ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

May 2-3, 2019

Istanbul

Deadline: March 15, 2019

Üsküdar University Communication Faculty is hosting the sixth International Communication Days on 02 - 03 May 2019. This year’s symposium title is “Digital Transformation”. Since 2014, International Communication Days is being held annually with invited guests. In the previous symposiums, scholars discussed topics as “Digital Addiction” and “Digital Culture” and its effects on public opinion was noteworthy. This year, as invited papers, poster presentations will take place at the symposium.

In addition to the digital communication technologies that marked the era, the media sector and communication sciences have undergone significant changes and transformations. On the one hand, media professionals have been trying to adapt to the new era in which production, distribution and administration are surrounded by digital technologies. On the other hand, academicians have been searching new theories and methodologies in order to analyze and interpret the changing era. In Digital Transformation Symposium, the era of digitization will be discussed in several dimensions with the participation of academicians and media professionals. Thus, while developing a new vision for scientific field, it is aimed to display the requirements of the era in communication education by probing the experiences, education, job opportunities and processes in the digital world.

Digital Transformation Symposium is a peer-reviewed scientific event. Both nationally and internationally recognized scholars in communication field will be invited as keynote speakers.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Digital transformation in print media
  
• New Media
  
• Digital transformation in television and radio
  
• Cinema in the age of digital transformation
  
• Digital marketing communication
  
• Digital transformation in public relations
  
• Digital transformation in advertising
  
• Digital transformation in visual communication
  
• Virtual Reality
  
• Hyper-reality
  
• Augmented Reality
  
• Artificial Intelligence
  

Submitted abstracts will be peer reviewed by the members of Scientific Committee and the accepted papers will be published in the abstract booklet before the symposium. Then, authors may prefer to have their papers included in full paper booklet or in the special edition of Faculty of Communication’s Academic Journal Etkileşim. In that case, their work will be reviewed by the Etkileşim journal’s Editorial Board. Abstracts and poster presentations should be sent to the Organization Committee before 15 March 2019. Accepted papers will be announced by 30 March 2019.

See more here.

Nordicom Review Special Issue (open access)

Deadline for full papers: May 31, 2019

Special issue editors: Aske Kammer (IT-University of Copenhagen), Carl-Gustav Lindén (University of Helsinki), Jonas Ohlsson (Nordicom) and Helle Sjøvaag (University of Stavanger).

The past few years have seen a dramatic upsurge in paywalls being erected across the news media landscape. Online news content that was previously circulated for free is now available only to those who are willing to pay for it. The paywalls are an industry response to two interacting market forces: the gradual decline in printed newspaper sales and the increasing dominance of global networking platforms such as Google and Facebook on national and local advertising markets. In order for commercially funded news media outlets to survive, online audience revenue seems to be the most viable way forward.

The implications of what appears to be a fundamental shift from “free-for-all” to “subscribers-only” access to online news, are plentiful. As a research area, it raises important questions regarding such diverse topics as digital business models and digital media policy, journalistic processes and journalistic content, news media audiences and news media use, and – indeed – the democratic function of commercial news media at large. What happens with news media products and what happens with news media audiences when paywalls are erected? What happens with those that chose not to pay? And how does this metamorphosis of the private news media sector affect the role and scope of public service media?

Against the backdrop of these rather fundamental questions, Nordicom invites the international research community to submit articles to a special issue of Nordicom Review devoted to the implications of online news media paywalls.

The special issue will have an inter-disciplinary scope and the editors welcome contributions on themes including, but not limited to:

• Newsroom organization, newsroom processes and editorial decision-making in a paywall environment
  
• Strategies on converting print subscribers to digital subscribers
  
• Policy approaches to advancing online business models for commercial news media
  
• Digital business models for commercial news media
  
• Paywall solutions and pricing
  
• Comparisons of paid-for news media and ad-financed news media
  
• News audience analyses
  
• News content analyses
  
• The impact of user-data in paywall setups
  
• The paywall phenomenon in relation to democratic theory
  
• Comparisons between reader-financed and ad-financed news
  

The deadline for full paper submissions is on May 31, 2019. All manuscripts should be submitted to editors@nordicom.gu.se. The preliminary time of publication is Winter 2019/2020. Nordicom Review adheres to a double-blind reviewing policy.

About Nordicom Review

Nordicom Review is an international peer-reviewed open access journal published by Nordicom (Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research) at the University of Gothenburg. The publication of Nordicom Review is supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom Review is indexed by SCOPUS. For more information, please visit http://www.nordicom.gu.se.

