ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Humanities and Social Sciences Online

November 1, 2022

Often unified by the concept of the “cinematic city”, different approaches in film studies tend to examine urban space through three main angles. Films shot within the build environment may record - perhaps unwillingly- its current dynamics, architecture and urban planning (city as background), consciously use the representational value of specific places for narrative purposes (as character) or directly comment on the socio-political conditions and memories of a city (as subject). However, it can be argued that most of these discussions eventually converge to a double question: how does cinema reflect upon the past, present and future of a city and how do films reinforce or contest narratives and myths and affect the collective urban experience.

Following our previous special issue on urban themes in Russian and Soviet cinema, this year we turn our focus to the Balkans. Often described as the “other” of Europe, “insufficient European”, or a “specter haunting Western culture” (to use the Maria Todorova’s provocative description), the countries and people of the Balkan Peninsula more often than not are seen as a geographic and culturally unified unit of measurement, against which Europeans can prove their superiority. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Balkan wars as well as breakup of Yugoslavia, led the newly formed Balkan states to assert distinct national identities, mainly structured around religion and language. The collective amnesia of

a multiethnic past is however negated in everyday practices where cultural footprints proliferate (linguistic and culinary p.e.), the result of a century-long multicultural blend and the Ottoman presence in the region.

The special issue is intended to discuss Balkan urban space and architecture through a cinematic perspective, and further explore elements linking urban studies with film studies. We are particularly interested in contributions discussing fiction films or documentaries focused on specific urban spaces of the Balkans, significant constructions, major cities or lesser-known towns and villages. We are also interested in itinerary films that map the peninsula through their passage from different built environments.

Suggested topics (non-exhaustive list):

• Urban space, planning, architecture on screen
• Common aesthetic trends between architecture and cinema
• How films record urban dynamics and practices and comment upon them
• How films reinforce or resist dominant narratives about the identity of a city
• Topographies of memory and places with socio-historical significance
• Cinema as the vehicle touncoverhushedorerasedstories
• Urban manifestations of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic past.
• Cities a score places for political protest and resistance
• The experience of displaced persons in alien urban environments
• Internal migration towards cities and external migration towards Western urban centers

Contributions should be in English

Proposals of 250-500 words for contributions that deal with any aspects of the above themes should be sent to Antonis Lagarias at antonislagarias@eefb.org by July 15th 2022

Stylistic guidelines for contribution can be found https://eefb.org/contribute/

Contact Info:

Antonis Lagarias at antonislagarias@eefb.org by July 15th 2022

Contact Email: antonislagarias@eefb.org

URL: https://eefb.org/contribute/

Are you our new communication officer?

From July-August 2022, Salome will hand over her position as Communication Officer of our Section to someone new.

We encourage early career scholars to consider applying for this vacant position and see this as an opportunity to train communication skills, develop your organizational skills and significantly expand your network.

If you are a senior researcher, be sure to forward this vacancy to promising new talent!

You can apply until 10 June. Below you find more information about the job description. Of course, you can always contact us with your questions.

Academia always has something to say to the broader audience, but, unfortunately, the core messages are often not inefficiently conveyed to the target groups. Therefore, our ECREA Children, Youth, and Media Section is dedicated to sending messages that engage and inform young scholars, academics, and also other stakeholders to increase their impact in Children, Youth, and Media research and practice. We consider our communication strategy as a way to achieve that goal. Having that in mind, we count on our new Communications Officer, who will join our diverse team working from all parts of Europe. We expect someone to have a thorough knowledge and experience of communications tools, enthusiasm and discipline to fulfill the communication needs of our section. Please, read the description of expectations below and join us, if you are interested:

If you join our team, you will be leading the following activities:

• Attend the management meeting (about 8 times a year)
• Managing the section’s social media channels (Twitter/Facebook internal group)
• Preparing the newsletter depending on the updates from the section (about 5 times a year): brainstorming topics, writing the draft of the newsletter, putting it in a template, and distributing through the section's listserv, and social media)
• Planning and facilitating the informal online meetings (about 4 times a year)

Please note, that this is a volunteer and remote position. Depending on your talents and your own ideas and availability, together we will look for a feasible way to implement our section’s communication strategy. There is certainly room to come up with your own ideas and make your own mark.

