and achieve electoral success, while others decline and disappear. The balance of the bipolar party system that was previously considered highly stable is now being upset and new dimensions of conflicts appeared among the political parties. Apparently, many of our assumptions remain relevant in 2020 and the coordinate system we used is still valid. Thus, the goal of the conference is not just to evaluate the democratic transition and the past 30 years, but also to examine how politics and political science changed during this time.

The transition opened the gates for the emerging political science in the region. What did the democratic transition contribute to political science? And what did political science contribute

to the transition? Did Hungarian political science seize the opportunities provided to it and did it correctly assume its responsibilities? Where was the Hungarian political science proven right

or wrong in the past three decades? What are the characteristics of Hungarian political science in an international context, what are its strengths and weaknesses? The conference is also open to the topics of democratic transition in other countries of the Central Eastern European region, and the political and ideological challenges of Euro-Atlantic integration.

Language of the conference: English and Hungarian

Venue: Szent-Györgyi Albert Agóra, Szeged, Kálvária sgt. 23.

Organizer:

University of Szeged

Faculty of Law and Political Sciences

Department of Political Science

Please direct any questions you may have to the organizers, available at

mpttvandor2020@gmail.com

For further information, visit our Hungarian or English language website: 

http://www.juris.u-szeged.hu/english/conferences/political-science-conference-xxvi

http://www.juris.u-szeged.hu/kutatas-tudomany/kari-szervezesu/mptt-vandorgyules-xxvi

Application deadline:

Presenters can apply directly at the panel chairs no later than the 20th of March 2020 with an abstract of 250 words maximum. The final decision on the selection of abstracts will be made by the panel chairs. Panels with more than 5 abstracts will be divided into two.

It is also possible to apply with a complete panel of 4 or 5 abstracts until the 20th of March 2020 at mpttvandor2020@gmail.com

Panels:

1. The impact of leadership and plebiscitary techniques on governments

Chair: Attila Gyulai

Affiliation: Centre for Social Sciences

Email: gyulai.attila@tk.mta.hu

Personalization, political leadership, and plebiscitary techniques have been on the top of the agenda of political scientists for decades. Additionally, their role has become more and more apparent as political leadership seems not only to supplement the functioning of the established patterns of governments but contribute also to the restructuring of polities. Furthermore, this trend of strengthening political leadership occurs differently across various political systems.

The panel aims at discussing how governments and political systems throughout Europe have changed due to the activity of political leaders. Specifically, the panel focuses on leadership and plebiscitary techniques that had a structural and lasting impact both on the institutional setting and the ways of governing. The panel welcomes submissions that address the impact of leadership and plebiscitary techniques on the political systems either from a theoretical or an empirical point of view.

2. Decline of democracy in East-Central Europe

Chair: Attila Ágh

Affiliation: Corvinus University, Budapest

Email: attila.agh@chello.hu

The panel deals with the main issues, first, the development of the East-Central European countries in the European Union, and second, with the democracy debates in the last years in the region. These two issues have closely been interwoven, still they need a separate treatment as the international and domestic dimension that have a common framework in the emergence of the New World Order and the reverse wave in the global democratization.

The focus of the first part of panel is on the current institutional change in the EU between the Juncker and Leyen Commissions with regards to the Conference on the Future of Europe starting on 9 May 2020. It offers an opportunity of the overcoming the Core-Periphery Divide in the twin process of Europeanization and Democratization.

The focus is in the second part of the panel is on the backsliding of democracy and the recent wave of the authoritarian system in ECE that has led to the eruption of debates around the

character of the new political system. The recent studies have usually distinguished between democracies, hybrid systems and autocracies, this panel will discuss the characters of these political systems and their recently changing borderlines in ECE.

(See e.g. :EC, European Commission (2020) Shaping the Conference on the Future of Europe, 22 January 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_89, IDEA (2020) The Global State of Democracy 2019, https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/global-state-of-democracy-2019)

3. East Central Europe in the European Union

Chair: Krisztina Arató

Affiliation: Eötvös Lóránd University

Email: krisarato@ajk.elte.hu

The European Union has been the Framework for co-operation for East Central European countries for the last 15 years. The panel explores how the European Union and the region developed in this period. Papers on the institutionalization of EU membership, EU policies in our region, developments in Europeanization and Eurocsepticism are expected as well as studies on the nature and environment of the enlarged European Union.

4. Elections, electoral systems

Chair: Levente Nagy

Affiliation: University of Debrecen

Email: nagy.levente@arts.unideb.hu.

Modern (representative) democracy is in fact party democracy in which parties compete with one another for parliamentary seats. Elections and electoral systems exist to structure this competition by selecting the major political decision makers through free elections among candidates. The operation and the political consequences of elections (as well as the linkage between parties and elections) are in the focus of academic research on electoral studies, and among the key components of any democratic system. The aim of this section is to provide a platform for discussion for scholars, researchers, students and anyone in the domain of interest.

The organizers of the conference under the theme of Crisis, Elections and Democracy would like to invite you to submit an abstract (250 – 300 words) on „Elections, electoral systems” presenting the results of your current research.

