[Commlist] merzWissenschaft CfA Remembering and Memory in and with Digital Media

*merzWissenschaft | medien + erziehung call for papers 2020*

Remembering and Memory in and with Digital Media

Supervising Editors: Christine Lohmeier (University of Salzburg), 
Christian Pentzold (Chemnitz University of Technology) and the 
merzWissenschaft editorial team (JFF)

Deadline: 17 February 2020. Full CfA here: 
https://www.merz-zeitschrift.de/merzwissenschaft/

Abstracts with a maximum length of 6,000 characters (including blank 
spaces) can be submitted to the editorial team of merz ((merz /at/ jff.de) 
<mailto:(merz /at/ jff.de)>) until February 17, 2020. Submissions should follow 
the merzWissenschaft layout specifications, available at 
https://www.merz-zeitschrift.de/manuskriptrichtlinien

In media communication the past is not retained as such, but rather is 
reconstructed with changing references to the present.
Here the past and its medial representation reflect current personal and 
societal requirements and are used for individual and
joint projections in the future. There is no society without 
remembering. Bringing the past to the present is a fundamental
function and condition of society and has considerable significance in 
the development of identity and the social embedding
of the individual. Remembering makes existing experiences and knowledge, 
patterns of interpretation and action relevant and
realizes them in current individual, social and cultural reference 
frameworks. Media are associated directly and in a widely varied
manner with the individual and communicative task of remembering and 
with the transmission of cultural memory. Accordingly
the transformation of media technologies and forms of communication are 
linked with the changing options for establishing recollective
references to the past. The mnemonic potential of a large number of 
media, ranging from cuneiform tablets to the role
of popular media such as film, television and the newspaper, has been 
consequently investigated. Digitally networked services,
technologies and applications have increasingly been the subject of 
scientific interest in the recent past.

In this context the merzWissenschaft special issue addresses the 
question of what remembering means in the context of a society
that is increasingly being permeated by and with digital media services 
and the associated possibilities. What does the practice of
remembering look like today? Which stakeholders are involved? What 
content and topics are addressed? Which media (services)
are utilized in remembering? Under what legal, pedagogical, cultural and 
technological conditions does remembering take place
and what are the associated implications?

The connections between remembering, identity and a sense of community 
are on the one hand intuitive and on the other
hand are difficult to understand in detail because of their complexity. 
Memory is group-specific and creates community. It is thus
at the same time potentially marginalizing and can be investigated in 
terms of questions on conflicts, power and interpretive
authority. This involves state institutions such as museums just as much 
as civil-societal groups and individuals. Forgetting is
also a prerequisite to remembering, since the reconstruction of the past 
is always selective. It is not possible to remember and
archive everything, even with access to storage possibilities of 
unprecedented capacity. The discussion regarding the “Right to
Be Forgotten” in the context of the Internet also references the 
political and ethical dimensions of the modified conditions of
remembering and the potential immediate consequences for individual persons.

The 2020 merzWissenschaft special issue looks forward to receiving 
empirically based and theoretical-conceptual articles addressing 
remembering in and with digital media. The articles can examine 
individual, group-specific, institutional and/or societal levels and 
will address among other things the following topic areas:


    The relationship between the nature of media and remembering: What
    is the impact on the processes of remembering that results from the
    availability of images and audio-visual materials and from the
    ability to digitally produce and artificially generate images? What
    are the (memory-cultural) consequences of the permanent social media
    availability of images and texts, even above and beyond their active
    use?

    Individual as well as collective practices of remembering with
    digital media: How do cultures of remembering change? Who can (not)
    participate in the process? What are the local and translocal forms
    of digitally conveyed remembering?

    Journalism and collective remembering: For a long time popular media
    enjoyed a unique position when it came to societal remembering. To
    what extent has this role changed, what new forms of remembering can
    be observed? What are the consequences of the fact that memories in
    social media can be (re-)negotiated, interpretations can be called
    into question and/or new interpretations can be put forth?

    Significance of institutions (of remembering): What roles do
    museums, archives and libraries play with regard to digitalization
    and the accessibility of (image) information? What influence does
    the ability to experience socially relevant events “live” and from
    the protagonists’ point of view using social media have on their
    classification in cultural memory?

    History and memory: Digital media enable other means of accessing
    history and memory (e. g. VR glasses, Augmented Reality) in
    conventional and unconventional educational contexts. How does this
    change access to and understanding of the past?

    AI, information, data and remembering: How does remembering
    re-manifest itself when today’s digital services use algorithms to
    externalize remembering processes (calendars, etc.) and/or to curate
    medial artefacts of remembering (e. g. a selection of images from
    smartphone storage which are exactly one year old, etc.).



merzWissenschaft provides a forum advancing scientific analysis in media 
education and promoting progress in the theoretical
foundation of the discipline. For this purpose qualified articles are 
called for from various relevant disciplines (including mediaeducational,
communications sciences, (developmental) psychological, legal and 
philosophical perspectives), also with an interdisciplinary
approach, for the continuing development of expert media-educational dialog.

Of interest are original papers with an empirical or theoretical 
foundation, presenting new findings, aspects or approaches to the
topic and which are explicitly related to one of the topic areas or 
questions outlined above or which explore a separate topic
within the scope of the overall context of the Call.

Abstracts with a maximum length of 6,000 characters (including blank 
spaces) can be submitted to the editorial team of merz
((merz /at/ jff.de) <mailto:(merz /at/ jff.de)>) until February 17, 2020. Submissions 
should follow the merzWissenschaft layout specifications, available at
https://www.merz-zeitschrift.de/manuskriptrichtlinien.

The length of the articles should not exceed a maximum of approximately 
35,000 characters (including blank spaces). Please feel
free to contact Susanne Eggert, tel. +49.89.68989.152, e-mail: 
(susanne.eggert /at/ jff.de) <mailto:(susanne.eggert /at/ jff.de)> with any questions.


Summary of deadlines

  * February 17, 2020: Submission of abstracts to (merz /at/ jff.de)
    <mailto:(merz /at/ jff.de)>
  * March 13, 2020: Final decision on acceptance/rejection of the abstracts
  * June 12, 2020: Submission of papers
  * June 15 to July 20, 2020: Assessment phase (Double-blind peer review)
  * August/September 2020: Revision phase (with multiple cycles, when
    appropriate)

  *

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