Contact

Jonas Ohlsson, PhD, assoc. professor

Editor-in-chief, Nordicom Review

Director, Nordicom

Jonas.ohlsson@nordicom.gu.se

+46 31 786 6125

View this CFP on Nordicom’s website: http://www.nordicom.gu.se/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/call-papers-nordicom-review-special-issue-2

European Society for Periodical Research Conference 2019

September 11-13, 2019

Athens (Greece)

Deadline: March 31, 2019

The subject of the 2019 European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit) Conference will be the visual culture of periodical literature, viewed in its broadest sense and in a comparative context. This approach is intended to encompass all visual aspects of periodicals, including typography, covers, format, illustration, fine and avant garde art, cartoons, advertising copy, photojournalism, fashion, portraiture, illustrated travel accounts and ethnographic studies, religious imagery, propaganda and all other dimensions of the visual culture of the printed page. Of particular interest are the development and use of new print technologies for the reproduction of images, the juxtapositions or interactions of imagery and text (at the level of the page or the opening, the issue or the series), the evolution of visual tropes/memes (for example in propaganda and advertising), innovation in design, the emergence of new markets, studies of reader reception of and engagement with visual cultures, the formal (legal) or informal (editorial) regulation of the printed image, and the influence of periodical illustration on art and photography more broadly and on the use of imagery in the daily press in particular.

The conference will draw on and enhance the current Greek Press History Workshop (ETMIET)/ Research Centre for Modern Greece (KENI), Panteion University research project on Greek twentieth-century popular print that seeks to establish the first fully-comprehensive archive of periodicals in Greece, in collaboration with the Journalists’ Union of Periodical and Electronic Press (ESPIT), and the National Library of Greece. Further dimensions that arise from the particular Greek experience, and which invite broader international comparative perspectives, include: (a) the relationships between the uses of imagery in the periodical literature of metropoles and diasporas; and (b) an exploration of the methodologies and the political economies of periodicals research, particularly under the current global circumstances of austerity for the Humanities in general.

The Conference theme itself will be illustrated with appropriate exhibitions and pop-up displays, for which a wider audience is also under consideration, including schools, in order to leave a more lasting legacy for the people of Greece.

Proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of the visual culture of periodicals, of any period or region, are invited for the 8th Conference of European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit), which will be held in Athens in September 2019. Accepted proposals will be grouped into broadly congruent thematic panels, normally with three speakers in each.

Subjects may include the following:

• illustrations
  
• cartoons
  
• formats
  
• title and font design
  
• advertising
  
• photojournalism
  
• fashion
  
• portraiture
  
• travel accounts
  
• ethnographic studies
  
• religious imagery
  
• propaganda
  
• the presence of periodicals (production, distribution or consumption) in visual culture more broadly
  
• and other dimensions of the printed image of particular interest are juxtapositions or interactions of imagery and text – either at the level of the page or the opening, the issue or the series.

In addition, we intend to organise specific workshop sessions on Greek periodicals and visual culture, consisting of panels and group proposals relating to, for example, covers, advertisements, layout etc. We also invite proposals for two atelier sessions, one for MA and PhD candidates, the other focused on a regionally-based ‘state of the discipline’ panel.

The conference will draw on and enhance the current Greek Press History Workshop (ETMIET)/ Research Centre for Modern Greece (KENI), Panteion University research project on Greek twentieth-century popular print that seeks to establish the first fully-comprehensive archive of periodicals in Greece, in collaboration with the Journalists’ Union of Periodical and Electronic Press (ESPIT), and the National Library of Greece.

The working language of the conference is English and Greek. We welcome proposals from researchers at all stages of their careers.

Proposals of around 250 words (references not included) for 20-minute papers and a short CV (no more than 200 words) should be sent to 2019esprit@gmail.com by 31 March 2019.

We also welcome proposals for joint panels of three papers. Please include a brief rationale for the panel along with an abstract and CV for each presenter.

See more: http://www.espr-it.eu/news/events/97-call-for-papers-periodicals-and-visual-culture-11-13-september-2019-athens

The International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies, volume 2

Deadline: February 28, 2019

This SPECIAL ISSUE engages with dominant paradigms and concepts for imagining liberation and fashioning hope. Traditional paradigms such as nationalism, globalism and liberalism increasingly appear to conceal rather than reveal the nature and impact of dominations. Achievements of anti-colonial, anti-racist, feminist, queer, disability and other struggles may be facing a reversal as once again dominations, marginalisations and exploitations of those constructed as racial, ethnic, religious, national, sexed/gendered ‘others’ seem to be gaining currency. The planetary ecological crisis, global financial crises, expanding social inequalities, political and religiously motivated violence contribute to a climate of systematised and institutionalised domination and oppression. In such a world, it may seem that the odds are so stacked against the disempowered that they are structurally condemned to despair. When the systems of domination are so durable and inventive, how can we enhance and redouble our efforts to bring about social justice? How should we reinvigorate our thinking on how contemporary societies may move beyond structures and systems of domination? How do we create horizons of hope envisioning a world in which our diversity is protected and valued? How do we advance efforts at the re- humanisation of the oppressed, and indeed, of the oppressor? How can we sharpen our critiques? How should critical scholarship and activism engage despair? How should hope inform critical scholarship? What kind of hope should this be?

