*CALL FOR PAPERS: /International Scientific Colloquium Journalism and
platforms : Information, infomediation and fake news*
https://ejcam.univ-amu.fr/fr/news/4407/colloque-international-journalisme-plateformes-2-information-infomediation-fake-news
**
*Title:* International Scientific Colloquium Journalism and platforms
: Information, infomediation and fake news
*Special issue editors*:
Amiel Pauline (IMSIC, Aix Marseille Université)
Bousquet Franck (Lerass, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3)
Cabrolié Stéphane (IMSIC, Aix Marseille Université)
Graves Lucas (University of Wisconsin – Madison)
Grevisse Benoît (MiiL, UC Louvain)
Jeanne-Perrier Valérie (GRIPIC, Paris Sorbonne)
Jenkins Joy (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University
of Oxford)
Joux Alexandre (IMSIC, Aix Marseille Université)
Mercier Arnaud (CARISM, Université Paris 2)
Pignard-Cheynel Nathalie (Université de Neuchatel)
Sebbah Brigitte (Lerass, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3)
Smyrnaios Nikos (Lerass, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3)
Vovou Ioanna (ICCA Sorbonne Nouvelle, Université Panteion, Athens)
*Deadline for manuscripts*: July 3rd 2020
Infomediation platforms (Smyrnaios, Rebillard, 2019) have become the
dominant force of a ‘reintermediation’ of information online by
organising a large variety of contents and making them available to
internet users. Information from journalists, which we would qualify
here as news, finds itself subject to exogenous imperatives which
finish by influencing editorial decisions on information medias (Bell,
Owen, 2017). This ‘platformisation’ of information online has
coincided with an acceleration of the circulation of non-journalistic
information besides/news/, from satire to disinformation, which
increases the offer of contents proposed to internet users. In this
open environment where journalistic productions, disinformation, click
traps, infotainment and satire live together, journalism needs to
rethink itself.
The aim of this conference is to explore new journalistic practices in
relation to “fake news” at the heart of environments dominated by
platforms. By “fake news”, and because the polysemy of the term has
sometimes contributed to its instrumentalisation, we mean more
precisely ‘information problems’ (Wardle, Derakhsan, 2019) in all
their diversity.
As such, the conference will consider the question of
fact-checking//and the way it has been repositioned by criticising
“fake news” (Bigot, 2019). Fact-checking has been called upon during
electoral campaigns and is becoming increasingly part of a close
relationship of collaboration and dependence between editors and web
platforms which should be brought into question (Smyrnaios, Chauvet,
Marty, 2017; Alloing, Vanderbiest, 2018). Over and above the current
political situation, “fake news”//on the subjects of health, the
environment and even clickbait presenting false promises and strange
revelations, questions the expert status of specialist journalists as
well as other concerned parties.
*Research Questions*
* At the information source: media education in the face of the
platforms
* Fighting against “fake news”, a reaffirmation of journalism?
* Political journalism and health journalism: the challenge of “fake
news”//to specialised journalists
* Reception of false information and platforms: a reinforcement of
cognitive biais?
At the information source : media education in the face of the platforms
**
“I saw it on/Facebook”/. This unequivocal statement from/Reuters
Institute///(Kalogeropoulos, Newman, 2017) demonstrates the way
digital environments have changed our relationship to information. The
intermediary, in this case/Facebook/, is more powerful than
traditional media as a source of memorised information, opening the
door wide to “fake news”//by rendering the different sources of
information interchangeable. This deconstruction//of the source, which
journalists call upon and confront, which media use as a reliable
source of information is renewing the historic inspiration of media
studies. The necessity of a pedagogical attention to source, the one
which we often consult via the intermediary of web platforms, overlaps
on to understanding the logic of information production. The platforms
also present themselves pedagogically when they contribute to
highlighting the wheat and the chaff in all the content they host
(Joux, 2018). However they are both advocates and judges, which
explains why media studies is increasingly transforming into education
on web platforms. What are the stakes created by the erasure of the
source in the ecosystems where the platforms are dominating? What are
the new relationships between information source and information as a
source? What are the challenges for media studies?
