ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Edited volume

Editors:

• Dr. Shixin Ivy Zhang, Associate Professor in Journalism Studies (University of Nottingham Ningbo China)
• Dr. Altman Yuzhu Peng, Lecturer in PR & Global Communication (University of Newcastle)

This edited volume aims to contribute to the studies of complex, fluid and dynamic media-conflict relationship through the lens of China. Studies of mediatized conflict in the digital age is still very much a Eurocentric research area, which requires to be de-Westernized. As McQuail (2006) claims, ‘Western “communication science” does not offer any clear framework for collecting and interpreting observations and information about contemporary war situations’ and has ‘largely neglected were the colonial wars of post-Second World War and the many bitter conflicts that did not directly impinge on western interests or responsibilities’. In a sense, McQuail’s statement still stands today. The existing researches in media and conflict are mostly confined to the Western democracies and interests.

With China showing growing and controversial power and influence on the world’s stage, on the one hand, the East Asian power faces its own security issues due to crises in the Asia-Pacific region that have escalated and intensified such as Sino-Indian border crisis, South China Sea disputes, North Korea nuclear crisis and the Senkaku/Diaoyu-islands disputes.On the other hand, China as one of the five permanent members in the UN Security Council has more and more involvement and interests in the seemingly isolated international conflicts such as Afghanistan war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Libyan and Syrian crisis.

The media and conflict studies are multi-leveled and multi-faceted. Thus, we invite scholars to explore and study media-conflict relationship either from the view of China or conduct comparative analysis between China and other nation-states.Here media can be mass media (TV, films, newspapers, magazines, posters, etc.), digital and/or social media at local, national, regional or global levels.

International conflicts include but not limited to Sino-Indian border crisis, South China Sea disputes, North Korea nuclear crisis, the Senkaku-Diaoyu islands disputes, Afghanistan war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Libyan and Syrian crisis.

The proposed chapters can be either theoretical, empirical or comparative work. Authors are welcome to explore and address the following questions and go beyond.

1. What roles do media (both traditional and new media) play in the conflicts that directly or indirectly involve China?

2. What is the media-conflict relationship in China and in the Asia-Pacific region more broadly?

3. How is China represented in the media and what is the image and the role of China in the international conflicts?

4. What are the changes and continuity of media representation of China in the international conflicts?

5. Do Chinese media practice peace or war journalism? How?

6. How are international conflicts mediated in China within its particular historical and cultural contexts?

7. How do the local, national and global audience receive and perceive China’s role in international conflicts?

8. What are the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) on the media-conflict relationship in China?

Please send your abstracts (max. 300 words) by 1 February 2020 to Shixin Zhang (Shixin.zhang (at) nottingham.edu.cn) and Altman Peng (altman.peng (at) ncl.ac.uk).

References

McQuail D (2006) On the mediatization of war. /The International Communication Gazette/ 68(2): 107–118.

November 19-20, 2020

Online

Ola Ogunyemi is inviting you, on behalf of the Steering Commitee, to register for this international symposium. The international symposium is jointly organised by the Lincoln School of English and Journalism and the Lincoln Institute for Advanced Studies in partnership with the Association for Journalism Education and the Manchester; Salford Branch of the National Union of Journalists, UK and Journalism/PR subject group at Sheffield Hallam University.

Keynote speakers include: Gavin Rees and Stephen Jukes (DART Centre Europe); Jo Healey (Journalist, trainer and author of Trauma Reporting, A Journalist’s Guide to Covering Sensitive Stories); and Hannah Storm (CEO of the Ethical Journalism Network).

International symposium on 'Trauma Resilience Building in Journalism Curricula: Facing Research Challenges, Ethical Considerations and Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice'.

Pls register via this link and you will get invite to join us on 'Teams' for the event https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/…939

Pls find a link to the press release and programme via https://staffnews.lincoln.ac.uk/…-2/

Due to Covid 19 restrictions across the world, the event will run virtually from Thursday 19th to Friday 20th November 2020.