The IJCDS invites manuscripts that look at the interrelationships of liberation, hope and despair in the contexts of:

• Achievements and failures of past struggles - Knowledge production and epistemologies
  
• Normative social formations - Affective economies
  
• Emerging centres and margins - Bodies and embodiment
  
• Social and political institutions - Faith, spirituality and religion
  
• Identities and subjectivities - Law and legislation
  
• Social movements and civil society - Institutions and organisations
  
• Migration and nation - Economic practices and occupations
  
• Ethnic and cultural formations - Violences
  
• Culture, arts and representation - Past, present and future imaginaries
  
• Memory and memorialization
  

Key deadlines and details:

• Submission deadline: February 28, 2019
• Planned publication date: June 2019
• Authors must use the ScholarOne submission portal to submit manuscripts. Submission guidelines should be followed and can be found at: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/ijcds

The IJCDS is published by Pluto Journals and upon publication, individual articles can be located through the JSTOR database. Please contact the IJCDS editorial team with regards to any questions.

Liverpool University

Deadline: February 15, 2019

PhD Exploring The Future of Mixed Reality for Immersive Entertainment Immersive Technologies, such as AR, VR and MR, are continuing to transform the way we can engage in entertainment experiences. From television programmes and documentaries that you can literally walk into, to cinematic experiences where you can become a part of the narrative, to games that enable you to interact with your environment in creative ways. The narrative possibilities for combining the real and virtual are seemingly endless for media storytellers.

This blending of physical and digital worlds presents a number of challenges for content makers. From thinking about the ways that we might spatially engage with an interface or character, to using games engines and data to dynamically trigger and render content, to creating new opportunities and spaces to experience stories in location-based and at home entertainment.

This practice-based PhD* will be exploring this future, working between the Liverpool Screen School and the Department of Computing in the Faculty of Engineering at LJMU and our network of industry professionals across games, film, documentary and television.

You will be making and testing prototypes and speculative design ideas and concepts. You should have an interest in the future of spatial computing, mixed reality, augmented reality and immersive technology and ideas for how it could transform documentary, fiction or other forms of moving image.

Questions/Areas you might explore are:

• What are the future possibilities for the broadcast, film and games industries in adopting mixed reality? And how might this be appropriate for specific audiences
  
• What are the possibilities for narrative when it interacts with you and your environment, in both at home and out of home contexts?
  
• What might mixed reality cinema or television entertainment look like in the future?
  
• What are the User-Experience Design Challenges in developing Spatial User Experiences?
  

You will have access to a wide variety of facilities including the new Liverpool Immersive Experience Lab (LIVELab) and the content production facilities and resources in the Screen School. This includes facilities such as green screen film studios, mixed reality and augmented headsets, volumetric creation tools, cameras, content creation software and games engines, UX design tools and emotional measurement facilities.

There will also be opportunities to engage with our industry networks across games, film, television and the growing immersive sector in the region.

We are primarily looking for someone with strong conceptual and realisation abilities and an interest in the future of Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality. You should also have a background in either games development, immersive experiences, animation, 3d modelling, film, design or digital arts. Although we are open to interested candidates from a range of other disciplines.

In the first instance, please send an expression of interest and a brief outline of the area you would like to focus on to p.j.woodbridge@ljmu.ac.uk as soon as possible, and by 15th February 2019 at the latest. We will then look to working with you on the proposal which needs to be submitted by Monday 4th March 2019.

*PhDs can either be fully funded scholarships including stipend and fees, or fees only, they are offered on a competitive basis. For more details about the terms please see this link.

