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  • 13.03.2024 22:45 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi

    Deadline: April 24, 2024

    Editors:

    Prof. Veronica Barassi (veronica.barassi@unisg.ch)

    Dr. Philip Di Salvo (philip.disalvo@unisg.ch)

    School of Humanities and Social Sciences

    University of St. Gallen

    Generative artificial intelligence tools and large language models are gaining a prominent space in our society. Probably for the first time in history, humans have now to relate and interact with technological systems capable of producing and generating new content and knowledge mimicking humans’ imagination, speech, and behaviors in ways that was not possible before. This new state of things brings inevitably profound consequences and potential sea changes for numerous social, scientific, and cultural fields raising epistemological, ethical, political economical and philosophical questions about the epistemologies of AI and the processes of knowledge production of these systems. The race for AI innovation is being framed with reference to the ‘superintelligence’ of our machines, their processing power, their ability to learn and generate knowledge. In public debate, AI technologies are admired for their powers, and feared for their threats. Yet, we are increasingly confronted with the fact that these machines make errors and mistakes, they are fallible and inaccurate, and they are often culturally biased. From Generative AI technologies that ‘hallucinate’ and invent facts to predictive policing technologies that lead to wrongful arrests, our world is quickly coming to terms with the fact that the AI we are building is not only astonishing and incredibly powerful, but often unable to understand the complexity of our human experience and our cultural worlds. Research has shown that AI errors and their problematic outcomes can’t be considered as mere coding glitches, but as the direct expression of the structural inequalities of our societies and they confront us with critical questions about our supposed anthropocentric position as knowledge-creators.

    The aim of this special issue is to gather scholars coming from different fields of the social sciences and humanities to investigate how artificial intelligence systems are challenging epistemological assumptions in various societal areas and how the failures of such systems are impacting on knowledge creation and diffusion in their areas of interest. Overall, the special issue aims at overcoming dominant and hyped takes and narratives around AI and its supposed (super)powers, and critically reflect on how we can identify and learn how to coexist with the limitations of AI driven knowledge production.

    Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:

    • Impacts of AI Errors and Failures: Exploring the ways in which AI failures, inaccuracies and errors in AI impact human understanding, decision-making, and interpersonal relationships.
    • Cultural Limitations of AI Knowledge: Investigating how AI systems intersect with cultural norms, values, and belief systems, and assessing the limits to cultural diversity and inclusivity of these technologies.
    • Fake News and DeepFakes: Generative AI, democracy, disinformation, and the public sphere
    • Social Construction of AI Truth: Investigating how AI systems construct and perpetuate particular truths, shaping public perceptions and influencing social narratives.
    • Bias and Discrimination in AI: Analyzing how inherent biases in training data, algorithms, and decision-making processes contribute to perpetuating social inequalities and reinforcing existing power structures.

    Submission procedure

    We invite interested scholars to submit an abstract (300 words, 3 to 5 keywords) by 24th of April, 2024 to editors@annalsfondazioneluigieinaudi.it, veronica.barassi@unisg.ch; philip.disalvo@unisg.ch.

    The issue’s editors will review the abstracts and send notifications of acceptance or rejection by the 8th of June, 2024.

    The special issue will include up to 8 contributions among those received through the call for papers. Final papers (about 8000 words) will be due on 8th of December 2024. Please note that acceptance of abstracts does not necessarily imply acceptance of the paper for the special issue. For further information (including the aim and scope of the Journal), please refer to the Journal’s website.

  • 08.03.2024 09:14 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Amelia Johns, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, Emma Baulch

    We would like to let you know about our new book, out now with Polity Digital Media and Society Series. WhatsApp: From a one-to-one Messaging App to a Global Communication Platform traces the story of WhatsApp’s technical, social and commercial development. It charts the rise of WhatsApp through the 2010s, as chat apps became a primary mode of communication for many people across the world. In this context WhatsApp quickly outpaced rival messaging apps and developed into a default communication app for users around the world, particularly in the Global South. But after Meta’s purchase of WhatsApp in 2014, we argue that WhatsApp took another step in its evolution, as it was transformed from a simple, ‘gimmickless’ app into a global communication platform, with its business and broadcasting functions elevating WhatsApp above its former chat app status. We argue that understanding this development can shed light on the trajectory of Meta’s industrial development, and how digital economies and social media landscapes are evolving with the rise of ‘superapps’.

