*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", CONFERENCE AND EDITED VOLUME

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans? The line between science and fiction is becoming increasingly blurry: what is already a fact, what is still only imagination; and is it even possible to make this clear-cut distinction? Innovation and development goals in the field of AI are inspired by popular culture, such as its portrayal in literature, comics, film or television. 

At the same time, images of these technologies drive discussions and set particular priorities in politics, business, journalism, religion, civil society, ethics or research. Fictions, potentials and scenarios inform a society about the hopes, risks, solutions and expectations associated with new technologies. But what is more, the discourses on AI, robots and intelligent, even sentient machines are nothing short of a mirror of the human condition: they renew fundamental questions on concepts such as consciousness, free will and autonomy or the ways we humans think, act and feel.

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", A JAPANESE-GERMAN CONFERENCE & EDITED VOLUME

Artificial intelligence and the human 

Cross-cultural perspectives on science and fiction

A Japanese-German conference in Berlin, Germany

12 and 13 May 2022

& Edited volume (2023)

 

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans?

*CFP* "CIENCIA COGNITIVA Y NEUROMARKETING: INVESTIGACIÓN ACADÉMICA, NUEVAS TECNOLOGÍAS Y DESAFÍOS PROFESIONALES", PRÓXIMO NÚMERO, REVISTA ICONO14

El propósito de este monográfico es promover investigaciones que contribuyan, en el ámbito de las nuevas tecnologías, a mejorar el conocimiento de los procesos de percepción, creación de opinión, configuración de comportamientos y evolución de actitudes utilizando técnicas derivadas de la neurociencia a las Ciencias Sociales. El neuromarketing se encuentra estrechamente vinculado, entre otros aspectos, con el nuevo paradigma relacionado con la denominada economía de la experiencia, en donde las emociones juegan un papel relevante (Pine, B.J & Gilmore, J.H., 1998), y la teoría de la mente propuesta por el neurocientífico Antonio R. Damasio, que supone un encuentro entre la neurobiología y el pensamiento.

Dentro de la investigación cualitativa en comunicación y en la gestión empresarial, las técnicas de neuromarketing abren nuevas expectativas, ofrecen nuevas respuestas, que permiten aumentar el conocimiento de los públicos y en sus relaciones con las tecnologías emergentes en el campo de la comunicación. Con carácter ilustrativo, cabe mencionar, su capacidad para profundizar en los efectos de los mensajes en las audiencias -el nivel de agrado o rechazo- y sobre la toma de decisiones del consumidor, que en ocasiones resultan difíciles de verbalizar o son inconscientes. Si bien el reconocimiento de las técnicas de neuromarketing es cada vez más una realidad, continúa existiendo la necesidad de profundizar en un campo de investigación tan complejo como este con el fin de eliminar determinadas incertidumbres, generalmente asociadas, por un lado, a su utilidad práctica para medir la eficacia de las herramientas de comunicación comerciales y, por otro, con el rigor académico necesario que permita avanzar en la consolidación de su cuerpo teórico.

*CFP* "THE AESTHETICS OF TRAVEL", VOLUME 65 (02/2022), THE POLISH JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS

This upcoming issue of The Polish Journal of Aesthetics calls for submissions focused on the associations between traveling and aesthetics, both understood broadly. There is a necessity for interdisciplinary dialogue between Aesthetics and different fields of research related to traveling. Aesthetics is the study of perceptions, experiences, and speculative developments. The practice of traveling reaches from the importance of nomadism for forming human culture up to the idea of Bildung (moral, intellectual, cultural, and artistic formation). Narratives about travel may come from Western written and oral tradition, such as Homer’s Odyssey, and film genres such as Westerns, Sci-fi, or Road trip cinema. Various types of travel literature could include logbooks and texts that support learning about living in a way that necessarily encompasses alterity. 

Traveling invokes a type of self-knowledge that is dislodged from a homeland and is connected to ritualistic reunions sustained through an oral tradition, the extraordinary adventures of a people. Travel transmits knowledge about the world for future generations. Through the experience of distance and strangeness, traveling creates an authentic space for cosmological and philosophical investigations, exploration, nostalgia, and personal, collective, scientific, or territorial discoveries, above all. In the category of space, fictional and narrative aspects find imaginary projections and territorial explorations from which knowledge emerges, individuating itself by an investigative perspective and observation. A new personality—a new Self and new Selves—appears from unknown space and time. The essential and precise subject matter for this issue is to deal with the representation of traveling and the imaginary, even if trips are objective and documented. Papers should include studies about the bond between the objective and the subjective, the individual and the collective, united with memory, time, and space.

