31 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “PHOTOGRAPHY, CINEMA AND THE GHOSTLY”, JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGES

Throughout the nineteenth century, the camera was believed to be a diabolical machine that could steal human souls. In one of the most notorious texts included in When I Was a Photographer (1899), Félix Nadar famously described how Honoré de Balzac thought that “each body in nature is composed of a series of specters”, and that each “Daguerreian operation” would retain one of these spectral layers until the human body of the photographed person amounted to nothing.

If on the one hand there was this general idea that photography was a “killing instrument”, on the other hand it was clear from the beginning that photographs also granted new lives to human beings, animals, objects, etc. Being the “perfect” doubl e of what was once seen in the visible world, the photograph becomes the space where that which is no longer alive can continue to exist. With this in mind, Roland Barthes wrote on his Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1980) that this relatively new and mostly mechanical art form is responsible for the “return of the Dead”. Likewise, Susan Sontag (1977) also posited that “all photographs are memento mori”.

*CFP* "BOOK REVIEWS AND BEYOND: THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF LITERATURE AND ART CRITICISM IN PERIODICALS BETWEEN THE 18TH AND THE 21ST CENTURY", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE


Book Reviews and Beyond: The Transformations of Literature and Art Criticism in Periodicals Between the 18th and the 21st Century
1st International Conference at Università IULM
Milano, Italy 3-5 June 2020

Scientific Committee: Paolo Giovannetti, Andrea Chiurato, Mara Logaldo
Organizing Committee: Dario Boemia, Stefano Locati, Laura Sica

Although unquestionably all-pervasive within the history of modern and contemporary press, the ‘review form’ has been to present an understudied practice. In fact, this multi-faceted, cross-disciplinary form that has persistently accompanied the different phases in the evolution of “print-capitalism” has hardly been analysed from a theoretical perspective. This dismissal by the academic world is certainly peculiar, if not manifestly contradictory; however, it significantly testifies of the difficulty of investigating such a slippery object of study critically.

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES


Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies (LLIDS), an open access academic e-journal, invites original and unpublished research papers and book reviews from various interrelated disciplines including, but not limited to, literature, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, history, sociology, law, ecology, environmental science, and economics.

The broad aim of LLIDS consists in providing an interdisciplinary discursive space for all the researchers committed to rigorous enquiry into concerns that inform critical articulations providing new perspectives within the manifold. It also attempts to fashion a reflective space within the ongoing learning practices that would allow the researchers to collate their insights with larger issues.

Only complete papers will be considered for publication. The papers need to be submitted according to the latest guidelines of the MLA format. You are welcome to submit full length papers (3,500 – 10,000 words) along with a 150 words abstract, list of keywords, bio-note, and word count (in a separate word doc) on or before 15th March, 2020. Please put the name of the CFP you are submitting for in the subject line. Although scholars are free to submit their work till the deadline, we really appreciate early submissions.

*CFP* CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS, GLOBALISING MEN'S STYLE CONFERENCE


Globalising Men’s Style. Papers, presentations, and in-conversation discussions are welcomed for the Globalising Men’s Style conference to be held on Friday 26 June 2020, with an evening reception on Thursday 25 June 2020, at London College of Fashion. 20 John Prince's St, London W1G 0BJ.

Co-Convenors: Charlie Athill and Jay McCauley Bowstead

Over the past two decades men’s style, fashion and grooming have enjoyed an accelerated expansion. At the same time, the hegemony of Western fashion capitals has been challenged by innovative menswear practices, street style, and high-end design emanating out of new centres of creative practice. Shifting approaches to masculine aesthetics, expanding and emerging markets, and the proliferation of representations via social media, has stimulated – and brought to a wider global attention – a set of diverse manifestations of men’s style. Menswear designers from Georgia, China, and South Korea are celebrated in the International fashion media, while sartorial subcultures from Central Africa and South Asia have gained international attention.

*CFP* “GENDER DYNAMICS OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND NATION BRANDING”, SPECIAL ISSUE OF JOURNAL OF PLACE BRANDING AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

This special issue aims to bring public diplomacy and nation branding in dialogue with gender, queer and feminist studies. The aim of the special issue is to chart new directions for research and policy interventions by engaging with the gendered dimensions of public diplomacy and nation branding. The editors are particularly interested in exploring how strategic efforts to create and manage favourable images of nation-states relate to the marginalization of ideas, bodies, and identities.

The call for papers follows the growing body of feminist scholarship and gender sensitive perspectives in diplomacy studies (Cassidy, 2017; Aggestam & Towns, 2019), motivated, in part, by a greater inclusion of women, transgender and LGTB diplomats inm Traditionally heteronormative and masculinized foreign service organizations (Aggestam & Bergman- Rosamond, 2016). This issue also recognizes the changing nature of diplomacy in response to the influence of non-state actors, digital technologies and transnational processes of globalization (Pamment, 2012; Zaharna, 2010).

30 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “POSTHUMAN FANTASIES AND ANXIOUS DESIRES IN BLACK MIRROR”, EDITED VOLUME

The Netflix series Black Mirror offers a critical dramatization of the phantasmatic promises of transhumanism. Set in the near future, Black Mirror not only paints a pessimistic vision of our neoliberal lives as cyborgs—biological subjects wired into a technology integral to the construction and projection of self—but also foregrounds the persistence and problem of desire, exceeding the interpretive paradigm of transhumanism along with its investment in the willful subject of humanism. New technologies do not deliver us from our weaknesses; they do not limit our vulnerabilities, but intensify them. Indeed, new technologies induce anxiety, unsettling the desiring habits of subjects. 

What Black Mirror arguably solicits is a posthumanism supplemented by a psychoanalytic framework—where desire is understood as a desire for the other/Other (for the personal human other and for the anonymous figure of authority), where the object (and subject) of desire is constitutively doubled. Read as an allegory for our posthuman condition, Black Mirror stages desiring cyborgs not as immunized subjectivities (the dream of transhumanism), nor as post-subjectivities (the dream of some posthumanisms) but as subjectivities whose ontological otherness—their inherent inhuman excess—is put on full display.

*CFP* "INK AND MOTION #1", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ANIMATION AND COMICS


Porto, Portugal
23/24-04-2020

This conference aims at constituting a pioneering cross-disciplinary platform in Portugal for a fruitful dialogue between the fields of Animation and Comics. Responding to a growing artistic and academic interest in these two media and to the new conceptual, practical and theoretical challenges they pose, we feel the need to provide a space for academics and artists to share ideas about these subjects.

These are very dynamic, and often under recognized areas in the arts, even though they often underlie some of the most successful cinematic productions of our time. As such, they are moving more and more into the mainstream consciousness, and attracting extensive audience and critical acclaim.