If you are interested, please send your CV and a motivation letter (no more than 500 words) explaining why you are applying for the position and what you would like to contribute to the section. Send your application to ecreacymcom@gmail.com until June 10th, 6 pm CET.

We are looking forward to receiving your application.

Should you have any questions, please email us at ecreacymcom@gmail.com

May 27, 2022

Online symposium

Deadline (registration): May 26, 2022

Water is the medium through which we experience many of the impacts of climate change: in droughts or floods, in melting glaciers, rising sea levels and more. Accordingly, visualisations of water or its absence have been at the core of climate change media discourse for decades and have shaped popular perceptions of this crisis. In recent years, ‘water resilience’ has increasingly been embraced as a tool for addressing the impacts of climate change and other ongoing stressors; not only as a tool for adaptation, but also as a tool for mitigation that addresses the water-energy nexus and greenhouse gas emissions from water infrastructure. However, water resilience scholarship is still primarily focussed on the physical, technological and managerial aspects of the climate crisis, while issues of social justice, power and politics are at the margins of the debate. As such, the transformative potential of climate and water resilient futures goes unrecognised.

This symposium aims to bring together the overlapping conversations around resilience, climate, water, communication and politics in order to advance social justice and reduce climate-induced water vulnerability. 

Keynote speakers:

Prof. Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Warwick), author of Media and Water: Communication, Culture and Perception

Dr Filippo Menga (University of Bergamo), author of Water and Power in Central Asia and co-editor of Water, Technology and the Nation State

Registration is via Eventbrite – registration is open until May 26th (a day before the event).

Timetable:

10:00-11:15 Opening Keynote Talk:

Opening greetings by Prof. Melissa Leach (IDS).

Keynote lecture by Prof. Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Warwick): Amphibious Screens – Sustainable Cultures of Water

11:30-12:50 Session 1: News, media and water resilience:

• Swati Jaywant Rao Bute (Jagran Lakecity University): Role of news channels in running media campaigns for water conservation projects in India
• Edson Capoano, Alice Balbé & Pedro Rodrigues Costa (University of Minho): Analysis of Brazilians comments on the water issue on Twitter
• Nelson Okorie (Pan-Atlantic University): Media Framing, Climate Change and issues of Water Security in South Africa
• Shai Kassirer (University of Reading): “Israel Is Drying, Again”: Framing Resilience in Televised Water Conservation Campaigns

12:50-13:20 Break

13:20-14:40 Session 2: Water (in)justice in Jamaica and India

Henrice Altink (University of York): “No water”: the unequal impact of drought in Jamaica in the 1990s.
Shruti Jain (Institute of Economic Growth Delhi) & Bhupen Singh (Uttarakhand Open University): Essentiality of Rights for Building Resilience Climate and Water Politics in Uttarakhand Himalaya
Farhat Naz (Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur): Dynamics of Water Access: Trust and Mistrust at the International Border Line
Asrarul Haque Jeelani (Jawaharlal Nehru University): No Water No Votes: Electoral Right as a Political Tool for Dealing with Water Distress

15:00-16:20 Session 3: Water, technology and public perception

• Piotr Szpunar (University at Albany): Walled Shores, Waning Future
• Christina Walter (Universität Augsburg): Digital Technologies for Water Resilience? Examining the Discourse on Digital Water
• Biliana Gaume, Pascal Verhoest, Joke Bauwens, Petrus te Braak and Marijke Huysmans (Vrij Universiteit Brussel): Food for Thought A Survey on the Acceptance of Crops Grown with Treated Wastewater
• Ruhil Iyer (IDS), Jeremy Kohlitz (University of Technology Sydney), Nicole Klaesener-Metzner (UNICEF) & ​Sue Cavill, (UNICEF): Water management for hygiene and sanitation in the climate crisis: Programming lessons from South Asia and the Pacific

16:30-18:00 Closing Keynote Talk:

Dr Filippo Menga, University of Bergamo: Spectacular Environments: Framing the Global Water Crisis in Troubled Times