*CFP* "DISSENT AND COMMUNICATION: VOICES AND DISCOURSES IN THE ERA OF ALTERNATIVE FACTS", MEDIAFLOWS CONFERENCE 2021

 

"Dissent and communication: voices and discourses in the era of alternative facts"

Mediaflows Conference 2021

Universidad de Valencia

27, 28 & 29 October 2021

 

In order to present a paper at the Mediaflows Conference 2021 ‘Dissent and communication: voices and discourses in the era of alternative facts’, a 250-word proposal should be sent through the specific form available at this link until 15 July 2021. The conference accepts papers in Spanish and English.

The conference accepts papers in face-to-face mode (health circumstances permitting) or virtual mode (by sending a video or participating online).

*CFP* "COMUNICACIÓN PÚBLICA DE LA CIENCIA Y LA TECNOLOGÍA EN IBEROAMÉRICA", NÚMERO MAYO 2022, REVISTA CUADERNOS.INFO: COMUNICACIÓN Y MEDIOS EN IBEROAMÉRICA

La comunicación pública de la ciencia y de la tecnología constituye un área de vital importancia para el desarrollo social. La divulgación científica es fundamental para una educación social en ciencias que contribuya a que las personas tomen decisiones y juzguen del modo más objetivo e informado posible (Calvo, 1992). Durante décadas, los científicos, los políticos, los periodistas, conservadores de museos y otras personas a nivel comunitario interesadas en la comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología han trabajado para mejorar su comprensión (Lewenstein, 2003). Nuestra región no está ajena a diversos problemas sociales; algunas áreas principales de conflicto son la salud, el medioambiente y el atraso hacia el desarrollo sustentable. La comunicación del conocimiento científico sería una forma de contribuir a superarlos (Kreimer & Zabala, 2006), considerando también la importancia de que las personas accedan a la información científica, la comprendan y le den un uso adecuado. No obstante, en América Latina el acceso a la comunicación científica está segregado y, por lo tanto, los grupos sociales mejor posicionados tendrían mayor posibilidad de apropiarse de la cultura científica (Polino, 2019).  

En Chile, por ejemplo, un 48,37% de las personas se sentiría poco informada sobre ciencia y 41,51%, poco informada sobre tecnología (Centro de Microdatos Universidad de Chile, 2019). Desde marzo de 2020, la pandemia del coronavirus ha desencadenado un desafío sanitario mundial que involucra a todos los sectores de la sociedad; esta epidemia ha puesto a prueba el tratamiento de la información en los medios de comunicación y en primer plano la relevancia de la comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología en su manejo y relación con la población, no solamente en el ámbito iberoamericano, sino a nivel global. 

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, SECOND ISSUE, QUALITATIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATION

Qualitative Health Communication (QHC), is a new, no-fee, open access online journal dedicated to publishing articles employing qualitative methods to investigate, improve and innovate health communication.

We are calling for submissions to QHC’s second issue (to be published in July 2022) and subsequent issues via the journal's website. Detailed instructions for authors can also be found on the website. This is a general call for submission not tied to a special issue topic. All submissions within scope of QHC are welcome. Submission from researchers at any stage of their career is encouraged. All submissions will be peer-reviewed: initial screening in-house followed by external peer-review. There are no article submission or processing fees. Accepted articles will be available online free of charge.

The first issue of Qualitative Health Communication (QHC) will be published in January 2022 featuring contributions by renowned health communication researchers. Topics include COVID-19 communication, communication in antenatal group consultations, paediatric palliative care, surgeon-patient consultations, communication in patient information leaflets and forensic assessment reports and co-construction of experiential knowledge.

