*CFP* LOBBYING FOR (IN)ACTION: CLIMATE EMERGENCY, INTEREST GROUPS AND DENIAL", SPECIAL ISSUE, ÁMBITOS: REVISTA INTERNACIONAL DE COMUNICACIÓN

This special issue theme is found at the intersection of climate change denial and interest groups (like lobbies, think tanks and any type of advocacy organization). The special issue aims to encourage researchers in any area of the social sciences to focus on the role of interest groups in delaying climate policies through an awareness of the complexity of climate change denial. We therefore invite papers related to this complexity promoting climate inaction and the current climate crisis pertaining, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Strategic communication, public relations and media coverage of interest groups involved in climate inaction: media representation, lobbies and think tanks’ rhetoric, discourse analysis, discursive networks, communication strategies, etc. 
• Public Affairs, interest groups theory and practice connected to climate inaction: institutional relations, profiles of key pressure groups, network coalitions, the political economy of lobbies and think tanks, etc. 
• Anthropocentrism and speciesism in climate inaction connected to interest groups: animal agriculture lobbies, dietary guidelines and lobbies, think tanks related to the industry, etc. 

*CFP* "VIOLENCE AND ORDERS", FIRST ISSUE, THE JOURNAL FOR CRITICAL THOUGHT AND RADICAL POLITICS

Since 2015 over 2 million Venezuelans have been forced to flee their country and are now refugees. In 2017 US States passed 129 anti-LGBTQ+ laws. In 2018 half of all women murdered in the UK were killed by their partners. Today Kurdish people are imprisoned as low-ranking members of a non-violent political organisation. Turkish academics are exiled or imprisoned for signing a letter calling for peace. In the US 60% of the prison population are people of colour, despite constituting only a quarter of the population. In Syria 11 million people have been displaced through conflict while 5 million have sought asylum abroad. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has urged citizens to murder suspected criminals and drug addicts.

This inaugural issue of Interfere examines orders that systematically produce economic and political violence. It invites contributions that analyse the violence of neo-liberal and neo-conservative logics; the aftermaths of colonialism; forced displacements and immigration politics; technologies of surveillance; and the rise of exclusionary discourses worldwide. We also welcome contributions that analyse resistance to these forms of violence.

*CFP* "PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIETY", 2020 CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC MEDIA

2020 Conference of the International Association of Public Media

“Public Service Media’s Contribution to Society”

Researchers / RIPE@2020

October 28-30, 2020, in Geneva (Switzerland)

2020 is an exciting year for public media research: The RIPE initiative is transforming into the International Association of Public Media Researchers and the tenth biennial conference jointly organized by the University of Fribourg’s Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will take place on the premises of EBU’s Geneva headquarters. The conference will offer an opportunity for celebrating RIPE’s legacy and the 70th anniversary of the EBU.

Public Service Media (PSM) organizations across Europe and beyond are increasingly under pressure. Due to digitization, media use is changing rapidly, with streaming services and online platforms gaining in importance and making it harder for legacy media to hold their ground. This affects both public and private media. With users and advertising shifting to search engines and social networks, the business model of newspaper publishers is also under pressure, which, in turn, leads to disagreement about PSM’s online activities. In addition, many policy-makers are highly critical of PSM due to a belief in the efficiency of market solutions or – especially in the case of right-wing populist parties – for political reasons. As a result, both PSM’s role in a digital environment and its funding are under scrutiny. PSM seem to be constantly in the position of having to defend themselves. Following attempts at demonstrating the “public value” of PSM, the discussion is now turning towards the concept of PSM’s “contribution to society”. 

*CFP* “GENDER AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN CONTEMPORARY ACADEMIA”, PANEL, ECREA WOMEN’S NETWORK

ECC 2020 Conference 

Panel on Gender and Knowledge Production in Contemporary Academia

2-5 de Octubre de 2020

Braga, Portugal

The Women’s Network aims to address gender inequalities in research and higher education and to amplify the voice offemale and LGBTQ+ scholars.

The initial objective is to create a platform for scholars to speak up about the problems they encounter within academia such as gender bias, and to stimulate the exchange of research, experiences, insights and practices around gender inequality. By identifying differences, strengths and weaknesses in Europe, the network aims to contribute to equality in all dimensions.