For further details contact s.kassirer[at]reading.ac.uk

Registration is via Eventbrite

23-25 November 2022

Berlin, Germany (HIIG Berlin, ZeM Potsdam)

Deadline: June 20, 2022

Autonomy has been a multifaceted term for centuries that was and remains a key concept in discussions about individuals and societies alike. More recently, autonomy has gained a renewed relevance and additional meanings in the context of technical innovation, where it is ubiquitously employed in variations of “autonomous systems”. It is often associated with independently moving or self-controlling machines such as drones, vehicles or robots, or more generally with a wide range of automation processes. In this broad understanding, 'autonomous' becomes an attribute for (artificial) intelligence or (machine) learning and is used synonymously with self-determination or adaptability. At the same time, the term invokes (at least) one other meaning: a relational understanding of autonomy that denotes individual and collective processes that are embedded in infrastructures and conditioned by them. It is only in relation to and in the context of media, rules, norms, laws, practices, architectures, materialities or machines that the idea of autonomy acquires any meaning at all.

Against this backdrop the Infrastructures of Autonomy conference’s main objective is to address said conditions, structures and relations that constitute both human and machine autonomy. This also entails the various interpretations of the concept of autonomy.

In particular, papers are invited that address the following core themes:

• Conceptual aspects: This core theme reflects on the historical and philosophical roots that shape today’s debates on autonomy and automation. We pick up on the feminist discourse of “relational autonomy” that established the irreducibility of interdependence and relatedness for normative theories of autonomy. We posit that there is a troubling tension between industrial and digital automation that benefits consumerist subjects and the struggle for autonomisation that is dependent upon the suspension of automatic responses made by moral subjects. This struggle has always relied on external means of suspension and establishing new habits. For example, what is the contribution of technical,  economic or public infrastructures to the normative claims and ethical or political practices of autonomisation? How does the extended conception of rationality that explicitly includes artefacts relate to the findings of infrastructure studies? Is autonomy always “scaffolded”? What can automated data capture and processing contribute to the struggles for autonomisation? Or does this automation of so many aspects of life rather interfere with these struggles? Lastly, if autonomisation depends on uncovering and suspending habits in the sense of dis-automatisation, how can the conspicuous tension between this dis-automatisation and the automatisation of infrastructures be conceived without falling back into a simple opposition?
• Technologies: This core theme is primarily driven by the idea of so-called “autonomous systems”, a term often used to describe a degree of (machine) agency without human oversight or control. These phenomena necessitate a reflection of agential hybrids – intricate human/machine networks of distributed agency and responsibility – and lead to questions on the varying degrees of automation and the contexts and structures of human/machine relations and interaction. What are the conditions of autonomy in “autonomous systems” – from planning and implementation to interaction with them; is it conceivable at all to make autonomy programmable? Which concept of learning is applied in “self-learning systems”? We are also interested in exploring the configurations of machine autonomy, may it be enacted or prescribed to these technical objects, and understanding its relationship(s) to human autonomy in the varying contexts that exist today.

• Bodies: The third core theme focuses on the somatic aspects and cognitive requirements of (human) autonomy. This refers to those premises of autonomy that are associated with socio-cultural constructs of human dis/ability, but also includes the role of affects, non-conscious cognitions and ‘automatic’ habits that counter the prevalent idea of the conscious and autonomous mind. The material dimension of technology plays an important role in these considerations, namely in settings of human-machine interaction, leading to questions of interface design, the ‘bodily’ presence of machines and the complex aspect of their potential to enable or constrain human agency and autonomy. We are interested in discussing how infrastructures in interaction with bodies shape, enable or prohibit autonomy; what performances of bodily autonomy might look like; and how this entanglement and enactment changes with new mechanical and digital infrastructures. In particular, we would like to address how the practice of care for one's own and other bodies is changing under the conditions of a computerised world. 

All these major themes are to be understood as highly interconnected with the effect of 

mutually constituting dynamic infrastructures of autonomy.

We believe the discourse on infrastructures of autonomy is highly relevant beyond a theoretical perspective, since it touches upon issues with high stakes and severe consequences, such as:

• autonomous weapon systems
• robotics and smart technologies in the field of care work
• health care applications and technologies
• autonomous systems in the field of machine learning
• smart housing and smart cities
• ...

