CFP Provincial Newspapers (UK)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Provincial Newspapers: Lessons from History
Journalism Department, Liverpool John Moores University, UK
September 8, 2017

Closing date for proposals: 1 June 2017

Papers are invited for a one-day conference on the theme of provincial, regional and local newspapers. The conference is being jointly organised by media historians from Coventry University and Liverpool John Moores University at a time when newsprint journalism has moved from the intensive care ward and obituaries are being pondered and some written. Yet local and regional journalism has been challenged before and emerged altered if not unscathed. This event will bring industry representatives and academics together to take a retrospective look at the current conundrum faced by the regional local newspaper industry in an effort to extrapolate lessons for the future.

We welcome paper proposals from all eras and nationalities, shedding new light on longstanding or recent media historical topics. We anticipate sessions of 90 minutes (20 minutes per paper plus 30 minutes of questions / discussion). It is expected that suitable papers will be developed into chapters for an edited volume on this subject for Routledge.

Themes to explore might include (but are not limited to):
*The future of the local press and local newspaper businesses
*Newspapers and regional identity
*The role of local newspapers in their communities
*Political and judicial accountability
*Economic models
*Trans-regional collaboration
*Media as political and social discourse
*Advertising
*Production and reception histories

The event is organised by Dr Guy Hodgson, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at LJMU, and Dr Rachel Matthews, Principal Lecturer in Journalism, Coventry University. In order to encourage a wide-range of papers, there will be no conference fee and lunch will be provided.

Please include an abstract of no more than 300 words and a cover sheet with a brief biographical note, your institutional affiliation (where relevant) and your contact details (including your email address). Abstracts should be sent to r.matthews AT coventry.ac.uk

CFP International Association for Media & History (Paris)

July 10-13, 2017 – PARIS, FRANCE
International Association for Media & History (IAMHIST)

Hosted by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and Analysis of the Media (CARISM) and the French Press Institute, Panthéon-Assas University, Paris (France), the conference marks the 40th anniversary of IAMHIST as well as the 80th anniversary of the French Press Institute.

THEME:
MEDIA AND HISTORY: CRIME, VIOLENCE AND JUSTICE is the main topic of the conference and a special section will also deal with international and comparative approaches to media history. Workshops for younger scholars will be organized.

The relations between media and the acts or representations of crime, violence and justice are evolving through history. The openness of this call for papers is voluntary chosen in order to receive diverse and critical proposals dealing with this broad topic. Most of the time, it is through media that we encounter conflicts and violence; from news formats to fictional accounts; from traditional media such as newspapers, film, radio and television to ‘newer’ interactive media. Such media coverage is very frequently linked to debates on law and order. How can an open society react to crime and violence? Often, the relationship between conflict and crime and their representation can cause various conflicts.

First, media can become tools of propaganda, war and discrimination. They are then not only ways to communicate information but they are also part of performativity and action.  Second, media can become a target of violence themselves, whether or not in totalitarian states or countries where the freedom of speech is restricted. Third, in each historical context, ‘new’ media inventions can produce an atmosphere of fear and violent contest or censorship, especially when they disturb existing (political) power patterns or structures. Fourth, media and communication technologies are also an essential part of social movements and political activism by offering spaces of visibility and instruments of contestation aimed at social change that can lead to situations of conflict and confrontations within the public sphere.

These various relations of media to crime, violence and justice are not new. Numerous scholars work or have worked on this topic by focusing on media and law, politics, journalism, media activism, war, (cultural) diplomacy or likewise the narration and mediatization of war, conflicts, punishment, violence, crime and justice. The latter are not only an essential part of news and the journalistic, political agenda, but they are also essential when it comes to fictional formats such as film or television series. Depending on historical, political and cultural premises, the signification and definition of crime and violence in media and law texts ask the question of the circulation and understanding of these concepts in society. This conference aims to (re)think the historical relations between media, crime, violence and justice also in order to offer new insights into more recent forms of this very complex interplay.

TOPICS:
Scholars and practitioners from various disciplines and approaches (history – media and communication studies – law – politics, gender, queer and feminist studies – sociology – anthropology – economy etc.) are welcome to submit papers and panel proposals that deal critically with the following topics:

Historical representation/mediatization/definitions of crime, violence and justice in news or informational formats, film, documentaries, television drama or radio plays
Historical approaches to media events related to crime, violence and justice
The production and reception of news and fiction dealing with crime, violence and justice
Media historical approaches to symbolic and physical violence
The crime scene, the criminal and the victims in news and fiction
Historical (media-) constructions of the judge, the lawyer or secret service agents
‘New’ media inventions as aggregators of fear, conflict or censorship
The historical role of media and technologies in social and political protest, movements and activism, leading sometimes to conflicts and violence
The historical (international) relations of legal public entities, diplomacy, the police and the military with journalists and media institutions
Media as targets of violence and crime
The role of media archives for the historiography and memory of crime, violence and justice
Media, history and criminology
The history of cybercrime
Legal actions attacking or protecting media content and their producers or audiences/users
There is also one special area dedicated to the question of international approaches to media history. Panel and paper proposals in this field are warmly welcome. The idea is to have space for epistemological, theoretical, practical and also comparative discussions on how media history is thought and experienced in different cultural areas: what kinds of archives are accessible, in creation or needed, the place of media history in academia etc.

SUBMITTING A PAPER OR PANEL PROPOSALS:
Please send your proposal to the iamhist2017[at]gmail.com until December 15th by inserting your text directly in the body of the mail or by attaching a WORD-file. PDF documents will NOT be accepted. Members of the scientific committee will peer-review the proposals anonymously.

Panel proposals: three paper presentations for each panel (a general outline of max. 400 words and a 500 words-abstract with title for each paper, a short biography)

Individual paper proposals: a title, an abstract of 500 words, a short biography

Proposals for presentations of artistic or (multi-)media projects are also welcomed.

SCHEDULE:
September 15th: Launch call for abstracts for papers and panels
December 15th, 2016: Last day to submit abstracts for papers and panels
February 15th, 2017: notification of panel and abstract decisions
End of February, 2017: registration period begins

REGISTRATION:
Registration fees for conference speakers and participants
iamhist members (students): 130 Euros
iamhist members:  150 Euros

The fees include breakfast (TuesdayThursday), coffee breaks, lunch, the Monday evening reception and the conference package.

Registration fees for non Iamhist members:
students: 165 Euros
others:  195 Euros

The fees include a one-year iamhist membership , breakfast Tuesday – Thursday, breaks, lunch, the  Monday evening reception and the conference package.

Contact Info:
Please send your proposal to the iamhist2017@gmail.com until December 15th by inserting your text directly in the body of the mail or by attaching a WORD-file. PDF documents will NOT be accepted. Members of the scientific committee will peer-review the proposals anonymously.

CFP Hands-on History: Exploring New Methodologies for Media History Research (London)

HANDS-ON HISTORY: EXPLORING NEW METHODOLOGIES FOR MEDIA HISTORY RESEARCH
8—10 February 2016
Geological Society, London

Confirmed keynote speakers:
* Prof. Susan J. Douglas (Professor of Communication Studies, University of Michigan)
* Dr. Gerard Alberts (Associate Professor of the History of Mathematics and Computing, University of Amsterdam)

“Media Scholars and Amateurs of All Countries and Disciplines, Hands-on!” *

Recent years have witnessed a growing turn to experimental historical research in the history of media technologies. In addition to archival investigation and oral history interviews, historians and enthusiasts are increasingly uncovering histories of technology through hands-on exercises in simulation and re-enactment. Equipment lovingly restored by amateurs, or preserved by national heritage collections, is being placed in the hands of the people who once operated it, provoking a new and rich flood of memories.

The turn to experimental research raises profound methodological questions. The unreliability of narrative memory is well proven, but what do we know about the limits of haptic and tactile memory? To what extent is it possible to elicit useful memories of technological arrays when parts of those arrays are missing or non-functional? How do the owners of old equipment shape the historical narratives which are stimulated by their collections?

Hands-On History is a colloquium designed to facilitate discussion of these issues between historians, users, curators and archivists (amateur and professional) who are making use of and taking part in these historical enquiries. In addition to a series of keynote presentations by leading scholars in the field, the event will also include stimulating workshops on specific focus areas. While the focus of the event will be on media technologies, broadly defined, we invite contributions from other areas of technology and from other academic disciplines.

This colloquium aims to make a decisive intervention in this emerging area of academic interest. It is part of the ADAPT project, a European Research Council funded project investigating the history of television production technologies through hands-on simulations. Research conducted by ADAPT will form a key case study for the colloquium.

In order to facilitate productive discussion, numbers will be limited. It is expected that papers presented will form the basis of an edited collection focused on hands-on historical research.
We invite proposals for research presentations, panel discussions, and historical equipment demonstrations. Presentations may take whatever format is most appropriate, and we welcome approaches which deviate from the traditional 20 minute lecture.

Please send a brief proposal to Nick Hall by 28 August 2015.

* Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever, “Experimental Media Archaeology: A Plea for New Directions” 2013

CFP Shared Histories: Media Connections Between Britain and Ireland (Dublin)

Shared Histories: Media Connections Between Britain and Ireland
A conference, to be held in Dublin, 6-7th July 2016.

The relationship between Ireland and the rest of the British Isles has a long and complex history. One key dimension has been the connections and interactions between the various media of communication – print and electronic – which have mediated this relationship. This conference seeks to address this important, but relatively neglected, topic at a timely moment in the history of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales.

The conference organisers want to take a long view as well as look in detail at particular moments. It therefore invites papers from the sixteenth century onwards, dealing with all forms of media (print, periodical, broadcasting, ephemera) as well as with structures of ownership, regulation, distribution and identity.

The conference will examine the different kinds of media interactions from the arrival of print to the emergence of broadcasting, under what conditions they operated and to what effect.  How did these interactions take place? What were the networks through which material flowed? What were the major developments in the content and reception of the media from the sixteenth century onwards? How helpful is it to think in terms of distinctive ‘national’ media traditions? In what sense, if any, are concepts such as centre and periphery of value in thinking about these relationships, or do they need revision? How has the development of relationships between the peoples of these islands been influence by shared histories of media exchange and interaction?

Proposals of up to 400 words stating the topic in relation to the conference theme should be sent to Steven Conlon  by 1 June 2015.

The conference is jointly organised by the School of Communications, Dublin City University, the Centre for Media History Aberystwyth University, Newspaper & Periodical History Forum of Ireland , and the journal Media History. For further details, please contact Mark O’Brien, Siân Nicholas, Jamie Medhurst, or Tom O’Malley.

Postdoc in Media @ Macquarie U (Sydney)

Postdoctoral Fellow in Media
Macquarie University, Sydney

Macquarie University is seeking a postdoctoral fellow to be attached to Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley’s ARC Future Fellowship project, Switched-On Audiences: Australian Listeners and Viewers.

In this role you will be asked to:
Work on a research project about an aspect of Australian newspaper, magazine, radio or television reception history since 1930;
Play an active role in the Centre for Media History’s activities;
Produce excellent research in line with the research strengths of the Faculty and Department including publishing in peer reviewed journals and applying for research grants;
Engage with external stakeholders, the media and the public to disseminate your research.

Selection Criteria
To be considered for this position, applicants must address the selection criteria below and then upload the response as a separate document during the online application process.

Essential
A submitted PhD in media history, Australian history, communications and media, or a related field.
An excellent research and publication track record relative to opportunity.

Salary Package:
Academic Level A salary AUD $62,526 – $84,193 p.a. plus 17% employer’s superannuation and annual leave loading.

Appointment Type:
Full-time, 2-year fixed term contract position.

Specific Role Enquiries:
Specific enquiries related to this position should be directed to Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley.

Intending applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss the position with Professor Griffen-Foley before applying.

Applications Close:

CFP Conf on Newspapers, war and society

Call for Papers for Newspapers, War and Society, a conference to be held 29 April-1 May 2014 at Gregynog Hall, Wales, UK.

This conference will explore the relationship between newspapers and society during times of war. It is organised by the Leverhulme Trust  funded  British Press in World War Two project and the Centre for Media History, Aberystwyth University.  The conference will have an international perspective, and focus on the importance of newspapers as objects of historical enquiry in their social contexts.

Newspapers have a fundamental role in societies at war. They relay the experience of war, provide a means for the state to communicate to the population directly, and serve to entertain readers. However, little attention has been paid to the dynamics of their production, circulation and reception during wartime and how the wider context of war affects those processes.  In what ways does the circuit of communication between the press and its readers change during wartime? How is newspaper content altered as a result of wartime restrictions? How is news sourced? How do newspapers balance their commercial interests and the purpose of informing readers, using restricted resources?  How do newspapers interact with the wider culture of wartime societies?

The conference also invites papers that address methodological issues relating to the use of newspapers in historical inquiry. Historical studies of wartime home fronts have tended to forgo the complexity of newspapers and use them illustratively, rather than systemically examining their content. We therefore welcome papers that critically engage with the newspaper as an historical object. Approaches might include quantitative and qualitative studies of content, or analysis of how newspapers were read and understood by their audiences.

We welcome proposals from a range of geographical and methodological backgrounds. Whilst the conference will be weighted towards the period 1914-1945, we also invite contributions which approach the theme from wider chronological perspectives. Abstracts of around 200 words for papers of between 20 to 25 minutes duration should be sent by close of business on 14 July 2013 to cmhstaff AT aber.ac.uk.

This conference is jointly organised by the Centre For Media History, Aberystwyth University, and the journal Media History, with the financial support of the Leverhulme Trust. It is held at the historic University of Wales conference centre Gregynog Hall, near Newtown, Powys, Wales.  Additional enquiries can be directed to one or more of the following: Dr Sian Nicholas, Professor Tom O’Malley or Dr Marc Wiggam.