    The book’s chapters chart this evolution across multiple dimensions, exploring how WhatsApp’s unique characteristics mediate new kinds of social and commercial transactions; how they pose new opportunities and challenges for platform regulation, civic participation and democracy; and how they give rise to new kinds of digital literacy as WhatsApp becomes integrated into everyday digital cultures across the globe.

    Please see the table of contents: 

    • Introduction
    • Chapter One: Why WhatsApp Matters
    • Chapter Two: Platform Biography
    • Chapter Three: Everyday Uses of WhatsApp
    • Chapter Four: WhatsApp Publics: Activism, News, Disorder
    • Chapter Five: WhatsApp Business Model
    • Chapter Six: WhatsApp Futures

    The book is available for purchase at this link - https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=whatsapp-from-a-one-to-one-messaging-app-to-a-global-communication-platform--9781509550524

     - and I encourage you to recommend it to your universities and institutions. As the book has been written to be accessible to undergraduate students, we also recommend that key chapters be used in your course readings lists.

  • 06.03.2024 20:58 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    The Moving Image (Special Issue)

    Proposals due: May 5, 2024

    Final manuscripts due: November 30, 2024

    Guest editors (in alphabetical order): Luca Antoniazzi, Daniela Currò, Simone Venturini

    The Moving Image, the peer reviewed journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, invites submissions for possible inclusion in a special issue on film heritage and environmental sustainability. Despite its conceptual malleability, sustainability is increasingly taken as a key concept in assessing good practice in collection stewardship and long-term viability of digital preservation. In some parts of the world, sustainability is also an increasingly relevant preoccupation of public funding bodies and private donors. Despite notable exceptions, sustainability has not been explored enough in the context of film archival studies and its potential is not yet fully developed.

    The overall objective of this special issue is threefold: (1) to shed light on the environmental impact of the film archival sector; (2) to assess whether, in the face of the climate crisis, film policies, archival and programming/exhibition practices, infrastructures, and technologies are transitioning towards environmentally sustainable stewardship; (3) to sketch out lessons learned and best practices that might be applied to different institutional and geo-political contexts.

    We welcome contributions from a diverse range of research traditions, including film heritage studies, the humanities, cultural production, cultural policy, media infrastructure studies, and information science. We also welcome contributions from practitioners, cultural managers, policymakers, and the film archival community at large.

    Potential topics include:

    • Energy and resource-efficient labor processes and organizational models in film archiving
    • Cultural and technological policies for sustainable film heritage
    • Gender, class and race implications of new ‘green’ policies and practices
    • Green digital stewardship and curatorship
    • Archival e-waste, obsolescence, and rare earths extraction
    • Power consumption and carbon emissions in film conservation and data preservation
    • Sustainable facilities and buildings in film archival institutions
    • Good (green) practice in traditional film archiving
    • Sustainability and film archiving grassroots innovations in the context of the Global South
    • Promoting sustainability within and outside film heritage institutions
    • The institutional politics of greening film heritage

    Types of Submissions:

    Feature articles: Double-blind peer reviewed research papers, 4,000 – 6,000 words

    Forum pieces: Shorter, less formal pieces, including interviews and “notes from the field” discussing case studies on single institutions or archivists’ own work, such as specific projects or policy initiatives, 2,000 – 3,000 words

    Reviews: reviews of recent books, media (e.g., DVDs, Blu-Rays), conferences, film festivals, and exhibitions, 700 – 1,000 words

    Submission guidelines

    Please send initial proposals and final submissions to special issue co-editors Luca Antoniazzi, Daniela Currò, Simone Venturini at sustainability.tmi@gmail.com.

    Proposals must be submitted by May 5, 2024 for initial consideration and should include: (1) a 250-word abstract, (2) four key words, (3) a 100-word bio of the author(s), (4) the type of paper you would like to write (e.g. feature article). Proposal review will be completed by May 31, 2024. For any questions regarding this CFP, please contact the co-editors prior to the proposal submission deadline.

    Completed manuscripts will be due for editorial review by November 30, 2024. All manuscripts should be submitted as a Microsoft Word email attachment, double-spaced throughout, using 12-point type with 1 -inch margins, following the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.