We welcome contributions from scholars of diverse disciplines, such as the arts, cognitive science, computer science, cultural studies, design studies, literature and film studies, media and communication studies, philosophy, psychology, political science, science and technology studies or sociology. Interdisciplinary approaches (e.g., those combining social, cultural and technical perspectives) are particularly encouraged.

Submission process

• Abstracts of approximately 300 to 500 words in length (excl. references) should be submitted no later than 20 June 2022 to autonomy@hiig.de
• Speakers will be notified by 30 July 2022

It is planned to publish selected papers.

If you have any questions, you can contact the conference organisers via autonomy@hiig.de. For more information, visit our website at hiig.de/en/infrastructures-of-autonomy/.

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG)

Thomas Christian Bächle & Theresa Züger

Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM)

Bernd Bösel & Jan Distelmeyer

June 21-22, 2022

Lublin (Poland)

Deadline (registration): May 31, 2022

We would like to invite mediatization and communication scholars to take part in academic discussion devoted to the rapid mediatization changes - being evoked, enabled or fostered by media- and technology-related arrangements and taking place in different domains. The conference (a hybrid form) is organized by: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Institute of International Studies - University of Wroclaw, and Research section: Mediatization – Polish Communication Association. A keynote speech will be given by: Professor André Jansson (Karlstad University): The uneven costs of connection: Measuring mediatization under COVID19.

Read more: https://www.umcs.pl/en/mediatization2022.htm

October 19, 2022

Aarhus (Denmark) & Beijing (China)/Hybrid conference

Deadline: June 15, 2022

Communication History section & International and Intercultural communication section

Language: English

The growth and influence of emerging transnational media and technology corporations are transforming global communication. Various international scholars have developed different analytical instruments in order to account for the rise of these companies, focusing especially on the powerful home governments of these firms, the country-specific-advantages, media system models, and the transcultural implication for such business expansion and content distribution (e.g. Thussu, 2000; Halin & Mancini, 2012; Nordenstreng & Thussu, 2015; Panibratov, 2015; Teer-Tomaselli et al., 2019; Tang, 2020; Thussu & Nordenstreng, 2020).

In global media history, the term of “emerging” embodies both relativist and transformative implications as the opposition to the dominant powers. From early Japanese companies’ digital disruption in the United States on manufacturing specialized devices (like digital cameras) to Chinese and South Korean telecommunication companies’ competence in mobile devices and network services worldwide; from the Bollywood and Brazilian media conglomerates’ competition with predominant media counterparts in the region to the Korean Wave impact in global entertainment consumption; from Russian and Chinese internet companies’ alternative growth in the domestic and regional markets to the South African Naspers Group becoming the parent company of Europe’s largest consumer internet firm, the fast development, business relocation and strategic capital move of emerging transnational companies is changing—visibly and invisibly—the landscape and infrastructure base of global media and communication industry.

On the one hand, such changes nourished business and cultural diversity and further transcend national and cultural boundaries. On the other hand, it also raised critical questions towards intercultural conflicts and the fragility and resilience of the global cultural ecosystem. The technology competition between the United States and China, for example, signals the “securitization” trend of policymaking in the communication industry and rising concerns over risks in data protection, information security and democracy. It also illustrates fundamental constraints of emerging companies to challenge US hegemony in the field of media and communication and extends discussions about cultural imperialism following the technology and culture decoupling in related societies. A new dimension of transcultural communication is in great need to understand the characteristics and ambitions of transnational media and technology corporations: their rising influence on the global (commercial) media system, their future move in the global race to dominate information technology, their impact on international and intercultural communication and relations, and their promises for the responsibilities to the nature, community, and world society for the next generations.

This conference welcomes research papers that try to understand the rise of emerging media-technology power from interdisciplinary perspectives, with a special focus on the trans-nationalization process of these media and technology firms and the transcultural communication challenges they have been facing in their business development, expansion, concentration, implementation, legitimization, and related (organizational, institutional, and societal) discourses. Topics include but are not limited to:

• The politics, economy and culture of emerging media and tech companies.
• The transnational growth & influence of emerging media and tech companies in the regional markets, mature markets, and third-party markets.