Tallinn University of Technology

The Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance within Tallinn University of Technology is opening two academic positions (one PhD and one Postdoc) both scheduled to begin in *February 2021*. Feel free to circulate this call with anyone who might be interested. Thank you.

The PhD is on "Urban Analytics and Data Technologies", under the supervision of Prof. Anu Masso. This position is for 4 years.

Deadline for application: December 16, 2020. The selection process will begin soon after.

All information can be founded at: https://taltech.glowbase.com/…165

Applicants are invited to submit their ideas for topic specific research projects, which will be in line with the main research axes of the FinEst Twins project, from which the position is funded. The projects should focus on theoretical and empirical research that contributes to establishing smart, resilient, and sustainable cities worldwide and fostering the design and use of data technologies that consider social diversities.

The Postdoc position is on "Critical Understadning of Predictive Policing", under the supervision of Prof. Anu Masso. The position is initially for 1 year, with the possibility of renewing it for 2 more years.

Deadline for applications: *December 7, 2020*. The selection process will begin soon after.

All information can be founded at: https://www.researchgate.net/…ing

Postdoctoral researchers are invited to submit their ideas for topic specific research projects, which will be in line with the main research axes of the NordForsk project, from which the position is funded. Notably, the project should focus on theoretical and empirical research that contributes to establishing transparency and set an epistemological standard for the critical investigation of innovative data-driven policing. The Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance (RND) is an interdisciplinary, international research center within Tallinn

University of Technology hosting world-renowned award-winning scholars and focusing on socially relevant research and teaching. Notably:

* digital transformation of societies: social datafication, algorithmic governance, data justice, state-citizen relations in the digital era, smart cities and cross-border data relations;

* models and practices of (e)-governance and public administration globally;

* P2P technologies, its' governance and potential new production models;

* fiscal governance and fiscal bureaucracies;

* science and innovation policies and its' management.

* philosophy and ethics of science and technology.

The Ragnar Nurkse Department recently initiated a major, €32 million international R&D project on Smart Cities (FinestTwins) and coordinated the H2020 funded large-scale innovation pilot on implementing the Once-Only Principle (TOOP), which laid the foundation for the data exchange layer foreseen in the European Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR).

For any further information about the two positions, please contact Prof Anu Masso (anu.masso@taltech.ee ) or visit http://ttu.ee/…kse . To get more information about the research team, please visit https://taltech.ee/…lab

George Mason University

If you are interested in Cultural Studies, please consider applying for our PhD program at George Mason University. Our program is the oldest of its kind in the U.S.: a stand-alone, post-MA doctoral program providing interdisciplinary training in the traditions of cultural studies.

We have fully funded graduate assistantships available for qualified applicants in Fall 2021, and call specific attention to our Graduate Inclusion & Access Scholarship.

Topicality is our watchword. We offer course work in gender, sexuality, race, biopolitics, globalization, science and technology, and political economy, as well as mass, visual, textual, and digital culture.

Our faculty can support a broad range of research interests. Recent dissertations include research on: the Radical Faeries; Whole Foods; the business of “mindfulness;” the iconography around President Obama; the birth of the modern organ transplant industry; the current place of literature outside the academy; excessive policing; greeenwashing, and much more…

Our student body is diverse and international. Our alumni have had notable success as researchers and instructors.

For more information, please visit our website or contact our program’s interim director Roger Lancaster .

University College London

This is an exciting opportunity to conduct a funded full-time, four-year long PhD at University College London (UCL) a world leading research university. The funding is available to UK/EU/Third Country Nationals. The successful candidate will benefit from the opportunities presented by a thriving research community as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cybersecurity at UCL, which encompasses the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP), the Department of Security and Crime Science (SCS), and the Department of Computer Science (CS).

The Supervisory Team

The supervisory team for this project will include Dr Leonie Maria Tanczer (UCL STEaPP) and Professor Shane D. Johnson (UCL Crime Sciences).

