Hybrid: Online on Zoom and on-site in Rome
Deadline: July 31 2022
The ever-increasing mediation of social life and the evolving relationship of virtual and physical spaces unfold a multi-faceted field of interdisciplinary research. Especially the last few years with their unexpected challenges, most notably the Covid-19 pandemic, have propelled digitalisation processes forward, profoundly impacting the relationship between people’s lives and the physical and virtual spaces surrounding them.
This hybrid pre-conference workshop is a collaboration between the ECREA Media, Cities and Space Section, the YECREA young scholars network and the Department of Communication and Social Research of Sapienza University of Rome with the PhD Course in Communication, Social Research and Marketing. We invite researchers, particularly early-career, doctoral or postdoctoral scholars, to present and discuss their work related to the interaction between media and communications with cities and other spatial contexts.
The pre-conference is planned in a workshop format, promoting conversation and collaboration. Participants will get the chance to discuss their projects with their peers and get feedback regarding epistemological, methodological, theoretical, or conceptual issues. The focus lies on how to develop and further research linked to the inherently interdisciplinary field(s) of media, cities and (digital/physical) space. We welcome work-in-progress contributions as well as finished works, with an empirical, theoretical, or methodological focus, from a broad spectrum of disciplines such as communication and media studies, sociology, human geography, urban studies, or science and technology studies.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
● Digital platforms as disruptive actors, transforming urban communication, economies, and cultures
● The ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic regarding the spatial dimensions of private and professional lives
● Algorithms as pervasive agents structuring new forms of inhabiting material space
● Media history and mediated public art in (and about) the city
● Urban spaces as fields of mediated activism, protest, and other forms of social practice
To enable early-career scholars to participate, this will be a hybrid offline/online event on Zoom and in Rome at Sapienza University. Participants are asked to indicate how they want to participate. Please submit a short abstract of ca. 300 words as a PDF to lou.brandner[at]uni-tuebingen.de and stefania.parisi[at]uniroma1.it until July 31 2022. Decisions will be communicated to the authors by September 1. Abstracts by early-career scholars, particularly PhD students, are encouraged.