5. Elections and Voting Behavior

Chair: Gábor Tóka

Affiliation: Central European University

Email: tokag@ceu.edu

This panel will accommodate the presentation of four-five English language papers addressing the “Crisis – Choice – Democracy 2.0” theme as it arises in elections and the study of voting behavior. Our time is rich in dramatic elections attracting a great deal of international attention and a sense of crisis is palpable throughout the democratic world. Backwaters are no exception: by the end of 2020, Hungary and all her seven neighbors will have seen national elections with unusual drama within the last two years. However, we are not even close to a consensus on what if anything is in crisis: is it just some party types or ideologies that are going out of use?

New lines of conflict are upsetting pre-existing equilibria? Massive shifts in trade, wealth and social structures are making their presence felt via undermining the political status quo? The nature of party-voter linkages is changing in ways that are hard to reconcile with the past century’s understanding of representative democracy? A system of political communication is crumbling to give way to a post-truth world? Democracy itself is in crisis? The panel invites empirically informed papers that look at voting behavior and the organization of campaigns and elections to explore such questions explicitly or indirectly with data from Hungary, the surrounding region, or the rest of the world.

6. Political communication in hybrid media system

Chair: Jelena Kleut

Affiliation: University of Novi Sad

Email: jelena.kleut@gmail.com

The panel invites theoretically and empirically informed papers on the complexity, interdependance and transition emering from the various blends of older and newer media logics in political communication. Using Chadwick's (2017) concept of hybrid media system as the initial thinking tool, not as the exclusive framework, the panel seeks to examine variety of genres, technologies, practices and actors. Which communication strategies emerge in these combinations? Which logics are they guided by? Who, or even what - knowing the presence of social bots, is shaping the content and distribution of political messages. What are the short and long term consequences of hybridity. Although in general open to different avenues of political communication, slight advantage will be given to papers focusing on elections, protests and different types of contentious action.

7. Political Thinking in Hungary: Thirty Years

Chair: Zoltan Balazs

Affiliation: Corvinus University, Budapest

Emial: zoltan.balazs@uni-corvinus.hu

This panel aims at taking stock with the post-regime change decades in terms of the history of political ideas, ideologies, and debates. The history of Hungarian political thinking has been unevenly researched. 19. century liberalism and conservatism, Völkisch, radical conservative interwar thinking, and various leftist ideologies have been more or less thoroughly explored, and important methodological issues been discussed, including contextualism, discourse analysis, author-centrism. However, there is practically no systematic overview available on the past thirty years, despite the unprecedented freedom for the exchange of ideas, discussions and debates.

Hence, by organizing this panel, we invite scholars to begin with this work. How has post-1990 liberalism/conservatism/Völkish thinking evolved? To what extent have international tendencies influenced Hungarian political thinking (the impact of communitarianism, republicanism, Third Way ideologies, ecologism, feminism, altright movement and so on)? Have such conceptions and theories been successfully related to Hungarian political traditions?

The panel is open to papers on methodology (how to write the most recent history of ideas), case studies (e.g. a certain ideology, a particular author, an interesting debate in the focus), and various other issues (what is political thinking in the first place, are there still 'ideologies' or broad political traditions, etc.).

8. Regime change interpretations

Chair: Andrius Švarplys

Affiliation: Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas

Email: andrius.svarplys@vdu.lt

When 1989 communist empire controlled by Soviet Union collapsed, many hopes were raised along with new paths of development the post-communist countries started to realize. One grand idea was guiding the majority of Central Eastern European countries above all – the return to Europe, which was perceived foremost as the moral and historical justice, as Milan Kundera expressed in his famous essay „The Tragedy of Central Europe“ (1984). The political- economical program for reforms of post-communist transition was written by global neoliberal agenda, known as Washington consensus. It included privatization of state enterprises, trade liberalization, to secure private property, enabling entrepreneurship. It was a belief that free market, a limited power of the state in combination with democratically working political institutions would inevitably and naturally lead to successful integration into European/Western economic-political-security system. Entering the European Union in 2004 for majority of CEE countries seemed to be a culmination of successful transition.

Massive scientific attempts were introduced to interpret the various aspects of post-communist transformation. They reflected different historical, economic, political, geographical, structural aspects of experiences from successful „shock therapy“ cases (Estonia, the Baltic States), or „shock without therapy“(Poland) to no less successful incremental reforms cases (Slovenia, Hungary), or political oligarchy regime formation (Russia, Azerbaijan) or even sultanism (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). The scientific literature have enumerated many key-factors to explain and evaluate these reforms in transition: the level of modernization within the states before they were subjected to communist dictatorship; the type of political regime that evolved in the particular state during the late communism period (Kitschelt 1995, Kitschelt et al. 1999); the type of economic reforms: radical shock therapy of neoliberal kind (Sachs 1994, Aslund 2002, 2007) or gradualist reforms with social concerns over market liberalization (Stiglitz 1999); the role of the political elites in the process of democratization (Przeworski 1991) etc.

Regime change depended on diverse conditions and decisions made by political elites - to reflect those is the main goal of the panel.

