*CFP* "MEDIA AND THE 'NEW NORMAL'", SPECIAL ISSUE, MEDIA ASIA JOURNAL

If you’re researching the "new normal," perhaps the normal thing to do is to consider Media Asia.

The peer reviewed journal is published by the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) and Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Established in 1974, it focuses on studies and practices in journalism, advertising, public relations, entertainment and other aspects of media in Asia.

Manuscripts should analyze issues related to the media’s role in the “new normal” in Asia. These are some topics worth exploring:

• “New normal” in the context of media studies (e.g., increasing role of the Internet, changing broadcast landscape, relevance of print) 
• Work-from-home arrangements of journalists and media workers 
• Changes in media production and distribution 
• Evolving media consumption 
• Marketing trends and the rise of e-commerce 

*CFP* "CRITICAL ICT INFRASTRUCTURES AND PLATFORMS", 14TH CMI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

 Critical ICT infrastructures and platforms

14th CMI International Conference

Hybrid (online/In-person): 25-26 November 2021

 

ICT infrastructures and platforms are increasingly pervasive and critical for societies, systems and organizations and for individuals. It is, therefore, of great importance that efficient and resilient infrastructures are developed and deployed and that disruptions of services caused by either cyber-attacks or other interruptions of services are mitigated. Also, as digital platforms constitute crucial communication infrastructures for societies, it is important that such platforms contribute to democratic processes and economic and social fairness.

The 14th CMI conference will be concerned with these topics from different complementary angles: The development and deployment of fast and efficient communication infrastructures including cloud and edge technologies; resilience of ICT systems in order to increase cyber security and mitigate cyber-attacks; institution of social practices and governance approaches that will promote democratic discussions and processes, contribute to economic and social development, equity and fairness, and protect privacy.

*CFP* "MEDIA AND CREATIVITY", INTERNATIONAL ONLINE CONFERENCE

“Media and Creativity” International Conference

London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (online)

2021-11-27 to 2021-11-28

 

Nowadays we live and breathe media, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour. News, television, social media, celebrity culture, music, and more. As the media and communication sector becomes ever more diverse and dynamic, and we are going to consume it, we also need to understand it.

Today, the new bio-technical forms of life produced by mainstream digital media and by a whole range of artistic and non-artistic practices confront us with unprecedented theoretical questions, which can be dealt with by combining profound and perplexing perspectives. We need appropriate theoretical frameworks in order to understand the phenomena.

*CFP* "DISINFORMATION-FOR-HIRE AND CLICK FARMING AROUND THE WORLD: IDENTITIES, INCENTIVES, INFRAESTRUCTURES", SPECIAL ISSUE, SOCIAL MEDIA + SOCIETY JOURNAL

From state-sponsored propagandists using paid troll armies, to commercially motivated data analytics firms selling their toolkits to politicians, and platform workers producing memes for overseas clients, the global industry of disinformation production has only professionalized and diversified. This special issue for Social Media + Society aims to deepen understanding about the social identities, work arrangements, and political and commercial motivations of an emerging class of digital disinformation workers. We are interested in critical and interdisciplinary research that examines the political economy, specifically the digital and creative industries that propel and produce disinformation. The special issue’s focus on business models and disinformation worker identities in global context aims to expand on disinformation studies’ analysis of “fake news” and hate speech as content that require better policing or fact-checking. It also aims to expand platform studies’ research agenda and consider the range of digital professionals and entrepreneurs who buy and sell engagement on social media–with pernicious political consequences especially in contexts where dissenting voices are suppressed.

Thus, we solicit submissions that discuss the diverse worker hierarchies and conditions, outsourced gig arrangements, money politics, and/or regulatory loopholes in the promotional industries that enable the strategic production of disinformation. We are interested in interdisciplinary and ethnographic research that engages with the deep stories of workers in “dark PR” firms (Silverman, Lytyvenko & Kung 2020; Verwey & Muir 2019), data analytics firms (Briant 2021), Latin American and Indonesian Instagram click farms (Lindquist 2021), and “propaganda secretary” offices (Hassan & Hitchen 2019). We are also interested in normative discussions about complicity and collusion in digital industries as well as scholarly self-reflection about the challenges of doing engaged research about disinformation (Ong 2020).