Deadline: March 1, 2019

The Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen is offering a 3-year PhD position at the newly established Computational Communication and Democracy (CCD) Lab. The PhD student will work with the lab director, Prof. Yannis Theocharis on the thematic area Digital Media and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities

Description of the position

Duration: 3 years

Starting date: April 1, 2019 or soon as possible thereafter

Remuneration is based on grade E13 TV-L (50% of a full-time position) of the German federal employee scale (an increase to 100% is possible depending on application for external project funding)

General description of the position:

The PhD student will be embedded in the newly established CCD Lab, a research-oriented environment within the interdisciplinary ZeMKI of the University of Bremen. The research area Digital Media and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities focuses on explaining how digital media are transforming the quality of democracy, concentrating on issues such as uncivil behaviour, the activities of countercultures, new forms of political participation and representation, misinformation and exposure to news or social media content in general. The PhD student will be actively involved in the research activities of the CCD Lab and assist in the evolution of its research agenda and research output. It is expected that the PhD student will be an active contributor to the interdisciplinary intellectual environment of the ZeMKI. For more information about the Lab and ZeMKI please see below.

Description of research duties. The PhD student will support the Lab director in the development of the research area. This involves providing assistance with data collection and analysis, coordination of existing, and development of new projects for the acquisition of third-party funding, carrying out administrative tasks related to the Lab’s operation (e.g. coordination of student research assistants) and involvement in the Lab’s publication output. The PhD student is expected to develop and carry out her/his own PhD project related to the broader research area.

Description of teaching duties: The position involves 2 hours of teaching per week.

Essential qualifications

• Master’s in Media and Communication, Political Science, Computer Science, Sociology, or related disciplines
  
• Skills in quantitative methods
  
• Skills in computational methods (a focus on text-as-data methods – especially automated text analysis and machine-learning – is a plus)
  
• Familiarity with, or willingness to build methodological expertise on, network analysis
  
• Experience with social media data analysis is desirable
  
• Interest in political communication
  
• Command of R (experience with Python is a plus)
  
• Strong command of English
  

The University of Bremen intends to increase the proportion of women in science and therefore urges women to apply. Handicapped applicants with the same professional and personal suitability are given priority. Applications from people with a migration background are encouraged. Candidates who already hold a PhD degree will not be considered.

For any questions please contact Prof. Dr. Yannis Theocharis at yannis.theocharis@uni-bremen.de

Application

The application should include the following documents:

A letter of motivation (no longer than 2 pages) that outlines your substantive research and methodological interests. Please describe why you believe your profile fits with the main objectives and mission of the CCD Lab

• CV
  
• A copy of your academic certificates
  
• A writing sample (research paper, publication, or Master’s thesis)
  
• Names of two referees
  

Please send your application including the reference number A4/19 until 01/03/2019 to:

Universität Bremen

Zentrum für Medien-, Kommunikations- und Informationsforschung (ZeMKI)

z.H. Frau Denise Tansel

Postfach 33 04 40

28334 Bremen

Germany

or as PDF via Email (single file) at: dtansel@uni-bremen.de

The employment is fixed-term and serves the scientific qualification, governed by the Act of Academic Fixed-Term Contract, §2 (1) (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz). Therefore, candidates may only be considered for appointment if they still have the respective qualification periods available in accordance with § 2 (1) WissZeitVG.

About the Computational Communication and Democracy Lab

The Lab’s substantive research agenda is driven by the idea that the proliferation of digital media opens up new avenues for social and political interaction that have radical effects on democratic processes: participation, organisation, representation. As such, digital communication offers opportunities, but also poses enormous challenges that fundamentally affect the quality of our democracies. Relying on developments in the field of computational social science as a point of departure, the Lab’s is also interested in methods through which new types of digital information can be processed and repurposed for studying a variety of social and political phenomena enabled by digital technologies. The lab has two main goals. First, to lead research on different but interdependent substantive topics for understanding, the social and political impact of digital communication and address methodological and epistemological issues related to conceptualisation, operationalisation, measurement and inference. Second, to offer BA, Masters, and PhD students a path for specialisation in computational and data science methods, with applications to communication and media research.

About the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI)

As an inter-faculty research institute, the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) bundles research activities at the University of Bremen in the area of media and communicative change regarding a broad range of cultural, social, organisational and technological context fields. The research institute is committed to interdisciplinary cooperation, integrating researchers from the areas of media and communication studies, cultural studies, information management and media pedagogics. In addition to their research activities, ZeMKI members are active in the various media related study programmes at the University of Bremen. The ZeMKI oversees the profile-building research group "Communicative figurations of mediatized worlds" of the University of Bremen. The research group has been supported as a "Creative Unit" by the institutional strategy "Ambitious and Agile" of the University of Bremen funded within the frame of the Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments.

An edited volume comissioned by Palgrave

Deadline: February 25, 2019

If you are working on this or a similar topic, please consider submitting an abstract. The deadline is tight, February 25 for a 500 words abstract and March 31 the chapters.