Bearing in mind all the variety of different paths the post-communist states have chosen providing multiple combinations of economic and political reforms that scientific literature reflects, the panel focuses on the following issues:

• Theoretical interpretations on various factors, reasons and outcomes of political transition in CEE countries that might explain the regime change;
• Overview of economic reforms to compare and explain the results different states achieved so far;
• Evolving the post-communist political party systems: patterns and problems;
• The problems of democracy consolidation during three decades of transition;
• Studies in political culture: value change in post-communist societies and its political consequences;
• Communist legacy and politics of history: remembering the past to construct the future.

9. Rethinking the Conditions of Local and Territorial Governance in the Era of State

Modernisation Reforms

Chair: Edith Somlyódyné Pfeil

Affiliation: Széchenyi István University

Email: somlyody@sze.hu

Since the 1990s there was a shift away from “classical” territory-based hierarchical structure (government) and towards more fluid, de-territorialised, network-based, multi-actor structures (governance) (Rhodes 1996; Pierre, 2000; Osborn 2010) in all over the World. Additionally, as impact of the global financial crisis territorial and structural reforms have been on the Agenda in the recent past. The objectives of the reforms are mainly improving efficiency, enhancing transparency and accountability, reducing problems associated with the local and self-national governments as well (Callanan et al. 2014). With similar aims in some European countries recentralisation and the negligence of local and subnational self-governments can be seen. All these reforms have firmly affected the self-governmental sector in scale, autonomy and financial position, which manifests itself in re-municipalisation and in the appearance of state- centred approach. Notwithstanding the last feature is considered progressive and society oriented, which favour the participative democracy (Post-NPM). Considering the mentioned different trends, the key question of the Panel is how local and sub-national levels could be governed effectively and democratically concerning public policy making process and strategical development decisions in our days. On this basis the Panel seeks to understand what conditions might encourage the emergence of cooperation horizontally and coordination vertically in different institutional and legal framework. It attempts to identify factors which contribute or hinder voluntary collaboration. Presentations are likewise welcomed in the field of best practices in local and territorial governance in different public policy fields; functional space construction (de-territorialisation) via cooperation, theory of multi-level governance; new technics and coordination mechanisms working among central, sub-national and local governmental tiers.

10. Social Movements and Civil Society. Risk and challenge in Europe

Chair: László Kákai

Affiliation: University of Pécs

Email: kakai.laszlo@pte.hu

The purpose of the panel is to better understand the role of NGOs in governance in Europe. We are also interested in a wide range of social movement activity, from traditional or creative forms of protest to service provision and legislative work.

Our definition of NGOs is broad and involves informal organisations, cooperatives, non-profits, civil society organisations, and so forth. Our focus is particularly on those NGOs whose mission is strongly related to the public interest and that work in the areas of governance, social and health services, public policy, citizen participation, human rights, and/or humanitarian aid.

The panel aims to take a closer look at these phenomena and to offer different empirical perspectives (based on narrative interviews, protest surveys, protest event analysis etc.), not only beyond progressive and formalized movements but also to uncover little explored lines of development.

The panel will focus mainly on the specificity of social movements and civil societies in post-communist Europe and address, among others, the following questions:

• What is the role of NGOs in delivering services at the national and local level in CEE countries?
• What are examples of existing cooperation between NGOs and national and/or local government in the region to deliver services in various policy arenas?
• How and why does civic activism differ in CEE from that in Western Europe?
• What role do social movements play for the quality of democracy in Europe?
• How do social movements mobilize people for their aims?
• What methodological challenges do we encounter in CEE?
• Social movements in the European Union; the role is enabled by the multi- level/polycentric structure of the EU; possible emergence of a European civil society;
• Civil society organisation can be effective, within limits, by seeking to improve the quality of the electoral and policy process without intruding into the substance of politics and policy

Our panel is open to papers related to our theme regarding the role of NGO’s in shaping governance and on multi-sector strategies for meeting the public interest. The papers include a focus on the ways NGO’s have sought greater transparency in the public sector, have sought to refine democratic processes, and have mobilised for advocacy across the European Union as a whole.

May 6-7, 2020

Loughborough University

Deadline: March 18, 2020

Please note that due to ongoing industrial action across UK universities the deadline has been revised and papers can now be submitted until Wednesday 18th March

A two-day interdisciplinary symposium hosted by the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture (CRCC), Loughborough University

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Prof Gunn Enli (University of Oslo)

Author of Mediated Authenticity: How Media Constructs Reality

&

Prof Sarah Banet-Weiser (London School of Economics), Author of Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture

Topic of the Symposium

A widespread fascination with the authentic is said to have emerged as a response to the processes of homogenisation, rationalisation and standardisation at the heart of modernity. The concept of authenticity arose historically at a time of rapid social change and has again come to the fore where social, political, cultural and technological upheavals give rise to feelings of distrust, detachment and alienation against which supposedly authentic people, places and things are sought out for their reassuring certainty and value. Yet, there are huge contradictions and inequalities in who can make claim to authenticity and its construction and communication invariably involves competing narratives and oppositional assertions about what is authentic and how and why the authentic gains its value.