About the PhD Project

Intimate partner violence such as domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking describes a continuum of behaviours, ranging from verbal abuse, threats and intimidation, manipulative behaviour, physical and sexual assault, through to rape and homicide. Increasingly, abuse enabled through smartphones, laptops or even emerging technologies such as “smart”, Internet-connected household devices are being at the centre of attention in research, policy, and practice. So-called “technology-facilitated abuse” or “tech abuse” describes the breadth of harmful actions perpetrators may use to harass and intimidate victims and survivors through digital means.

The proposed PhD project is expected to produce unique insights on a specific issue of tech abuse. Existing literature has focused on topics such as image-based abuse (“revenge porn”), malicious software such as “stalkerware”, as well as harms that derive from “Internet of Things” devices. However, more research needs to be conducted to quantify the scale and nature of tech abuse, to examine legal and industry responses, and to design, develop and assess possible interventions.

The exact remit of the project will be defined by the student in the first year of their PhD and in interaction with their supervisors. However, an aspired vision/topic must be set out at the application stage and showcased in the applicant’s proposal.

This PhD will run in affiliation with the “Gender and IoT” research project at UCL STEaPP, with the candidate having a chance to gain teaching experience through their contribution to module offerings.

Further Information:

About the PhD: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/.../files/phd_studentship_2020.pdf

About the CDT: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/.../centre-doctoral-training...

Relevant Deadlines

Submission Deadline: 29th January 2021

Start Date: 27th of September 2021

KU Leuven

The fulltime professor position (open-rank) will be held within the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, a research unit within the Department of Communication Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven (Belgium). KU Leuven represents a leading academic institution in Europe that is currently by far the largest university in Belgium in terms of research funding and expenditure. The university’s mission is to provide excellence in academic education and research and to offer a distinguished service to society. Owing to KU Leuven’s cutting-edge research, KU Leuven is a charter member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and is consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in Europe.

Within KU Leuven, the Leuven School of Mass Communication Research (SMCR) represents a pioneering institution for media effects research. SMCR strives to contribute to the most advanced methodological techniques and theoretical insights in communication studies, cognitive and social psychology, sociology, and public health. The research focus lies on the use of information- and entertainment media (including social media, ICT, television, games, mobile devices), and on how these uses may harm or enhance various components of individuals’ wellbeing. We have a strong expertise in explaining the processes through which various forms of media use affect physical, psychological and social wellbeing in the long run, and the conditions under which these processes occur. Therefore, a series of advanced methods are applied, including longitudinal survey studies, daily diary studies and content analysis. Issues studied in recent years include alcohol and drug use, sexuality and sexism, aggression, risk taking, depression, self-harm, (positive) body image, sleep, mental wellbeing, health information seeking, self-esteem, parental mediation, and nutrition.

The School adheres to the highest academic standards and strives towards publishing its research in top academic journals (e.g., Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, New Media & Society). For this research, prestigious grants from multiple funding agencies are attributed yearly and SMCR’s excellent research has been awarded on a yearly basis by different international and interdisciplinary organizations. SMCR staff is involved in various national and international multidisciplinary research projects, primarily of fundamental nature but also with societal relevance

Website unit

Duties

• Research

You will be expected to develop a research program, aim at excellent scientific output of international level, and support and promote national and international research collaborations in the broad field of health communication and in the context of the School for Mass Communication Research. Your research focuses on the development of innovative theory and advanced research techniques in this field. You have a strong background in predominantly quantitative research methods and have demonstrated research excellence in various ways (e.g., top ranked ISI publications, awards, societal impact etc.).

With this vacancy we aim to further strengthen and expand the research at SMCR. We are looking for a candidate with a strong experience in research in communication and the advancement of health and wellbeing in society. Specifically, your research may encompass one of the following subdomains of health communication: (1) effects of media use on various health (e.g., addiction, suicide,…) or societal issues (e.g., hate speech, sustainability,…), and ways of responding to these effects with communication and intervention, (2) the development and testing of mediated promotion and intervention campaigns aiming to advance public health or societal wellbeing, (3) health information seeking and effects (e.g., resistance to health information, public service announcements,…), and/or (4) technological perspectives on health communication (e.g., effects of VR on health outcomes, potential of mHealth in health promotion, artificial intelligence,…).