*CFP* "IMAGES BETWEEN SERIES AND STREAM. RETHINKING SERIALITY AND STREAMING", INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

Interdisciplinary Conference

“Images Between Series and Stream – Rethinking Seriality and Streaming”

18-19 November 2021. Conference will be held online.

 

In the last few years watching TV series has become a distinct socio-cultural phenomenon. The increasing rise of streaming media services has profoundly changed the accessibility standards of TV series but also the way of watching them. However, the domestication of our life in pandemic, made us realize that streaming series and films should become more important objects of our interest than ever before. In some sense, we live in-series and on-stream platforms. New technological situations, such as the presence of videoconferences in our life, presents us not only with new problems but a new reorganisation of sensibile as Jacques Ranciere might say. Video-technology enters into our private sphere and in some sense it calls us to be constantly available – to be on-stream but also to live in series of accessibilities. The re-organisation of our life is obvious, but the role of images in this “re-” or “de-” organisation still requires some reflection. We are in constant tension between being-in-series and being-on-stream. We perceive ourselves as moving-images on screen. It affects our relationships and our perception. The collaboration of the Techno-Humanities Lab and Film Lab encourages us to ask questions on two different planesphilosophical and cinematic one. Thus, we ask what happens with the pieces of the film art when they become just “tiles” on a streaming platform — a series of „bricks in the wall”? But also – what happens with us when we become just tiles on video conference meetings?

*CFP* "AUDIOVISUAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES - PRESENT AND FUTURE", VOL.7 Nº2, THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FILM AND MEDIA ARTS

The present issue of the International Journal of Film and Media Arts invites full papers that deal in particular with:


• Audiovisual ecosystems in local, regional, national and international level

• New formats and languages in audiovisual media and on the internet

• Transmedia narratives

• Second Screen and the impact of the multitasking viewer

• Analysis and semiotics of audiovisual and multimedia discourses

• New theories, new concepts, new paradigms and new approaches in audiovisual communication

• New audiovisual research methods and techniques

 

All submission will be select by double-blind peer review. The author must provide separate files:
a) The title pageshould include the title, author’s name and affiliations, email address, acknowledgements (optional) and conflict of interest statement (if necessary).

*CFP* "COMUNICACIÓN Y CRISIS EN EL ESPACIO PÚBLICO", VOL. 31, Nº 3, REVISTA EL PROFESIONAL DE LA INFORMACIÓN

En los últimos años hemos asistido a un proceso de creciente polarización y descrédito de las instituciones que tradicionalmente han sido representativas de un sistema democrático (Bennett; Pfetsch, 2018), tanto en la esfera internacional como en el contexto español. La irrupción de los populismos, la atomización del voto (Stroud, 2010) y las dificultades para alcanzar mayorías que permitan la formación de gobiernos sólidos plantean serias incógnitas de futuro en un escenario comunicativo híbrido, en el que la desinformación (Guess; Nyhan; Reifler, 2018) empieza a alcanzar niveles preocupantes para una mayoría de ciudadanos.

La pérdida de credibilidad de los medios de comunicación tradicionales, en paralelo a las posibilidades de creación y distribución de mensajes en la esfera pública a través de las redes sociales, ha abierto la puerta a actores políticos y sociales que habían quedado excluidos de la misma, pero también ha rebajado los estándares para la circulación de mensajes centrados en la divulgación de falsedades o en el discurso del odio. En este contexto, lejos de facilitar el consenso y la unidad en torno a valores democráticos, han contribuido a la polarización y disgregación (Sunstein, 2019), así como a una mayor presencia y visibilidad de posturas políticas que confrontan directamente con estos principios. La irrupción de un partido que comulga con los principios de la extrema derecha en el panorama político español -con representación en las instituciones tras casi cuatro décadas de presencia marginal, plantea la necesidad de reflexionar sobre un escenario político, social y mediático que se retroalimenta, y sobre las implicaciones en el sistema democrático.