*CFP* "FATHER FIGURES IN ANIMATED/CARTOON TV SHOWS FOR MATURE AUDIENCES", EDITED COLLECTION


“The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low.”
Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize Winner

The trope of the “hapless dad,” clumsy and useless with his own children, appears in storytelling across several mediums—especially in animated cartoons on TV. For many contemporary cartoon shows for adult audiences, however, this trope appears especially pronounced, often leaning into the stereotype that competent childrearing is "women's work" for the benefit of comedy.

This edited collection, springboarded off David James Poissant’s award-winning article “Let’s Retire the Trope of the Hapless Dad” on UCF Forum, seeks to explore the variety of ways contemporary fatherhood is showcased in TV shows geared toward mature audiences.

Abstracts of academic essays should focus on analysis of father figures in animated or cartoon TV shows developed for adults. Applicants should offer careful consideration to how the portrayals of these dads may perpetuate harmful fatherhood myths and/or strike new ground on establishing healthier models of parental interaction. Discussion of non-traditional families and diverse father figures (queer, multiracial/multiethnic, differently-abled, etc.) is encouraged.

*CFP* CALL FOR PROPOSALS, SCREENING STEPHEN KING SYMPOSIUM


Screening Stephen King Symposium
School of Film, Media and Communication, University of Portsmouth
May 1, 2020

With dozens of publications – including novels, novellas, short story anthologies and non-fiction works – to his name, Stephen King has been an acknowledged publishing force for more than four decades. King’s works soon proved ripe for adaptation for both cinema and television. Ranging from Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) to IT: Chapter 2 (2019), and from the Salem’s Lot (1979) CBS miniseries to streaming series such as Mr Mercedes (2017–2019) and Castle Rock (2018–), King has been a regular fixture on screens large and small throughout his career. Linked indelibly to tales of terror and suspense, with a keen eye for life’s deepest mysteries and an uncanny knack for pinpointing sources of dread, King has come to symbolise the horror genre.

May 2020 marks forty years since the US cinematic release of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), an adaptation famously deplored by King himself though lauded by critics and subsequently held up as a landmark horror film. The recent release of Doctor Sleep (2019), a sequel to both King’s bestselling novel and Kubrick’s film, has helped renew interest in a tale of significance both to King’s body of work and to the horror genre as a whole. With this context in mind, the upcoming symposium seeks to bring together scholars with an interest in King’s work on the screen.

*CFP* CALL FOR CHAPTERS, WAVE 17, THE ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH AND EDUCATION SERIES

The Book Series aims to provide a diverse overview of the work of ECREA members and working groups, showcasing diversity of topics and areas within the field of contemporary media and communication research, and addressing this diversity from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, and promoting collaborative research of our members, either within or between ECREA Sections, Networks and Temporary Working Groups (S/N/TWGs).


WHAT are we seeking?

ECREA Book Series Publications need to have a clear theme or focus. Authors are strongly advised to outline the focus of the book and its framework in the abstract of the introductory chapter (see our submission form). The structure of the book (division of sections and chapters) should be in line with the proposed framework. Although the series is open to a wide diversity of disciplines and subjects, editors will consider the potential audience of a proposed book and previous publications on the topic within the Book Series.

*CFP* "IN-BETWEEN 'POP' AND 'POST-': CONTEMPORARY ROUTES IN ENGLISH CULTURE", CONFERENCE


In-between “pop-” and “post-”: contemporary routes in English culture
29-30 May 2020

Since their first appearance in the 1970s, Cultural Studies have aimed at proposing a new approach for the investigation of different fields of knowledge, far from any kind of boundaries and categorizations. This approach is also connected to the denunciation of arbitrary definitions in terms of class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality in a post-modern society, as well as to any kind of cultural and identity value expressed, not only but also, by pop-culture. In this context, the relevance given to the post-modern deconstruction of narrations and identities, emphasised by many scholars, has led to a plurality of different readings and a multiplicity of discourses.

The concept and the role of the prefix “post-” has been discussed and developed in a huge variety of diverse scenarios of meanings. The Cultural Studies perspective insists on its positive value as producer of knowledge and meaning in a de-centred panorama, as already asserted by Stuart Hall.1 On the other hand, the concept of “pop,” introduced by the work of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, and John Fiske, is more concerned with “how meanings, such as those drawn from popular culture offerings, are interpreted and used in everyday life.”2 The reference is to a culture that comes from the people, but which can, at the same time, influence and intertwine with the so-called “high-culture.”

29 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “DIALOGUES WITH TECHNOLOGY: TV SERIES, PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND REPRESENTATION”, VOL 6 NO 2, SERIES JOURNAL

This themed issue of SERIES — Vol 6 No 2 (2020) — aims to look at how technology influences the production/distribution of TV series and how it is represented in their narratives and promotion.

In recent years, digital technologies have impacted on and shaped cultural, social and political paradigms, and have been integrated into the processes of creating and distributing cultural objects. This has established a dialogue between the computer and culture (Manovich, 2001), changed the media (Bolter & Grusin, 1996), and became part of the reconfiguration of digitextuality (Everett & Caldwell, 2003). This context impacts the production, distribution, and promotion of television series, which then engage at a textual level with the technological challenges facing the medium.

Serial fiction seems to be at the forefront of the challenges faced by an entire industry with high technological specificity. This can be seen in seemingly prosaic but nevertheless pressing issues, such as the difficulties of streaming the Game of Thrones episode “The Long Night”, through the non-linear, interactive narrative designs in the Black Mirror episode “Bandersnatch”, to the aesthetic, narrative and productive implications of visual effects, transmedia strategies, previewing systems and future scenarios of visual production (Rubin, 2019).

*CFP* "JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION EDUCATION TWG", 6TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF ECREA


Journalism and Communication Education TWG
May 14 and 15, 2020

The educational environment has undergone deep transformations in the last decades: specifically offering undergraduate and graduate courses in the communication area are facing new and quickly evolving challenges.

On the one hand, the training of future professionals in the field of communication and journalism has been directly impacted by the technological changes introduced by cyberspace and the successive developments of the Network: web 2.0 or social web, web 3.0 or semantic web and web 4.0 or the internet of things.

On the other, Twentieth-century teaching methods and 21st-century technology represent a generation gap like no other. Gen Zers are “digital natives”: our students grew up not only with computers and internet access, but also with smartphones, social media, and mobile devices, and thus are not interested in traditional passive learning.

