[Commlist] ECREA pre-conference workshop on Visual Politics & Protest

ECREA pre-conference workshop on “Visual Politics & Protest - Current 
Methodological Challenges”



Call for submissions


War streaming on Instagram, propaganda in press photography, refugee 
activism on TikTok? - Recent European crises have shown images and 
videos as essential tools of communication in politics and protest, a 
trend mirrored in the increasing use of visuals in research 
methodologies. Visual data can capture practices of visual, performative 
or non-verbal communication, text-image relationships, the development 
of visual formats, notions of aesthetics, as well as underlying meanings 
of symbols and codes. Extant research has since captured different 
elements of visual politics and protest, including: social history (e.g. 
protest photography), political commentary or alignment (e.g. through 
memes or overlays), social cues in political communication (e.g. GIFs, 
filters, or emoji), visual activism practices (e.g. culture-jamming, 
sousveillance video coverage, flesh-witnessing), and visual forms of 
information documentation and distribution (e.g. infographics).


Even so, new creative practices have at times challenged research 
practices, for example with regards to image authenticity and 
appropriation in mis- and disinformation campaigns (e.g. deepfakes), 
platform affordances in new visual formats and spaces (e.g. short videos 
on TikTok), (mis)interpretation and visual (il)literacy in 
communications, trust in image data as factual evidence, and opaqueness 
in the production of visual materials. These critical debates have been 
particularly contentious in the arena of politics and protest, where 
visuals have been seen to shape political opinion and discourse, 
electoral campaigns, war coverage, and Covid-19 data visualisations.


In response to these trends, the ECREA Visual Cultures section is 
inviting submissions to the online pre-conference on “Visual Politics & 
Protest” with a focus on epistemological and methodological challenges, 
taking place on 6th and 7th October 2022 (= 2 weeks prior to ECREA 
2022). The pre-conference workshop will include a keynote by Dr. Jing 
Zeng (University of Zurich), a series of lightning talks, a panel 
discussion (including speakers Dr. Stefania Vicari, Dr. Shana MacDonald, 
& Dr. Jing Zeng), and hands-on discussion rounds with a specific focus 
on epistemological challenges in research on visual politics and protest.


Topics of interest


We are looking for lightning talks on challenges encountered in research 
on visual politics and/or protest, which will be allocated to thematic 
panels. Towards encouraging lively discussions, we are not looking for 
entire paper proposals, but focussed submissions that outline the 
challenge along with examples (in written, visual, or other creative forms).


On a broad level this may include (but is not limited to):

  *

    New methodological challenges in visual or multimodal data
    collection or analysis

  *

    Platform- or format-specific challenges in conducting visual
    research on politics and protest

  *

    Methodological approaches for capturing visuality or visual cultures
    surrounding politics and protest

  *

    Challenges in embedding visuals or visuality with textual, audio, or
    sensory materials

  *

    Issues in interpreting and/or quantifying visual data

  *

    Emerging approaches to visualising image or video data

  *

    Suggestions for the ethical treatment of visuality in politics or
    protest

  *

    Approaches in analysing specific political visual practices and/or
    phenomena

  *

    Epistemological discussions of the role of the visual in politics,
    protest, or social movements

  *

    Theorizing visual issues (example: visibility through aesthetics and
    visuality)


Submissions should ideally either discuss new challenges, present 
in-depth illustrations/ examples of specific challenges, or introduce 
new approaches or nuances.


Submission


Please submit a 200 word description of your challenge in researching 
visual cultures or materials, along with your contact details on this 
Google Form link <https://forms.gle/YWAUJK7RDjHvo6Fe8>(200 is the 
maximum incl. references). Proposals can be submitted until 1st June 
2022 at 23.59 CEST. Descriptions should be written in English and 
contain a summary of the challenge that will be presented, as well as a 
notion of the reflections or approaches that are taken or recommended. 
The description may follow a conventional abstract structure, but is not 
bound to it. We encourage creative, unconventional, and work-in-progress 
submissions, particularly from early-career scholars. The addition of 
supplementary visual data such as a poster or data excerpt is optional. 
The submissions should represent a specific issue or challenge 
encountered in the participant’s visual research.


We are aware that not everyone will be able to use Google services due 
to regional restrictions or privacy concerns. In those cases we invite 
participants to submit directly by email (vppecrea /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(vppecrea /at/ gmail.com)>. The email should contain following 
information: paper title, participant first and last name, country of 
affiliation, affiliation, career stage, email contact, names of 
co-authors, a 200-word description of the challenge, 1-2 visual 
materials (PDF, Word, or jpg) if applicable (this is optional), and 
indicate if you would like to be considered for the special issue.


During the workshop, these challenges should be presented as short 
presentations (7-10 minutes) in panel groups with an adjoining 
discussion. These presentations do not need to follow conventional 
presentation formats (creative and purely visual presentations are 
encouraged). Please note that multi-author submissions are very much 
welcome, but due to the short nature of lightning talks we ask that only 
one person (i.e. the submitting author) presents.


Details on the presentation format and full programme will be released 
in due time.


Workshop follow-up


Post-workshop, a summary (e.g. in the form of a co-authored “living 
syllabus on visual politics and protest research'') will be created and 
circulated amongst the participants and the wider public.


Participants will also be invited to join an informal follow-up meeting 
at ECREA in Aarhus: “visual politics & protest coffee hour”.


Participants will have the opportunity to submit their full papers to a 
special issue in Journal of Digital Social Research(https://www.jdsr.io/ 
<https://www.jdsr.io/>). Extended abstracts of 500 words are due 1st 
December 2022. Interest in submitting to the special issue should be 
indicated in the submission form. More information on the special issue 
will follow in due course.


Further details

The pre-conference workshop is organised by the ECREA Visual Cultures 
section (see https://visualculturesecrea.wordpress.com/ 
<https://visualculturesecrea.wordpress.com/>) and will take place online.


Links

Pre-conference website: https://cutt.ly/visual-politics-ecrea 
<https://cutt.ly/visual-politics-ecrea>

Email contact: (vppecrea /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(vppecrea /at/ gmail.com)>

Link to profile of keynote speaker: 
https://www.ikmz.uzh.ch/en/research/divisions/science-crisis-and-risk-communication/team/jing-zeng.html 
<https://www.ikmz.uzh.ch/en/research/divisions/science-crisis-and-risk-communication/team/jing-zeng.html>


Key dates 2022

1st June: pre-conference submission deadline

15th August: communication of acceptance

6th & 7th October: ECREA pre-conference on Visual Politics & Protest 
(online)

19th to 22nd October: ECREA general conference

1st December 2022: special issue abstract deadline


Pre-conference team

Maria Schreiber, University of Salzburg

Suay Melisa Özkula, University of Trento

Tom Divon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Danka Ninković Slavnić, University of Belgrade

Doron Altaratz, The Hadassah Academic College

Hadas Schlussel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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