  • 06.03.2024 20:50 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    PLUS Salzburg

    Planned start of employment: 1st October 2024

    Expected duration of employment: limited to 6 years, can become permanent position upon fulfilment of individual qualification requirements

    Extent of employment: 40 hours

    Working hours: by agreement

    Areas of responsibility:

    Own scientific research and teaching, scientific support in research and teaching, as well as participation in administrative tasks in the field of media structure and platform research. Independent teaching of 4 semester hours per academic year.

    The area of responsibility includes dealing with media structure research, in particular Austrian, European and global communication policy and internet governance (traditional mass media, digital platforms, alternative commons-based media and platforms) in a historical and geopolitical context. Candidates should have experience in the application and management of larger third-party funded projects, preferably EU research projects.

    Employment requirements: completed doctoral studies in communication science and at least partially published doctoral thesis, at least one year of scientific experience abroad, relevant teaching experience; academic reputation, proven in particular by relevant publications and lectures, multilingualism in teaching and research (English and German required, other languages desirable).

    Desirable additional qualifications:

    Experience in university operations; clear vision of own future research profile; experience in organizing scientific conferences, digital skills in data management and with data visualization.

    Desired personal qualities:

    Enthusiasm for the subject area of media structures, democracy, media and platform policy and economics; experience in supervising students and junior academic staff; good communication and teamwork skills; ability to work under pressure and flexibly; enjoy imparting knowledge; strong interpersonal skills, especially in student support; ability to work in a goal-oriented, effective and solution-oriented manner.

    In addition to a detailed curriculum vitae and a list of relevant publications (including the at least partially published doctoral thesis), the application documents should include the following:

    a) Outline of academic and research achievements;

    b) Description of experience and activities in teaching (including the supervision of junior researchers);

    c) Concept for plans in research and teaching and for the contribution to knowledge

    d) Concept for knowledge transfer and science management;

    e) Presentation of social and other competencies.

  • 06.03.2024 20:48 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    September 26-28, 2024

    Piedmont (Italy)

    Deadline: April 1, 2024

    Dear all,

    This is to let you know that we are accepting panel proposals for the stream Food Media and Communication in the congress of the International Society for Gastronomic Sciences and Studies (ISGSS). As detailed below, we will soon open our call for abstracts as well. The title of this year's congress is Shaping Gastronomy: Regenerating Food Systems and Societies. It will take place in Piedmont (Italy), between the 26th and the 28th of September 2024. For details on our organization, on the congress and its beautiful locations, please follow this link: https://www.internationalgastronomicsociety.org/congress-overview

    Contact (stream): Luca Antoniazzi, l.antoniazzi@unisg.it

    Important Dates

    Call for Panels (please submit your panel proposal here): Open from 2nd February 2024 to 1st April 2024

    Call for Abstracts (papers and posters): Open from 5th April 2024 to 5th May 2024

    Early Bird Registration: From 15th May 2024 to 15th July 2024

    Standard Registration: From 16th July 2024 to 1st September 2024

  • 06.03.2024 20:39 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    September 23, 2024

    Ljubljana (Slovenia)

    Deadline: April 29, 2024

    Dear ECREA,

    we (RUSINFORM, https://www.rusinform.uni-passau.de/en/) are announcing a call for papers for the ECREA pre-conference "The Informational Influence of Autocracies Abroad", which will take place in Ljubljana on 23 September, before the main ECREA conference (https://ecrea2024ljubljana.eu/). You can find more information on our website: https://www.rusinform.uni-passau.de/en/ecrea24preconf/ 

    Our pre-conference will examine the external propaganda of authoritarian regimes around the world, including Russia, China, Iran and Turkey, analysing the creators, content, strategies and audiences. It aims to juxtapose historical and contemporary techniques.

    Proposals of 300-500 words, excluding references, should be submitted to serge.poliakoff@uni-passau.de with the subject line "ECREA 2024 Pre-Conference". All proposals should be in English. The deadline for submission of proposals is 3 April 2024. 

    Submitted proposals will be notified of acceptance/rejection by 29 April 2024. There is no pre-conference fee. This is an offline event, so all accepted presenters will be required to present in person.

    Best regards, 

    Julia Kling

  • 06.03.2024 20:32 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

     August 30, 2024 - October 25, 2024

    Jönköping University, Sweden/online

    Call for applications to the PhD course Streaming media, contemporary society, and cultural memory at Jönköping University, Sweden. The course can be attended fully online via Zoom or in person at the university. 

    The course is free of charge for PhD students from any country and it is held in English. 