*CFP* "ECSTATIC TRUTH V: THE AGE OF THE ABSURD", UNDER_THE_RADAR SYMPOSIUM


27-28th April 2020
(in conjunction with Under the Radar, Vienna)
plus 29 th April – Under_the_Radar symposium, Vienna

Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium that explores issues arising from the interface between animation (in all its forms) and documentary (conceptualised very broadly as non-fiction), with a particular interest in the questions raised by experimental and practitioner perspectives. According to Werner Herzog, mere facts constitute an accountant’s reality, but it is the ecstatic truth (a poetic reality) that can capture more faithfully the nuances and depths of human experiences. Given that animation (or manipulated moving image in all of its expanded forms) has the freedom to represent, stylize or reimagine the world, it lends itself well to this aspirational form of documentary filmmaking.

For this, our 5th symposium, held in collaboration with the Under_the_Radar Festival, Vienna, our theme is the Absurd. George Monbiot has described our contemporary age of increasing social and economic inequality, mass extinction and impending climate breakdown as deliberate disaster capitalism in which the ultra-rich benefit as institutions, systems of taxation and democratic processes implode. 

*CFP* “ASIAN INTERNET HISTORIES”, SPECIAL ISSUE, THE INTERNET HISTORIES: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, CULTURE AND SOCIETY JOURNAL

The future is history, as the great wisdom in many Asian cultures has long taught people the importance of looking backward in time for lessons, models, inspirations, and visions for the present and the future. This special issue of the Internet Histories journal provides a timely opportunity to showcase and reflect upon Asian Internet histories – both in their own right, but also as part of the wider emerging and maturing field of Internet histories and Internet and digital technology research.

With its great diversity of places, society, languages, cultures, infrastructures, and economy, the Asian region contains roughly half of the world’s Internet users. Since the mid-twentieth century at least, the region prefigured and then incubated a wide range of forms of Internet technologies and associated digital cultures. Some of these Internet histories have been formulated, but many aspects of Asian Internet remain to be researched, documented and represented, theorized and enacted, considered, and debates.

*CFP* "JOURNALISM: THEORY, PRACTICE & CRITICSM AND JOURNALISM STUDIES", CONFERENCE


A conference jointly organized by 
Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism and Journalism Studies 
in celebration of their 20th anniversaries
Vienna, Austria, 
September 11-13, 2020.
Hosted by the Journalism Studies Center, Department of Communication, University of Vienna

The year 2000 is often considered a watershed moment in the development of the field of journalism studies, as it marks the year that two key academic journals – Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism and Journalism Studies – were first published. To celebrate their twentieth anniversaries, the journals are organizing a three-day conference in 2020 to look back on the evolution of the field, and to critically consider key questions for the field going forward. The conference will include a number of keynote presentations, round-tables, as well as regular paper presentations.

*CFP* “COVERING SYRIA-POLITICS AND COMMUNICATION IN TIMES OF WAR AND REVOLUTION”, SOAS WORKSHOP

Covering Syria. Politics and Communication in Times of War and Revolution
25 de Febrero de 2020

This workshop aims at bringing together academics and postgraduate researchers working on Syria, media and political communication. We are particularly interested in the following questions:
  • How Syrian opposition media are rethinking their strategies for covering a country that is still fragmented and occupied but mostly dominated by the Assad regime? How Syrian journalists and cultural activists continue to document the conflict in exile? How gender relations were impacted by this new media environment?
  • Which forms of archival work is possible to preserve the memory of past engagements?
  • How did international media organisations document the conflict and what narratives did they disseminate? What does a context of post-truth and the increasing circulation of fake news mean for Syrian and international media actors?
  • How have the Syrian regime and its allies been communicating since their self-declared victory over opposition forces?

28 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “STREAMING WARS AND TV’S NEXT JUNCTURE”, SPECIAL ISSUE, FLOW JOURNAL

As the new decade dawns, Disney, Apple, WarnerMedia, and NBCUniversal have launched (or will soon launch) their own streaming platforms. These entrants prove once again that the ecology of television and digital content is one that continuously shifts, raising the question: Is a streaming war in full swing? With legacy media companies and major technology companies entering the ring, has the streaming arena now become too crowded? And how will consumers, amidst ever-multiplying, well-funded platforms vying for their attention, alter and/or reinforce their viewership and subscription consumer habits?

This special issue of Flow’s twenty-sixth volume, Streaming Wars and the Future of Television, asks cultural and media scholars to consider these and other questions related to the recent shift in streaming media— all while remembering streaming technologies’ long and integral role in post-network American television. From 2000, with the use of cameras to live-stream the activities of the Big Brotherhouse on AOL, to the mid 2000s, when platforms began delivering content digitally to households, and the early 2010s, when Netflix, Amazon Video, and others began producing original content — over the past 20 years, the short history of streaming has been made up of numerous evolutions. The entrance of these new streaming platforms, then, might be better understood not as a revolutionary break from one era to another but rather as yet another (albeit monumental) progression.

*CFP* "CONFLICT AND DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION IN THE DIGITAL SOCIETY", VOL. 5(2), CULTURE E STUDI DEL SOCIALE JOURNAL


The concept of participation requires a careful and thorough revision. In the different ideals of representative democracy, political participation is declined as an institutionalised practice, considered as compulsory for the exercise of representation and necessary for increasing the civil attention to the common good; in the experiences of direct democracy (or rather in the various and sometimes trivializing theories of it) participation overlaps with the idea of personal involvement and it is exercised (usually) through the rejection of delegation. It is no coincidence that representation and participation were very often placed in an antithetical and mutually exclusive position. In the concrete practices of democracy, however, things are certainly more complex, to the point that the concept of participation itself has variously intertwined with that of representation, has been variously declined and even its operationalization appears at least problematic. 

The topic of conflict – traditional in the social sciences but at the same time declined in various dimensions – inevitably intertwines with the concept of participation and the practices of civic engagement. Alongside the forms of participation “by  invitation” – typical, for example, of many experiments of democratic innovation or of some practices, more or less depoliticised, of collaborative governance – new trends of participation “by irruption” have developed, where social actors have become protagonists in the institutional re-shaping of procedures and organisation of social spaces. 

*CFP* "THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: ORIENTALISM, REVERSE ORIENTALISM AND BEYOND IN LITERATURE AND FILM", EDITED COLLECTION


The influence of Edward Said’s Orientalism over the last four decades, both in its specific theoretical applications to Asia and the Middle-East, and in its more nebulous uses across a range of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, has been well documented and closely debated. Said’s central proposition—reinforced in subsequent commentaries such as The World, the Text and the Critic (1983) and Culture and Imperialism (1993)—that Occidental spheres of influence and imperialist policies produced not only physical colonisation but a construction of an imaginary “East” which robbed Asia of its agency in terms of self-representation is, though refuted by some, generally acknowledged across a number of academic disciplines. Whether one accepts this creed or is opposed to it there is little argument that, for better or worse, it invariably frames and at times overwhelms theoretical analysis of East-West interaction. Subsequent analysis of Western fictional texts located in Asia or representing aspects of Asia, and Asian texts either responding to Western canonical works and Western representations of Asia, or representing Western culture(s), has invariably been dominated by this binary of East-West power dynamics. Yet, while noting that these perspectives have (arguably) served as a useful ideological starting point in many such discussions, more recent processes of globalisation, transnationalism, and multimedia may render such binary polarities as superfluous.

