*CFP* LLAMADA A PARTICIPACIÓN, III CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE COMUNICACIÓN Y REDES EN LA SOCIEDAD DE LA INFORMACIÓN

III Congreso Internacional de Comunicación y Redes en la Sociedad de la Información

Universidad de Salamanca

3 y 4 de marzo de 2022 (presencial)

 

El impacto de las redes sociales ha continuado creciendo de forma espectacular en la última década, tanto en número de usuarios y tiempo invertido en ellas, como en los ingresos obtenidos. El fenómeno de las redes sociales está cobrando aún más importancia gracias a la posibilidad de acceso a través de la banda ancha móvil, mediante aplicaciones para dispositivos móviles. Ambos fenómenos se retroalimentan y configuran un binomio de éxito dentro de la Sociedad de la Información.

Los usuarios de las redes sociales tienen ahora la capacidad de conectarse, opinar, seguir a sus amigos, informar, etc., en tiempo real. El acceso a las redes sociales en movilidad aporta un valor añadido al propio servicio, ya que el usuario está siempre conectado y puede interactuar en todo momento, independientemente del lugar en el que se encuentre.

*CFP* "'THE EXORCIST: STUDIES ON POSSESSION, INFLUENCE, AND SOCIETY", SPECIAL EDITION, REVENTANT JOURNAL

The Exorcist, both as a book and film, has had a lasting influence beyond the world of horror. It is essentially a foundational, multivalent work: on the one hand, it helps understand and approach the theological concept and spiritual dimension of demonic possession as found in the Catholic faith, and on the other hand, it investigates domestic/public, spaces, dynamics, and spheres. Indeed, The Exorcist examines social discourse and narratives from a transformative and turbulent period of American history, sheds light on the difficulties that aging populations face in societies that do not offer adequate social safety nets, and exposes the miserable circumstances that people with mental health conditions and medically uninsured individuals and families often endure. Moreover, The Exorcist also speaks directly to the colonization and neo-colonization of archaeological sites and religions.

The Exorcist has much to offer as the foci for extensive and sustained research in the humanistic disciplines. This Special Edition of Revenant aims to start a new conversation on The Exorcist according to three dimensions: 1) to go back to the roots of the concept of possession, 2) to assess the cultural impact of the book and film, and 3) to present new scholarly developments about the book and film. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

*CFP* "EL PARADIGMA DEL DIGITAL LITERACY: RETOS Y EXPERIENCIAS", NÚMERO 21, COMMUNICATION PAPERS: SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH JOURNAL

La de 2020 no ha sido la primera pandemia que ha atravesado la Humanidad, como tampoco será la última, al menos, eso aseguran las voces expertas. Lo que sí ha sido una novedad es que esta tragedia sanitaria global coincide con el mayor periodo de interconectividad que hemos experimentado como especie.

A principios de mayo de ese año, la Organización Mundial de la Salud publicó una hoja informativa titulada Entender la Infodemia y la Desinformación en la lucha contra la Covid-19, en la que se advierte sobre las consecuencias tanto de la infodemia (flujo excesivo de información, verídica o no) como de la desinformación deliberada.

Porque la extraordinaria difusión de las tecnologías de la información está suponiendo la quiebra de muchos paradigmas educativos tradicionales. En este contexto global, los medios digitales -Internet- han disipado las fronteras entre la comunicación de masas y la comunicación interpersonal y, las diferencias entre los productores y los consumidores de productos culturales y de entretenimiento, son cada vez más difusas. Muchas de estas transformaciones implican inexorablemente a la infancia, adolescencia y juventud, usuarios intensivos de las tecnologías, que provenientes de las pantallas audiovisuales, han migrado a las interficies digitales.

*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* CALL FOR ARTICLES, NEXT ISSUE, INTERAÇÕES JOURNAL

Submissions for the new issue of the Interações Journal published by Instituto Superior Miguel are now open. The journal welcomes original articles that present research results and/or theoretical reflection in the different fields of Social and Human Sciences.

From an interdisciplinary editorial perspective, Interações' primary objective is to foster the reflection and diffusion of knowledge in the areas of Social and Human Sciences. The journal accepts articles of scientific investigation, reviews and critical essays, in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Interações is ruled by the double-blind review standard, ensuring the anonymity of reviewers and authors throughout the review process.