Your research may focus on the (strategic) uses or effects of different types of media including but not limited to, social media, entertainment media, television, news media, apps, video games, blogs, websites, serious games, virtual reality etc.

In close collaboration with SMCR staff, you contribute to the existing lines of research and set up your own program through the acquisition of research funding.

• Education

The Department of Communication Science, consisting of two research groups SMCR and IMS, organizes the Bachelor and Master of Communication Science, the (English) Master in Digital Media and Society, and is involved in the Master’s program of Business Communication and Journalism. Your teaching will contain several courses at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level and will include theoretical and methodological courses on communication science in general and health communication in particular. You have experience in lecturing large groups and you have a broad employability due to in-depth and detailed knowledge about the social sciences, media sociology and media psychology. You supervise students working on their masterthesis and PhD students.

Your teaching is expected to meet the KU Leuven standards regarding academic program level and orientation and to be in keeping with the educational vision of KU Leuven. Commitment to the quality of education as a whole is naturally understood.

• Service

You provide scientific, social and internal services. This is reflected, among other things, in a constructive contribution to education and research, as part of a team's collective projects (e.g. through participation in meetings, teacher days, information sessions, recruitment activities, exchange programs).

Profile

Applicants hold a Ph.D. degree in communication sciences, social sciences, psychology, public health or an equivalent diploma. We seek a scholar with a broad theoretical- and interdisciplinary interest and a strong background in quantitative research methods, whose research relates to and complements the current research lines at SMCR with a strong health communication profile. The successful candidate has an excellent research record as evidenced by more than one dimension, e.g., the quality of his/her PhD research, high-level publications in the important journals of our field (i.e., ICA journals) and related fields, research impact (e.g., citations) and acquired research funding. We value professional behavior and collegiality, and will encourage the candidate to collaborate with SMCR researchers as well as with interdisciplinary research groups and centers within KU Leuven. The candidate has a large international network and is eager to further develop this within the context of SMCR.

Applicants have demonstrated excellent teaching skills which preferably include experience in teaching large groups of students.

The official administrative language used at KU Leuven is Dutch. If you do not speak Dutch (or do not speak it well) at the start of employment, KU Leuven will provide language training to enable you to take part in administrative meetings. A thorough knowledge of English is required.

Offer

We offer a full-time employment in an intellectually challenging and international environment. You will work in Leuven, a historic and lively city located in the heart of Belgium, within 20 minutes from Brussels, and less than two hours from Paris, London and Amsterdam. Depending on your experience and qualification, the position will be filled at one of the levels of the Senior Academic Staff (Tenure Track Professor, Associate Professor, Full Professor). Junior researchers are appointed as assistant professor on the tenure track for a period of five years; after this period and a positive evaluation, they are permanently appointed (or tenured) as an associate professor. The anticipated starting date for this position is September 1, 2021.

To facilitate scientific onboarding and accelerate research in the first phase a starting grant of 100.000 euro is offered to new professors without substantial other funding (e.g., ERC).

KU Leuven welcomes international scholars and their family and provides practical support with regard to immigration and administration, housing, childcare, learning Dutch, partner career coaching,…

Interested?

For more information please contact Prof. dr. Kathleen Beullens, tel.: +32 16 32 32 19, mail: kathleen.beullens@kuleuven.be or Prof. dr. Stef Aupers, tel.: +32 16 37 23 07, mail: stef.aupers@kuleuven.be or dean prof. dr. Steven Eggermont, tel: +32 32 32 38, mail: steven.eggermont@kuleuven.be. For problems with online applying, please contact solliciteren@kuleuven.be.

