[Commlist] 2024 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication (AssoComPol)

***2024 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication 
(AssoComPol)***

The new European public sphere, the crises and challenges of "post-truth"

30 May - 1 June 2024, University of Catania, Italy

https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2024/

One of the salient aspects in the recent dynamic transformation of 
public opinion is the process of integration between national and 
European communication spaces, which together increasingly converge on a 
scenario of complex global interdependencies. While this integrative 
trend was taking shape, itself a topic of debate and controversy, the 
European arena had to deal with new challenges, that mainly derived from 
a succession of global crises (economic, migratory, pandemic, war). 
These challenges, as well as generating geopolitical and economic 
instability, have highlighted a further and deeper impact of the 
transformations of the communication context, such as digitalisation, 
platformisation, polarization and the set of phenomena that cluster 
around the imprecise and debated concept of post-truth.

The crisis phases have highlighted the progressive shift towards the 
European sphere of many issues that previously featured in national 
contexts of debate and policy-making. This has made this process of 
Europeanization an object of persistent attention in flows of political 
communication, and given integration itself a structure of polarized 
politicization.

Due to the growing importance of the Union and the greater prominence of 
European-level issues in national political-media systems, it can be 
hypothesized that the phase of European elections as "second-order" 
elections in member countries has ended. One significant aspect is that 
they have become an object of interest for some foreign governments who, 
through the propagation of fake news and propaganda, attempt to 
influence the choices of citizens and governments to the point of 
undermining the integrity of the elections. At the level of individual 
states, we note the role of populist parties and their leaders, who are 
accused of spreading content of dubious veracity to influence electoral 
contests and referendums. These processes are considered a threat to the 
values of civil coexistence and public debate, and trust in democratic 
institutions.
The increased salience of the issues now found in European public space 
poses challenges to the agency of organized civil society. The structure 
of national public spheres has in fact changed, giving greater space to 
new actors with the ability to set agendas and influence public debate. 
In this context, a different methodological approach has made it 
possible to overcome the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy of participatory 
processes in the process of integrating the European communication 
space. It thus seems appropriate to pay attention to the communicative 
activities of social movements that operate at a trans-national level 
(e.g. environmentalists), and to those of interest groups that expand 
their activities towards the European dimension (trade unions, 
businesses and consumers). Worthy of interest are the movements of 
protest, sometimes labeled as populist, which mobilize simultaneously in 
various European countries, displaying networked transnational connections.

These processes are discursively articulated within a media ecosystem 
that is significantly influenced and distorted by phenomena of 
intolerance and incivility present in digital environments; 
communicative exchanges become radicalized and the very frames of the 
issues are influenced, causing the polarization of the arenas of debate.
The world of journalism has followed the process of Europeanization of 
national spheres and their politicization, often from a critical 
perspective, underlining the inadequacy of the Union's institutional 
responses and calling for their reform. This is accompanied by a crisis 
of journalism, characterized by loss of legitimacy of traditional media, 
which faces the affirmation of a framework of extreme fragmentation in 
information practices. It is necessary to deepen our understanding of 
the transformation of the news generation process, the impact on the 
role of journalists and editorial staff as gatekeepers and guarantors, 
and what adaptation and reaction strategies are in place, in the face of 
the complexity of the debate on information in European space.
On the basis of this framework, the call for papers solicits 
contributions that investigate the transformation of the national and 
European public sphere with particular attention to the challenges posed 
by crises, disinformation and manipulation phenomena. The areas 
investigated are those of electoral campaigns, strategies implemented by 
political actors and civil society and by traditional media, the impact 
of platformization processes on the fields of political communication, 
journalism and all other forms of communication.
Theoretical and empirical analysis papers are welcome, with research 
designs that include qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods 
methodologies.
Some possible relevant topics, though this is not intended to be an 
exhaustive list:

-    changes that have occurred and new communication scenarios in the 
increasingly close and complex relationship between political 
communication and the public sphere;
-    the restructuring of ideologies and propaganda practices;
-    the redefinition of the public agenda in European space;
-    the transformations and controversial nature of the 
international-European public debate with reference to processes of 
ideological and affective polarization, the use of incivility, and forms 
of discrimination online and offline, also with attention to gender issues;
-    policies regarding political communication, information and the 
integrity of elections, formulated by European and national institutions 
(transparency of platforms and privacy; regulation of electoral 
campaigns, etc.);
-    the emergence of new repertoires of extra-institutional political 
communication linked to protests, social movements and civil society 
actors, especially of a transnational nature;
-    transformations and crises of contemporary journalism, with 
particular attention to the growth of new professional models and the 
role of the digital platform;
-    trends that have emerged in the communication styles of leadership 
and parties in a hybrid and platformized communication ecosystem;
-    from a discourse analytical perspective, linguistic and/or 
multimodal aspects of post truth communication;
-    the technological infrastructure of political participation with 
particular regard to young generations (digital parties, networks, 
influencers, memes, UGC);
-    methodological proposals and theoretical contributions to address 
the transformations of the public sphere, disinformation and new forms 
of conflict and political competition;
-    (computational) propaganda techniques and mis/dis-information 
strategies in conflict scenarios.

Paper proposals must include: name, affiliation and email address, a 
title and an extended abstract with bibliographic references (600/800 
words excluding bibliography), 3 key words. The proposers must also 
explicitly indicate whether they request the paper to be taken into 
consideration, after the conference, for publication in the magazine 
"Comunicazione Politica". In the event of an equal evaluation by 
referees, the authors who have indicated this option will have priority 
in selection for the conference.

Useful information on how to write an abstract for AssoComPol 
conferences is available in the “Abstract Instructions” section 
(https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2024/ under construction)

Useful information on how to write an abstract for AssoComPol 
conferences can be found in the section “Abstract instructions”.

- Deadline for sending proposals: 11 March 2024
- Acceptance notification: 25 March 2024
- Complete papers must be sent by May 22, 2024 to the conference paper 
room (accessible after login)

Scientific committee: Cristopher Cepernich, Marco Mazzoni, Rolando 
Marini, Antonio Martella, Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Melissa Mongiardo, 
Mariaeugenia Parito, Rossana Sampugnaro, Hans-Jörg Trenz, Douglas Ponton.
Local organizers: Rossana Sampugnaro, Francesca Montemagno, Mariaeugenia 
Parito, Martina Faia, Patrizia Santoro.
Secretaris: Melissa Mongiardo, Antonio Martella, Cesar Crisosto.

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