Thus, while the concept of authenticity has a long history, in recent years it has emerged as a prominent theme in many of the most pressing debates about contemporary communication and culture. In political communication there are ongoing concerns about misinformation and fake news, while the success of populist parties is often tied to their claims to be a more authentic representative of ‘the people’ than a detached and dispassionate elite. Similarly, the increasingly fractious debates around migration that are taking place across the globe often centre on the desire to protect ‘authentic’ national cultures from globalising forces and the perceived threat of ‘other’ people, products, ideas and images. In the area of culture, economy and policy, copyright, privacy and authorship remain central issues for the major media industries, while for smaller-scale content and craft producers, authenticity may operate as a key selling point and a marker of cultural distinction for both producers and consumers. Likewise, many parts of the tourism and heritage industries see the provision of authentic experiences as their raison d’etre, offering re(creations) of the past and access to ‘real’ cultural communities and traditions.

We therefore invite paper proposals from any disciplinary background for this two-day Symposium hosted by the Centre for Research in Communications and Culture at Loughborough University. We are interested in a broad range of papers exploring authenticity and abstract submissions addressing authenticity in relation to, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Authenticity, politics and political communication
• Consumption and the use of authenticity in branding and marketing
• Authenticity, the internet and the rise of social media
• Authenticity in subcultures, fan cultures and celebrity culture
• Authenticity in tourism, heritage and memorialisation
• Authenticity, literature and authorship
• Authenticity in sports, lifestyle and leisure pursuits and practices

Submissions

Abstracts of up to 250 words for presentations of 20 minutes are invited to be submitted by Wednesday 18th March. Abstract, title, author(s) name and institutional affiliation should be sent to m.skey@lboro.ac.uk.

Registration

Registration rates are the following:

• Delegate £60
• Concessionary Delegate £40

Key Dates

• Abstract submission deadline: Wednesday 18th March 2020
• Abstracts notification: Friday 27th March 2020
• Presenter booking deadline: Friday 10th April 2020
• Initial programme sent to participants: Friday 17th April 2020
• Conference: 6th & 7th May 2020

Event Organisation Team

• Dr Michael Skey, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies
• Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read, Senior Lecturer in Sociology

LSE Department of Media and Communications

The Department of Media and Communications at LSE is seeking to provide mentorship for Early Career Research (Postdoctoral) Fellows.

Current schemes we are interested in providing mentorship for include:

• ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (Deadline 23 March 2020, 4pm UK time) https://info.lse.ac.uk/current-students/phd-academy/esrc-doctoral-training-partnership/postdoctoral-fellowships
• Newton International Fellowship (Deadline 26 March 2020, 3pm UK time) https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/newton-international-fellowships

Find a potential mentor our list of academic staff and email them with an informal enquiry: http://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/people

Research in the Department of Media and Communications at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) examines how changes in media and communications shape, and are shaped by, social, cultural, political, economic, and historical developments. We draw upon and contribute to multiple disciplinary agendas. Our concern is with inequalities, discrimination, representation, voice and violence in an unevenly media-saturated society. We examine structures, processes, practices and discourses and their role in power relations on the global, national and local levels. We are committed to de-Westernising scholarship and to undertaking comparative and transnational research. Our research is organised around four intersecting themes: Media Culture and Identities; Media Participation and Politics; Communication Histories and Futures; Communication, Technology, Rights and Justice.

June 26, 2020

Coventry University

Deadline: March 31, 2020

Organised by: MeCCSA Local and Community Media Network MeCCSA Policy Network

The landscape for local and community media is undergoing a period of rapid change in the wake of the disruption of traditional business models and the advent of diverse, entrepreneurial reactions to the spaces created. At the same time this disruption has prompted reflection by those within and without the industry as to the impact of these changes, and so to the consideration of the purposes of local media. Recent policy responses have been explored at the level of a Government-initiated review (Cairncross Review, 2019), while the BBC and the News Media Association launched their Local Democracy Reporting Service in 2017 (an initiative now seeking to expand).

This one-day interactive conference aims to capture the range of responses to this challenged environment, how those responses build on and diverge from traditional forms of local media, and to consider the implications of this to the UK context in which they operate.

The format of the day will bring together academic papers with parallel lightening ‘PetchaKucha’ sessions and interactive workshops, designed to highlight both areas of developing practice and areas for future research. Contributions from practitioners and academics are equally invited.

Areas which might be addressed include, but are not limited to, the implications of local and community media practices and policies for:

• Local democratic processes
• Social justice
• Information provision
• Local media ecosystems
• Community development
• Government policy – present and future
• The regulatory environment
• Public subsidy
• Media entrepreneurs and emerging business models
• The local media workforce
• Alternative local and community media
• Interventions, including but not limited to, the Local Democracy Reporting Service
• Facebook-funded Community News Project, and the Future News Pilot Fund (Nesta)

Contributions on academic research and practice-based projects are welcome. Please state if you are proposing:

• A conference paper
• A lightening PetchaKucha provocation
• An interactive workshop (please state facilitators and goals)

The event will be held at Coventry University in the Midlands of the UK on June 26, 2020. A nominal fee of £20 will be charged for attendance. A limited number of UK travel grants will also be available to support presentations by PG/ECR researchers . Please state on your abstract if you would like to be considered for a grant and the amount requested.