You can apply for this job no later than February 22, 2021 via the online application tool

KU Leuven seeks to foster an environment where all talents can flourish, regardless of gender, age, cultural background, nationality or impairments. If you have any questions relating to accessibility or support, please contact us at diversiteit.HR@kuleuven.be.

https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/55921882?fbclid=IwAR1xklKJwV_HvzmncHPRTITmxMtPjjoV_A-CkHrTZ6FYvnTIXxHe1UW9a_k&hl=en&lang=en

April 20-22, 2021

Online

Deadline: January 15, 2021

The theme for the 2021 Spring Seminar is monstrosity. This theme explores the role of monsters and monstrosity in games, play, game cultures, and other forms of playful media and popular cultures. The figure of the ‘monster’ is a crucial area for development in game studies. Recent scholarship has opened important trajectories for examining how such figures can embed problematic world views (Stang & Trammel 2019; Young 2016), and how the mythic dimensions of the monster are made mundane and knowable through containment within the rules (Švelch 2018). Monsters appear widely across digital and non-digital games and we welcome work that considers how they are deployed in game design and world-building, as well as critical analysis of specific monsters or games.

We are also interested in work that explores the theme of monstrosity more broadly. ‘Monstrosity’ evokes a taste-based or even ethical judgment, traditionally regarding architecture. What constitutes a monstrosity in the context of games and game cultures? What edifices, institutions, and monuments blight this domain? Are there elements of gaming culture and games that are indelibly evil? In some cases, the figure of the ‘gamer’ has become monstrous (e.g. Consalvo 2003), the commercial gaming culture’s role in enforcing racialised and gendered structures and practices is widely acknowledged (e.g. Richard & Gray 2018), while widespread industry practices such as ‘crunch-time’ are routinely condemned (e.g. Dyer-Withefor & de Peuter 2006).

We plan to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to explore the theme of monstrosity. We are particularly interested in how this theme intersects with feminist scholarship, disability studies, gender studies, indigenous studies, queer studies and critical race/whiteness studies, and scholars who are working in these areas are encouraged to apply.

The possible list of topics includes but is not limited to:

• Monsters and the monstrous in playful media and popular cultures
• Panic discourses on gaming in mainstream media
• Harassment in gaming, social media, and streaming platforms
• Precariousness of work in the game industry
• Destructive capitalist and neoliberal structures and practices in gaming
• Gaming controversies
• Censorship, violence and pornography in games
• Toxicity in competitive gaming and esports
• Monstrosity as a playful practice
• Racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and hostility towards marginalised groups in gaming

Monstrosity is the 17th annual spring seminar organised by Tampere University Game Research Lab. The seminar emphasises work-in-progress submissions, and we strongly encourage submitting late-breaking results, working papers, as well as submissions from graduate and PhD students. The purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area. The seminar is organised in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies.

The papers to be presented will be chosen based on extended abstract review. Full papers are distributed prior to the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion. Three invited expert commentators, Dr. Aino-Kaisa Koistinen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), Doctoral Candidate Sarah Stang (York University, Canada), and Dr. Jaroslav Švelch (Charles University, Prague), will provide feedback on the papers.

The seminar is looking into partnering with a journal so that the best papers would be invited to be further developed for publication in a special journal issue. In the past, we have collaborated with Games and Culture, Simulation & Gaming, International Journal of Role-Playing, and ToDiGRA journals.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the seminar will be held online. The seminar is free of charge.

Submission guidelines

The papers will be selected for presentation based on extended abstracts of 500–1000 words (plus references). Abstracts should be delivered in PDF format. Please use 12 pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, for your text. Full paper guidelines will be provided with the notification of acceptance.

Our aim is that all participants can familiarise themselves with the papers in advance. Therefore, the maximum length for a full paper is 5000 words (plus references). The seminar presentations should encourage discussion, instead of repeating the information presented in the papers. Every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.

Submissions should be sent to gamestudiesseminar@gmail.com.

Important dates

• Abstract deadline: 15 January 2021
• Notification of acceptance: 29 January 2021
• Full Paper deadline: 30 March 2021
• Seminar dates: 20–22 April 2021

References

Mia Consalvo 2003. The Monsters Next Door: Media Constructions of Boys and Masculinity. Feminist Media Studies 3(1): 27-45.

Gabriela T. Richard and Kishonna L. Gray 2018. Gendered Play, Racialized Reality: Black Cyberfeminism, Inclusive Communities of Practice, and the Intersections of Learning, Socialization, and Resilience in Online Gaming. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 39(1): 112-148.