    The course has 7,5 ECTS and it starts on August 30, 2024, and finishes on October 25, 2024, with deadline of the final assignment in November 2024. In total, there will be seven seminars. This is the schedule: 


    The course is taught by Professor in Media and Communication Studies Renira Gambarato and Associate Professor in History Johannes Heuman. 

    Applications are due on May 31, 2024. You can find the course syllabus here: https://ju.se/en/research/doctoral-programmes/doctoral-programmes-at-the-school-of-education-and-communication/doctoral-courses.html and you can apply here: https://oas.ju.se/apply/admission/apply?type=DoctoralStudies  

    Course description 

    The Streaming media, contemporary society, and cultural memory is a seminar-based course about the ongoing transition to streaming media that has a large impact on contemporary culture and society. This course will analyze and discuss different approaches to streaming media narratives and its infrastructure. The focus will be on: 

    • the technological and cultural development of streaming services such as HBO Max and Netflix 

    • contemporary media theories in relation to streaming media 

    • how memories of the past and societal issues, such as sexism and inequality, are represented and communicated through streaming media platforms 

    The course is entirely based on different streaming series such as Squid Game, Black Mirror, Chernobyl, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Crown. 

    If you have any questions about the course, please contact: 

    Renira Gambarato: renira.gambarato@ju.se   

    Johannes Heuman: johannes.heuman@sh.se  

  • 06.03.2024 20:21 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    June 24, 2024 (1:30 PM - 2:45 PM)

    Currumbin Boardoom (Star L2), Gold Coast, Australia

    Deadline: April 1, 2024

    Proposers:

    Dr. Lindsay Palmer (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)

    Dr Soomin Seo (Sogang University, South Korea)

    Dr. Ruth Moon (Louisiana State University, USA)

    Prof. Saba Bebawi (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

    Dr. Saumava Mitra (Dublin City University, Ireland) [Acting as Chair]

    About the workshop

    When conducting journalism research in spaces where groups of humans are experiencing marginalisation, the academic researcher and human research subjects necessarily encounter each other on an unequal plane of power and privilege. While critiquing the power imbalances between Western journalists and their news subjects, or their non-Western colleagues working alongside them, journalism scholarship in this area remains largely silent about its own problematic position vis-à-vis the actors it studies in liminal spaces.

    To address this silence, we are organising a Blue Sky Big Ideas workshop for attendees of ICA 2024 in Gold Coast, Australia. The workshop will facilitate a dialogue among a diverse group of researchers who have previously conducted fieldwork among journalists and journalism-adjacent workers in liminal spaces, particularly those in the Global South but also in other relevant marginalised contexts. It will also include those who might be planning such fieldwork. The participants will come together to reflect on their own practices as researchers, and engage with each other to find common ground across their various positionalities, identities and experiences. The aim of the workshop will be to outline the inequities and imbalances which scholars need to be aware of in their work.

    How to join

    The workshop will be open to 10 interested participants apart from the initial proposers. Please write to Saumava Mitra (saumava.mitra@dcu.ie) to express your interest by 01st April 2024 with a short rationale of 75 words outlining why you would like to participate. Scholars based in ICA-designated tier B or C countries and early career or student scholars planning fieldwork in marginalised research contexts will be prioritised as workshop attendees.

  • 06.03.2024 20:16 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    The young scholar network of ECREA, YECREA, is calling for early-career communication researchers across Europe to apply for 10 vacant positions as YECREA representatives.

    Deadline for applications: 15th March 2024

    The vacant positions are in the following Sections Sections/TWG/Networks:

    • Audience and Reception Studies
    • Communication and Democracy
    • Communication History
    • Communication, Law and Policy
    • Diaspora, Migration and the Media
    • Ethics of Mediated Suffering
    • Health Communication
    • Political Communication
    • TV Studies
    • Visual Cultures

    The young scholar (YECREA) representative in each Section/TWG/Network assists the managing team (consisting of a chair and two vice-chairs) in organising panels, symposia and/or conferences, and promoting the specific research area. Furthermore, the YECREA representative works to inform early-career scholars about events in the field and takes part in organising events, such as pre-conference workshops or meetings.

    The ‘young’ in young scholar is not a measure of age, but of career progression. Thus, all scholars in non-tenure positions (e.g. PhDs and postdocs) are welcome to apply. It should be noted that the position as YECREA representatives is not paid. We encourage applications from those who are able to commit to the role for at least one year.