To find out more, get in touch at toub.fox@wlv.ac.uk. 

Topos

Deadline: June 15, 2019

We invite papers that address the changes of human subjects – their bodies and selfhood, the modes of private and public interaction – in the light of various technological and institutional innovations in medicine occurred over the past few decades. The researches are encouraged to pay particular attention to integration and dissemination of the latest biotechnologies within the medical sector (locally and globally) and to the effects they have on existential experience, moral judgement and necessity of legal regulation. Similarly, we are interested in the changes of patients’ awareness, and also in the self-reflection of medical community in regard to gradual liberalization of public life and cultural globalization in the post-Soviet countries.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• 4P Medicine: social prospects and ethical frictions,
  
• Boundaries between treatment and enhancement,
  
• Redefinition of “death” and “dying” in the age of new medical technologies
  
• De-stigmatization of oncology patients,
  
• “Neurochemical selves”: the spread of antidepressants use as social and anthropological problem,
  
• Spread and reglamentation of assisted reproductive technologies in the post-Soviet societies
  
• “Narrative turn” in medicine: results/prospects of application in Western and Eastern European contexts
  
• Choice vs. care: alternative logics of interaction between doctors and patients in biomedicine
  

Here you can find Author Guidelines and Submission Preparation Checklist: http://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/topos/about/submissions.

To make your submission, please, register at the web-site of the Topos Journal here http://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/topos/login and submit your article via “Make a Submission” button. In case of any questions, please contact journal’s academic secretary Kseniya Shtalenkova on: mailto:journal.topos@ehu.lt.

April 11-12, 2019

Utrech University

Deadline: February 15, 2019

This annual conference is aimed at research-oriented MA students and PhD candidates from all (sub)disciplines of the humanities from both Dutch research institutions and comparable institutions abroad, and is held at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

For this year’s edition What’s the Point?, we invite contributions from MA’s and PhD’s from all these disciplines on the twinned issues of Impact and the Future of the Humanities. Prospective contributors should send a 200-300 word abstract with a short biography to whatsthepoint@uu.nl by 15 February 2019.

For full details of the Call for Papers: https://hgsc.sites.uu.nl/call-for-papers/

For general information on the conference: https://hgsc.sites.uu.nl/

Contact us: https://hgsc.sites.uu.nl/contact/ or whatsthepoint@uu.nl.

Deadline: February 20, 2019

Permanence, replicability, scalability and searchability: these four affordances properties of networked publics have become foundational to how scholars think about internet content (boyd 2008).

Ten years later, these affordances still apply to much of the content produced and circulated within social media. However, online spaces seem to be heading towards a more circumscribed and unsteady form of publicness, as materials are less permanent, less searchable, and, for researchers, more difficult to scale and replicate (e.g.: closed Facebook groups, Whatsapp group chats, Telegram channels, and the ephemeral contents of Snapchat and Instagram Stories). Along with recent platform “lockdowns” that have led some authors to talk about a “post API era”, this trend toward reduced access to online materials points out the need to discuss the impacts of these transformations on the future of internet studies.

The first AoIR Flashpoint Symposium seeks to investigate platform-driven changes and emergent practices of everyday-life content production occurring “below the radar”, or outside of previous standards of visibility and accessibility, thus calling into question theoretical, methodological and ethical developments in internet studies.

The #AoIR Flashpoint Symposium 2019 welcomes contributions that address these themes, including but not limited to the following questions:

• How do ethnographic and qualitative methods allow us to study such spaces?
  
• How have quantitative methods been utilized to study these environments – and with the closure of APIs, what new methods have emerged?
  
• To what extent, and for whom, is scraping viable in a “post-API era”?
  
• What ethical questions arise in relation to inclusion in semi-private spheres?
  
• How do these spheres specify and connect to public discourse?
  
• How might we approach questions of data validity and representativeness even as it becomes increasingly difficult to define the target universe of these conversations?
  

Proposals for papers and/or posters should be in the form of a title and 500 word abstract. Please include information on authors, institutions, and titles (these will be removed for the blind review process). Submissions are due by 20 February 2019.

All submissions should be emailed to: ymposiasubmissions@aoir.org

Registration Details will be available very soon!

Please email symposia@aoir.org with any questions.

Location

Room D1 – Palazzo Volponi

Via Saffi 15 – 61029

URBINO (PU)

Italy

Key Dates

20 February 2019 – Submissions Due

10 March 2019 – Notification of Acceptances

1 April 2019 – Full Symposia Program Available

24 June 2019 – AoIR Symposium