ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Marína Urbániková, Klára Smejkal, Iveta Jansová, Lenka Waschková Císařová 

Incorporating perspectives of various key stakeholders, this book critically explores the state and future of public service media (PSM), and maps areas of consensus upon which a renewed social contract for PSM could be built.

Broadening the debate beyond normative frameworks and drawing on perspectives other than elite and expert opinions, this book represents a vital contribution to the discussion over PSM’s present and future. The study uses the Czech Republic as a case study, a representative Central and Eastern European (CEE) country that, following the fall of its Communist regime, successfully transformed its former state-run media propaganda system into PSM. Employing a mixed-methods research design, it provides empirically-based insights from three groups, namely: the general public, PSM’s audience and source of funding; politicians and members of PSM supervisory bodies; and PSM journalists and managers. This book synthesises the perspectives of these three groups, focusing on the common ground in their expectations and evaluations, and exploring where the societal consensus lies in terms of the public service PSM should provide and the public value it should bring. The analysis pays particular attention to the unique position of PSM in smaller countries and within the CEE region.

Reimagining Public Service Media is recommended reading for advanced students and researchers in fields including Media Ownership, Media Regulation, and Media and Politics.

Purchase it HERE.

September 14-17, 2026

School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 30, 2026

Organised by Cardiff University’s Centre for the Creative Economy, the Media Cymru Innovation Conference and Showcase will spotlight research and innovation in the media and creative industries, with a focus on making them greener, fairer, globally connected, and economically sustainable. 

Participants can look forward to an engaging and interdisciplinary programme featuring invited speakers from across academia, industry, and policy, including national and international experts in media and creative industries. A full list of keynote and featured contributors will be announced in due course. 

We invite all researchers and professionals to submit their academic work that explores approaches to and analysis of media and creative industries innovation in ways that can inform future practice and policy. We welcome a broad range of topics. 

Conference Themes and Topics 

Submissions should align with (at least one of) our four themes: Green, Fair, Global, and Growth. These themes reflect Media Cymru’s four strategic pillars, which serve as tracks for submissions:

• Green - Environmental Sustainability: Research on the media’s role in tackling the climate crisis. Topics include the role of media content in responding to the climate crisis, sustainable film/TV production, green broadcasting technologies and practices, energy-efficient infrastructure for creative studios, and case studies on carbon reduction in media and the wider creative industries. 
  
• Fair - Inclusive & Equitable Creative Industries: Research promoting a fair, equitable and diverse media sector. Topics include diversity and inclusion in media content and production, representation and accessibility in film, television and gaming, community media initiatives, minority language media production and consumption, and research that focuses on how to create greater equity in the creative industries. 
  
• Global - International Collaboration & Reach: Research on expanding the global impact and connections of small creative industries companies or regional ecosystems. Topics include international co-productions and partnerships, cross-cultural innovation in media, export of creative content, global audiences and markets, creative tourism, and comparisons of creative economy policies across regions. Work that highlights place-based innovation in the global creative landscape is especially welcome. 
  
• Growth - Creative Economy Development: Research driving economic growth and productivity through media R&D and innovation. Topics include creative entrepreneurship and startups, media business models and monetisation, creative hubs and regional cluster development, skill development and talent pipelines (linking education with industry), impacts of emerging technologies (AI, XR, gaming) on the creative economy, and evaluations of creative industry support programs or policy interventions. 
  

These topics are not exhaustive. We welcome proposals that explore media workforce development, particularly in-work training, upskilling, and professional development models that support fair work across the media and creative industries. The committee also welcomes submissions with a focus on R&D methodologies and practice-based research closely aligned with industry needs and engagement. If you are unsure whether your topic fits, please contact the organisers at mcconf@cardiff.ac.uk  . 

We invite postgraduate and early career researchers to submit papers for a special session on the future of Creative Industries research. We welcome work that explores collaboration with industry, assesses partnership impact, or presents case studies bridging academia and practice. 