*CFP* "CHANGES IN COMMUNICATION IN, FROM, AND ABOUT HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS", THEMATIC SECTION, STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION SCIENCES JOURNAL

We are seeking contributions for a thematic section of Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS) exploring changes in communication of higher education institutions. SComS is a peer-reviewed journal of communication and media research with platinum open-access (no article processing charges).

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are pivotal organizations in modern societies (Schäfer & Fähnrich, 2020). In past decades, the higher education sector has expanded considerably in many countries, with rapid increases in research output, growing student enrollment, and newly founded colleges and universities. New public management reforms and a growing need for societal legitimation have led many HEIs to prioritize communication, i.e., to establish communication offices, pursue branding, marketing, and reputation management, and to professionalize their communication efforts on traditional channels, websites, and social media (Davies & Horst, 2016; Elken, Stensaker, & Dedze, 2018; Marcinkowski, Kohring, Fürst, & Friedrichsmeier, 2014; Raupp & Osterheider, 2019; Schwetje, Hauser, Böschen, & Leßmöllmann, 2020; Vogler & Schäfer, 2020). This has resulted in competition for public visibility, involving researchers, HEI leadership, and professional communicators at central levels, research centers, and departments (Crettaz von Roten & Entradas, 2018; Entradas et al., 2020; Friedrichsmeier & Fürst, 2012; Koivumäki & Wilkinson, 2020; McKinnon, Black, Bobillier, Hood, & Parker, 2019; Rödder, 2020; Watermeyer & Lewis, 2018). 

*CFP* "BEYOND THE ECHO CHAMBER – THE TACTICAL USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS", SPECIAL ISSUE, SOUTH ATLANTIC QUARTERLY

We invite proposals for essay submissions for a thematic issue of South Atlantic Quarterly focusing on the tactical and political uses of social media in struggles for radical social change. In this issue, we want to push past the well-worn tropes of the network and the echo chamber to consider how a range of social movements are making use of social media platforms in their social change efforts and with what consequences. Outside of their role as platforms for networked communication, recent scholarship has identified the important role played by social media as “discourse laboratories” and sites for collective identity construction. Social media platforms have become central tools and contested terrains not just for social justice movements but for those of the far Right as well. While much attention has been focused on the way that movements for social justice have deployed social media as a key tool for communication and mobilization, we also want to consider the ways that movements of the reactionary and radical Right make use of this digital infrastructure.

This issue will consist of contributions examining movements across the political spectrum and their use of social media in the context of their tactical repertoires and the political goals they seek to achieve. Beyond questions of communication, coordination, and mobilization, how are contemporary movements entering into these digital ecologies and how are they being affected by them? This timely collection aspires to contribute to the critical conversation about movements, social justice, free speech, and digital communicative infrastructure at a moment of surging activity across all these registers.

*CFP* "EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE CULTURE OF SURVEILLANCE", NORDICOM ANTHOLOGY

Today, personal data is gathered through the welfare state and healthcare providers; societal infrastructure (electricity, water, demographics, voter statistics, etc.); and voluntarily sharing of our data through use of smartphones, wearables, social media, streaming services, games, and more. Data is gathered, coordinated, and analysed to gain insights into our everyday lives; thus, members of contemporary digitalised societies live in what David Lyon refers to in his book of the same name, The Culture of Surveillance (2018).

With ubiquitous surveillance the “new normal”, Nordicom and external editors invite contributions for an anthology focusing on the cultural, mundane, and everyday-life aspect of online surveillance – in Lyon’s words, “the participation and engagement of surveilled and surveilling subjects” (2018: 6).

Studies addressing the Nordic countries and their contexts and perspectives will be of particular interest, but studies focusing other countries may also be considered (not least if they are of a theoretical, philosophical, or universal character – an example could be online surveillance from a human rights perspective). A central question to be explored is how online surveillance is perceived and handled by citizens in the Nordic countries – whether it is through acceptance, adaptation, and resistance. Among others, the following are questions to be posed:

*CFP* "MENORES CREADORES DE CONTENIDOS EN PLATAFORMAS DE VÍDEO: NORMATIVA Y AUTORREGULACIÓN EN EL SOCIOSISTEMA COMUNICATIVO", VOL. 13, Nº 1 (2022), REVISTA MEDITERRÁNEA DE COMUNICACIÓN

Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación / Mediterranean Journal of Communication invita al envío de textos para el monográfico: Menores creadores de contenidos en plataformas de video: normativa y autorregulación en el sociosistema comunicativo, coordinado por la Dra. Esther Martínez Pastor (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, España), Dr. Rodrigo Cetina Presuel (Harvard University, EE.UU.) y la Dra. Araceli Castelló Martínez (Universidad de Alicante, España) que se publicará en enero de 2022 (V13N1). See details in English.