*CFP* “WORLDMAKING AROUND THE WORLD: RETHINKING THE INTERSECTIONS OF POPULAR MEDIA, TRANSLATION AND LGBTQ+ ACTIVISM ACROSS CULTURES”, 2020 CONFERENCE

Worldmaking around the world: rethinking the intersections of popular media, translation and LGBTQ+ activism across cultures 

17-18 de abril de 2020

University of Exeter

Exeter, UK

Jack Halberstam, Columbia University

Ryan Powell, Indiana University

This conference aims to rethink the ways in which popular media, in the forms of film and TV, offer material for LGBTQ+ worldmaking through translation. Popular media have long been understood as a site that is negotiated by readers and viewers (Fiske 1989) and have been considered ‘Goods to Think with’ (Martin 2017). Popular media therefore offer space for developing queer readings and for thinking queerness within texts that may themselves not be queer.

*CFP* "TEACHING CELEBRITY", SPECIAL ISSUE, TEACHING MEDIA QUARTERLY JOURNAL

Teaching Media Quarterly is an open access journal dedicated to sharing approaches to teaching media topics and concepts. Please consider submitting a lesson plan to our current call: Teaching Celebrity. You can access our journal here, and please note that we also have an ongoing open call for lesson plans. 

While often dismissed by critics as a shallow or morally corrosive, celebrity culture has become a vital site of academic inquiry as its practices, priorities, and affective attunements come to bear upon the lives of even those who do not aspire to work in the entertainment or cultural industries. As scholars trace the celebritization of public life, it is necessary that we share these conversations with our students, who may be particularly vulnerable to living and practicing the logics of celebrity without critical interrogation.

As the desire for fame and opportunities for microcelebrity saturate contemporary culture through social media platforms and compulsory self-branding, teaching celebrity provides media instructors with opportunities to make critical interventions into conversations that many students are already invested in. Teaching Media Quarterly is interested in learning and sharing how, and why, instructors do this work.

*CFP* "MASCULINITY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY", MASCNET: MASCULINITY SEX AND POPULAR CULTURE NETWORK CONFERENCE

MASCNET: Masculinity Sex and Popular Culture Network

Masculinity and National Identity

Village Berlin

Friday 17th January 2020

Following on from the success of our network launch at BCU in May 2019 themed around masculinity and body image our next network event in Berlin in January 2020 takes the topic of Masculinity and National Identity as a starting point for conversation around some of the following themes:

• National/regional masculinities 
• The sexualisation of regional/ethnic masculinity 
• Masculinity and national identities and intersections of sexuality, racial, religious, ethnic, class, etc. identities 
• Intra/international constructions and articulations of masculinity and national identity 
• Politics & ideology (incl. far-left and far-right articulations), including but not limited to: extremism, populism, activism, nationalism, separatism, neoliberalism 
• On/offline representation(s) and performance(s) of masculinity and national identity 
• Media discourses of masculinity and national identity 
• Men’s (online) groups and forums

*CFP* “GENTRIFICATION AND CRIME. NEW CONFIGURATIONS AND CHALLENGES FOR THE CITY”, SPECIAL ISSUE, ASOCIAZIONE LOCUS

The tension between the visible city and the invisible city produces an increasingly marginalized society. The end of the Fordist pact constituted a break between the modern and postmodern city, laying the foundations for the most radical paradigm shift that the urban phenomenon has experienced in the last four decades. A specific pervasiveness has influenced different levels of the social structure, and this phenomenon has characterized the advent of the neoliberal new economy.

On a political level, the power of the city governments has been limited; on the other hand, on a social level, the depauperation of the social capital has emerged. The conjuncture between these two phenomena has therefore led to new forms of territorial production. The urban space is no longer characterized by the centrality of a single actor which the relational system rotates. On the contrary, an atomization of both the interests and the organization of daily life is taking place. Neoliberalism thus becomes the key to understanding the contemporary urban phenomenon.

*CFP* “PREGNANCY AND THE MEDIA”, SPECIAL ISSUE, COMMENTARY AND CRITICISM-FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES

The broad expansion of the post-feminist media landscape of the past couple of decades brought about an increased visibility of spectacularised and idealised ideas of pregnancy – a romanticised “new momism” (Douglas and Michaels, 2004). Alongside these romanticised discourses, though, exist numerous examples of mediated pregnancies that sit outside of such glamorised and perfect representations of pregnancy. This context has also opened up new networked spaces for people to seek and offer support online in relation to pregnancy, as well as spaces to search for or share (self-)representations of pregnancy. The editors of Commentary and Criticism invite short essays that critically consider pregnancy and contemporary media. 

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

*CFP* “MEDIATIONS OF FOOD: IDENTITY, POWER, AND CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL IMAGINARIES”, THE GLOBAL MEDIA JOURNAL — CANADIAN EDITION 2019: VOLUME 11, ISSUE 1

In the field of transnational media studies, food and food cultures are traditionally examined as type of media content, environmental/commodity object, or mode of sustenance (with some cultural significance), or, alternatively, as medium through which relations of gender, class, sexuality, and dis/ability are made manifest. Given this bifurcated lens, this issue seeks to bring together articles that examine the nexus between food cultures, identity, and media representation in more detail. Specifically, we seek submissions that use food as a lens through which to study how its mediated representation (e.g. television, print, film, the Internet/social media) reflects complicated histories of colonialism, empire, neoliberalism, and inequality, but also cultural resilience, social belonging, community, and political awareness.