Contributions will be peer-reviewed. Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a cover sheet with a brief biographical note, your institutional affiliation (where relevant) and your contact details (including your email address). Abstracts should be sent to the MeCCSA Local and Community Media Network network chair, Rachel Matthews, r.matthews@coventry.ac.uk and Policy Network chair, Phil Ramsey, pt.ramsey@ulster.ac.uk

Please address any queries to the same addresses in the first instance. Closing date for proposals, March 31, 2020.

June 11-12, 2020

Centre for Media & Journalism Studies, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Deadline: April 3, 2020

Confirmed speakers include: Marcel Broersma, Martin Conboy, Sophie Knowles, Victor Pickard, Helle Sjøvaag

Organizer: Chrysi Dagoula

This symposium aims to examine the effects of the market on political journalism in democratic societies in Europe, covering various national contexts with different political and financial circumstances. The measures of austerity that have been imposed either directly or indirectly on various economies in Europe and subsequently on political journalism are at the very core of what the symposium seeks to explore, as it aims to examine the effect of these policies on key areas, such as media business models, working conditions, new regulations, and perceptions of journalistic identity.

The symposium poses the question of whether the current challenges are a result of the digitization and the inclusion of a variety of platforms in the media ecology, that directly affected the economic media models across Europe, or whether these challenges reflect established market mechanisms.

Due to financial, political and technological reasons, journalism is undergoing a continuous process of redefining itself. At the same time, journalism continues to be regarded as an integral part of modern democratic societies, but also as a major historical force that contributes to important ways to so-called “epistemological politics”, according to which the politics of what we know and how we act as citizens is linked to the politics of how we know.

Drawing on this perception of journalism and by taking into account factors both external (such as political instability) and internal to the media, as well as the fact that current media environments are characterized by a multiplicity of networks and arenas where a plethora of actors constantly act, react and interact, the symposium will focus on:

• What definitions of market logic(s) are currently being used and developed?
• How can the manifestations of market logic(s) be understood through specific neoliberal policies, austerity measures, and memoranda regulations?
• In what stages or areas of journalistic processes does market logic(s) have the most significant effect?
• What are the opportunities and challenges for political journalism presently?
• To what extent does market logic(s) allow journalists to perform their democratic role, and what is the overall effect of market logic(s) on the relationship between journalism and democracy?

Confirmed speakers include:

• Marcel Broersma, Professor of Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen
• Martin Conboy, Professor of Journalism History, The University of Sheffield
• Sophie Knowles, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Middlesex University
• Victor Pickard, Associate Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Helle Sjøvaag, Professor, Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger

The symposium welcomes theoretical discussions as well as methodological contributions that enhance the understanding of the effect of financial policies on political journalism, as well as the variations of this effect in a cross-national setting. For informal inquiries or for further information, please contact the organiser, Dr. Chrysi Dagoula at c.dagoula@rug.nl

Send your abstracts (300 words max) at c.dagoula@rug.nl (Chrysi Dagoula)

Deadline: Friday, 3rd April 2020

Notification of acceptance: Friday, 10th April 2020

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

The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for CARGC Faculty Fellowships. We have a very limited number of these positions, reserved for full-time faculty members from institutions other than the University of Pennsylvania, which typically last one full semester, though other arrangements may be possible. This is ideal for scholars seeking a base during funded sabbaticals and research leaves.

Description

The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) produces and promotes scholarly research on global communication and public life. As an institute for advanced study dedicated to global media studies, we revisit enduring questions and engage pressing matters in geopolitics and communication. Our vision of “inclusive globalization” recognizes plurality and inequality in global media, politics, and culture. Our translocal approach fuses multidisciplinary “area studies” knowledge with theory and methodology in the humanities and social sciences. This synthesis of deep expertise and interdisciplinary inquiry stimulates critical conversations about entrenched and emerging communicative structures, practices, flows, and struggles. We explore new ways of understanding and explaining the world, including public scholarship, algorithmic culture, the arts, multi-modal scholarship, and digital archives. With a core commitment to the development of early career scholars worldwide, CARGC hosts postdoctoral, doctoral, undergraduate, and faculty fellows who collaborate in research groups, author CARGC Press publications, and organize talks, lectures, symposia, conferences, and summer institutes.

CARGC Fellows work on their own research, and collaborate with staff and postdoctoral, doctoral and undergraduate fellows. They present a CARGC Colloquium and publish one CARGC Paper with CARGC Press. Fellows are provided a workspace, computer and library access.

CARGC Fellows integrate primary sources and regional expertise in theoretically inflected, historically informed, comparative, translocal and transnational analyses of media, technology, geopolitics and culture. Candidates challenging normative paradigms and incorporating non-Western theories, sources and contexts, are especially welcome. Ongoing research groups focus on theory and history in global media studies, geopolitics and the popular, digital sovereignty, and radical media and culture. We recommend that applicants review our website to familiarize themselves with our mission and priorities: https://cargc.asc.upenn.edu/.

