*CFP* "ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY REPRESENTATION ON ONLINE PLATFORMS", NEW ISSUE 2021, REVISTA ACTA UNIVERSITATIS SAPINETIAE, COMMUNICATIO SERIES

For its 2021 issue, the journal Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio expects original research articles discussing organizational identities. Editors encourage approaches dealing with the definition of organizational identity, mapping connections and interferences of online and offline identities, the construction and representation of online organizational identity.

 

Under the circumstances of globalization, the economic and social actors are interacting louder than ever, and everyone would like to gain the attention of their environment in the intensifying communication noise. Emphasizing uniquenessand distinctiveness are common ways of capturing attention both for individuals and for organizations. There is a broad array of branding efforts made by organizations and public figures worth exploring. The online platforms offer a supporting space for the intensified multi-directional communication (OECD, 2019); the economic and social actors are striving to represent their identity in order to appear similar to the others and at the same time outstanding, original, and distinctive.

The issue of organizational identity construction and representation has grown opportune again since the spread of online platforms (Horowitz, Freberg, 2016). The online messages of organizational identity are effective forms of communication, and yet defining online identity from the perspective of different target groups, is a territory to be explored. 

*CFP* "GENDER AND MEDIA MATTERS. WIDENING THE HORIZONS OF THE FIELD OF STUDY", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Gender and Media Matters. Widening the Horizons of the Field of Study

International Conference

October 15-16, 2021 – Sapienza, University of Rome Sapienza, (online and in-person)

 

Although there appears to be an abundance of literature and opportunities available for discussion on the topic of gender and the media, «researching the gender-media dyad is still an important project for media scholars» (Ross 2010, p. 3). This topic remains significant for several reasons. First is the complex and rapidly evolving nature of media products, technology and actors. The current media landscape and its cultural dimension are constituted by the accumulation and juxtaposition of content, media forms, production and consumption practices, and everything in between. Stale and stereotyped images continue to exist, alongside more innovative and critical content created through processes of remixing, sharing, co-creation and contestation (Banet-Weiser, 2018; Bolter, 2019).

*CFP* "MEDIA AND DIVERSITY", SPECIAL ISSUE, PROBLEMI DELL'INFORMAZIONE: ITALIAN JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND JOURNALISM STUDIES

We live in a deeply mediatized world, where public sphere and social and political dialogues are inconceivable, or better inexistent, without media. In democratic systems, the political decision-making processes are somehow tied to the collective perceptions of social issues, therefore the role played by media, in particular news media, has become strategic. Media directly participate not only to the agenda setting and current debates, but, in a deeper perspective, to the construction of social categories and the explanation of social facts. By steadily shaping, framing and giving public visibility to some social groups, media accustom citizens to perceive some distinctions as ordinary, usual, “natural”; thus, they create identities and borders. By emphasizing some distinctions in comparison with “us”, they create the Other. By lighting the fire underneath a kind of diversity and its point of view, they affect social stereotypes and promote the change of mentalities.

In recent years, some relevant studies have provided original and unexpected perspectives useful to understand the power of media in societies by investigating their role in building the categories of minorities, vulnerability and social empathy. In particular, Lynn Hunt has reconstructed the way in which popular media have contributed to the “invention” of the idea of human rights in the passage from the modern age to the contemporary one. According to this author, media stimulated the audience to assume the points of views of the different characters of drama, primarily of the weakest ones, and, consequently, to take in account the human pains of torture and social injustices and to imagine more equal opportunities for all human beings. Another milestone of the literature on this topic is the last work of Roger Silverstone, where is reflect on the role played by media in the formation of the social, civic and moral space. The knowledge of the Other and the relationship with the same increasingly happen inside the mediapolis, the space where people coming from differing places can make a reciprocal appearance.

*CFP* "POSTHUMAN DRAG", EDITED COLLECTION

Is drag separable from gender? A preponderance of self-described "drag things" (versus drag kings and queens) specializing in performances of non-human entities and appearing everywhere from stages in local gay bars to digital platforms like Instagram and YouTube would suggest so; however, when we speak of drag in academic literature, we hew closely to notions of drag as demonstrating gender performativity above all else. This collection therefore seeks to theorize a previously underrepresented form of drag performance that does not necessarily play with gender so much as it plays with humanness:We call this "posthuman drag."

Since the inception of Queer Studies, the transformational art form of drag has provided a deep well from which to draw theorization on embodiment and gender performativity; Judith Butler's extensive scholarship on gender in particular has given us a means to use drag as a lens for denaturalizing the social and cultural preconceptions through which gendered embodiment is heteronormatively conditioned. Though Butler's work helped to rehabilitate drag by disentangling it from an essentialist pre–Queer Studies definition as an exclusively gay cismale practice of female impersonation, there remains a divisive bias toward drag queen performance in academic scholarship on drag (already perceptible in one of the first book-length studies on drag, Esther Newton's 1972 Mother Camp). Additionally, studies of drag tend to lean on a framework that perceives the relationship between drag and gender differentially on the basis of gendered embodiment, which is intimately bound to the cissexist norms against which drag would otherwise be capable of working.

*CFP* "NEW MEDIA AND NATIONAL IDENTITY", SPECIAL ISSUE, THE ARAB AND MUSLIM MEDIA RESEARCH JOURNAL

The advent of satellite TV and social media networks have transformed the long assumed approaches of identity construction and production. Global TV and virtual media spaces have allowed audiences to become more active in the realisation of their identity as an existential foundation. Amidst this sophisticated development, mediascapes have proven effective tools in the formation of the self via a self-gratification process.