• Transcultural implications of the rise of emerging media and tech companies (e.g., their impact on transcultural protest movements, or on everyday communication)

• The relevance, roles, and implications of alternative movements and/or counter-movements in media and tech industries.

• Transcultural communication formats and content by emerging media and tech companies.
• Global public discourse around emerging media and tech companies, and their business strategies applied for brand building or rebuilding.

• The technology and culture decoupling amid the US-China power competition, and its impact on (lessons to) transnational corporations in other countries.

• Theoretical reflections on the changing paradigm of cultural imperialism, transcultural communication, technology diffusion and soft power in the case of media and tech companies (e.g., their role in cultural homogenization, uni-channelization, and monopolization processes).

A selection of papers accepted to the pre-conference will be published in a Special Issue of Journal of Transcultural Communication (De Gruyter) in Spring 2023.

Keynote roundtable discussion (confirmed speakers):

• Daya Thussu, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Dwayne Winseck, Carleton University
• Stephen Croucher, Massey University
• Delia Dumitrica, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Fei JIANG, Beijing Foreign Studies University
• Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera italiana

Abstract submission: 15 June 2022 (300-500 words for individual abstract; 1,200 words for panel proposal): https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=ecreaprecon2022temtc

Notification of accepted abstracts: 1 July 2022

Submission of extended abstracts for Special Issue: 30 September 2022

Conference contact: zhan.zhang@usi.ch

For more details of the preconference and journal publication call-for-paper, please visit: https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jtc/html

Organizer Committee:

• Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera italiana
• Zhan Zhang, Università della Svizzera italiana
• Romy Woehlert, Kindervereinigung Leipzig e.V.
• Fei Jiang, Beijing Foreign Studies University
• Deqiang Ji, Communication University of China

Observatorio (special issue)

Deadline (EXTENDED): June 10, 2022

The search for solutions to complex problems in the information ecosystem – such as collective disinformation, hate speech and political polarisation – puts increasing pressure on the pivotal importance of leveraging the pedagogies and practices in Media Literacy. In the words of Paul Mihailidis (2018, p. 1). “As new media tools and technologies further disrupt the core relationship among media, citizens, and society, media literacy is in a fight for civic relevance”. Indeed, growing evidence supports Media Literacy’s role in improving civic participation and engagement (Frau-Meigs et al., 2017; Jenkins, 2020; McDougall, 2019; McDougall et al., 2019; Mihailidis, 2014).

Algorithms, digital footprints, and echo chambers lead to a “data loop” (Mathieu and Vengerfeldt, 2020, p. 117), making content and data circulate over and over between audiences and media. These new contexts of mediatization pose questions to the democratic realm and intensify the questions about democracy at diverse levels. This includes what Milan and Trére call “data poor” (2020, p. n/a), especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, putting in perspective the recurrent universalization of western narratives (Milan and Trére, 2019).

From the media research perspective, media studies need to consider the ethics and integrity of the research and innovative methodologies that better address current challenges. This can imply using new and traditional methods and qualitative and datafied research approaches in a needed and yet unusual combination (Lê and Schmid, 2020). In doing this, we also must distinguish between making ethical choices and implementing ethical solutions; understand how to make pedagogical choices that are ethical; and to be accountable for the constant possibility of observing unintended consequences (Holmes et al., 2021) .

Among these new methods, approaches like arts-based research are becoming particularly relevant for the field of communication and media studies, as acknowledged by Carpentier and Sumiala (2021), by proposing the articulation of artistic repertoires with social sciences and humanities research, in order to produce as well as to communicate academic knowledge. Hybridity, multimodality and participation are here key-words, which may enable academic research to go beyond its traditional audiences and to reach and engage with other publics.

For the Observatorio (OBS) journal special issue on “Media Literacy and Civic Cultures”, we welcome contributions related (but not limited to) with the following sub-themes:

– Participation and digital citizenship

– Participation in the datafied society

– Inclusion of underrepresented groups in digital media practices

– Intersectionality and activism(s)

– Ethics, audience research and datafication

– Innovative methodologies: big data and qualitative data

– Innovative methodologies: arts-based research in communication and media studies

Publication timeline

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts are refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Dates are indicative – to be confirmed.