This is a residential fellowship. CARGC strives to be an inclusive community of scholars driven by intellectual curiosity and exchange, and rooted in the life of the Annenberg School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the city of Philadelphia . To foster mentoring and collaboration at all levels, we expect fellows to be fully engaged in the life of the center. Fellows are therefore expected to work at our beautiful sixth floor premises—CARGC’s “World Headquarters”—on the Penn campus at least four days a week during their stay.

Eligibility

Candidates should have least two years of post-PhD degree academic experience and have an affiliation with a university or research institute during the period of the fellowship.

Submitting Your Application

A complete application consists of:

1. Cover Page – include your name and contact information, current affiliation, the names and affiliations of two references, and a 100-word abstract of your project. Please specify whether you are applying for Fall 2020 or Spring 2021.
2. Research Proposal (not to exceed 1000 words) – include title of research project, research questions, topic significance, theoretical framework, methodological design, clear description of primary sources and necessary language skills, and work plan with projected date of manuscript completion and publication.
3. Statement of institutional fit (not to exceed 250 words) – explain how your project aligns with CARGC’s mission, fits with one or more CARGC research themes listed above, and contributes to the field of global media and communication studies. Please refer to our 5-year report for more information https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/cargc5-center-advanced-research-global-communication-celebrates-five-year.
4. CV (not to exceed two single-spaced pages, minimum font size 11) – list degrees, peer-reviewed publications, academic non-peer-reviewed publications, public scholarship, invited talks, conference papers, other relevant qualifications, specific research and language skills.
5. Project bibliography (not to exceed one single-spaced page, minimum font size 11) – include primary and secondary sources.
6. Letters of recommendation – two are required.
7. Two of your publications (articles or books) in support of the application.

Timeline

All materials except reference letters must be sent as a single PDF document to cargc@asc.upenn.edu by March 2, 2020. Incomplete or late applications will not be considered. Applicants should arrange for their letters of recommendation to be sent to the same address by the same date. We expect to contact finalists by late March and make final decisions shortly thereafter.

Additional Information

If you have additional questions, please email us at cargc@asc.upenn.edu.

View call online: http://bit.ly/2Uql1rE.

6th Annual Conference of ECREA ‘Journalism and Communication Education’ Temporary Working Group

May 14-15, 2020

University Autonoma of Barcelona, Barcelona- Spain

Deadline: February 28, 2020

The educational environment has undergone deep transformations in the last decades: specifically offering undergraduate and graduate courses in the communication area are facing new and quickly evolving challenges.

On the one hand, the training of future professionals in the field of communication and journalism has been directly impacted by the technological changes introduced by cyberspace and the successive developments of the Network: web 2.0 or social web, web 3.0 or semantic web and web 4.0 or the internet of things.

On the other, Twentieth-century teaching methods and 21st-century technology represent a generation gap like no other. Gen Zers are “digital natives”: our students grew up not only with computers and internet access, but also with smartphones, social media, and mobile devices, and thus are not interested in traditional passive learning.

The role of communication and journalism education, therefore, is not only to provide future journalist or communicators with new technological skills (Ekdale, et. al. 2015), but mainly to prepare them to adapt to a fastmoving world where things can change almost month by month as the interface between humans and the digital world becomes ever closer (Frost 2018). Communication, in other words, can be considered a “new knowledge profession” (Donsbach 2014).

Already thirty years ago, Dennis (1988) called the debate between profession and education ‘‘a dialogue of the deaf’’: nowadays, the rise of the audience as producer of news, i.e. the emergence of citizen (Campbell 2015) and participatory journalism, challenges professional journalists and communicators to rethink their professional identities and understandings of their function in society (Lewis 2012; Robinson 2010; Wahl-Jorgensen 2015). In 2017, the Nieman Lab and the Reuters Institute Prediction Report highlighted that, among the main challenges that journalism and communication face, mobile technologies, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and Big Data, are the most important (Nieman Lab 2017; Reuters 2017).

In Barcelona, at the sixth annual conference of the ECREA ‘Journalism & Communication Education TWG’, we want to take a closer look at the multi-faceted relationships between education, technology and digital native future media professionals. We invite you to submit academic research and project based experiences and various approaches (theoretical, methodological or empirical in nature) that can touch upon, but are by no means restricted o, the following thematic areas:

• The evolution of new emerging professional profiles: multimedia journalism, Data journalist, community manager, SEO, branded content, etc.
• The application of AI in journalism
• Educational multiplatform innovation: change in theory and practice
• Ethical and deontological education for journalism in the post-truth era
• Digital communication and advertising
• New business models
• Fake news: fact checking models

Call for Abstracts

Please note that we invite contributions in various formats, e.g. workshops, panels and conference presentations.