Submission Guidelines and Publication 

Submission Format: Authors are invited to submit abstracts of up to 500 words (excluding references) by Friday 30 January 2026. 

Submissions should outline the research and contribution to the field or to creative industry development and policy. Submissions should also indicate the relevant conference theme or themes (Green, Fair, Global, Growth, Postgraduate Researcher session). All submissions will be subject to a peer review process. 

How to Submit: Abstracts must be submitted in PDF format via the Frontiers in Communication submission portal. Frontiers | Media Cymru Innovation Conference and Showcase 2026: Call for Papers https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.frontiersin.org%2Fresearch-topics%2F74172%2Fmedia-cymru-innovation-conference-and-showcase-2026-call-for-papers&data=05%7C02%7CRabyJ%40cardiff.ac.uk%7C20f577865a5d4d54d71f08de53784cc2%7Cbdb74b3095684856bdbf06759778fcbc%7C1%7C0%7C639039973360280815%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vBZVKdWo332NqydtaW5VY9AgzUKdrCGalAeDwUSUpwM%3D&reserved=0

All abstract submissions for the conference will be managed through the Frontiers in Communication Research Topic platform and should be submitted via this page. Please note that Frontiers refers to abstracts as ‘manuscript summaries.’ To submit your abstract, please click ‘Submit’ > ‘Submit your manuscript summary’ and follow the on-screen instructions. Any reference to manuscripts, manuscript submission, and publication fees on this page or within the submission portal should be ignored.

Conference Proceedings and Publication Opportunities 

Special Issue Opportunity: Selected authors will be invited to submit a full-length version of their research for publication consideration in a peer-reviewed special issue of Frontiers in Communication, within the journal’s Media, Creative and Cultural Industries section. Invitations for full paper submissions will be issued following the conference and will be subject to a separate peer review process.  

Attendance 

Location: Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK (in-person) 

Conference and Showcase Activities: Following the conference, a two-day showcase will highlight the innovations and impact of the Media Cymru programme. Attendees will be invited to explore the latest in sustainable and inclusive media innovation, from immersive storytelling to green production models. The showcase offers valuable opportunities to connect with industry professionals, discover new collaborations, and engage with bold ideas shaping the future of media.

About Media Cymru: Media Cymru is working towards sustainable and inclusive economic growth in the Welsh media sector. Backed by £49 million in funding, including £22 million from UKRI’s Strength in Places Fund and significant investment from government and industry, Media Cymru is a collaborative initiative led by 22 partner organisations. Find out more about Media Cymru.

Bursary support: A limited number of registration fee waivers will be available for eligible presenters.  

Important Dates

• 30 January 2026 – Submission deadline 
  
• 14–17 September 2026 – Conference and Showcase take place  
  

All deadlines are 23:59 Anywhere on Earth (AoE). Early submissions are appreciated.

Contact and Organisers 

The conference is organised by Media Cymru and the Centre for the Creative Economy at Cardiff University.  

Contact: mcconf@cardiff.ac.uk 

January 21 - July, 2026

Online (5:00 PM, CET)

Through this series of seminars, we explore the concept of borders from multiple perspectives, including communicative, linguistic, geographical, historical, and political borders.

The seminar series is sponsored by the Faculty of Communication and by the Master’s Programme in Media and Cultural Studies at Üsküdar University. The meetings take place online on Zoom every Wednesday at 5:00 pm (CET).

We also have a website where all updates and information about the seminar series can be found: https://sites.google.com/view/entangledhistories/programme

We hope this initiative may be of interest to you and that it could be included in the weekly digest. Below, please find the programme of the seminar series:

January 21, 2026

Sophie Ling-chia Wei (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Typology Meets the Yijing: Jesuit Figurists' Intralingual Translation and the Sinification of Jesus

January 28, 2026

Jasmine Bria (University of Bari Aldo Moro)

Borderlands and Cultural Identities in Arthurian Narratives

February 4, 2026

Naoko Kato (Corpus Christi College at the University of British Columbia/Independent Scholar)