Submission deadline for full-papers: 10-06-2022 (EXTENDED)

Notifications of reviews sent to authors: 20-06-2022

Submission deadline for final full-papers: 12-09-2022

Publication of full-papers in special issue: 20-10-2022

Special issue Editors

• Célia Quico – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT
• Manuel Pita – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT
• Maria José Brites – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT
• Carla Sousa – Universidade Lusófona, CICANT

To potential Authors

Please submit your proposals via the Observatorio website, according to their format standards for publication: http://obs.obercom.pt/index.php/obs/about/submissions#onlineSubmission

About Observatorio (OBS)

Observatorio (OBS*) e-journal is a quarterly academic publication, free of charge, in the field of Communication Studies, which accepts and publishes texts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Italian, French and English. Its formula of Open Access allows authors to have the maximum of public exposition of their work, thus we encourage readers and authors to register and submit their work for upcoming issues.

Source: http://obs.obercom.pt/

9 June 2022

Online event

Iam pleased to invite you to the next in the series of IPRA Thought Leadership webinars. The webinar Public affairs: the changing nature of political engagement will be presented by Stuart Thomson, head of public affairs at BDB Pitmans on Thursday 9 June 2022 at 12.00 GMT/UCT (unadjusted).

What is the webinar content?

Public affairs is not always understood across the PR profession but if political audiences are not managed there may be damage. Public affairs should be viewed as an aspect of reputational management. Done well, it opens up opportunities and deals with threats. Ignored then significant damage can be inflicted. This session will show the valuable role that public affairs can play.

How to join

Register here at Airmeet. (The time shown should adjust to your device’s time zone.)

A reminder will be sent 1 hour before the event.

Background to IPRA

IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, was established in 1955, and is the leading global network for PR professionals in their personal capacity. IPRA aims to advance trusted communication and the ethical practice of public relations. We do this through networking, our code of conduct and intellectual leadership of the profession. IPRA is the organiser of public relations' annual global competition, the Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA). IPRA's services enable PR professionals to collaborate and be recognised. Members create content via our Thought Leadership essays, social media and our consultative status with the United Nations. GWA winners demonstrate PR excellence. IPRA welcomes all those who share our aims and who wish to be part of the IPRA worldwide fellowship. For more see www.ipra.org

Background to Stuart Thomson

Dr Stuart Thomson is a UK-based public affairs and communications consultant. His latest book, Reputation in Business: Lessons for Leaders, will be published by Routledge in late 2022. Stuart has been listed as one of the UK’s Top 100 Public Affairs Consultants and in 2020, he won Best Current Affairs Influencer at Vuelio’s Online Influence Awards.

Contact

International Public Relations Association Secretariat

United Kingdom

secgen@ipra.org

Telephone +44 1634 818308

May 25, 2022

Hybride event (online/Université Paris Nanterre)

Hi everyone,

Registrations are open until May 20 for the May 25 (9.00 to 18.00 CET) International Communication Association (ICA) pre-conference Critique, post-Critique and the Present Conjuncture.

The pre-conference is a hybrid event. Attendance at the in-person gathering at Université Paris Nanterre costs US$35, while virtual attendance is free. Both registration options can be selected at the following ICA webpage (and the Zoom link will be sent to virtual participants closer to the day): https://www.icahdq.org/event/Critique

The pre-conference includes two plenary panels. The first will have two keynote presentations on the general pre-conference theme from Alan Finlayson and François Cusset, and a response from Lilie Chouliaraki. The second plenary will be a panel discussion titled “Critical academy under attack”. It will feature contributions from Sahana Udupa, Éric Fassin and Diana Mulinari and will be chaired by Gavan Titley. The core of the pre-conference has 28 papers organised around 6 panels on the topics of: Critique, theory, ideology and description; Critique, media, and digital culture; Critique, post-critique, and political aesthetics; Critique, race and reactionary politics; Critique and the neoliberal university; Critique, technology and ecological crisis.

A draft schedule with the full list of papers and speakers can be accessed at the link below. We hope lots of people can join us, either in-person or online, on May 25.

https://www.icahdq.org/mpage/Program_Critique

All best.