*CFP* “SILENCE TO THE PROCLAMATION!”: A HALF-DAY INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM UPON PUBLIC PERFORMANCES OF AUTHORITY IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

A half-day Interdisciplinary Symposium Upon Public Performances of Authority in Early Modern England
Silence to the Proclamation
10 de Marzo de 2020

What did it mean to make a proclamation in early modern England? What performance was required from a Justice of the Peace to arrest their neighbour? And how did popular drama’s use of common processes of authority like these contribute to or alter their meaning?

This symposium aims to bring together researchers from English, history, political thought and performance studies, in order to probe some of these questions. It builds from recent currents in early modern history, considering the lived experience of government, and the state as social actor, and from the increased interest in the modalities of performance in early modern literary studies. It hopes to foster discussion across disciplinary boundaries, to explore different ways of approaching the ways that authority was performed in ordinary life, and to offer a new approach to social and legal history.

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, VOL. 3 NO. 1, MEDIA LITERACY AND ACADEMIC RESEARCH JOURNAL

Media Literacy and Academic Research is inviting papers for Vol. 3, No. 1 which is scheduled to be published on April 2020.

The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) and article submission charges. Media Literacy and Academic Research welcomes article submissions and does not charge a publication fee.

Media Literacy and Academic Research is a high-quality open access peer-reviewed journal focused on the academic reflection of media and information literacy issues, media education, critical thinking, digital media and new trends in related areas of media and communication studies. The journal is devoted to addressing contemporary issues and future developments related to the interdisciplinary academic discussion, the results of empirical research and the mutual interaction of expertise in media and information studies, education studies as well as their sociological, psychological, political, linguistic and technological aspects.

*CFP* “COMMUNICATIONS EDUCATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE”, 7TH INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION DAYS

7th International Communication Days
16-17 de Abril de 2020

Faculty of Communication is hosting the seventh International Communication Days on 16 - 17 April 2020. This year’s symposium title is Communications Education in the Digital Age. The symposium series, attracting great interest both nationally and internationally, have been held annually since 2014 with themes such as digital addiction, digital culture and digital transformation.

The main title of this year’s international symposium is “Communications Education in the Digital Age”. In our age, digitalization has led to significant transformations in the media sector and it is inevitable that the educational institutions will develop an educational approach appropriate for this transformation. The accreditation processes initiated in the faculties of communication are indicative of efforts to adapt to the standards of excellence and requirements of the age in higher education institutions.

27 de enero de 2020

*CFP* "CONNECTIONS: EXPLORING HERITAGE, ARCHITECTURE, CITIES, ART, MEDIA", CONFERENCE


Connections: Exploring heritage, architecture, cities, art, media.
29-30 June 2020
Canterbury, UK, University of Kent

Keynote: Professor, Dr. Richard Koeck. Chair, Architecture and the Visual Arts, University of Liverpool; Director, CAVA

Today the digital is ubiquitous across all disciplines connected with life in cities: urban history, architecture, planning, art, design, media, communications, and more. Examples abound.

As the Western world comes to deeper understandings of its heritage in the 21st Century, technology is ever more present in our reading of the past. Data mapping is standard in conservation and social history. Archaeologists use digital tools in geophysics, laser scanning, and compositional analysis. Landscape and architectural visualizations populate museums across the world. In architecture, computational design uses algorithms to replicate biology. Coding produces self-generated architectural form. Information modeling presents planners with interactive design in real time. The city is seen as ‘smart’.

*CFP* "THE POLITICS OF COLOUR MEDIA", 17TH ISSUE, FRAMES CINEMA JOURNAL


Although colour has historically been trivialised as superficial, feminine, cosmetic, and decorative, the 17th issue of Frames Cinema Journal, guest edited by Dr Kirsty Sinclair Dootson, interrogates and celebrates colour as a potent political force. Colour media around the globe, chief amongst them film and television, have established, reinvented, progressed, and aestheticised national, political, social, and cultural profiles, evolving an ideological currency alongside their aesthetic values. This issue of Frames therefore examines the political power of colour media by simultaneously gazing at these intersecting ideological, technical, and aesthetic histories. Precisely because colour does not comprise a single technology or set of visual practices, but a host of interlocking apparatuses and contingent aesthetic principles, we invite submissions that attend to any aspect of chromatic media from around the world.

From the analogue histories of colour in the studio and laboratory, to the practicalities of chromatic coding and programming in the digital era, from the aesthetic issues of colour in experimental media practice, to its value for state-sponsored propaganda, and from issues of national progress and transnational relationships, to colour’s role in forging oppositional subject-positions and identities, we are eager to hear from contributors working on original research involving previously unexamined chromatic media, particularly in relation to contexts outside Western Europe and America.

*CFP* "FICTIONAL WORLDS, WHAT-IFS AND SURROUNDINGS", HALF-DAY WORKSHOP DIGRA 2020


A half-day workshop held as part of DiGRA 2020
2 June 2020, Tampere, Finland

The starting point will be asking ourself "What if…?”

Games inherently deal with exploring alternative worlds. Worlds where we suspend our disbelief for experiencing other roles, being open towards possibilities. But what about play for stimulating designers towards more responsible, aware, inclusive and diversity oriented processes of envisioning, speculation, creation? And what about embedding reflections on the complex challenges we face today, tomorrow, or in the long run?

Today we are witnessing an increasing utilization of game design as an approach for addressing issues that cannot be easily reduced or solved, but are rather complex matters of investigation (Schouten et al. 2017) or even “wicked problems” (Buchanan 1985; 1992; Sicart 2010; Bosman 2019).  As a matter of fact, it is getting more and more frequent to run into games designed for empowering people to explore scenarios representing possible, plausible, or simply alternative presents, but also to speculate about preferable, probable or even undesirable futures (Coulton et al. 2016). From digital games and interactive narratives, to LARP and board games, the field is becoming populated of compelling practices, showing a consistent interest. In parallel, also the literature stream on the topic is increasing, reinforcing how games can be a powerful and engaging medium for speculation.

