[Commlist] Call For Paper for New Book entitled "The State of the Informational Sphere in Post-truth Era: ‘FakeNews’, ‘Algorithms, Dark-social and Populism"

*The State of the Informational Sphere in Post-truth Era: ‘Fake News’, 
‘Algorithms, Dark-social and Populism*

Today, we live in a post-truth era where the reality is shape-shifting. 
Creating alternative realities and making people to believe fake 
realities become easier. It’s because, through Web 2 technologies and 
digital platforms’ algorithms that rely on engagement, the shape of 
information is dramatically changed. Over the past years, specific 
characteristics of new media as being digital, interactive, hypertextual 
and networked make it possible to get and share information about 
anything, at any time that we want (Lister et all. 2009). So, today, 
people can create media contents and instantly share their stories via 
user-generated websites and social networks. Also digital social 
platforms tend to promote dramatic, sensational and emotional content, 
which harms rational political debate that is seen as an essential 
element of a democratic public sphere.

In addition to the severe problem of the diminishing importance of 
rationality in the public political debate, in the recent years, 
especially after the events that took place during the Brexit Referendum 
and the U.S. Presidential Election of 2016, among scholars, journalists 
and policy-makers, another topic has become a subject of debate:/‘Fake 
news’/. Despite the rising popularity of the term, the phenomena it 
refers to can be better described as/information disorder/which is the 
umbrella term that covers the topics of disinformation, misinformation, 
false information, mal-information, media deception, and etc.

Information disorder cannot be studied without understanding the complex 
socio-political and socio-economical background, namely the post-truth 
era. Within this framework, the issue can and should be examined by 
covering the different aspects of the matter: the rise of populist 
politics, the impact of digital social platforms on the public sphere, 
the diminishing power of the conventional gatekeepers and the rise of 
the new gate-keepers namely the engagement-oriented algorithms, the 
spread of misinformation, disinformation and hate-speech in the 
dark-social, and the counter-measures (such as the establishment of 
fact-checking mechanisms) taken against information disorder by the 
platforms, policy-makers, and independent organizations.

The aim of this collected book is to seek answers for the questions 
related issues and challenges of ‘fake news’ seen and discussed in every 
field of social sciences like;

  * Is the fake news correct term to define the problem within the
    informational sphere?
  * What is “fake news”, what is not?
  * How are the mechanisms of manipulation in the post-truth era?
  * How do ‘fake news’ and “hate speech” mostly spread? What is the role
    of dark social?
  * Do ‘fake news’ cause violence against others?
  * How algorithms affect spreading of ‘fake news’?
  * How does virality affect spreading of ‘fake news’?
  * What are the counter majors taken by policy makers and platforms
    against informational disorder?
  * How do fact-checking organizations work?
  *

*PS:* The book will be published by Peter Lang Publishing. Authors are 
free to suggest related subjects in accordance with the call for paper. 
Abstracts should be sent (toposttruth2019 /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(posttruth2019 /at/ gmail.com)>and should be 
cc’(edtirse.erbaysalfilibeli /at/ comm.bau.edu.tr) 
<mailto:(tirse.erbaysalfilibeli /at/ comm.bau.edu.tr)>.

**

*
*

*EDITORS*

**

*Tirşe Erbaysal Filibeli*received her Ph.D. from Galatasaray University, 
Doctoral Program in Media and Communication Studies with her thesis 
focusing on ‘new social movements and peace journalism’. She worked as 
special rapporteur for Hrant Dink Foundation, Asulis Discourse, 
Dialogue, Democracy Laboratory. She has worked as a researcher in the 
country team of Turkey, of the Media Pluralism Monitor Project that is 
supported by Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) and 
European Commission, financed by European Union. She works as an 
assistant professor and the chair of the New Media Department at 
Bahçeşehir University.She is the co-editor of a new book entitled 
“Journalism a ‘Peacekeeping agent’ at the time of conflict” that came 
out in December 2018 from Brill Publication.She has many publications on 
contemporary issues in journalism and new media studies. Her recent 
research interests focus on user generated content, online journalism 
and fact checking, ‘fake news’ about minorities and othering in 
post-truth era.

*Orhan Şener* obtained his Bachelors Degree in Business-Economics, and 
has started his Masters Degree in Information, Communication and Society 
at City University London. He has graduated from the program with his 
dissertation titled ‘Online Political Participation of University 
Students in Istanbul’. Since 2014, he has been enrolled to the PhD 
Program in Media and Communication Studies at Galatasaray University. 
The title of the PhD dissertation is ‘Informational Access and Filtering 
Practices: A Study on Turkish Journalists’. He is the director of 
Journalism Academy of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey and editor at 
Journo.com.tr (bipartisan media organization aiming to enhance quality 
of journalism practices in Turkey) & NewsLabTurkey (digital journalism 
academy supported by The Guardian Foundation). Hegives lectures on 
communication studies, new media and digital transformation and 
innovation at Bahçeşehir, Kadir Has, Kültür and Nişantaşı Universities.

**

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*Key Dates*

*Call for Paper: *March 15, 2019

*Deadline to submit abstract :* April 5, 2019

*Abstract Decision Announced: *April 10, 2019

*Deadline for full paper submission:* July 1; 2019


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