 

Deadline for submission of articles: October 10

*CFP* "GESTALT FILMOLOGY. INSIGHTS ON FORM AND EMBODIMENT IN THE FILM EXPERIENCE", SPECIAL ISSUE 38, CINÉMA&CIE JOURNAL

An incipient neurofilmological turn in film and media studies promises to reframe the study of the film experience into a post-cognitive episteme that stresses the idea that the perception of visual and acoustic stimuli implies the activation of embodied forms of simulation. According to the “embodied simulation” hypothesis, the significance of the film experience emerges from the interactive mutuality of an agent (or organism) and environment, and perception evokes internal forms of action that support an empathic understanding of the character’s gestures, intentions, and emotions. These dynamics can be extended to the film’s low-level features (e.g. cinematography, camera movements, editing) and allow one to rethink the aesthetics of the film experience in the light of multimodal sensory perception.

Although the theoretical references of the embodied and enactive approach are patent (e.g. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and James Gibson’s ecology of perception), the endless appearance of new ideas risks losing one’s bearings in the traditional commitments of the field. For example: the internal re-production of the observed movements, the empathetic nature of the film-spectator relationship, and the understanding of the external world through imitation recall the principle of isomorphism – one of the central (and debated) ideas of Gestalt psychology; the so called body-mind problem and the enactivist claim that the body in as inseparable part – if not the very origin – of perception and cognition, remind one of the gestaltist fundamental claim that the human subject is able to organize local features into a larger and coherent whole; the centrality of the organism-environment coupling recalls Gestalt figure-ground reversibility and Kurt Lewin’s field theory. A number of theories proposed that are influenced by Gibson’s ecological theory but open to brain research do not countenance that such an approach would be contrary to his theorization.

*CFP* "REPRESENTATIONS OF VIOLENCE IN LITERATURE, CULTURE AND ARTS", VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

In his foreword to World Report on Violence and Health, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2002, Nelson Mandela states that “the twentieth century will be remembered as a century marked by violence” (Krug et.al., 2002, “Foreword”).  Now we are nearly at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, but violence still permeates in our lives at various levels. Various forms of violence occurring at levels of interpersonal, self-directed, collective, state, warfare, child and youth violence, intimate partner violence, environmental violence, and animal violence lay bare the complexity and pervasiveness of the phenomenon, yet it also brings along the necessity to discuss violence from multiple perspectives.

It is difficult to present a comprehensive definition of violence since not only the concept of violence is broad as stated above but also it runs the risk of degrading the concept through fixed meanings. Keeping in mind that the concept of violence has always attracted philosophers, writers, and artists across disciplines throughout centuries, the evolving nature of the concept has made it essential to address it from different perspectives. Concordantly, Dahlberg and Krug’s definition of ‘violence’ is an applicable one which characterizes violence on different aspects as follows: “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (Krug et.al., 2002, 5). 

*CFP* "INQUIRING HEALING ACROSS SCREEN CULTURES", JUNE 2021 CONFERENCE ONLINE

Inquiring healing across screen cultures

1st-2nd June 2021

Workshop Online

 

There has always been a desire and necessity to tell the difficult times, to uncover how they have been lived. Letters were written, diaries were kept, cameras captured the moments. Memories, narratives, images, and utterances have been shared across all kinds of media in diverse forms. Do these exposures have a capacity to heal us or others? Or do they trap us in our traumas by constantly reproducing them? What kinds of recuperating potentials can we ascribe to our screen cultures across film, media, and art in troubling times?

Amid the turbulent events of our age that rapidly emerge and expand in personal, social, and political realms, we are prompted to explore questions of healing. During a global pandemic, and while we are spending more and more time on the screens, this workshop aims at a critical inquiry of the recuperating forms, mediums, and creativities across screen cultures. Experienced in bodies, homes, institutions, environments, and borders, difficult times can leave us in loss, deprivation, confusion, anxiety, fear, and grief.

*CFP* "OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODS", BOOK CHAPTER

We are living in a digital era where most of our daily activities take place both through applications and computers. This causes the big data phenomenon which is an important subject for scientific research with increasing of available tools and processing power. As a natural outcome of this trend, a growing number of social science scholars are using computational methods for analyzing social behavior. Theories of social sciences such as agenda setting, selective exposure and two-step of information flow have been using as a theoretical backbone by many computational researchers. The methods of computational social science do not mean that a method is only executed on a computer – social science scholars have been using computers in their research for a long time. Computational social science methods in research are expansion and enhancement of the existing methodological toolbox.