*CFP* "THERAPEUTIC NARRATIVES? PROCESSES AND EFFECTS OF EUDAIMONIC ENTERTAINMENT", ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

Therapeutic Narratives? Processes and Effects of Eudaimonic Entertainment

Online Symposium

8-9 July 2021

 

The last decade has seen a surge in research on eudaimonic entertainment, or entertainment that provides viewers with meaning and insight into human life. In this research area, several processes and effects of eudaimonic entertainment have been studied, such as mixed affect, need satisfaction and well-being. In addition, it has been suggested that eudaimonic entertainment can be beneficial to viewers’ health and that it may contribute to being able to cope with difficult issues and situations. For instance, tragic portrayals of characters’ death may enable viewers to better deal with their own fear of death.

Also, portrayals of characters showing virtues like love and kindness may motivate viewers to be kinder to others. Potential underlying processes of these effects have been suggested, such as the feeling of being moved and self-reflection. The aim of this symposium is to discuss the benefits viewers may gain from eudaimonic entertainment and the processes that facilitate these effects. Proposals for presentations of empirical results as well as theoretical frameworks are invited.

*CFP* "DIGITAL NARRATIVE AND INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH HEALTH AND SCIENCE", SPECIAL ISSUE, FRONTIERS SITE

Outside formal school education, digital media have emerged as a major source of information and knowledge that shapes how societies follow, understand, perceive, reason about and connect with health and science issues. This, however, has recently been greeted with some fears, with digital platforms in the largely unregulated social media sphere having been identified as key drivers of widespread mis/disinformation around the globe. 

Together with the rise of post-truth, populist politics, where science denial has become a personal and political act, digital platforms have fueled an increasing resistance to scientific theories and to science-based medical advice and public health policy (such as COVID-19 safety measures, vaccination safety and benefits, the facts of climate change, and even the notion of the Earth as a spherical planet). While such fears are strongly grounded and should continue to be raised in the public debate, it is important not to let them distract us from the less discussed but significant potential of digital media. This special issue will focus particularly on the power of digital narrative and storytelling.

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION (EDU2021)

2nd International Conference on Education (EDU2021)

8th-12th August 2021

Athens, Greece

 

After the organization of seven successful annual international conferences (see previous conferences), the 2nd International Conference on Education (EDU2021) aims to provide an opportunity for academics, professionals, and industry experts from various fields, with cross-disciplinary interests, to discuss future directives and innovations in Education.

This year, apart from our face-to-face conference, we also propose and promote online participation, as some countries/participants might still face travel restrictions. Even if remote participation will only require half the normal registration fee, we will do our best to provide participants with equal opportunities to exchange, share, and communicate, as with F2F participants.

*CFP* "PHARMACOLOGIES OF MEDIA", SPECIAL ISSUE, MEDIA THEORY JOURNAL

Are media doing us more harm than good? This question has shadowed accounts of new technologies for millennia, from the advent of writing right through to the emergence of social media. Beginning with Plato’s reflections on writing’s effects on memory, and under the influence of work by philosophers like Jacques Derrida (1981) and Bernard Stiegler (2011), media scholars often explore this question using the concept of the pharmakon.

In its Platonic sense, the pharmakon is both a remedy and a poison, or something that can both heal and harm. To describe media as pharmacological is to acknowledge that they can have both positive and negative effects. But this concept is difficult to disentangle from its medical origins. The pharmakon is a substance, a drug or a medicine, that might be intoxicating or beneficial. Like drugs, this double capacity is not inherently value-laden, or good and/or bad, but is a function of how the media operate. Like drugs, this capacity informs how media operate on, extend, or curtail our capacity to sense, think, or act. But here the analogy falls apart. Media and drugs address different domains of the body and have distinct cultures. If this analogy can only stretch so far, what are we to make of the concept of the pharmakon today?

*CFP* "INTERACCIONES ENTRE LAS PRÁCTICAS AUDIOVISUALES DEL ARTE Y LA CIENCIA", NÚMERO MONOGRÁFICO, FONSECA: JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION

Desde el Renacimiento, y durante más de tres siglos, arte y ciencia transitaron como saberes complementarios. Estudios anatómicos como los de Leonardo da Vinci o Michelangelo, inspirarían originariamente los primeros atlas de anatomía. De igual modo, la invención de la perspectiva –en tanto que sistema de representación hegemónico– concitaría en un mismo régimen escópico ambos saberes. Desde entonces, la figura del ilustrador científico y el dibujante especializado resultará imprescindible para divulgar los descubrimientos producidos en ciencia o tecnología. El propio Ramón y Cajal sería un excepcional ilustrador de sus propios descubrimientos sobre el sistema nervioso cuando aún no era posible conseguir registros fotográficos de las muestras observadas a través del microscopio (Ramón y Cajal, 2017).