Sarah Stang and Aaron Trammell 2020. The Ludic Bestiary: Misogynistic Tropes of Female Monstrosity in Dungeons & Dragons. Games and Culture 15(6): 730-747.

Jaroslav Švelch 2018. Encoding monsters: “Ontology of the enemy” and containment of the unknown in role-playing games. In the edited proceedings of The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, Copenhagen 2018. http://gameconference.itu.dk/papers/09%20-%20svelch%20-%20encoding%20monsters.pdf

Nick Dyer-Witheford and Grieg de Peuter 2006. “EA Spouse” and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, and Exodus. Canadian Journal of Communication 31(3).

Helen Young 2016. Racial Logics, Franchising, and Video Game Genres: The Lord of the Rings. Games and Culture 11(4): 343-364.

April 21-23, 2021

Utrecht University (Netherlands)

Deadline: January 31 (panels)/February 15 (abstracts)

The conference has been postponed to Spring 2021. The new submission deadline for panels is 31 January 2021. Abstracts can be submitted until 15 February 2021.

Migrant belonging through digital connectivity refers to a way of being in the world that cuts across national borders, shaping new forms of diasporic affiliations and transnational intimacy. This happens in ways that are different from the ways enabled by the communication technologies of the past. Scholarly attention has intensified around the question of how various new technical affordances of platforms and apps are shaping the transnationally connected, and locally situated, social worlds in which migrants live their everyday lives.

This international conference focuses on the connection between the media and migration from different disciplinary vantage points. Connecting with friends, peers and family, sharing memories and personally identifying information, navigating spaces and reshaping the local and the global in the process is but one side of the coin of migrant-related technology use: this Janus-faced development also subjects individuals as well as groups to increased datafied migration management, algorithmic control and biometric classification as well as forms of transnational authoritarianism and networked repression.

This conference pays particular attention to the everyday use of digital media for the support of transnational lives, emotional bonds and cosmopolitan affiliations, focusing also on the role digital media play in shaping local/urban and national diasporic formations. This is because it becomes increasingly important to give everyday digital media usage a central role in investigations of transnational belonging, digital intimacy, diasporic community (re)production, migrant subject formation, long-distance political participation, urban social integration and local/national self-organization.

Therefore we need to examine individual and collective user practices within the wider historical and cultural contexts of media studies, cultural studies and postcolonial cultural studies scholarship, attuned to issues of politics and power, identity, geographies and the everyday. This also creates new challenges for cross-disciplinary dialogues that require an integration of ethnography with digital methods and critical data studies in order to look at the formation of identity and experience, representation, community building, and creating spaces of belongingness.

Contributions are welcome from any field of study that engages with questions about how technology and social media usages mediate contemporary migration experiences, not only within media and communication studies, or digital and internet studies but also in neighbouring disciplines such as anthropology, postcolonial studies, gender studies, race studies, psychology, law, visual studies, conflict studies, criminology, sociology, critical theory, political theory and international relations.

Contributions that explore non-media-centric entry points by focusing on users’ digital practices and foregrounding ethnographic exploration as a uniting framework are especially welcome.

The conference is part of the ERC project CONNECTINGEUROPE, Digital Crossings in Europe: Gender, Diaspora and Belonging.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Affective digital practices and the politics of emotion
• Digital diaspora
• Cosmopolitanism
• Cities and urban belonging
• Translocality and transnationalism
• Co-presence and togetherness
• Cultural capital
• Migrant visualization
• Appification of migration
• Platformization of migrant lives
• Gender and critical race
• The migration industry of connectivity
• Digital ethnography
• Transnational authoritarianism
• Networked conflicts
• Datafication and surveillance

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Submissions for panels should be submitted via e-mail to ERC2020@uu.nl by 31 January 2021.

• Submission for panels should include a chairperson, a rationale for the panel (250 words), and the names of three speakers including their abstract (250 words) and biographical note (150 words).

Abstracts should be submitted electronically, using the online submission system by 15 February 2021.