Fighting against “fake news”, a reaffirmation of journalism?
Fact-checking has been experiencing an important development in
publishing since the 2000’s (Bigot, 2017). The increased visibility of
“fake news”//has given it a new role since the beginning of the
2010’s. While dressing itself up as a social mission with obvious
uses, fact-checking has restated the importance of journalism in
producing news information in the public sphere. It has also
criticised the illusion that anyone can be a journalist which the ease
of internet sharing may have led us to hope for (Mathien, 2010). This
reaffirmation of specific journalistic savoir-faire is supported
differently by the platforms./Facebook/, as well/Google///(through
the/CrossCheck/project), finances publishing to check certain
contents, which circulate in their ecosystem. However, this
recognition of fact-checking//by the platforms can be considered as
ambivalent. If it relies on the education of internet users thanks to
the visibility of journalistic work, it also corresponds to the
imposition of priorities financed by the platforms in publishing. We
propose to question these major themes here, fact-checking and its
ambitions for journalism as well as the economic and editorial
relationships between the platforms and newsrooms. Political
journalism and health journalism: the challenge of “fake news”//to
specialised journalists
**
Representing a ‘serious symptom of political breakdown’ (Mercier,
2018), the contemporary unfurling of “fake news” is being fed by a
growing defiance to the position of the ‘knowledgeable’ elite which
journalists belong to, whether they are ‘general’ or ‘specialist’. In
two key information areas – politics and health-, areas which are
connected to major collective stakes, the question of the
transformation/adaptation of journalists’ professional practices is
particularly important. Faced with this menace, is it sufficient to
generalise the practices of fact-checking//and to correct certain
problematic practices (hurried treatments, insufficient verification,
incomplete scientific acculturation, …) to restore a curtailed
legitimacy? Is turning the discursive weapons employed by ‘post-truth’
(Dieguez, 2018) against it the best way to renew the codes and modes
of expression of specialised journalism? Is it enough to remove the
“barriers” to the exercise of the profession and organise it in a
network (Bassoni, 2015), leaning now on the practices of all the
parties concerned by the containment of “fake news”//(in this case, in
health, the health authorities, scientists, carers, patients and
“digital opinion leaders”)?
//
Reception of false information and platforms: a reinforcement of
cognitive bias?
**
If the proliferation of/fake news/is linked to the technical and
economic conditions of information circulation, it also relies on
cognitive domains which do not always promote the truth and forms of
reception attached to plural contexts. Recognised cognitive biases
frequently lead individuals to select and believe false information to
encourage consensus within a group (Festinger, 1954) or through an
economy of means (Kahneman, 2011). Social illusionism and the illusion
of truth can thus favour the propagation of false information (Huguet,
2018). Indeed, individuals perceive “fake-news”//as one of the
elements of the globally degraded universe of information, including
forms of propaganda or mediocre journalism (Nielsen et Graves, 2017).
Here, the public’s perception of “fake news”//is the combination of
the interests of certain medias which publish it, politicians who
contribute to it and the platforms who allow it to be distributed.
What are the characteristics of the public’s reception of “fake news”?
What type of individual or collective sources does “fake news” call
upon? How far can platforms and their business models reinforce the
cognitive biases associated to “fake news”? These questions will be
approached by considering the modalities of the public’s//reception of
“fake news”//through their permanence or, on the contrary, their
variation according to contexts.
How to submit
Propositions should be 6000 characters and include a short biography.
They will indicate which research theme they are most appropriate to.
Descriptions of the field of study/corpus and the research methodology
are expected.
Propositions should be sent to the following
address:(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr) <mailto:(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr)>The deadline is
July 3rd 2020
Propositions will be double blind evaluated, replies will be sent out
during September 2020.
*Contact : *
(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr) <mailto:(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr)>
Stephanie Lukasik for organization team
(stephanie.lukasik /at/ univ-amu.fr)