• Conference presentations involve research results and/or theoretical work relevant to the conference theme. Please submit an abstract (max. 500 words, not including references), outlining the state of the study or research project, as well as the research question(s) or hypotheses, findings and conclusion(s). We also encourage submitting work in progress, e.g. new theoretical or methodological ideas you want to discuss with peers at the conference.
• Panels consist of various presentations addressing a common topic from different perspectives. Panels are scheduled for one hour, including discussions. Panel proposals should include a description of the topic and an overall panel goal, addressing the relevance of the topic to the conference theme (400 words). The proposal should also suggest a chair to serve as a moderator and should include a short abstract of each of the presentations (max. 200 words each).
• Workshops sessions are practice-oriented. Proposals should include a workshop description (max. 500 words) with a clearly defined workshop topic and goal, and several questions or assignments for discussion as well as an indication of the length of the session.

The conference will take place Thursday 14th May and Friday 15th May, 2020

Deadline for submissions: Friday, 28th February, 2020

Official Website: https://trialanderror2020.blogspot.com/

Submit abstracts as anonymized word- or pdf-documents to

michael.harnischmacher@uni-passau.de

Registration fee: 100 eur

Please include your author information (name, institution, contact) in the accompanying e-mail. Accepted presenters will be informed by 16 March 2020.

The conference is organized by the local organizing committee at the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of UAB and the ECREA Journalism & Communication Education TWG.

Management team:

• Dr. Santiago Tejedor (Santiago.Tejedor@uab.cat); Dra. Cristina Pulido (Cristina.Pulido@uab.cat); Ricardo Carniel (ricardo.carniel@uab.cat) (Head of committee) / University Autonoma of Barcelona (UAB) / Spain
• Dr. Michael Harnischmacher (Chair TWG) / University of Passau / Passau, Germany / (michael.harnischmacher@uni-passau.de)
• Dr. Harmen Groenhart (Vice chair TWG) / Fontys University of Applied Sciences / Tilburg, The Netherlands (h.groenhart@fontys.nl)
• Dra. Pilar Sánchez-García (Vice chair TWG) / University of Valladolid / Valladolid, Spain (pilar.sanchez@uva.es)

European Journal of Health Communication

Deadline: March 31, 2020

Guest Editors: Sarah Geber, Tobias Frey, and Thomas Friemel

Health and health-related behaviours are embedded in social contexts in various ways, which comprise both risks and opportunities for individual’s health (Sallis & Owen, 2015). Communicable (i.e., infectious) diseases, such as HIV or influenza, are spread through social contacts between persons (e.g., Rothenberg et al., 1998), and unfavorable health behaviours might be reinforced in one's social network (Valente, 2010). On the other hand, social support can ease the coping with diseases in everyday life (e.g., depression; Peirce, Frone, Russell, Cooper, & Mudar, 2000), and social norms may promote favorable health behaviours (e.g., eating healthily; Mollen, Rimal, Ruiter, & Kok, 2013). In the course of the digitalisation, new platforms have emerged that intensify known social processes or enable new ones. On social networking sites, people can directly observe health-related behaviours and thus norms of relevant others (e.g., Beullens & Vandenbosch, 2016); apps allow users to track their health behaviours and share their obtained health goals (e.g., Kristensen & Ruckenstein, 2018); and various online forums provide platforms for exchanging experiences and support regarding specific health issues (e.g., Barak, Boniel-Nissim, & Suler, 2008). Since these social processes unfold their effects through communication, they deserve special attention by health communication scholars to maintain and improve individual and public health.

The special issue aims to address the complexity of individuals’ social contexts and the full breadth of communication — ranging from interpersonal communication to mass media, online to offline, intended to unintended etc. It therefore calls for papers analyzing the interrelations between social aspects, different forms of health-related communication, and health at the individual, interpersonal, and societal level. Submissions can address but are not limited to the following questions and concepts.

Individual level:

• Which health behaviours are especially susceptible to social influence (e.g., private vs. public health behaviour) and what role do different means of communication play in these contexts?
• How are individual social-related characteristics, such as traits (e.g., need to belong), cognitions (e.g., perceived norms), and motives (e.g., need for social integration) associated with health behaviour and health-related communication?
• How are media messages elaborated that address social aspects of health behaviour (e.g., social frames)?

Interpersonal level:

• Which relevance do different settings have for health communication (e.g., family, colleagues, self-help groups)?
• Which role do different actors (e.g., doctors, patients, bystanders) and social roles (e.g., opinion leaders, influencers, followers) play in the context of health communication?
• How does health-related interpersonal communication differ depending on the channel and platform (e.g. face-to-face vs. mediated)?

Societal level:

• Which sociocultural aspects (e.g., collectivistic vs. individualistic societies) and characteristics of the media system are relevant regarding health and health communication?
• What kind of divides related to health communication exist in societies and what are their consequences (e.g., digital divides)?
• How can societal inequalities and health-related stigmatization be addressed by health communication and what guidelines are helpful for journalists to ease these issues?

The special issue calls for basic research describing and explaining these aspects but also refers to applied research seeking to solve practical health communication issues. It is interested in theories, methods, and study designs that allow studying social aspects of health communication at different levels as well as the integration of various levels within a single approach.

Submission format

We welcome submissions that fit any of the EJHC formats: original research papers, theoretical papers, methodological papers, review articles, brief research reports. For further information on the article types, please see www.ejhc.org/about/submissions.