• Submissions for papers should include an abstract (max 300 words) and short biographical note (150 words) about the author including her/his current position and interest in the field of digital media and migration.

For further questions please mail: ERC2020@uu.nl

The PDF of this call for papers is available here.

June 21-23, 2021

Link Campus University, Via del Casale di San Pio V 44 – Rome (IT)

Deadline: November 15, 2020

Conference Website: https://www.detect-project.eu/detect2021/

CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

• Charlotte Brunsdon (University of Warwick)
• Theo D’haen (Leuven University and Leiden University)
• Janet McCabe (Birkbeck, University of London)
• Peppino Ortoleva (University of Turin)

More info abou​t the speakers: http://www.detect-project.eu/keynote-speakers/

Description

Among the different expressions of popular culture, no other genre more than crime – meant as a composite made up of many different variants or subgenres -- has proved able to travel and expand its reach into international markets and with audiences. Nor has any other genre been more adept at laying bare the conflicts and contradictions – social, political and historical – that characterise contemporary European societies.

The Detecting Europe conference offers an open forum to explore and discuss how narratives of crime and investigation, as well as their production and reception, have helped define the major industrial, commercial, thematic and stylistic trends of European popular culture since 1989, fostering both the transnational circulation of its products and the appearance of new transcultural representations in line with the emergence of new social identities. We welcome proposals that interrogate the notion of Europeanness as a critical category, and its viability for the study of contemporary popular culture, both in print and screen media. We wish to explore both the scope and limits of the interrelated notions of transnational identity and cosmopolitanism when applied to the works of European crime fiction, including print fiction, film, and TV.

A few general — but not exclusive — questions may be asked. Are we to conceive of cosmopolitanism and the process of European transculturation merely as unifying factors, fostering the generation of a shared and uniform transnational identity? Or should we better acknowledge the existence of a variety of European transcultural identities, expressed in different writing and audio-visual styles, characteristic narrative models, place-specific production cultures and distribution and consumption patterns? What is the impact of national media ecologies in shaping the idea of the European, and how the national translate the European when foreign products appear in its mediascape? Should hybridization and transculturation be assumed as markers and powerful drivers of cultural homologation? Or rather the opposite is true, namely that cultural hybridization entails a growing differentiation of narrative forms and styles, contents and formats, production and reception practices, thus contributing to the emergence of a post-national assemblage of multiple and possibly diverging cosmopolitan identities? We deem it important, at this particular time, that the notion of Europeanness and its eventual instantiations in contemporary crime narratives is approached having in mind the multiple crises that are currently affecting the continent and its population.

We invite proposals from multiple fields of cultural studies, including representation studies, industry and production studies, and reception and audience studies. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Main stylistic trends of the crime-genre works produced in Europe in the last 30 years.
• Debating/reframing Euronoir as a critical category for cultural studies.
• Hybridization and transculturation: toward homologation or increased cultural differentiation?
• Crime fiction and the European crisis: immigration, migrant labour, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing popularism.
• The restaging and critical analysis of Europe’s recent past in the work of crime writers, screenwriters and directors.
• Images of Europe and Europeans: investigating social change through the study of popular crime narratives.
• Restating vs challenging class, gender and ethnic stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination in the representation of crime.
• The multiple facets of European diversity: how have social, spatial and historical identities been expressed in the works of the European crime genre?
• Ecocriticism and environmental humanities in the era of widescale ecological crisis: eco-noir and the challenges to European environment policies.
• The profiled position of crime in fostering transnational cooperation in the European cultural and creative sectors.
• Relationships and discrepancies between national/local creative industries and transnational cultural policies in the production milieu of the European crime genre.
• Transnational production and distribution and the emergence of transcultural formats.
• The hopes and limits of European cohesiveness, as revealed in practices of co-production and distribution of crime novels, films and TV dramas across the continent.