*CFP* “THE WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY MEXICAN WRITER CARMEN BOULLOSA”, EDITED VOLUME

Contemporary Mexican author Carmen Boullosa has described herself as a “grafónoma”, as she talks in interviews about her need to write daily since she was fifteen years old. Since her editorial debut in 1978 with the poemario La memoria vacía, her daily writing has produced an enormous and varied literary corpus that includes narrative, theater and poetry. Her works have been translated into many languages and she has received multiple prestigious awards, including the XIX Premio Casa de América de Poesía Americana in 2019 for her collection of poems La aguja en el pajar

Boullosa’s writing has a distinctive voice and style, interweaving history and fiction on many occasions. The main objective for this edited volume is to explore and disseminate Boullosa’s artistic production. We invite contributors from all disciplines and plan to include essays on all aspects of her work.

*CFP* "#READING INSTAPOETRY", SYMPOSIUM


#Reading Instapoetry
27 May, 2020

One of the unexpected side effects of the digital age has been the revival of poetry as a popular art form. Rupi Kaur’s collection Milk and Honey has become an astonishing worldwide publishing phenomenon, but she is only the most high-profile example of a new wave of poets who have bypassed the traditional routes to success. These poets create poetry that is generally short and places heavy emphasis on inspirational messages, and then use various social media platforms, most notably Instagram, to share their work directly with a reading public. Audiences that have traditionally been resistant to literary work have flocked to these writers, and in a few short years this movement – if indeed it should be classified as a movement – has become enormously popular. At the same time, the poetry world has seen something of a backlash against these writers, most notably exemplified by Rebecca Watt’s essay “The Cult of the Noble Amateur” (PN Review, 2018). Instapoetry has also been largely snubbed by academia for several reasons, not least that much of the poetry itself is resistant to formal analysis on account of its simplicity of message and lack of formal innovation. Although some collections of Instapoems have achieved great success, most Instapoetry is ephemeral, never intended to leave the Instagram platform, and writers are often adolescent or even younger, untaught and not widely read. The sheer volume of Instapoetry, too, is daunting: #poetsofinstagram alone links to nearly nine million poems and poetic images. There is little critical consensus on how to deal with poetry that relies as much for impact on the language of visual design and hypertext/hashtagging as it does on the actual text of the poem.

24 de enero de 2020

*CFP* "BORDERS, BORDERING AND SOVEREIGNTY IN CYBERSPACE", RGS-IBG ANNUAL CONFERENCE


Borders, bordering and sovereignty in cyberspace
RGS-IBG Annual Conference, London, 1-4 September 2020




National borders continue to operate in the digital space despite predictions otherwise. Scholars have argued that the global communication space and the nation state are both oppositional and co-constituting forces in internet governance. Cyberborders are produced through, for instance, regulatory systems, jurisdictional assertions, censorship regimes, and discourses of cyber sovereignty and cyber security. While governments draw on concepts of sovereignty and national security to assert control over a virtual space that seems essentially borderless, civil society actors have also sought to put forward ideas of digital sovereignty along the lines of freedom and self-determination. This session aims to address theoretical and empirical questions regarding processes of (de)bordering and (de)territorialization in cyberspace. How are the concepts of sovereignty, territory, and borders reproduced and transformed in the context of the digital? What are the emerging patterns of power and contestation with regard to the control over data and information flows? We especially welcome contributions that engage with critical perspectives on the concepts of sovereignty, territory, and borders such as those focused on performance, discourse/practice, and governmentality.

*CFP* "RESISTANCE", A CONFERENCE OF DIGITAL LITERATURE, CULTURE, AND ART


Resistance
A conference of digital literature, culture, and art
30 April - 1 May 2020


Keynote speakers:

What constitutes acts of resistance in today’s era of digital surveillance and algorithmic determination? How can artists and other creative makers introduce new modes of engaging with digital technologies that reveal and challenge increasingly uninhabitable conditions? And how do challenges related to digital platforms and networked media environments intersect with pressing societal issues, including economic and social inequality, or the environmental crisis?

*CFP* “ESSAYS ON MAGIC: THE GATHERING”, EDITED COLLECTION

This year the Strong Museum of Play inducted Magic: The Gathering into their Toy Hall of Fame, noting that this particular game gave rise to the entire CCG (collectible card game) genre.  One of the key elements of this particular style of game is the combination of player agency in developing a “winning” deck along with the randomness of when the cards are drawn. Moreover, this game not only relies upon the unique mechanics of the cards, but each play-through emphasizes a synthesis of mechanics and narrative, of game play and lore. 

While other books dedicated to Magic: The Gathering explore the history of the system or offer guides on how to create a winning deck, this collection will explore Richard Garfield’s ground-breaking game from a variety of scholarly viewpoints. This edited collection will critically examine how Magic: The Gathering has changed and challenged how we view analog gaming, particularly as the advent of e-sports has begun to blur the line between analog and digital.  Some possible concepts that might be explored in these chapters include: a look at the rise of analog gaming within the e-sports arena through tournament style play of Magic; issues of diversity in representation within the cards; an exploration of the transmedial narrative elements (e.g. a look at the cards as well as the official novelizations based on the game’s underlying lore); an examination of the interconnections between the mechanics/ludology and the narrative; an analysis of the narratological connections between Wizards of the Coast’s two hit products: Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons (e.g. the setting, campaign, and stories of Ravnica, etc.). In short, this essay collection aims to critically examine both the inner workings of Magic as a game as well as how Magic has influenced the larger world of gaming.

*CFP* "PODCASTING AND REMEDIATION OF THE RADIOPHONIC LANGUAGE", 2020.1 MONOGRAPH, RADIOFONIAS REVISTA DE ESTUDOS EN MÍDIA SONORA JOURNAL

The year 2019 marked the entry of new agents in the podcasting market, which began to attract large communication groups, in a scenario of new forms of distribution of audio content and redesign of listening habits. Podcasts that invest in detailed and contextualized information now coexist with traditional round tables and new formats, such as narrative radio journalism, which stress and remediate radio language. In this second wave of podcasting (Bonini, 2015), driven by investments from independent producers and financing systems such as crowdfunding, this radio mode is no longer a niche medium, operating in the logic of restricted broadcasting (Primo, 2005), getting closer and closer to mass consumption.
In this context, how does podcasting accelerate a reconfiguration of the radio, reaching new audiences? Which new formats are podcasters developing and to what extent do new intermediaries, such as streaming services, aggregators and smart speakers, condition delivery and access to content? How is the sound media market restructured as new players arrive, such as podcasts produced by newspapers, magazines, television stations and native digital websites?

*CFP* "GENDERS AND SEXUALITIES IN ASIAN CINEMAS", SPECIAL ISSUE, KRITIKA KULTURA


The circulation, commodification, and repression of discourses on genders and sexualities within and among Asian countries has been a constant feature of regimes of modernization, from colonial through neocolonial and postcolonial periods. Aptly enough, it is mainly through the modern vehicle of cinema where these discourses play out. Kritika Kultura will be initiating a forum on the filmic representations of issues on genders and sexualities in the Southeast Asian region, in line with its commitment to the pursuit and development of cultural and media studies, slated for the journal’s February 2021 issue.