Furthermore, the articulation of a common national identity has nowadays assumed diverse sources. National identity as suggested by severalscholars is becoming a fluid and changing concept. In the core of its formationare expressions of language, culture, ideology, history and memory. The internet is probably becoming the most influential platform for such expression. Contrary to previous generations who used to be brought up through family values, education systems and religious teachings, nowadays satellite TV and online environmentsarguably seem the most influential spaces of interactions about identity and opinion formation.

*CFP* "MI AVATAR Y YO. AUTORÍA EN ENTORNOS DIGITALES", XXIII CONGRESO DE LA ASOCIACIÓN ALEMANA DE HISPANISTAS 2021

XXIII Congreso de la Asociación Alemana de Hispanistas

Sección 1: Mi avatar y yo. Autoría en entornos digitales

24-27th February, 2021

Universitat Graz, Austria

La Universidad de Graz invita a participar en la Sección 1 de este congreso, que se celebra del 24 al 27 de febrero de 2021 en Graz (Austria). El objetivo en esta sección es debatir las múltiples encrucijadas entre el entorno digital y la autoría literaria, y reflexionar sobre los conceptos de (no-/hiper-)autoría (colectiva) que surgen y se transforman en estos entornos y desafían las nociones tradicionales de autoría.

Las redes sociales y otros entornos digitales suponen un cambio cultural importante en la manera de relacionarnos y comprendernos como sujetos. Para la literatura, los entornos digitales suponen formas nuevas de producción, distribución y recepción que desafían los conceptos tradicionales de la autoría y la creatividad.

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

4th Gig-Arts Conference 

Online Information Governance- More Expression, Less Freedom?

7-8 de Mayo 2020

Universitat Wien, Viena

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* “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* “PLAYING LAW: A JURISPRUDENCE OF VIDEO GAMES AND VIRTUAL REALITIES”, CHAPTER BOOK

Law is the ultimate multiplayer role-playing game. Through law, individuals are characterised, subject-object relations are constructed and enforced, and concepts of worth and identity are founded. Playing Law seeks to showcase the power of play and the boundless potential of the video game as a medium capable of facilitating experiences which unlock the next level of jurisprudential evolution. This is not only true of games which require players to act as legal characters, but is true of all games which involve the player-avatar – a subject confined in a codified space. This edited collection seeks to explore the intersection between the coded realm of the video game and the equally codified space of law. Featuring critical readings of video games as a means of understanding law and justice, this book highlights the power of playing jurisprudentially.

In the realm of the digital game space, players simulate, relate and engage with environments and experiences shaped by legality. In these interactive environments, players are not static – they are forced to be law enforcers (LA Noire; Battlefield Hardline; Super Mario Bros), compelled to be vigilantes (Grand Theft Auto; Batman: Arkham Knight; Watch Dogs), or otherwise made to follow the rules of the game.

*CFP* “BOUNDARIES”, DIGITAL AND CULTURE 2020 CONFERENCE

Digital and culture 

Boundaries

1 de Mayo de 2020

University of Nottingham, UK

The Digital Culture Research Network is pleased to open the call for papers for our third annual conference: Digital⇌Culture 2020.

This year’s theme of Boundaries encompasses the varied means by which digital technologies challenge, perpetuate or instantiate margins and limits. Despite the potential to transform notions of accessibility, the embodied realities of digital culture are subject to geopolitical, cultural, or ethical limitations. Digital platforms create new avenues for self-representation, and the boundary between our digital selves and our embodied selves ‘IRL’ are becoming increasingly porous (if they were ever really separate at all). The public/private binary is blurred: these identities can be censored by the platform or the state, and have their data privacy violated. In the era of the “long tail,” concepts of cultural fringes or margins are becoming problematized and objects of academic study shun any designation as “high” or “low” culture. The field of digital cultures also presents new challenges to researchers’ ethical boundaries. 

*CFP* “ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO RADIO STUDIES”, CHAPTER BOOK OF THE ROUTLEDGE MEDIA COMPANION SERIES

Dear colleagues, we are calling for abstracts for the new Routledge Companion to Radio Studies, to be published in 2021.

This Routledge Companion to Radio Studies will be a valuable reference source for the expanding field of radio, audio and podcast study. It will bring together 40-50 original essays to conceptualise the multidisciplinary field of radio studies. We welcome entries from early career researchers to emeriti scholars using theories and methods from media studies, historical studies, politics, communication, journalism, sociology and anthropology. We are looking for work that spans national boundaries and historical periods to present a coherent argument for understanding radio as a synecdoche for and a key agent in the creation of the last hundred years of technological, psychological, and cultural innovation and experience.

*CFP* "DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA STUDIES", CHAPTER BOOK

Recent developments in the communication technologies have led to significant changes in the communication process and these changes vary from the way we reach information to how we perceive and distribute it. These changes should be studied and analyzed in detail to be able to see how the concept of communication changes and how these changes can be considered either as possible improvements as well as problems to come up with solutions. This call for chapters is for an edited book titled as “Digital Transformation in Communication and Media Studies”.

The book is organized as a manual on how the digital transformation has affected communication-related issues as well as a roadmap for the possible future of this transformation. Manuscript submissions may address the following themes through a research-based approach. Contributors are to focus on a certain or various way how the digital transformation has affected communication and media studies on below mentioned thematic areas in addition to other related themes with the above scope in mind: