[ecrea] Comparative Perspectives on Social Media in Political Communication

Next year's democracy conference at the University of Oslo (jan 8-9 
2014) will feature a workshop on "Comparative Perspectives on Social 
Media in Political Communication", described below.

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are increasingly 
used to communicate about societal issues by politicians, journalists 
and citizens alike, This workshop invites scholars to present research 
on social media in connection with different political contexts, across 
regions and national borders. While an important area of this type of 
research deals with the uses of services like these during democratic 
elections, the workshop also welcomes papers that analyses the 
employment of social media by politicians and political parties, social 
movement groups and journalists, as well as ordinary citizens also 
outside of such recurring parliamentary events. One workshop panel will 
be devoted to recent research from the Norwegian elections, taking place 
on September 9th, 2013.
Beyond the above listed topics, scholars working on related issues are 
more than welcome to submit an abstract. For instance, the roles of 
journalists could be approached, posing questions such as if social 
media is becoming an ambiguous platform for source communication and 
source-journalist interaction, where the lines of front- and backstage 
communication is often hard to draw. Also, we welcome research that from 
a more aesthetic point of view, reflect on how the forms of social 
communication opens up for inclusions and representations of the 
ordinary, the popular and everyday life of politicians and political 
institutions.

Full papers to be submitted not later than 2nd of January, 2014.

Abstracts and paper proposals (200-300 words in PDF format, file labeled 
with the first authors last name) to be sent within 1st of November to 
Anders Olof Larsson:

(a.o.larsson /at/ media.uio.no) <mailto:(a.o.larsson /at/ media.uio.no)>

You can find more information regarding the conference itself at this 
address:

http://www.uio.no/english/research/interfaculty-research-areas/democracy/news-and-events/news/2013/annual-international-conference-2014.html

Hope to see you in Oslo!

Best regards

Anders Olof Larsson
www.andersoloflarsson.se <http://www.andersoloflarsson.se>