El fenómeno de los menores influyentes en las plataformas de vídeos experimenta un crecimiento imparable en el consumo, la actividad, la presencia de marcas alrededor de estos contenidos y la capacidad de influencia y transformación social de algunos contenidos. Todo ello también incrementa la problemática derivada, por ser un fenómeno parcialmente previsto en la normativa vigente. Existen nuevos y emergentes retos investigadores para el colectivo de los públicos involucrados: menores creadores de contenidos, padres, madres o tutores legales, profesionales del medio YT, seguidores, docentes e investigadores y sociedad en general.

*CFP* "RACIALIZING MEDIA POLICY", BOOK CHAPTER

Racialization is a term used within the social sciences to highlight the ways that social interactions become racial. This is an important concept in sociological and political science research when looking at structural mechanisms that perpetuate racial inequalities. The state, and its various organizational spaces of action, is often seen as a site for race to be enacted (e.g., Bracey 2015). Public policy sectors such as housing, taxation, and immigration, to name a few, have been ripe areas of research. However, media policy research has not effectively engaged with this critical conception. Media policy research has been driven by political economy perspectives within the field of Communications and Media Studies, and can benefit from an approach that analyzes it in relation to social science perspectives that focus on processes which constitute, or are constituted by, actors, groups, and organizations.

Racializing Media Policy seeks to fill this scholarly gap by providing case studies which focus on media policy issues in the United States through the lens of racialization. It will contribute to a growing body of media policy research within the Communications and Media Studies literature, as well as anchor the role of media policy in Sociological research – where it is lacking. It would also lend itself toward a growing body of work in the Sociology of Organizations which have begun to focus on “raced organizations” (Ray 2019; Wooten 2019) to understand how racial inequalities are embedded within organizational practices. The volume is under contract with the Emerald series ‘Studies in Media and Communications.’ The series is sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association.

*CFP* "MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGIES IN EUROPE", EASA MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY NETWORK ONLINE WORKSHOP

“Media Anthropologies in Europe”

European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) 

Media Anthropology Network Online Workshop

14 & 15 October 2021

 

Building on previous EASA Media Anthropology Network activities – including the latest panels at the EASA conferences, the bi-annual workshops, and e-seminar series, we are organising an online workshop that aims at reflecting on different traditions and practices of ‘media anthropology’ in different European countries. What are the different traditions of media anthropology in Europe? How can we integrate the diversity of European media anthropology in the sub-discipline’s discourse and beyond? How do media anthropologies in Europe share their analysis and methodologies with sister disciplines and how do they collaborate? How do digital technologies contribute to a common terrain of inquiry and the sharing of media approaches/methodologies?

*CFP* "POLÍTICA POP ONLINE: NUEVAS ESTRATEGIAS Y LIDERAZGOS PARA NUEVOS PÚBLICOS", NUEVO MONOGRÁFICO, INDEX.COMUNICACIÓN: REVISTA CIENTÍFICA DE COMUNICACION APLICADA