The forum invites scholars of gender, media, and culture to formulate topics that inspect and submit to critical evaluation, instances where Asian film products embodied controversies on gender and/or sexuality, as either local or as cross-cultural phenomena. The approaches will be premised on sex-positive feminist representation, as first articulated in the March 1985 special section of Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media by editors Chuck Kleinhans and Julia Lesage (“Sexual Representation,” issue 30), and developed as well as debated by scholars and activists of feminisms, LGBTQ movements, and new masculinity studies.

23 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “ONLINE INFORMATION GOVERNANCE- MORE EXPRESSION, LESS FREEDOM?”, 4TH GIG-ARTS CONFERENCE

Online Information Governance- More Expression, Less Freedom?
7-8 de Mayo 2020

It is now 30 years since the invention of the World Wide Web, and over fifteen years since the development of the interactive Web or also known as Web2.0. Online information and communication have never seemed easier and more accessible to everyone, thanks to the mediation of social networks, search engines, and other kinds of platforms and technologies.

With such capabilities to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, freedom of speech and freedom of the press should have grown to such an extent that some of the utopian visions of full participatory democracy would have appeared to be within our reach. At the very least, some of the long-standing informational imbalances concerning information flow globally, diversity of content and authors, and the accessibility of accurate information would have been taken as a given framework against which societies would have been called to solve problems and to look after citizens’ well-being.

*CFP* "PLAYING WITH NATIONAL GAME HISTORIES: A 'MAKING DATA PLAYABLE'", WORKSHOP


We’d like to invite you to “Playing with National Game Histories: A ‘Making Data Playable’ Workshop”, collaboratively organized by René Glas, Jasper van Vught, Stefan Werning (all Utrecht University), Annakaisa Kultima (Aalto University), and Jaakko Suominen (University of Turku), which takes place at DiGRA 2020, on 2 June 2020, in Tampere, Finland.

The goal of the workshop is to explore the role game co-creation can play in studying and harnessing the integrative potential of national game histories. We will: 

  1. use the Discursive Game Design (DGD) to facilitate playful engagement with historical datasets, 
  2. discuss the epistemology and ongoing relevance of national game cultures on the basis of sample datasets, and 
  3. explore how playing with national game histories can constitute alternative sites for transnational identity politics.

*CFP* “MATERIALITIES, NETWORKS, REMEDIATION, MIGRATION”, BESIDES THE SCREEN ISMAI 2020 FESTIVAL

Besides the Screen 2020 ISMAI 
Materialities, Networks, Remediation, Migration
21-22 de Mayo de 2020
Instituto Universitário da Maia, Porto, Portugal


The conference Besides the Screen 2020 @ ISMAI (Instituto Universitário da Maia), participates in a series of events celebrating ten years of the Besides the Screen research network throughout 2020. Besides the Screen is an international research network on the subject of experimental audiovisual media. It aims to reconfigure the field of screen studies by refocusing it on the seemingly secondary objects, processes, and practices that exist ‘besides’ cinema. Besides the Screen also means to promote an open and horizontal academic environment, favouring practice-based approaches to research and artistic collaborations. Over these ten years, the conference has had as its themes: graphic intelligences and algorithmic fictions; vaults, archives, clouds and platforms; unfolding images, VR, volumetric filmmaking and spatial control; Curatorial methods and materials; piracy and distribution, among others.

*CFP* “CHAOS”, SPECIAL ISSUE, THE EXCURSIONS JOURNAL

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. (Toni Morrison, The Nation, 2015)

Classical and early modern philosophy widely privileged the “logos” i.e. the logical, organized view of the universe, which still has considerable influence on the popular as well as the scientific perception of the world through the binary “order vs. disorder.”

However, modern scholarship has long ago destabilized this false dichotomy, and chaos has captured the imagination of philosophers, scientists and artists alike for many generations. Mathematicians proposed a theory of chaos which accounts for the unpredictable character of deterministic systems; quantum physicists have established the fundamental uncertainty inherent to the structure of matter; and postmodernist scholars in the humanities and social sciences are arguing for the acceptance of the ambiguity, fluidity and fragmentation of the human condition.

*CFP* "EL DISCURSO COMO HERRAMIENTA DE CONTROL SOCIAL", VII SIMPOSIO INTERNACIONAL


Palacio de Anaya y Juan del Enzina (Anayita), Facultad de Filología de la Universidad de Salamanca, Plaza de Anaya, 37008 Salamanca (España)
Del 3 al 5 de junio de 2020

La Universidad de Salamanca invita a participar en este simposio que se celebra del 3 al 5 de junio de 2020 en Salamanca (España). Su objetivo es reflexionar acerca del lenguaje y las prácticas discursivas en la comunicación social para descubrir las estrategias más habituales empleadas en diferentes géneros discursivos y ofrecer una visión global e interdisciplinar que permita comprender la comunicación, sobre todo, en lo que afecta a la propaganda, persuasión y manipulación. 

El plazo para el envío de propuestas termina el 1 de marzo de 2020.

22 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “CONNECTIONS: EXPLORING HERITAGE, ARCHITECTURE, CITIES, ART, MEDIA”, AMP 2020 CONFERENCE

29-30 de junio de 2020
Canterbury, UK

This event welcomes delegates in architecture, urban planning, history, art and design, digital and representational studies.

Present in-person, pre-recorded films, skype, written papers.

Themes: architectural theory, urban planning, smart cities, digital design, history and heritage, digital arts and the city

Today the digital is ubiquitous across all disciplines connected with the physical environment in which we live. In architecture, computational design uses algorithms to replicate biology. Coding produces self-generated architectural form. Information modeling presents planners with interactive design in real time. The city is seen as ‘smart’.

*CFP* "SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND DIGITAL ORGANIZING", PANEL, CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH (EPCR)


Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
Innsbruck, 26-28 August 2020

Panel Title: Social Movements and Digital Organizing

Chair: Anastasia Kavada (Reader in Media and Politics, School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster)
Discussant: Alice Mattoni (Associate Professor, Department of Political and Social Sciences University of Bologna)

Internet use is thought to have changed the organizational dynamics of social movements. This panel will take stock of changes and continuities in social movement organizing through both a historical analysis, looking back at 20 years of digital organizing, and a focus on emerging platforms and trends.

*CFP* “SHARING STORIES”, JOURNEYS ACROSS MEDIA 2020 CONFERENCE

Journeys Across Media 2020
Sharing Stories
3 de Abril de 2020
University of Reading, UK


The Film, Theatre and Television department at the University of Reading are preparing to host the annual Journeys Across Media PG Conference.