Double Abandonment: Transpacific Borders of Erasure and Resistance (1942–1965)

February 11, 2026

Dario Capelli (University of Urbino Carlo Bo)

Echoes of the Struggles Against the Beguines in a Poem by Thomas Hoccleve

February 18, 2026

Peppino Ortoleva (University of Turin)

Surreal Frontiers: Decolonisation, Borders, and Never-Ending Wars

February 25, 2026

Anik Nandi (Woxsen University)

Transnational Migration and Language Policies in Northern Ireland, UK: Family Dynamics towards Heritage Language Maintenance

March 4, 2026

Muhammet Enes Akdağ (Üsküdar University)

Transnational Film Networks and Moviegoing Culture in the Jerusalem Mutasarrifate (1874–1917)

March 11, 2026

Karen Pinto (University of Colorado Boulder)

Through the Eye of the Cartographer: The KMMS Islamicate Vision of the Bilad al-Rum Byzantine Frontier with Syria

March 18, 2026

Sonja Brentjes (Max Planck Institute/Independent Scholar)

Formal and Informal Borders: How Much Did They Matter in the Mathematical Sciences in Premodern Islamicate Societies?

March 25, 2026

Eleonora Matarrese  (University of Bari)

Edible Wild Plants: Widespread and Futuristic Knowledge in the Middle Ages (with practical workshop)

April 1, 2026

Pierpaolo De Giosa (National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris), Luigi Andriani (University of Hamburg)

More-than-human Encounters under the Same Roof: Household Spirits and Rituals in Bari

April 8, 2026

Marusca Francini  (University of Pavia)

Beyond Poetry. The Style of the Norwegian 'Tristrams Saga'

April 15, 2026

Gesufrancesco Petrillo & Cristiano Bedin (Istanbul University)

Queer Encounters Across Borders: Adapting Perfect Strangers (2016) into Stranger in My Pocket (2018)

Academic Leave (20-26 April)

April 29, 2026

Elisa Ramazzina (University of Insubria)

Margins, Maps, and Monsters: Negotiating Borders in the “Wonders of the East”

May 6, 2026

Seda Öz (University of Delaware)

Entangled Germanies: Remaking Cinema at the Borders of Cultural Memory

May 13, 2026

Giorgio Ennas (University of Utrecht/Franklin University Switzerland)

Borders and Epidemics: Sanitary Transformation of State Borders in the Ottoman Empire between the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth Centuries

May 20, 2026

Nora Berend (University of Cambridge)

May 27, 2026

Valentina Surace (University of Messina) and Aisling Reid (Queen’s University Belfast)

Divided We Stand: Belfast’s ‘Peace’ Walls and the Logic of Security             

June 3, 2026

Elisa Cugliana (Cologne University)

«Altez Gaschraibach» and New Technologies: Documenting Cimbrian Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

June 10, 2026

Luigi Andriani (University of Hamburg)

One Language Fits All? The Spectacular Case of Multilingual Italy

June 17, 2026

Betsey Price (York University)

The Mansions of the Visigoths: Self-Definition Through Boundaries

June 24, 2026

Nancy Bruseker (University of Toulouse)

Gender Jetset: The Carrousel Cabaret and Transfemininity on Tour, 1950-1969

July 1, 2026

Feride Zeynep Güder (Üsküdar University)

Borders of Memory: Queen Zenobia as a Connective Turn in the Digital Legacy of Antioch 

April 8-10, 2026

College of Arts, Education and Social Sciences, Abu Dhabi University, UAE 

Deadline: January 30, 2026

Dear Scholars, Researchers, and Industry Experts,

The College of Arts, Education and Social Sciences (CAESS) at Abu Dhabi University invites scholars to submit research papers for its 2026 international conference, ’Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Reimagining Society: Arts, Education & Social Transformation.' This premier platform will foster interdisciplinary dialogue on post-pandemic and Fourth Industrial Revolution challenges.