Manuscript should be prepared in accordance with the EJHC author guidelines (www.ejhc.org/about/submissions) and be submitted via the journal website (www.ejhc.org).

Deadline for submission is 31 March 2020.

Review process

All articles will undergo a rigorous peer review process. Once the paper has been assessed as appropriate by the editorial management team (with regard to form, content, and quality), it will be peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers in a double-blind review process, meaning that reviewers are not disclosed to authors, and authors are not disclosed to reviewers. To ensure short publication processes, EJHC releases articles online on a rolling basis, expected to start in December 2020.

Contact guest editors

• Sarah Geber, University of Zurich, s.geber@ikmz.uzh.ch
• Tobias Frey, University of Zurich, t.frey@ikmz.uzh.ch
• Thomas N. Friemel, University of Zurich, th.friemel@ikmz.uzh.ch

References

Barak, A., Boniel-Nissim, M., & Suler, J. (2008). Fostering empowerment in online support groups. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1867–1883. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.004

Beullens, K., & Vandenbosch, L. (2016). A conditional process analysis on the relationship between the use of social networking sites, attitudes, peer norms, and adolescents' intentions to consume alcohol. Media Psychology, 19, 310–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2015.1049275

Kristensen, D. B., & Ruckenstein, M. (2018). Co-evolving with self-tracking technologies. New Media & Society, 20, 3624–3640. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818755650

Mollen, S., Rimal, R. N., Ruiter, R. A. C., & Kok, G. (2013). Healthy and unhealthy social norms and food selection. Findings from a field-experiment. Appetite, 65, 83–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2013.01.020

Peirce, R. S., Frone, M. R., Russell, M., Cooper, M. L., & Mudar, P. (2000). A longitudinal model of social contact, social support, depression, and alcohol use. Health Psychology, 19, 28–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.1.28

Rothenberg, R. B., Potterat, J. J., Woodhouse, D. E., Muth, S. Q., Darrow, W. W., & Klovdahl, A. S. (1998). Social network dynamics and HIV transmission. AIDS, 12, 1529–1536. https://doi.org/10.1097/00002030-199812000-00016

Sallis, J. F., & Owen, N. (2015). Ecological models of health behavior. In K. Glanz, B. K. Rimer, & K. Viswanath (Eds.), Health behavior: Theory, research, and practice (5th ed., pp. 43–64). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Valente, T. W. (2010). Social Networks and Health: Models, Methods, and Applications. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

YECREA Pre-Conference (ECREA 2020)

October 1, 2020

Braga, Portugal

Deadline: April 5, 2020

The Young Scholars Network of ECREA (YECREA) is happy to invite students and early-career scholars to a full day of workshops right before the 8th European Communication Conference (ECC) in Braga, Portugal.

Number of participants: 8-10 for each workshop.

The pre-conference consists of three workshops, covering different theoretical, methodological and practical tasks and challenges for young researchers. Applicants can apply to all three panels or just a single panel, if they wish to.

The aim is to provide a forum of knowledge exchange between young researchers where they can present their work, network and receive insights and advice from senior scholars. Senior facilitators will be announced later.

1) Workshop on methods to study digital culture

The workshop aims at sharing methods for researching digital culture, with a specific focus on audience research and sentiment analysis. The event will be opened with a seminar held by one of our proposed speakers, upon which participants will build for an open discussion about best practice, ethics and social responsibility, together with any other topics relevant to the main theme.

Participants will be encouraged to bring their own work in progress, experience and open issues with them to contribute to the discussion and brainstorm solutions.

2) Workshop on Academic Writing & Publishing Academic Research

This workshop will provide early career scholars with advice and ideas for writing and publishing their work as central qualifications in academia. You will have the chance to exchange experiences on the writing process with peers and receive advice from senior scholars on publications processes and strategies. For example, touching upon questions such as what, how much, in which formats and journals can I publish?

3) Workshop on Labour & Health in Communication Research

This workshop is designed for young scholars to develop practical coping mechanisms for various expectations placed on them, such as, publishing pressures (while writing their PhD), getting grants and funding, teaching, getting recognition for their work in competitive environments, dealing with imposter syndrome, searching for stable employment, and many others. We envision having a roundtable discussion, with all participants sharing their experiences with these challenges, the different ways they have dealt with them in the past, as well as input from senior scholar(s).

How to apply

Submissions should be sent via this digital form: https://forms.gle/dAqPrmirhbmqkb3W8

All applicants should include a brief description of their motivation for participating (max 200 words) and a brief description of their PhD project (max. 200 words).

Applicants do not have to be members of YECREA or ECREA.

Evaluation process

Applications will be processed by the YECREA pre-conference organisers.

If the number of applicants exceeds the maximum number of participants, selection will be based on motivation as well as ensuring geographical diversity and supporting new scholars in the field.

Key Dates

• Deadline for submissions: 05 April 2020
• Notification of Acceptance: 15 April 2020
• Pre-conference date: 01 October 2020

Registration

A small fee might be confirmed later, but will in any case not exceed 50€ for all three workshops, including lunch. YECREA is working to obtain funding to support the workshop.

If you have any questions, please contact yecreanetwork@gmail.com.