 

Objective

*CFP* "PROTEST, MEDIA AND CULTURE", BOOK SERIES

The book series 'Protest, Media and Culture' publishes edited collections and monographs dedicated to the study and analysis of an irrepressible phenomenon: the worldwide resurgence of social, cultural, political and economic discontent. The evidence for this development is found in the constant appearance of contentious activities, which emerge from a fundamental conflict between formal authority and those forces that, for a variety of reasons, attempt to censure, oppose, alter or even destroy the perceived iniquities of the 'dominant' social order. The series makes particular reference to the mediated character of protest and dissent, but also encompasses theoretical, organisational and practical issues, and includes both historical and contemporary examples.

The term 'Protest' identifies the visible act of collective resistance; 'Media' acts (variously) to suppress, amplify, or reconfigure this act; and 'Culture' designates the active interactional 'space' that allows the various meanings animated by protest to circulate. The Series Editors share an approach to Protest and Mediated Culture that emerged from their work in the interdisciplinary field of Media Discourse. Our call is for proposals that may touch upon, but which are not necessarily limited to, the following thematic headings:

*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 ARTICLES, REGULAR ISSUE 2021, GAMEVIRONMENTS JOURNAL

To further explore the multilayered socio-cultural and political contexts of video games and gaming, the international peer-reviewed journal Gamevironments is calling for submissions for its Regular Issue 2021.

Gamevironments seeks to explore both established approaches and new frontiers of researching video games/gaming as related to religion, culture, and society. The journal encourages inter- and multidisciplinary works combining for example Cultural Studies, History, Religious studies, Theology, Ludology, and Psychology. All submitted articles will be reviewed on a double-blind peer-review basis.

 

Paper types

We include different categories of texts in the journal:

*CFP* LLAMADA A PARTICIPACIÓN, II CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL COMUNICACIÓN Y REDES SOCIALES DE LA SOCIEDAD DE LA INFORMACIÓN

II Congreso Internacional Comunicación y Redes Sociales de la Sociedad de la Información

Lisboa 31 de marzo y 1 de abril

 

El impacto de las redes sociales ha continuado creciendo de forma espectacular en la última década, tanto en número de usuarios y tiempo invertido en ellas, como en los ingresos obtenidos. El fenómeno de las redes sociales está cobrando aún más importancia gracias a la posibilidad de acceso a través de la banda ancha móvil, mediante aplicaciones para dispositivos móviles. Ambos fenómenos se retroalimentan y configuran un binomio de éxito dentro de la Sociedad de la Información.

Los usuarios de las redes sociales tienen ahora la capacidad de conectarse, opinar, seguir a sus amigos, informar, etc., en tiempo real. El acceso a las redes sociales en movilidad aporta un valor añadido al propio servicio, ya que el usuario está siempre conectado y puede interactuar en todo momento, independientemente del lugar en el que se encuentre.

*CFP* "FASHION, BODY AND CULTURE", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

"Fashion, Body and Culture" International Conference

30-31 January 2021

London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

 

Applying diverse methods from across subject disciplines the conference will explore fashion and style in wide-ranging contexts. It will examine connections between fashion, body and culture and will focus on dress, cosmetics, coiffure and body alterations (piercing, tattooing, circumcision, aesthetic surgery, etc).

How does our dress or hair style create our identity and status? How is it concerned with sexual and body politics? Is the desire to be "in fashion" universal or unique to Western culture? These and other questions we set out to discuss at the conference.

*CFP* "RHETORIC AS STRATEGIC THINKING", RHETORIC IN SOCIETY CONFERENCE 2021

8th Rhetoric in Society Conference

RhetoricasStrategicThinking

26th–28th May 2021

Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany

We are very happy to announce that proposals are now invited for panels, papers, roundtables, and other forms of presentation to be delivered at Rhetoric in Society 8, which is the biannual conference organized by the Rhetoric Society of Europe. 

The incalculable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic obliges us to remain precautious. As the safety of our conference participants is of highest concern, we ought to point out that in an event of the pandemic extending into the late spring of 2021, the conference will be postponed. However, we remain optimistic and encourage you to submit your papers and panels and are looking forward to welcoming you in Tübingen. 