En la era de lo que Mazzoleni y Sfardini denominan “política pop” (2009), el espectáculo ha invadido un territorio reservado durante décadas al ámbito puramente informativo, convirtiendo los detalles sobre la privacidad y personalidad de los gobernantes en objeto de las pretensiones de conocimiento que imperan en la sección, a menudo veleidosa, alimentada por las celebridades. Ya en 1997, David Marshall reflexionaba en una de sus más reconocidas obras sobre el peculiar nexo de unión entre el concepto de “celebridad” y los rasgos característicos del poder, con el fin de profundizar en el innato deseo del ser humano por descubrir en los personajes públicos un reflejo de sus propias inquietudes, rutinas y anhelos. En este contexto, la enciclopedia internacional de la Comunicación Política recoge el término “celebrity politics” (Richardson, 2015) para aludir al recodo de la investigación en ciencias sociales que atiende a la manera en que rostros conocidos del panorama internacional (políticos o no), combaten la apatía del elector con acciones que permiten humanizar a las figuras gubernamentales y contribuir a la propagación de un mensaje digerible y ameno. La proliferación de contenidos sobre información política espectacularizada o politainment se ha incrementado con el creciente uso de redes sociales como Facebook, Twitter o Instagram, donde los públicos menos interesados en la actualidad parlamentaria pueden encontrar imitaciones hilarantes, memes y vídeos de talk shows relacionados con la esfera gubernamental. A este respecto y siguiendo la vía que marcan los recientes estudios sobre “política pop online” (Bracciale y Mazzoleni, 2019), el presente monográfico invita a remitir propuestas que ahonden en estrategias de captación del voto enfocadas a públicos diversos, nuevos tipos de liderazgo y celebritización del poder en redes sociales, entre otros fenómenos que evolucionan al calor de la cultura popular.

*CFP* "SOCIAL NETWORKS TRACK", IEEE GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE

IEEE Global Communications Conference

7-11 December 2021

Madrid, Spain

Selected Areas in Communication Symposium: Social Networks Track

 

Scope and motivation

Recently, social network research has advanced rapidly with the prevalence of online social applications and mobile social communications systems. Moreover, the ongoing pandemic via contact social networks has caused tremendous human life and economic loss around the world, and infodemic is one of the major social impacts that make people difficult to discriminate trustworthy sources, from false and manipulative information sources. 

*CFP* "DIGITAL INEQUALITIES IN MULTICULTURAL CONTEXTS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE", BOOK CHAPTER

Today, we observe how multicultural societies in the Global South and Global North regions of the world are facing new challenges brought up by the digital divide. Previously analysed by scholars as inequalities in access to Internet and ICTs (van Dijk, 2013) and in use of digital technologies (Helsper, 2002), today digital divide has extended to new levels, forms and domains. This includes inequalities in benefits or tangible outcomes people receive through their online engagement (van Dijk, 2020), different level of users’ digital capital (Gladkova, Vartanova, & Ragnedda, 2020), and previously understudied gaps such as algorithms divide (Ragnedda, 2020). Given the fact that social and digital inequalities tend to reinforce each other, those who are more socially advantaged tend to get the most out of the Internet, further reinforcing their social position by using ICTs. This problem gains particular importance in big multicultural and multi-ethnic societies, where providing equal opportunities for online engagement for all minor groups spread across a huge territory of the country can be a serious challenge.

Previous research on Russia (Vartanova, & Gladkova, 2019), Brazil (Nishijima et al, 2017), China (Song et al, 2020), India (Rani, 2020), South Africa (Mutsvairo, & Ragnedda, 2019) and many other multicultural nations that have so far received less coverage in scholarly literature compared to European countries (van Deursen, & van Dijk, 2013), Middle East (Jamil, 2020) or the U.S. (Dutton, & Reisdorf, 2019) showed that many ethnic and cultural groups across the globe face common difficulties in accessing Internet and ICTs. Many indigenous groups are traditionally based in regions that are less economically advantaged or have harsh climatic conditions and low urbanization level, which affects cost and speed of connection, as well as availability of infrastructure and ICTs to a broad population in those regions. 

*CFP* "COMMENTS, HATE SPEECH, DISINFORMATION, AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION REGULATION", INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

International scientific conference

Comments, hate speech, disinformation, and public communication regulation

(Zagreb, Croatia, Sheraton hotel, 16 and 17 September 2021)

 

In case of an unfavorable epidemiological situation, the conference will be held online.

