[ecrea] CfP: Acting on media: pioneer communities, social movements and civil society organizations

Call for Papers: Acting on media: pioneer communities, social movements
and civil society organizations

Conference at the University of Bremen, Germany, 13 and 14 October 2016,
deadline: 30 April 2016

Organizer: Sociology of Media Communication of the German Communication
Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft); Creative Unit Communicative Figurations,
ZeMKI, University of Bremen

Conference Team: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp, Dr. Sigrid Kannengießer and Dr.
Sebastian Kubitschko

In one way or the other the current transformation of society is related
to media, which are understood to mean organizations, content and
technologies. As a consequence, media themselves are gaining increasing
relevance in political debates and for political activity per se. Actors
like hacker collectives, alternative media or open source movements do
not only use media to organize, collaborate and to mobilize, but
explicitly center their activities on media-related questions. Pioneer
communities like the Quantified Self or Makers movement have emerged as
new kinds of collectivities at the crossroads between social movements
and think tanks, in their support of new forms of media practice. At the
same time, new initiatives critically deal with media and point to
problems caused by current media appropriation. One prominent case is
Repair Cafés where people maintain their devices to avoid buying new
ones, pointing to the socio-ecological damage the production and
disposal of media technologies cause. The number of examples that could
be added to this list is constantly growing.

What the actors mentioned have in common is that they tinker around with
media, tease them apart, explore and modify them. They thematize how
media are dominantly used in society and they often influence the way
media are constructed and perceived in public discourse. Overall, by
putting media at the center of their involvement, they are /acting on
/media. Along with this development, apparently clear distinctions
between ‘alternative’ and ‘established’ groups, between ‘insider’ and
‘outsider’ tactics, between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ forms of
media-related engagement become blurred. The core idea of this workshop
is to bring together empirical analysis and critical reflections on
different forms of /acting on /media.

With this focus in mind, we would like to discuss the following questions:

-Who are the actors (individual, collective, movement-based, etc.) that
thematize, problematize and/or politicize contemporary media?

-How do actors act on media? What are their concrete aims and practices?
What is their role in our social world?

-  -Which contradictions can we perceive regarding these actors and
media appropriation – either in the initiatives themselves or between them?

-Which relevance and influence have and which constraints do these
initiatives face  in highly media-saturated societies?

-What kind of influence and effects result from these activities/actions?

We explicitly encourage contributions from actors analyzing in different
research areas and disciplines– ranging from communities, organizations,
think tanks, movements, and the like – that put media in the center of
their activities. Besides presentations of empirical studies, we also
ask for theoretical contributions and methodological reflections on how
to analyze the research object outlined above.

Doctoral students

We ask PhD students to indicate on their abstracts whether the
submission is part of a doctoral project. This status will be taken into
account in the review process. During the conference, accepted PhD
students will present during the regular conference program. In
addition, carefully selected respondents will comment on the doctoral
projects and discuss the research with PhD students in a special panel.

Submission

Please send your submission of no more than 500 words (cover with
contact details and a separate abstract, prepared for anonymous review)
by Sunday 31 March 2016 to (sigrid.kannengiesser /at/ uni-bremen.de)
<mailto:(sigrid.kannengiesser /at/ uni-bremen.de)>.Acceptance and rejection
letters will be sent out in early June 2016.

Contact

Dr. Sigrid Kannengießer

University of Bremen

Center for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI)

Linzer Str. 4, 28359 Bremen, Germany

Email: (sigrid.kannengiesser /at/ uni-bremen.de)
<mailto:(sigrid.kannengiesser /at/ uni-bremen.de)>

Phone: +49 421 2186 7624



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