*CFP* "20 YEARS LATER: LOOKING BACK AT 9/11", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

20 Years Later: Looking Back at 9/11, International Conference

October, 7-8, 2021

University of Toulouse, Jean Jaurès, Francia 

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the Universities of Toulouse and Montpellier in the South of France are joining forces to organize an international interdisciplinary conference on these events. Its aim is to analyze, not only the events and their short-term consequences with a two-decade hindsight, but also the many ways in which those events have been perceived, represented, commented upon, co-opted or rewritten along the years. It also invites reflections upon the way in which some of these responses, representations or co-optations have been in their turn received, commented upon and used in this 20-year period. The scope of the conference is interdisciplinary, as it welcomes contributions from scholars specializing in history (contemporary, political, institutional, military), geopolitics, international relations, sociology, psychology, law, economics, media and communication studies, literature, film studies, art, architecture, and popular culture. The conference is meant as a place for fruitful cross reflections on images, discourses, facts that have been seen, heard, told thousands of times, with varied intentions and perspectives. Joint paper proposals by two or three specialists from different fields are particularly welcome. Two interdisciplinary round tables will also be organized. 

*CFP* "ILLNESS, NARRATED", ISSUE 11, ON_CULTURE: THE OPEN JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF CULTURE

In response to debates considering the relationship between illness and narrative, and the extent to which these concepts can be seen as mutually constitutive, this issue of On_Culture seeks to gather new approaches and critical perspectives to the intricate relationship between narrative and illness. We welcome (inter)disciplinary contributions addressing the concepts’ entanglement on an individual, societal, and global level.

Already in 1963, Michel Foucault linked (illness) narration to its discursive conditions in The Birth of the Clinic. Moving away from the politicized view on what narrative does, medical humanities today stresses the importance, and even healing aspect of telling an illness story. In this positive view on the redeeming aspects of illness narration, identity and narrative are understood as inextricably linked. Rita Charon asserts that narrative is a central instance of good medical practice, since “without narrative acts, the patient cannot himself or herself grasp what the events of illness mean” (Charon 2006, Narrative Medicine, 13). In this broad formulation, ‘narrative’ uncritically refers to the act of self-expression as such, without taking into account the conditions that set the parameters for it.

*CFP* "4TH DREAMS, PHANTASMS AND MEMORIES", INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY ONLINE CONFERENCE

There are a number of reasons why it is worthwhile to study dreams. This topic is currently an especially relevant and important one for two primary reasons. Firstly, the current zeitgeist is one of rationality and pragmatism, almost exclusively oriented towards measurable profit, tangible effect and spectacular success. As a result, phenomena such as dreams, fancies, secret fantasies, and remnants of memories are often neglected. Secondly, in the light of postmodern suspicions which question any permanent foundations of existence, truth, memory and identity, and in a situation where our whole reality reveals a distinctly phantasmatic character, a temptation arises to treat the realm of dream and imagination as especially distinguished – as the most important way of “being-in-the-world”, or perhaps even the only one which we can access.

Our conference will encompass the problem areas of dream, imagination and memory in their broad contexts. We invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: dream studies, psychoanalysis, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, neurophysiology, literary studies, theatre studies, film studies, consciousness studies, memory studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, animal studies and other. This conference welcomes both experienced representatives of dream studies and those scholars who have not yet researched dreams but share our conviction about their significance. 

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, ISSUE V, NUART JOURNAL

Following the successful international launch of Issues I, II, III and IV of Nuart Journal, we are now calling for submissions for Issue V. This is an open call, not restricted to any theme. However, we are interested in artistic forms of response and resistance in our current times; in the new challenges and inequities emerging from the impact of the pandemic; and in the productivity of unexpected alliances and new creative connections.

Artists and writers working in public space tend to respond immediately to political issues, and the art on our cities’ streets powerfully reflects both our communities’ anxieties about, and aspirations for, our collective future.

Nuart Journal is a peer reviewed journal that features provocative and critical writings on a range of topics relating to street art practice, graffiti, and urban art cultures. We accept submissions from a broad range of authors including cultural heritage workers, historians, critics, media, culture and communication studies scholars, cultural and human geographers, political theorists, anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, curators, artists, writers, taggers, anarchists, and out and out vandals.