In the White Album, Joan Didion writes that we tell ourselves stories in order to live [...] We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices (1). The act of storytelling involves a process of choice-making – we choose the details to include and exclude, we shape narratives depending on who we share our stories with and how. This conference is interested in exploring methods and approaches to sharing stories in theatre, performance, film, television and literary practice. We are also interested in innovative ways of disseminating research stories. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we seek to investigate connections between different modes of storytelling through the varied forms of current postgraduate and ECR research.

*CFP* “THE FACE OF(F)”, X GRADUATE CONFERENCE IN CULTURE STUDIES

2-3 de Abril de 2020

The X Lisbon Consortium Graduate Conference in Culture Studies will focus on the concept of FACE as an object of artistic, cultural, biological and technological interest. During a two day Face Of(f) in Lisbon participants will be able to confront their ideas about the subject, take part in intellectually challenging discussions and networking with new colleagues.

Face is everywhere. It has travelled through a variety of cultural expressions, serving as an object of affection (e.g. photo albums, paintings), lending itself towards obsession (e.g. Narcissus and Dorian Gray), serving as a metaphor (e.g. ' to lose one's face') or giving name to one of the most powerful enterprises in the world - Facebook. It has been a locus of fetishization and power, represented through historical portraiture in sculpture, paintings and photography, from Greta Garbo's divinity complexion in Queen Christina (Barthes 2007, 74) to the imperial portraits of Majesties and Kings (Mirzoeff 2015).

*CFP* II CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE LA RED INTERNACIONAL DE UNIVERSIDADES LECTORAS 2020


II Congreso Internacional de la Red Internacional de Universidades Lectoras
Facultad de Educación, Psicología y Trabajo Social
Avinguda de l'Estudi General, 4, 25001 Lérida (España)
16 y 17 de abril de 2020

La Red Internacional de Universidades Lectoras y la Universitat de Lleida celebran este congreso (en la modalidad presencial y en línea)  del 16 al 17de abril de 2020 en Lleida (España). Si se opta por la modalidad virtual, deberán seguir las indicaciones, que se señalarán en la web y en una segunda circular, y subir a la plataforma del congreso, que se habilitará para tal efecto, un archivo de Power Point con voz, de no más de 15 minutos. Además, deberán participar en el fórum en el que esté adscrita su comunicación.

21 de enero de 2020

*CFP* “MUSEOLOGY”, FIRST ISSUE, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MUSEUM STUDIES

The International Journal of Museum studies is born in Italy in 2020 in a moment of great theoretical vitality of Italian museology, but also of identity crisis of world museology. The birth of an Italian national museum system and the process of accreditation of museums in progress impose, beyond short-term choices, a total revision of the models of museum management sustainability, but also a rethinking of their mission and their relationship with the publics in a society in constant, even swifter change.

The magazine presents itself as a showcase of the theoretical debate in Italy in a constant comparison with the international museological reality and as an observatory of the most stimulating best practices to allow a wide-ranging debate that takes into account the local and national specificities and its interfacing with the different international realities.

*CFP* "EUROPE FACING POPULISTS IN POWER: COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES", PROTAGORAS SYMPOSIUM


“Europe facing populists in power: communication strategies and practices”
IHECS Bruxelles/Brussels,
June 4 & 5, 2020

Since the early 2000s, "populist" governments as well as governments with a populist coalition partner, both right wing and left wing, have led to democratic paradigmatic shifts such as the advent of the so-called "illiberal" democracy in Hungary, the "conservative revolution" in Poland, the "entrepreneurial populism" in the Czech Republic and the unprecedented "anti-system" coalitions set up in Italy and Greece (Taguieff, 2015; Dieckhoff, Jaffrelot & Massicard, 2019). 

Once in power, populists seek to control all aspects of the state. By practising a form of mass clientelism in order to win the loyalty of the people (Laclau, 2005) or by distinguishing themselves by means of their undeniable hostility towards organised civil society and the media, populists can be described through their constitutive anti-elitism and assumed anti-pluralism. Research shows that a key element of populist strategies is the discursive construction of the "homogeneous", "good", "honest", and "hard-working" people on the one hand, in opposition to the "lazy" and "corrupt" elites on the other hand (Canovan, 1999; Jamin, 2009; Mudde, 2004; Taggart, 2004; Tarchi, 2015). 

*CFP* “STAR WARS”, ISSUE 5.1, MISE-EN-SCENE: THE JOURNAL OF FILM AND VISUAL NARRATION

For its forthcoming issue, Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration (MSJ) currently seeks submissions that encompass the latest research in film and media studies. Topic areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Cinematic aestheticism
  • Film spectatorship
  • Frame narratology
  • Auteur theory
  • Mise-en-scène across the disciplines
  • Pedagogical approaches to film and media studies
  • Film/video as a branch of digital humanities research
  • Adaptation studies
  • Genre studies
  • Transmedia
  • Fandom studies
  • Seriality
  • Documentary studies

*CFP* “DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGIES”, SPECIAL EDICION, PRISM JOURNAL

As journalism undergoes a profound redefinition and reorganization of its field of activity (Rusbridger, 2018; Nielsen, 2016; Bell, 2014; Anderson et al 2013; Clarke, 2013; Jorge, 2013; McChesney & Nichols, 2010; Leonard & Schudson, 2009), aggravated by a seemingly unending crisis; as well as the media relations — which despite being an embryo of Public Relations (Cutlip, 1994), has always been a more effective tactic for projecting services, institutions and personalities into the public space (Bernays, 1971) — have been losing weight in strategic communication processes (Ribeiro & Jorge, 2018). We need only go back 10 years to remember that there was no promotion and reputation building without the backing of news in the media; media agencies hired journalists or students of journalism to format promotional content according to journalistic conventions (Maat, 2008; Lewis et al, 2008; Kopplin & Ferraretto, 2001). Throughout the history of the persuasion industry (from ancient press agents to publicists or public relations), media relations have always been the most effective and therefore most profitable areas (Lloyd & Toogood, 2015). Macnamara, 2014; Miller, 2008).

With the arrival of social networks, promotion was no longer the hegemonic control of press and communication advisors, as individual citizens began to have the ability to disseminate information to a considerable number of people with a single click (Castells, 2012; 2009; Wu et al, 2011). The creation of opinion makers has also become democratized and we have all witnessed the proliferation of the huge tribe of influencers who often enjoy a following greater than personalities of the highest political, cultural or sporting sphere (Ekdale, 2019), as well as any citizen with no specific education in the field. Information-building or unrecognized reputations can often surpass mainstream audiences of “big media” (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017).

*CFP* OPEN CALL AND ISSUE 4 "CENSORSHIP AND MEDIA", TECMERIN: JOURNAL OF AUDIOVISUAL ESSAYS


We are launching the CFP for issue 4 of Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays.