Important Submission Deadlines:

• Abstract Submission: 30 January 2026
  
• Acceptance Notification: Within 2 weeks
  
• Full Paper Submission: 28 February 2026
  

Submission Guidelines

• Abstracts: 250–300 words (We have started receiving Abstracts - Deadline: 30 January 2026)
  
• Full Papers: 4,000–6,000 words (Deadline: 28 February 2026)
  
• Formats: APA 7th edition (General) / IEEE (Technical)
  
• Submit via: www.adu.ac.ae/mprs

Join us in exploring the Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Reimagining Society: Arts, Education & Social Transformation at Abu Dhabi University’s International Conference.

We look forward to your valuable contributions!

Accepted papers for the "Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Reimagining Society: Arts, Education and Social Transformation" Conference will undergo a rigorous peer-review process; only selected papers will be published in Scopus-Indexed Journals and Books.

For inquiries and submissions visit our conference website: www.adu.ac.ae/mprs

Journal of Health Communication (special issue)

Deadline: February 15, 2026

In recognition of the busy end-of-semester period many colleagues faced in December, followed closely by the holiday break, we have decided to extend the submission deadline to provide additional time for manuscript preparation and submission.

This special issue focuses on the competencies, training models, and institutional supports needed to prepare a responsive, equity-oriented health communication workforce across global and local contexts.

• New submission deadline: February 15, 2026
  
• A rolling peer-review process is underway, and early submissions are encouraged.
  

Full Call for Papers: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/from-competencies-to-capacity-preparing-the-next-generation-of-health-communicators-to-address-persistent-and-emerging-challenges/

We especially welcome solution-oriented, equity-centered contributions that bridge theory and practice, particularly work that moves beyond identifying training gaps to proposing, testing, or evaluating innovative approaches to health communication capacity building.

Guest Editors:

Matthew Matsaganis (Rutgers University)

Itzhak Yanovitzky (Rutgers University)

Iccha Basnyat (George Mason University)

Brian Southwell (RTI International)

We hope you’ll consider submitting and sharing this call with colleagues and networks who may be interested.

Warm regards,

Matthew Matsaganis, Itzhak Yanovitzky, Iccha Basnyat & Brian Southwell

January 29, 2026

Online

The ECREA Ukraine Task Force, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Media and Communication Institute, invites media and communication researchers, as well as scholars from related fields, to a webinar on applying to academic mobility and international fellowship programs.

The webinar will cover the following topics:

•  preparing an English-language academic CV;
  
• differences between European and American CV formats;
  
• key requirements for completing applications for fellowships and international academic mobility programs;
  
• tips on writing a personal statement;
  
• tips on writing a professional statement.
  

The webinar will be led by Kateryna Sirinyok-Dolharova, PhD in Social Communications, Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism, Zaporizhzhia National University (Ukraine); doctoral researcher at the School of Journalism and Advertising, Southern Illinois University; Secretary of the ECREA Ukraine Task Force. She has extensive international experience as a visiting research fellow at the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the University of Michigan (USA) and through programs such as UGRAD, Fulbright, IREX, Erasmus+, and others.

Format and Participation

The webinar will take place online (Zoom).

Date and time: January 29, 2026, 4-5:30 pm (EET).

Participation is free and available through registration. Registered participants will receive the Zoom link and other details in advance. 

Working language: Ukrainian.

September 7, 2026

Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria 

Deadline: March 31, 2026

Visual media increasingly shape how harm is produced, circulated, and contested across intimate and public domains. From non-consensual image sharing and online hate to the journalistic circulation of war and atrocities, images raise urgent ethical, political, and regulatory questions. These challenges are intensified by uneven governance across platforms, shifting regimes of visibility, and the growing prevalence of manipulated and AI-generated imagery. This preconference invites critical engagement with harmful visual practices, cultures, and infrastructures in times of social and technological change. We welcome contributions examining visual ethics, regulation, pedagogies, and witnessing across diverse visual and multimodal formats.