Sin embargo, la división categórica entre ciencias y humanidades llegaría a finales del XVIII, con la consolidación y aceptación generalizada del método científico. Como afirma Stefan Collini, “el surgimiento de la angustia ante la posibilidad de que se produjera una fisura semejante en los [dos] tipos de conocimiento (…) puede fecharse en el período romántico, entre fines del siglo XVIII y principios del siglo XIX” (Collini, 2000: 9). La tecnología audiovisual a partir de la segunda mitad del XIX ampliaría aún más esa brecha con el descubrimiento de la fotografía (1839). Desde ese momento, la difusión científica a través de los nuevos dispositivos visuales de registro y captura abriría definitivamente un abismo entre “objetividad” científica y la subjetividad “artística” (Daston y Galison, 2007). Este divorcio entre ambos saberes se haría evidente en la conferencia de P.W. Snow titulada “Las dos culturas” (Snow, 1963).

*CFP* "MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN FANDOM", BOOK CHAPTER

Rationale: Before the concretization of fan studies as an academic discipline, fans would routinely be labeled and treated as “fanatics” - people with excessive love for something or someone that could lead them to engage in maladaptive, even dangerous, behavior. Over time the term mental health disorders developed to mean a condition that affects a person’s behavioral, and emotional well-being. As both fanaticism and mental health are framed as being all about how people think, feel, and behave, public discourse framed fandom as a mental health issue. Along with being problematic due to class, racial, gender and other issues, this positioning meant that fandom was not well understood until the recent couple decades.

Now, scholars return to this idea of mental health and fandom, but for the purposes of understanding how being a fan relates to their own mental health. This collection explores what fans learn about mental health from their fandoms and how their fandoms can impact their own mental health, for better or worse. Discussing these issues and intersections will further our understanding of the complex ways in which fandom weaves into people’s lives.

*CFP* CALL FOR AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY SUBMISSIONS, THE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF THE ARTS

JSTA (SCOPUS-indexed) aims to create a conceptual discussion around the audiovisual essay, not only as a creative process but also as a pedagogical and academic tool, to generate concepts and criteria for evaluation and scientific consideration. (Please see a version of our first audiovisual essay here).

Therefore, Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts is open to submissions of original audiovisual essays made with films, excerpts and other moving images. Works can have up to 15 minutes and should provide original insights in areas such as film and audiovisual studies; media studies; contemporary art; social sciences. Works submitted should not have been proposed to any other academic publication, despite the possibility of dissemination in other circuits. The call will not be restricted to academic practitioners but the process of evaluation will follow its procedures.

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, GENERAL ISSUE, SCREEN BODIES: THE JOURNAL OF EMBODIMENT, MEDIA ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY

Screen Bodies invites submissions to be considered for a forthcoming general issue. We welcome work that focuses on matters of embodiment in media arts from any of the disciplinary or methodological perspectives described below. Research articles are typically between 6k–9k words. Please see our website for details about the inclusion of artwork/images.

Screen Bodies is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that is devoted to the interface of art, science, and technology. The journal’s aim is to examine how bodies engage with and are engaged by screens, as well as how bodies are represented on screens. It features critical, theoretical, and empirical methods used in the diverse fields comprising the humanities, social sciences, computer science, communications, and the arts.

 

Screen Bodies is a publication where scholars, creators, and scientists come together to map new media ecologies with an eye toward the aesthetic, ethical, and political dimensions of emerging technologies as well as to matters of design, programming, engineering, and performance. 

*CFP* "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENCE AND FICTION", CONFERENCE AND EDITED VOLUME

Artificial intelligence and the human – Cross-cultural perspectives on science and fiction

Conference and edited volume

A Japanese-German conference in Berlin, Germany (17 and 18 June 2021) & edited volume (2022)

 

Current debates on artificial intelligence often conflate the realities of AI technologies with the fictional renditions of what they might one day become. They are said to be able to learn, make autonomous decisions or process information much faster than humans, which raises hopes and fears alike. What if these useful technologies will one day develop their own intentions that run contrary to those of humans?