We invite you to contribute with your scientific papers to theoretical discussions on issues of freedom of speech and censorship of public speech, comments on news portals and social networks, hate speech, disinformation as well as questions about media freedom, right to information, internet neutrality. At the conference, we would like to discuss, among other topics, issues such as how to contribute to the fight against disinformation and hate speech in the age of digital communication, which strategies are acceptable, which stakeholders should be involved and which place belongs to self-regulation and which to the regulatory system? How should legislation participate in this? What are the experiences of different national legal regulations? Information about the conference and how to apply for participation is available via this link.

*CFP* "THE NEW TERRITORIES OF THE PODCAST", SPECIAL ISSUE, COMUNICAÇAO PÚBLICA JOURNAL

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the Podcast consumption, a trend that seems to be no longer exclusively international. In Portugal this trend was seen in the first quarter of 2020, during the lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Aimed at both large audiences and hyperspecialized niches, the Podcast has not only been used by the media, but also by actors of the most different areas: from politics to public relations, from teaching to organizational communication, from culture to sports. The issue “The New Territories of the Podcast” aims to explore this multifaceted character of the Podcast. The Podcast has emerged outside the traditional media, and it has been asserting itself and growing out of this context as well. The predecessor of the Podcast, the audioblog, appeared in 2001 (Gallego, 2010), but it was only in 2004 that the word first appeared in an article about downloading audio files on the Internet, published in The Guardian. Berry (2006) defines the Podcast as an audio content created in .mp3 format, which can be subscribed to, received, downloaded and listened to on various devices.

Studies on the Podcast have been generic and mainly focused on its connection with the radio. This issue of Comunicação Pública is not intended to reveal the influence of the pandemic context on the emergence of the Podcast. Essentially, its purpose is to examine the new sociability relationships that the Podcast has allowed, to analyze its formats and financing models, to measure the growing interest of the media in promoting their own Podcasts, and even to explore less usual territories such as organizational communication, political or civic activity. In this sense, this issue aims to contribute to the scientific knowledge about the Podcast in media studies and in other areas in which it has been developing, also taking into account its audiences. 

*CFP* "DIGITAL MEMORY AND POPULISM", SPECIAL ISSUE, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION

For a special section on Digital Memory and Populism in the International Journal of Communication (IJoC), we invite contributions addressing the use of digital memory by populists, their supporters, and their opponents online. Not only did populists evoke and exploit the past to fuel the Trump presidency and Brexit campaign, but it has also become a common populist tool to employ collective memory from local to global politics across the world. With the possibility to bypass traditional media and reach networked audiences, populist actors are increasingly active in digital publics to negotiate the role of the past and their versions of it with their supporters and defend it against their opponents. In this process, personal and collective memories become a contested field in discourses on identity, belonging, and political ideology used to mobilize for or against populist agendas online.

We welcome submissions shedding light on how digital memory is shared, represented, constructed, and instrumentalized online to promote or tackle populist agendas all over the world. We aim at compiling international research that investigates, for example, how memory-related populist communication strategies and their appeal online have become particularly relevant today, how digital memory is integrated in political imaginaries of the future, and how populists' messages thrive on collective memory discourses salient in contemporary digital culture. We also invite research studying the potential of digital memory to challenge populist narratives, and that examines the creative uses of the past to mobilize and organize bottom-up political engagement by the means of digital media, networked communication, and memory.

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, MAB20: DIY & MORE-THAN-HUMAN MEDIA ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOP

MAB20: DIY & More-Than-Human Media Architecture Workshop

held in conjunction with the Media Architecture Biennale 2020 in 2021

June 28 -July 2, 2021

 

In recent years, research in the fields of media architecture and urban informatics have made calls to move beyond the human-centred city and towards a “more equitable multispecies city” (Van Dooren et al. 2012). Working towards future more-than-human cities, the design of hybrid digital-physical urban spaces - with an ethos of inclusivity and diversity - will require methods, tools, approaches, platforms, etc. to engage different communities, environments, and all kinds of nonhuman entities and creatures. This workshop poses the following question: While considering different characteristics (such as gender, race, class, abilities, creed, digital skills, habitat, bio-systems), how can citizens engage in creating DIY and More-than-Human Media Architecture to actively shape their spaces and foster imaginaries of more-than-human urban futurity, all while being kinder towards our stressed and fragile urban ecology?