• Crime narratives and the media discourse on organized trans-European crime.
• Fictional representations of legal and forensic practices in comparative perspective.
• Translation, dubbing, subtitling as strategies for cultural adaptation and appropriation.
• The imbrication of local, national and transnational identities in the reception of foreign crime stories, between old and fresh perspectives on proximate or distant neighbors.
• Transnational distribution and the role of audiences in shaping the circulation patterns of European crime narratives across the continent.
• Detecting transcultural identity and social change through the study of the audiences’ response to crime stories and trans/cross-media universes.
• Engagement and design of crime audiences in the age of digital markets and online distribution.
• Making sense of social change through the audience’s response to the representation of female, gay, lesbian and queer characters.
• Theorising transnational/transdisciplinary research for the study of European crime narratives in print and screen media.

Conference Chairs

Monica Dall’Asta (University of Bologna), Federico Pagello (University of Chieti-Pescara), Valentina Re (Link Campus University)

Organizing Committee

Luca Antoniazzi (University of Bologna), Sara Casoli (University of Bologna), Massimiliano Coviello (Link Campus University), Paola De Rosa (Link Campus University), Lorenzo Orlando (Link Campus University)

Advisory Board

Stefano Arduini (Link Campus University), Maurizio Ascari (University of Bologna), Jan Baetens (KU Leuven), Luca Barra (University of Bologna), Stefano Baschiera (Queen’s University Belfast), Giulia Carluccio (University of Turin), Silvana Colella (University of Macerata), Caius Dobrescu (University of Bucharest), Andrea Esser (University of Roehampton), Nicola Ferrigni (Link Campus University), Katarina Gregersdotter (Umeå University), Kim Toft Hansen (Aalborg University), Annette Hill (University of Lund), Dominique Jeannerod (Queen’s University Belfast), Sandor Kalai (University of Debrecen), Matthieu Letourneux (University Paris Nanterre), Natacha Levet (University of Limoges), Giacomo Manzoli (University of Bologna), Janet McCabe (Birkbeck University), Jacques Migozzi (University of Limoges), Andrew Pepper (Queen’s University Belfast), Marica Spalletta (Link Campus University)

Submissions guidelines

Submissions are welcome as individual papers (max. 20 minutes) and pre-constituted panels (3/4 papers).

Individual presenters are required to provide their name, email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max. 300 words), references (max. 200 words), and a short bio (max. 150 words).

Submit your paper proposal here

Submit your panel proposal here (panel organizers are also asked to submit a panel title and a short description of the panel (max. 300 words).

Deadlines and practicalities

• Abstracts deadline: 15 November 2020
• Feedback: 15 December 2020
• Registration deadline: 31 January 2020
• Regular conference fee: €120

Reduced conference fee (PhD students, Postdoctoral researchers): €90

Further information: info@detect-project.eu

At present, we are still planning to hold the conference in person at Link Campus University, taking all the necessary health and safety precautions required by Italian authorities. We will also be monitoring national and international guidelines for health and safety to communicate any changes in a timely manner.

(Fees include: coffee breaks, 2 light lunches, 1 light dinner, 1 welcome drink).

The conference is supported by CUC – Consulta Universitaria del Cinema, Italy.

Journal of Digital War

The Journal of Digital War is seeking review essays for our upcoming publication on topics related to digital war. We publish reviews of current books, artworks and conferences (ca. 750-1500 words).

Published by Palgrave Macmillan (Springer Nature), Digital War aims to critically explore what war means today and how it will develop in the future. Digital War provides an interdisciplinary forum for cutting-edge analysis of contemporary warfare, unifying researchers and knowledge from media studies, politics and IR, cybersecurity, the military, art, library and information studies, geography, and cultural studies as well as from political and technological commentators.

If you are interested in contributing a review article, please send an email to the Reviews Editor, Ally McCrow-Young: ally.mccrowyoung@hum.ku.dk , including your name, title and institutional affiliation. We have a number of titles available for review, however we also welcome review proposals on topics related to the journal’s aims.

We welcome timely interventions from practitioners, scholars and students. For more information and general submissions to the journal, visit: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/42984

Find the current full list of online first content here: https://link.springer.com/journal/42984/onlineFirst/page/1