While we maintain the open call for video-essays, we are especially interested in audiovisual works about Censorship and the Media for issue 4.

Full CFPs and instructions for authors follow:


Open call for video essays:
Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays has a special interest, although not exclusive, in Spanish and Latin American cultural production. Consequently, we invite scholars, researchers and creators to send pieces centered on the production, consumption, circulation and cultural exchange within these geographical areas.

20 de enero de 2020

*CFP* "LIVING WITH DIGITAL PLATFORMS IN ASIA-PACIFIC: EVERYDAY LIFE, PARTICIPATION, POLICY, AND RIGHTS", SPECIAL ISSUE, ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION



Launched in 1990, Asian Journal of Communication (AJC) is a refereed international publication that provides a venue for high-quality communication scholarship with an Asian focus and perspectives from the region. We aim to highlight research on the systems and processes of communication in the Asia-Pacific region and among Asian communities around the world to a wide international audience. It publishes articles that report empirical studies, develop communication theory, and enhance research methodology.

AJC is accepted by and listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) published by Clarivate Analytics. The journal is housed editorially at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, jointly with the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC)

*CFP* "CONTAMINATION", Nº 2.1, SOAPBOX JOURNAL


For the third issue of Soapbox, a graduate peer-reviewed journal for cultural analysis, we invite young researchers to submit abstracts that critically engage with the theme of ‘contamination.’ 

Originating from the Latin contaminare “to touch together,” “corrupt,” “defile,” contamination is commonly framed as the presence of an undesirable element which effectively alters, spoils, harms, or destroys lifeforms, matter or other entities. Beyond thinking in terms of disease or invasion, the scope of globalised capitalist production affords us to consider that we live in a state of ubiquitous contamination. From microplastics to heavy metals, and radioactive compounds, the accumulation of strange molecules in the atmosphere, waters, and land, contribute to climate change and the melting of permafrost – potentially leading to the release of more greenhouse gases and millennia-old pathogenic viruses. Yet, not only physical materialities are concerned but also the immaterial and intangible, such as digital spam, moods, rumours, or protestor’s demands can become viral. Like microbes and bacteria, computer viruses are trespassers, pervasively moving around the world and seeking to evade detection by filters and border controls.

*CFP* “WEAK SYSTEMS: EXPLORING BIAS, BUGS AND THE VULNERABILITY OF DIGITIZATION”, STS ITALIA CONFERENCE

Weak Systems: Exploring bias, bugs and the vulnerability of digitization
18-20 de Junio de 2020

After two decades in which enthusiastic (if not ecstatic) visions of digitization have prevailed in the public sphere, the so-called critical turn has challenged the propensity of digital technologies to strengthen the mechanisms of protection of the individual and the democratic organization of contemporary societies. The Snowden case and the turmoil following the Cambridge Analytica controversy, for example, have inspired debates and discussions about Internet surveillance, the perils of the data economy and potential “weaponization” of social media platforms.

The supposed “horizontal” architecture of the Web has been subverted by centralizing actors such as digital media corporations and national governments. Moreover, news about hacks, data breaches and systemic failures of digital platforms and devices have become topics of frequent media coverage. Nevertheless, a systemic and articulated reflection on how different kinds of “vulnerabilities" in digital technologies impact directly or indirectly on individuals and social groups has not emerged yet. For instance, the literature about platforms manipulation, data hacks, bugs and bias in technological systems has just started providing insights about how technologies may actually raise serious democratic concerns and actually work against citizens’ rights, needsand desires.

*CFP* “EMERGING STRATEGIES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION REFORM”, CHAPTER BOOK

This enhanced version of Equity, Equality, and Reform will revisit current trends and issues in contemporary public education. There will also be opportunities for contributors to highlight emerging topics that have a significant impact on teaching and learning, which may include (but not limited to): the education of English Language Learners, Social Emotional Learning, and revamping teacher education. 


Objectives of the Book

This book has two objectives. First, to inform the practices of educators, administrators, and policymakers so that informed decisions are made at the local, state, federal and global levels. The book is intended to be a volume of current empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, case study analyses, and interventions surrounding the emergent area of public education issues and trends. The field of education is ever-changing, drawing a need for current research. Second, to provide in-depth coverage of concepts and principles, and interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary public education that will add to the existing scholarship.  As such, the aim of this edited book is to provide a quality volume of comprehensive material to academics, researchers, policymakers, and teacher education programs globally.

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, VOL. 1, 2020, JOURNAL OF IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

The Thematic Group 19, Digital Communication, Networks and Processes, of the Latin American Association of Communication Researchers -ALAIC-, is calling for papers for a special issue of Routledge's Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research.


Themes and scope

The digital communication evidences, in the last decades, significant transformations in the daily life and in the habits of audiences. Through this process, the construction of a new ecosystem is observed, in which technology becomes invisible, despite its significant relevance. However, we cannot say that the devices are at the centre of the transformations. The adaptations and reinterpretations of the users dialogue permanently with the strategies proposed by the industry within the interfaces. As a whole, these changes influence the perception of space, time, memory, among other aspects. And, viewed with a historical perspective, they also influence culture.

17 de enero de 2020

*CFP* "DIGITAL SERVICES IN CRISIS, DISASTER, AND EMERGENCY SITUATIONS", CHAPTER BOOK


The contemporary world is characterized by the massive use of digital communication platforms and services that allow people to stay in touch with each other and their organizations. On the other hand, it is also a world with great challenges in terms of crisis, disaster and emergency situations, of various kinds: humanitarian, environmental, nuclear, political, economic, etc. In this scenario there are many challenges in the communication, prototyping, evaluation and development of digital support platforms and services in crisis, disaster and emergency contexts.

Thus, it is crucial to understand the role of digital platforms/services in the context of crisis, disaster and emergency situations. This can be done through a technological perspective, namely, through the design of digital service specifically designed for use in crisis, disaster and emergency situations. But also, through a communicational perspective, by understanding people's communication wishes and needs in these risky scenarios, as well as understanding the use of digital services/platforms such as online social networks (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc.), in crisis, disaster and emergency situations.

*CFP* "HIBRIDITY AND STAR TREK", SPECIAL ISSUE, INTERDISCIPLINARY LITERARY STUDIES: A JOURNAL OF CRITICISM AND THEORY


Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory. We invite essays that investigate the concept of hybridity within the Star Trek universe.

Accepted essays will be published in a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed journal Interdisciplinary Literary Studies (Penn State University Press). Please submit essays of no longer than 7,500 words to Editorial Manager. Select “Special Issue Article” before uploading your manuscript.

Deadline for receipt of essays is May 18, 2020

Possible topics include hybridity and: