Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communications


The Society for the Social Study of Mobile Communication (SSSMC) is intended to facilitate the international advancement of cross-disciplinary mobile communication studies. It is intended to serve as a resource and to support a network of scholarly research as to the social consequences of mobile communication.




Saturday, November 26, 2016

CFP: Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age

Call for Chapters: Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age


Editors
Renira Rampazzo Gambarato (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia) 
Geane Alzamora (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Publisher
IGI Global

Call for Chapters
Proposals Submission Deadline: December 30, 2016
Full Chapters Due: April 30, 2017

Since the advent of digitization, the conceptual confusion surrounding the semantic galaxy that comprises the media and journalism universes has increased. Multimedia, cross-media, intermedia, and transmedia storytelling are some of the terms aggregated in the media convergence process involving news in liquid, fluid, participatory environments (Bauman, 2000). Transmedia storytelling is one of the newest terms. It was coined by Henry Jenkins (2003) in the fictional realm and refers to the expansion of content across multiple media platforms, encouraging audience engagement in the story. Ever since, transmedia storytelling has been the focus of diverse studies, including its application to journalism (Alzamora &Tárcia, 2012; Canavilhas, 2014; Dominguez, 2012; Gambarato & Tárcia, 2016; Moloney, 2011; Renó, 2014). In the journalism realm, audience can add information to the news content, edit it, and/or share it in online social networks, in addition to eventually collaborating directly in the coverage. Although various media are present in journalism and journalists employ multiple practices to cover multifaceted media events, not every news production is necessarily transmediatic; thus far, the majority of the content spread across different media platforms is simply repurposed. We consider that transmedia journalism, as well as other applications of transmedia storytelling in fictional and nonfictional realms, is characterized by the involvement of (a) multiple media platforms, (b) content expansion, and (c) audience engagement (Gambarato &Tárcia, 2016). Transmedia journalism can take advantage of different media platforms such as television, radio, print media, and, above all, the Internet and mobile media to tell deeper stories. Content expansion, as opposed to the repetition of the same message across multiple platforms, is the essence of transmedia storytelling and, therefore, should be the focal point of transmedia journalism as well. 

The book "Exploring Transmedia Journalism in the Digital Age" moves far beyond studies on multimedia journalism to explore how to tell pervasive news stories across multiple platforms and formats, using current digital technologies, expanding the content and engaging audiences. The publication will conceptualize transmedia journalism, delving into theoretical and critical approaches to this updated subject. Moreover, the book will present analytical views on transmedia journalism case studies and the applications and implications of technological advancements in the journalism realm. 

Recommended Topics
We are seeking chapters for this edited book that address (but are not limited to) the following topics: 
  • Theoretical and Critical Approaches to Transmedia Journalism 
  • Transmedia Journalism Analysis of Case Studies 
  • Transmedia Journalism & Virtual Reality 
  • Transmedia Journalism & Social Media Networks (Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) 
  • Transmedia Journalism & Newsgames 
  • Transmedia Journalism & Data, Robots, Algorithms 

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December 30, 2016, a chapter proposal of 500 to 1,000 words, a list of 10 references and short biography. Authors will be notified by January 31, 2017 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by April 30, 2014. Propose a chapter here: http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2447 

Important Dates
December 30, 2016: Proposal Submission Deadline 
January 31, 2017: Notification of Acceptance 
April 30, 2017: Full Chapter Submission 
June 30, 2017: Review Results Returned 
August 15, 2017: Final Acceptance Notification 
August 30, 2017: Final Chapter Submission

Inquires can be forward to Renira Rampazzo Gambarato, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow (rgambarato@hse.ru).


CFP:International Journal of Digital Television

International Journal of Digital Television
Edited by Petros Iosifidis, Issue 8.3
The Public Sphere and the Social Media (Autumn 2017)

Guest edited by Duygu Karatas (University of Westminster) and Mark Wheeler (London Metropolitan University)
Deadline for Proposals:  15 December 2016  
Notification of Accepted Proposals: 1 February 2017
Deadline for Full Papers: 15 May 2017

Social media is said to radically change the way in which public communication takes place: information diffuses faster and can reach a large number of people, but what makes the process so novel is that online networks have the ability to empower people to affect a potentially true form of popular sovereignty. This special edition will focus on the broad area of virtual democratic behaviour with reference to the social media acting as a public sphere to facilitate new forms of political participation, electoral practices and social movements. Therefore, it will critically interrogate the contemporary relevance of social networks as a set of economic, cultural and political enterprises. It is the aim of this edition to consider whether the social media can construct a public sphere(s) in which a variety of political and socio-cultural demands can be met. This edition follows on from a day-long conference in June 2016 entitled ‘Social media, politics and democracy ‘ (http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2016/june/social-media,-politics-and-democracy) which was organized to launch Petros Iosifidis and Mark Wheeler’s recent book 'Public spheres and mediated social networks in the western context and beyond' (Palgrave, 2016).
Possible topics include, but are not limited to: 
  • Democratic/post-democratic behaviour and the social media
  • The Public Sphere and on-line activism
  • Social movements and social networks
  • Digital diplomacy, soft power and international relations
  • Traditional political activity and social media campaigns
  • The policy context for on-line outreach
  • The regulatory framework at the national and supranational level for information technologies
  • The political economy of the communications revolution
  • The globalization of information and knowledge
  • The Global South and the social media

  
The International Journal of Digital Television explores the transition to digital TV and the social and cultural questions surrounding the future of television beyond switchover. It brings together and shares the work of academics, policymakers and practitioners. Content ranges from critical work on technological, industry and regulatory convergence to wider socio-cultural and political questions including audience behaviour, plurality of channels and programming choice, and television and new media’s influence.

Please send an abstract of up to 300 words by 15 December 2016 to:
Mark Wheeler:  m.wheeler@londonmet.ac.uk and

Invited authors will be notified by 1 February 2017 and full articles of 5,000-7,000 words will be due on 15 May 2017. All submissions will be subjected to double-blind peer review. Following refereeing, final versions of articles will be due on 30 June 2017.

More information about the Journal and Notes for Contributors: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=175

Monday, November 14, 2016

CFP: ICA 2017 Pre-Conference "Data and the Future of Critical Social Research"


Call for the ICA 2017 Pre-Conference "Data and the Future of Critical Social Research"
Sponsored by the Philosophy, Theory and Critique Division of the International Communication Association
Event date: 25 May 2017, 9:00 AM - 5 PM, San Diego, California, USA
Deadline for proposals: January 15th, 2017 (500 words abstract)
Organisers: Nick Couldry (London School of Economics) and Andreas Hepp (University of Bremen)


What we call media and mediated communication is more and more interwoven with processes of datafication in an environment of continuous and largely automated data-gathering, for example, from our activities online or our mobile phone use. The uses of data collected, aggregated and analysed by systems of computers are today a precondition for everyday life. In short, data are changing social ontology, and as a result the role of 'media' within the constitution of the social. This can be understood as  part of a process of 'deep' mediatization (Couldry and Hepp 2016) - in which the very elements and building-blocks from which social is constructed are based in processes of mediation, accompanied by automated data processing.

In this transformed context, this pre-conference asks: What do such changes mean for critical communications and social research - indeed for critical social theory and informed political action generally? How should we now do critical empirical research into media and communications bearing this deep mediatization in mind? The pre-conference aims both to focus these questions theoretically and to encourage perspectives on what constitutes critical empirical research under such conditions.

Questions on which we welcome either theoretical or empirical contributions include:
  • What sort of economic, political and social order is being built through today’s data relations and their underlying linked infrastructures?
  • How are the self's relations to institutional power changing through digital traces, data relations and with implications for autonomy and freedom?
  • How is the nature of social institutions changing through deep mediatization and the pervasiveness of data relations?
  • Are practices of civic and political intervention for social change on balance stimulated or undermined in a datafied environment? 
  • What does community and other forms of collectivity come to mean under these new datafied conditions?
  • How should we develop our methods for a critical analysis of processes of deep mediatization?
  • What kind of social interventions are needed that build from critical analyses of datafication?


Please email a 500 words proposals to Andreas Hepp (andreas.hepp@uni-bremen.de) by January 15th, 2017. Please direct any questions to: Nick Couldry (n.couldry@lse.ac.uk) or Andreas Hepp (andreas.hepp@uni-bremen.de).