Sean, Simon and Pieter

October 10-11, 2022

Online meetings

Dear colleagues!

Ahead of this year’s ECREA conference in Aarhus, the Crisis Communication Section will hold a virtual preconference on October 10-11. The idea is to provide an additional venue to present and discuss research, e.g. for those who cannot join the physical conference in Aarhus, and also conduct a Ph.D. workshop. The entire preconference is free of charge and will take place via ZOOM.

On day 1 (October 10), we will hold a classic virtual conference format, in extension of our theme for our programme at the main conference:

Risk & Crisis Communication Moving Forward from the Pandemic (virtual preconference)

As some countries begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and while some countries are still experiencing significant levels of transmission and deaths, the field of crisis and risk communication has the opportunity to learn from the experiences of the last two years to consider:

• What impact in crisis and risk communication means across the field of communication?
• Is pandemic communication fundamentally different from crisis and risk communication?
• What are critical pedagogical, research, theoretical, amplification, and collaboration lessons have been learned through the pandemic?

• What critical themes of research and practice should be addressed in the short, medium, and long-term?
• What can be learned with a view to the communicative challenges that come with imminent wicked problems like climate change, mass migration, immigration, and other potential pandemics?
• In moving forward from 2022, how can our field meet crisis and risk communication needs across sectors?
• We welcome abstract-based submissions addressing these themes as we begin to "Rethink Impact" for the European Communication Conference.

Moving ahead, we explicitly also invite presentations on topics that are not related to the pandemic but touch other topical themes, as well as methodological and theoretical issues et cetera.

Questions/submissions should be directed to the Head of the Crisis Communication Section, Audra Diers-Lawson (Audra.Diers-Lawson@kristiania.no).

Deadline: August 10, 2022

Day 2 (October 11) is reserved for the Ph.D. workshop:

YECREA PhD Workshop

As part of our online activities related to the ECREA 2022 pre-conference, we would like to invite all young scholars to apply for our PhD Workshop jointly held by ECREA’s Crisis Communication Section and the Young Scholars Network (YECREA).

Participation in the workshop is free of charge.

The workshop aims to provide an online forum with individual feedback for doctoral students whose PhD and research interest is related to the wide and interdisciplinary field of Risk and Crisis Communication. Note that this year we launch a new workshop format. For this reason, you will receive two kinds of feedback - senior scholars and peers’ feedback—and you will be asked not only to present your own project but also to comment on other two projects. The inclusion of peers’ feedback intends to engage attendees in discussions among themselves, increase participation and develop critical analysis skills.

The PhD Workshop will take place online on Tuesday, October 11, 2022. Further information on the schedules as well as on the respondents (senior scholars and peers) will be announced later. Some of our confirmed senior scholars respondents are Albena Björck (Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland), Deanna Sellnow (University of Central Florida, USA), Yan Jin (University of Georgia, USA) and Yijing Wang (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands).

To apply for the workshop, please prepare and submit the following two documents:

1. An extended abstract of up to 500 words outlining your project (references excluded). Please think of key elements such as your research problem, theoretical foundation, research question(s), methodology and (preliminary) findings.

2. A short letter of motivation stating why you would like to participate, and which questions you would like to see addressed in the feedback session. This letter should also mention the name of your doctoral advisor, the year of PhD you are in, and whether your project will turn into a monograph or (nb. of) papers.

The documents must be submitted to Bianca Persici Toniolo (bianca.toniolo@ubi.pt) by May 22, 2022.

A jury will select the applications according to standards of academic quality like theoretical foundation, stringency and originality. You will receive their decision by July 15, 2022.

There is no need to be a member of the Crisis Communication Section to apply, but please note that the capacity of the workshop is limited.

Key Dates:

• May 22 – Deadline for submission
• July 15 – Notification of decisions
• September 15 – If your proposal was accepted, you will receive information about the projects on which you are required to provide feedback

• October 11 – PhD Workshop

Please do not hesitate to ask questions if you have any doubt by contacting the Crisis Communication Section YECREA’s representative, Bianca Persici Toniolo, at bianca.toniolo@ubi.pt.