Find more information here: https://visualculturesecrea.wordpress.com/harmful-visuals-precon-2026/ 

June 8-11, 2026

Gothenburg, Sweden

Deadline: January 22 (abstract)/January 29 (paper), 2026

Dear Community,

This is a reminder!! 

The Call for Full and Short Papers for UMAP 2026 - the 34th ACM Conference on User Modelling, Adaptation and Personalization is out!

ACM UMAP brings together research in AI and HCI to support effective human-AI collaboration via interactive systems that can model, adapt and personalize to their users. The conference will take place on June 8-11, 2026 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Link to call: https://www.um.org/umap2026/call-for-full-short-papers/

Important Dates

• Abstract submission: January 22, 2026
  
• Paper submission: January 29, 2026
  
• Rebuttal phase: March 2-9, 2026
  
• Notification of acceptance: March 25, 2026
  

Topics of Interest include but are not limited to

• Creativity in User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization
  
• Intelligent and personalized user interfaces
  
• Data mining techniques for user modeling, adaptation, and personalization
  
• Application of user modeling and personalization to well-being and health
  
• Personalized behavior change and persuasive applications
  
• Human-agent interaction
  
• Long-term personalization and lifelong learning
  
• Intelligent and personalized e-learning applications and educational games
  
• Generative AI techniques for user modeling, adaptation, and personalization
  
• Personalized user interaction with agents
  
• Large Language Models and Natural Language Processing methods for user modeling, adaptation and personalization
  
• Knowledge graphs, Linked data, and semantics for user modeling, adaptation, and personalization
  
• Modeling and adapting to human affective states
  
• Virtual assistants, conversational agents, and personalization in augmented reality
  
• Group modeling and collaborative team formation
  
• Ethical issues of personalization and human-centered AI systems: Privacy, Fairness, Accountability, Transparency
  
• Personalized approaches for preventing eco-chambers, user manipulation, and disinformation
  
• Evaluation methods for human-centered adaptive systems
  

Call for Papers: https://www.um.org/umap2026/call-for-full-short-papers/

ACM UMAP WhatsApp channel: https://tinyurl.com/umapwa   

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

The UMAP 2026 organizing committees

Edward Elgar’s Conflict, Security, and Migration series

Deadline: April 19, 2026

David Ramírez Plascencia (Universidad de Guadalajara, México) and Sonia Parella Rubio (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain) invite abstracts for the edited collection “Anti-migration contemporary narratives in America and Europe,” which will be submitted to Edward Elgar Publishing. The publisher has already expressed great interest in the project.

By the mid-2010s, the media, governments and local populations in Europe began to acknowledge the concrete dimensions of the migratory influx originating from Africa and the Middle East into member states of the European Union. According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), within a five-year period (2015-2020), the migrant population in Europe increased by approximately 16%, rising from 75 million to 87 million individuals. Across the Atlantic, during the same period, perhaps with less international visibility, a comparable migratory and humanitarian crisis was emerging. Large-scale movements of Venezuelans, Cubans, and Haitians, combined with the traditional migratory flows from Central America and Mexico, started departing their communities en masse, seeking to escape economic collapse, political repression, and widespread insecurity. While their primary destination was the US-Mexican border, trying to reach the “American Dream,” in recent years, with the arrival of Donald Trump to his second term, entering the US has become even more difficult, therefore millions of Latin American migrants are relocating in neighboring countries such as Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile, creating new diverse migration patterns. By now, according to a recent United Nations report (2024), of the nearly 138 million displaced persons worldwide, approximately 17% reside in Latin America.

Besides their palpable differences, the migration flows in Europe and America share strong similarities. Both phenomena have spread within a highly mediated and socially polarized context, characterized by the widespread use of digital media, economic recessions, and a growing political polarization over key public issues. These migration movements have also emerged, and can be partly explained, by political instability, armed conflicts, the economic crises, and the effects of climatic change in various countries across Latin America, Africa and the Middle-East, where social and political turmoil has forced displacements and cross-border movements toward the wealthier countries. 