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Media’s toxic knowledge

CFP for a special issue of Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture

Special Issue topic:  Media’s toxic knowledge: How information (does not) shapes our perception of social uncertainty

Editors: Rita Figueiras, Catholic University of Portugal
Carla Ganito, Catholic University of Portugal

Bravely into the hotbed of uncertainties, as Zygmunt Bauman introduces his 2007 book: ‘Liquid Times. Living in an Age of Uncertainty’, is what this special issue aims to do by discussing social uncertainty and the media. What is here being entitled media’s toxic knowledge is related to what commonly is referred as (mis)information both produced by and circulating in the media. This is the starting point for a three-step approach. First by displacing ‘toxic knowledge’ from the media logic into media social setting; second by approaching social uncertainty as a self-fulfilling prophecy; and third, how this is a matter of democracy understood in its broader sense. In contemporary society, uncertainty has become a mechanism for organizing and understanding social experience (Mythen and Walklate, 2006). According to Giddens (1990), Luhmann (1998) and Bauman (2000), uncertainty, doubt, tension and liquidity are structural in our societies, which find expression through the media that are both an expression of de-contextualization and globalizing tendencies of modernity, as well as instruments of those trends. According to Luhmann (1992: 75), the media have the ‘ability to aggregate and disaggregate the environment’. The novelty and celerity by which themes continuously succeed them, in a ‘communicative network self-dynamically reproduced’, gives continuity to the ‘need for discontinuity’, means that thematization is a set of rules for attention and not for deciding or for taking action (Luhman, 2004). Therefore, the media de-characterization and continuous re-shaping of social problems reflect, first and foremost, modernity’s fluidity. And as Bauman says (2000: 1), descriptions of fluids are all snapshots that need a date at the bottom of the picture. Hence, speed, immediacy and treatment of social problems as de-contextualized epiphenomena, fragmented and rootless seem inevitable.

In this framework, this special issue aims at intertwining a set of diversified researches, regarding different cultural contexts; objects of analysis; news, entertainment, online forums, public opinion survey; media analyzed: radio, television, Internet, mobile phones; and methodological approaches: quantitative and qualitative.
Topics of interest for this special issue include but are not limited to:
–          Media Economy;
–          New Media;
–          Health Communication;
–          Media History;
–          Political Communication
–          Culture & Media

Timing, length, style
Please send articles by the 3rd of October 2011 to ritafigueiras@ucp.pt and carla.ganito@ucp.pt. Articles will be evaluated by the editorial committee and anonymously by external referees. The maximum length is around 6000 words.

About the journal
Interactions recognizes the interdisciplinary nature of the fields of media, communication and cultural studies and we therefore encourage diverse themes, subjects, contexts and approaches; empirical, theoretical and historical. Our objective is to engage readers and contributors from different parts of the world in a critical debate on the myriad interconnections and interactions between communication, culture and society at the outset of the twenty first century.
It is our intention to encourage the development of the widest possible scholarly community, both in terms of geographical location and intellectual scope and we will publish leading articles from both established scholars and those at the beginning of their careers.
Particular interests include, but are not limited to, work related to Popular Culture, Media Audiences, Political Economy, Political Communication, Media Institutions and Practices, Promotional Culture, New Media, Migration and Diasporic Studies.

More information is available at:
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/page/index,name=journalresources/
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-journal,id=165/

U Oregon job ad

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
School of Journalism and Communication
Assistant Professor

The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication seeks up to three outstanding Assistant Professors to join our faculty, carry out scholarly research, and teach in both our undergraduate and graduate programs. The ideal candidates for these tenure-related positions will have a track record of research and university teaching experience in the field of journalism and communication and share our demonstrated commitment to working effectively with students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds.  Professional experience aligned with one or more of our undergraduate majors is preferred.  A Ph.D. in a relevant field is required, though ABD may be considered.

We seek colleagues with strong research and teaching interests in fields such as, but not limited to, media history; media effects; gender, diversity and media; international communication (particularly East Asia); communication technology; communication economics; visual communication; and media management.  Media historians are especially encouraged to apply, as are scholars with success in obtaining external funding for their research.  The new colleagues will teach and advise in one or more of our undergraduate majors (Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising, Communication Studies), as well as contribute to core undergraduate coursework relevant to all majors, such as our cross-disciplinary Gateway courses; Media and Society; Understanding Media; Media History; Gender, Diversity and Media; and/or International Communication.  The colleagues will also teach and advise in our master’s and doctoral programs in Communication and Society.  They will also have opportunities to participate in programs at our George S. Turnbull Center in Portland.

We invite applications from qualified candidates who share our commitment to a diverse learning and work environment.  Employment begins September 16, 2012.  For full consideration, applications must be received by November 1, 2011.  The position will remain open until filled.  Please send a letter of interest, CV and contact information for three references to:

Professor Janet Wasko
School of Journalism and Communication
1275 University of Oregon
Eugene OR  97403

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