Papers that draw into this discussion the complicated relationship between food media and racialisation, gender, class, sexuality, dis/ability, and other manifestations of identity are particularly welcome – especially those that take an intersectional approach and engage with the significance of changing and culturally contingent conceptions of health and bodily comportment. Articles that examine the use of food as a form of power and resistance, in both productive and dangerous ways, and which reveal how larger patters oppression and marginalization intersect with the social imagery, political economy, public policy, and cultural survival are also desirable.

*CFP* “BEYOND DISCIPLINES”, CMCI EMERGING VOICES CONFERENCE 2019, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

Beyond Disciplines

CMCI Emerging Voices 2019

Thursday, 6th June 2019 – Friday, 7th June 2019

Bush House, King’s College London

WC2B 4BG, London

The PhD student community at the Department of Culture,Media and Creative Industries (CMCI), in the Faculty of Arts & Humanitiesat King’s College London (KCL) is pleased to open the call for papers for our 6th annual conference.

This year’s conference celebrates new and emerging directions in the research of culture, media and creative industries that challenge how we understand and see technological, environmental, political, institutional and aesthetic developments that are shaping our cultural landscape.

*CFP* "POWER AND THE MEDIA", XXVIII AMHIST CONFERENCE, NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY

XXVIII AMHIST Conference: POWER AND THE MEDIA

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, 

16-19 July 2019

Confirmed keynote speakers include:

James Curran (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Jennifer Smyth (University of Warwick)

Papers and panels are invited for the 2019 conference of the International Association for Media and History. The conference theme this year is POWER AND THE MEDIA. Scholars of media history have not just been concerned with analysis of the individuals, institutions and elites exerting control, but also with how the media has represented, perpetuated or challenged power structures. Taking place in the immediate aftermath of Britain’s planned exit from the European Union, the conference invites scholars and practitioners from all relevant disciplines to take part in a timely conversation about the relationship between power and the media, from the film and broadcasting industries and the press, to new media, social media and advertising. In addition to keynote presentations, the conference will include film screenings, events geared towards PhD and early career scholars, social events, and a roundtable on the subject of academic power relationships.

*CFP* "DIGITAL CULTURE MEETS DATA: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES", CONVERGENCE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH INTO NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES

Algorithms and big data shape our sociocultural and technical relations and our everyday experiences. Considerations of data, algorithms and infrastructure are now central to our critical perspectives on, and approaches to digital culture. The ‘data logical turn’ has been talked about as a necessary critical consideration for digital culture, not least because communication, media infrastructures, practices and social environments become increasingly ‘datafied'. But what does this turn to data mean for our research, scholarship and pedagogic practice? What does it mean for broader epistemological and ontological frameworks? Has the data paradigm arrived as an unquestionable unifying concept for studies of digital culture and digital media, communication, technology? It may be that a shift of focus on algorithms and data is fundamentally disruptive to the ways in which we see our research and disciplines. It may even appear to limit the theoretical and methodological tools through which we increasingly try to understand mediation, the formation of identity, social life, politics and the creative industries. To others, the data logical turn may be plainly repeating the processes of earlier instances of technological innovation. And for some, it may provide an opportunity to frame new theoretical concepts and methodological tools for a whole new set of social, cultural and political phenomena.

*CFP* "MÉXICO ESPECTRAL. FANTASMAS Y MUERTOS QUE HABLAN EN LA CULTURA MEXICANA CONTEMPORÁNEA", IMEX REVISTA

"México espectral. Fantasmas y muertos que hablan en la cultura mexicana contemporánea". La persistencia de la muerte y sus figuraciones en las culturas visuales y narrativas mexicanas es un reconocido lugar común en la cultura mexicana. El Mictlán, Xibalbá y otros inframundos, la Catarina, la Santa Muerte, fantasmas, muertos danzantes o narradores post-mortem, son figuras reconocibles en su folclore, religión, artes plásticas, literatura y cine. 

La revista iMex. México Interdisciplinario / Interdisciplinary Mexico invita contribuciones inéditas que interroguen las transformaciones y devenires de estos lugares comunes en los géneros artísticos, literarios y audiovisuales contemporáneos. Invitamos artículos que examinen desde un fondo teórico sólido y/o desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria discursos y representaciones de lo fantasmal y la muerte.