    Applications should be no more than 500 words and contain the following information:

    • A heading with your name and the specific position you are applying for
    • Details on your current university, position and progression
    • A brief description of your research
    • A brief statement on your work’s connection to the specific section, TWG or network
    • A brief statement on your aspirations for improving early-career research/experiences

    Applications and questions should be sent to: yecreanetwork@gmail.com  

    More information can be found here: http://yecrea.eu/2024/02/15/call-for-yecrea-representative-10-vacant-position/

    YECREA Management Team

    Sandra Banjac (chair), University of Groningen 

    Phoebe Maares (vice-chair), University of Vienna 

    Antonio Cuartero (vice-chair), University of Malaga

    Birte Leonhardt (communications officer), University of Vienna

    Email: yecreanetwork@gmail.com

    Twitter: @yecrea_eu

    Facebook: YECREA

  • 01.03.2024 07:05 | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    September 12, 2024

     Utrecht University 

    Deadline: May 1, 2024

    An international workshop

    Video-on-demand services (VODs) are often assumed by researchers to be black boxes, impenetrable to academic inquiry. Data on VOD catalogs, audiences, and usage can be challenging to source and may be commercially protected, leading to concerns about transparency and access (Wayne 2022).

    Nonetheless, in recent years researchers have found many innovative workarounds to investigate VODs, publishing important studies of VOD libraries, recommendations, promotion, and use. This scattered but vibrant field of empirical VOD research now spans television and screen studies, media industry studies, platform studies, law, economics, computer science, and policy research. We see for instance advances in catalog research (Grece 2018), distant readings of VOD interfaces (Kelly 2021), reverse engineering of algorithms (Pakovic 2022), logging user interactions through browser extensions (Castro et al. 2021), and quantitative analysis of proprietary data sets from third-parties (Lotz et al. 2022). Such research is valuable for scholarly debate because it allows us, in the absence of industry disclosure, to better understand trends in production, distribution and consumption of content; and from a policy perspective, it is also vital to establish if local content quotas and requirements for prominence/visibility are being met.  

    Topics of interest within VOD research include:

    * What makes up the library of a VOD?

    * How do libraries differ between services and across space and time?

    * How is content circulated? (interfaces, recommendations and promotion)

    * What do we know about usage of different VODs?

    * How is usage shaped by prominence and discoverability within the interface?

    * What VOD content is popular/culturally significant?

    * How are data used by VODs for producing and distributing content?

    * What can VOD research contribute to public policy debates?

    We invite papers that propose, modify, elaborate, demonstrate or reflect on innovative methods for studying VODs, including empirical methods for data collection and/or critical and interpretive methods for data analysis. Our focus is on research methods for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) services, rather than on social video platforms such as YouTube and Tiktok. 

    Submission details:

    Abstracts of 500 words are due by 1 May 2024 along with a 100 word bio and should be sent to Karin van Es (K.F.vanEs@uu.nl) and Ramon Lobato (ramon.lobato@rmit.edu.au). 

    Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 1 June, and accepted authors will be invited to submit extended abstracts of 2,000 words by 5 September. The workshop will be held on 12 September at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. A special journal issue is planned following the workshop. We also welcome expressions of interest from scholars who cannot attend the workshop but would like to be considered for the special issue. Please feel free to reach out to the organisers by email.

    References

    Castro D, Rigby J, Cabral D and Nisi V (2021) The Binge-watcher’s Journey: Investigating Motivations, Contexts, and Affective States Surrounding Netflix Viewing. Convergence 27 (1): 3-20.

    Grece, Christian (2018) Films in VOD catalogues – Origin, Circulation and Age. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. 

    Kelly JP (2021). ‘Recommended for you’: A Distant Reading of BBC iPlayer. Critical Studies in Television, 16(3), 264-285

    Lotz A, Eklund O and Suroka S (2022) Netflix, Library Analysis, and Globalization: Rethinking Mass Media Flows. Journal of Communication 72 (4): 511–521.

    Pajkovic N (2022) Algorithms and Taste-making: Exposing the Netflix Recommender System’s Operational Logics. Convergence 28 (1): 214–235

    Wayne ML (2022) Netflix Audience Data, Streaming Industry Discourse, and the Emerging Realities of ‘Popular’ Television. Media, Culture & Society 44 (2): 193–20.

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