[ecrea] Call For Papers: “The Objects of Journalism: Media, Materiality, and the News.” (London, June 2013)

Call for Papers: The Objects of Journalism: Media, Materiality, and the News
http://objectsofjournalism.wordpress.com

London, June 17, 2013
Frontline Club
an ICA Pre-Conference
Lead sponsor: Journalism Studies Division
Co-sponsor: Communication History Division

Studying the “objects of journalism” involves looking at the role of 
actual things in the journalism production process. This pre-conference 
aims at moving away from perspectives focusing on overarching forces — 
be they of an economic, ideological or technical nature — as the main 
explanation of what happens in the making of the news. Without denying 
the existence of such forces, the approach advocated here tentatively 
explores the very material objects, sometimes seemingly innocuous or 
univocal, involved in journalistic production.

It is an effort, in other words, towards fully embodying a vast set of 
heterogeneous objects that were or are enrolled in the making of the 
news: from the carrier-pigeon to Google algorithms, from Remington 
typewriters to robot-journalism.

Taking objects seriously strikes us as being an approach towards which 
some very challenging research and researchers are currently tending, 
but also as lacking a larger, unified framework for discussing potential 
items of research. We also aim, finally, to help to facilitate 
discussion between those who scholars who might embrace this “material 
turn” and those who might see it as a return to a realist ontology 
perhaps best left behind.

* Call For Papers *

More specifically, this pre-conference seeks papers that:

(1) Emphasize the socio-historical depth of journalistic 
objects, allowing us to think about up-to-the-minute aspects of 
modern newsmaking without being stuck in the contemplation of 
their alleged novelty. Examples would include papers tackling digital 
artifacts such as lines of code, hyperlinks, databases, APIs, CMS, 
algorithms, softwares, etc.
(2) Analyze the very material aspects that once mattered — or still do — 
in the news production processes such as the rise of documents and 
quotes in the building of journalistic evidence, the evolution of 
newsroom infrastructure towards integrated open-spaces, or the birth and 
evolution of news wire services.
(3) Approach, in a more historical fashion, the emergence, acceptance, 
normalization of various material objects in the news production and 
dissemination process.
(4) Highlight, by reconstituting how objects that may not be originally 
journalistic in nature were enrolled in newsmaking, the intersections 
between journalism and other worlds, other milieux.
(5) Provide critical reflection upon choosing this modus operandi over 
other classic journalism studies approaches.
(6) Tackle more philosophical and theoretical questions, primarily those 
involving “new materialist” ontologies and epistemologies, and attempt 
to integrate practices in journalism with already existing thinking on 
assemblage theory (DeLanda) actor-network theory (Latour) or 
object-oriented ontology.
(7) Rethink methodologies — how do we understand what it means to do a 
materially-minded ethnography? Content analysis? Social network map? 
Have our methods always been material in this way? Or is there something 
new here?
(8) Perspectives — whether theoretical, sociological, 
cultural, economic, or historical — that dispute the advisability 
or existence of a material turn. In other words, we encourage papers 
that dispute the thrust, premises, or underlying assumptions of the 
pre-conference. We are hoping for lively dispute and dialog!
(9) Any other topics of relevance to the general theme of 
the pre-conference.

In a word, this pre-conference is concerned to reveal the very concrete 
materiality of journalism. Doing so requires us to think afresh about 
the ontology of journalism studies, the methods we chose, and the fields 
we decide to investigate.

* Format *

The pre-conference will consist of several roundtable discussions, 
composed of individuals presenting short papers based on abstracts 
submitted in advance of ICA 2012. The structure will be designed in 
order to facilitate discussion and dialog rather than individual 
presentations and a formal “question and answer” session. There will be 
a designated respondent for each panel, designed to facilitate dialog 
and interaction.

* Paper Submission Process *

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to conference 
organizers C.W. Anderson at (heychanders /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(heychanders /at/ gmail.com)> and Juliette De Maeyer at 
(Juliette.De.Maeyer /at/ ulb.ac.be) <mailto:(Juliette.De.Maeyer /at/ ulb.ac.be)>, by 
November 20, 2012. Authors will be informed regarding acceptance / 
rejection for the preconference no later than December 20, 2012. It is 
the goal of the organizers hope to have the papers for 
this preconference posted online, and thus full papers will need to be 
submitted no later than May 15, 2013. The pre-conference takes place on 
June 17.

* Location *

The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ.

The Frontline Club is known as a champion of independent journalism in 
the United Kingdom, and is only a 7-minute walk from the main ICA 
conference venue. Interestingly, the Frontline Club is also well known 
for hosting one of Wikileaks’ first press conferences in July 2010. The 
relationship between the data-dumping Wikileaks and our pre-conference 
theme (“the objects of journalism”) makes the Frontline Club 
a particularly appropriate choice of venue.