The line between science and fiction is becoming increasingly blurry: what is already a fact, what is still only imagination; and is it even possible to make this clear-cut distinction? Innovation and development goals in the field of AI are inspired by popular culture, such as its portrayal in literature, comics, film or television. 

*CFP* "MEMORY, FORGETTING AND CREATING", 5TH INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

Memory, Forgetting and Creating

5th International Interdisciplinary Conference

January 14-15, 2021

Online Conference

 

In our increasingly fast-paced societies, where information is abundant and its reception is superficial, human memory appears to be an endangered phenomenon. This is why we would like to take a closer look at the complex processes of memory. These include forgetting, neglecting, negation, and detachment, along with creating, recollecting, remembering, regaining memories, and reconstructing one’s relationship with the past. We are deeply interested in examples and consequences of altered memories: invention, fabrication, deception, indoctrination or propaganda. We invite reflection on mutual relations between memory and imagination, fantasising and manipulating, forgetting and creating.

*CFP* "SCIENCE IN A TIME OF CRISIS: COMMUNICATION, ENGAGEMENT AND THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC", SPECIAL RESEARCH TOPIC, JOURNAL FRONTIERS IN COMMUNICATION: SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION

Fearon, Götz, and Good titled an April 2020 post in Nature, “Pivotal moment for trust in science – don’t waste it.” They along with other scientists note that experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic has led numerous people who had previously paid little or no attention to science and science policy to look to scientists for guidance. Despite being a global health emergency, the pandemic provides an array of opportunities to encourage a revival of public support for and engagement with science during a global crisis. Along with these opportunities, however come threats.

Scholars of science communication and public engagement are uniquely positioned to identify, catalogue and analyze these opportunities and threats, to analyze the impact of communicative strategies on scientific knowledge and to evaluate the contemporary influence of media on public beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.

This Research Topic contributes to the emerging literature on the social dimensions of COVID-19 by examining how communication relates to attitudes, practices and values that the pandemic has placed in harsh relief. We are particularly interested in explorations such as the following:

*CFP* "SHAPING MEMORIES IN CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVES", Nº 4 (2020), FUNES JOURNAL

One of the main issues characterizing the current debate on social sciences (with a proliferation of Memory Studies especially since the 1980s in the Anglo-Saxon and European area) concern the role of memory not only related to its theoretical definition, but also referring to its possible use as an interpretative tool in the empirical analysis of social and cultural processes.

The studies on the social origin of memory have developed in different fields, from the sociology of Halbwachs, Assmann, Cohen, Lavabre, Zerubavel, Jedlowski, Namer, Jelin, to other philosophical and historical perspectives authors such as Nora, Ricoeur, Ost, Le Goff, Jenkins, Arendt, Benjamin, Kracauer... All these strands have contributed to a systematization of memory by placing it in a multidisciplinary field.

To remember we need others. This is because our memories, including the most intimate and personal ones, only acquire meaning when they are shared with an emotional and social community that will contribute to their elaboration. The memories of individuals are not, therefore, able to construct, in retrospect, social frames of reference, but are the tools used by the collective memory to recompose an image of the past that is incessantly modified and re-described orienting the future.

*CFP* "ART AND AFFECT IN THE PREDICTIVE MIND", INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTERNATIONAL 2020 CONFERENCE

Art and Affect in the Predictive Mind

24-25th September, 2020

University of York, UK

The conference will bring together philosophers, art historians and cognitive scientists for the first systematic exploration of the rich and still largely uncharted interactions between predictive processing and aesthetic experience.


The Theme

Predictive processing (PP) is an emerging framework at the cutting edge of theoretical cognitive science, and its philosophical implications are currently being hotly debated. This wide-ranging approach describes the human brain as an embodied probabilistic model of the world, constantly generating predictions about the causes of its sensory states and updating itself when a prediction error is encountered, in an effort to maintain a sustainable and homeostatic exchange with its environment. This prediction error minimization process is often taken to be an imperative of every biological system and a possible unifying principle for understanding perception, action, attention, experience and learning.