Moreover, the mediatization of contemporary migration processes has contributed to the strengthening of far-rightmovements and politicians in the United States, Europe and even in Latin America. These actors have focused their agendas on a discourse of suspicion and hostility towards migrants and refugees, who are often stigmatized as scapegoats and portrayed as sources of social disorder and economic hardship. In mainstream media, migrants are frequently depicted as criminals or social burdens who threaten local employment and social stability. This discourse is routed by far-right political parties through social media (X, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) which have become their main spaces for communication and propaganda. These parties have become successful in engaging the young electorate by appealing to concerns about immigration and the struggle for a “traditional” national identity.

Social media enables the spread of hate speech due to structural characteristics, such as potential anonymity, low-cost, flexibility and global reach. Social media, along with the irruption of fake news and social polarization, promote the irruption of digital echo chambers where information is shared within ideologically homogeneous groups in Telegram and WhatsApp, reinforcing the impact of hostile and polarized narratives. This process contributes to radicalization and social division even in democratic societies. 

The main goal of this volume is to analyze, from a critical and comparative approach, the anti-migration narrative caused by the allocation flows in both continents in the last decade. Understanding this anti-migration narrative is essential for identifying, promoting, and developing alternate narratives that can contribute positively to the integration of migrants and foster greater social cohesion.  

We are particularly interested in the following topics: (a) The political anti-narrative of migration (migration as a topic in the electoral campaigns, weaponization of refugees, migrants as scapegoats, etc.), (b) Media coverage and framing of the migration flows. How the media encourages hate discourse among the people, and (c) social media and anti-migrant hate discourse. How spaces such as Facebook or TikTok promote the creation and dispersion of content that promotes hate discourse towards migrants in both continents. 

You are warmly invited to send an extended abstract of 500 words, please also include a brief bio for every author (no more than 250 words with titles, affiliations, and contacts). Send your proposal to the following addresses: davidram@udgvirtual.udg.mx and sonia.parella@uab.cat Please feel free to contact the editors if you have any questions.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

May 11, 2026

Lisbon, Portugal

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 25, 2026

As digital tools, especially machine learning and artificial intelligence, have come to play a greater role in journalism practices, journalists and researchers have begun to reconsider the value of the human in journalism, whether the human touch in reporting, human connection, or a greater acknowledgement of the humanity of journalists and audiences. In this vein, researchers in journalism studies at the Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC) at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, invite submissions of extended abstracts for the symposium, “Journalism Studies: Connecting to the Human” to be held on May 11, 2026, with a keynote address by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, professor at the Cardiff University School of Journalism. 

This symposium aims to bring together researchers, students, and journalists who are thinking about how journalists can connect or re-connect with the people and communities they are meant to serve, what aspects of journalistic work require a human element, and how journalists as human beings are affected by the work they do. The symposium is open to researchers who wish to present on topics relating to these and other issues related to the human/humanity in journalism.

Please submit an anonymized abstract of no more than 750 words (not including references) to journsymposium@gmail.com by the extended deadline of January 25, 2026. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by mid-February 2026. Submissions may also be considered for inclusion in a poster session. Please note that the symposium will be held in person, and we cannot accommodate remote participation. Submissions from early-career researchers and Ph.D. and M.A. students are especially welcome. In the spirit of the theme of the symposium, we would like to emphasize that all abstracts should be original and human-authored.

Abstracts may address a number of topics within journalism studies, including, but not limited to:

- Humanitarian journalism

- Solutions journalism

- Journalism and human story-telling

- Human-machine connections

- Journalism and communities

- Mental health and well-being of journalists

- The role of empathy in journalism

- Journalism and humanity

- Local journalism

- Civic and participatory media

- Journalism and artificial intelligence and its rejection/backlash

- Misinformation, disinformation, junk news, and its effects

- Contemporary news audiences

- Genres and styles of journalistic writing

- Human judgement in journalism

- AI (slop) and human perceptions