[Commlist] Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication - Media and Fear

*5^thLisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication | **Media and 
Fear *

*7-10 January 2025*


The 5^th  Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication takes a 
comparative and global approach to the study of media and fear. Jointly 
organized by the Faculty of Human Sciences (Universidade Católica 
Portuguesa)and theCenter for Media@Risk (Annenberg School for 
Communication, University of Pennsylvania), the Lisbon Winter School 
offers an opportunity for doctoral students and early career 
post-doctoral researchers to strategize around the study of media and 
fear together with senior scholars in the field. It is held in 
coordination with the Annenberg Schools of the University of Southern 
California & University of Pennsylvania, the Chinese University of Hong 
Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, the University of 
Helsinki’s Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities, and The Europaeum.

*Call for Applications*

Fear is a powerful emotion that is thought to obscure, undermine or 
derationalize decision-making. It can either trigger or paralyze action, 
inducing irrational behavior, generating moral panics or fostering 
responses to keep people safe. It abounds in the media coverage of wars, 
terror, social protests, natural disasters, technological accidents and 
the radical events associated with climate crisis, migration, poverty, 
racialized violence, misogyny, settler colonialism and other global 
inequities. Fear gives high visibility to inflammatory discourses that 
furnish a central stage across the information environment, creating a 
loss of control and predictability alongside an intensification of 
uncertainty, threat, risk and insecurity across different publics. While 
reports on fear-inducing conditions and events have the potential to 
induce action and create solidarity for those being effected, the media 
also instigate hate against marginalized social groups who have become 
the target of what Ruth Wodak (2015) has called “the normalization of 
shameless politics.” Today a central ingredient of many videos and posts 
that go viral on social media, fear can be promoted by a wide range of 
actors, including those who instigate action against the rule of law.

The Lisbon Winter School aims to cut across the many discourses driven 
by fear, considering its weaponization by political, religious and 
social actors who aim to increase their own power, including leaders of 
democratic and authoritarian regimes, drug cartels, religious 
institutions, terrorist groups and protest groups. Topics include power 
grounded on fear, threat, and compliance; fear as a rhetorical tool to 
spread hate against the ‘other’; fear as a propaganda technique used 
throughout history; fear as a feature of contemporary polarized 
societies that present particular groups as sources of threat. Fear also 
has positive effects. It can be channeled toward helping people keep 
safe or avoid danger. Wearing a mask to prevent a viral infection, 
abandoning a village or a city before it is hit by a typhoon, or seeking 
refuge during air strikes are examples.

Regardless of how positively or negatively scholars feel about the 
invocation of fear in mediated communication, its presence is a clear 
component of media environments everywhere. But what kind of presence 
does it have? How is it part of wider strategies designed to 
discriminate against specific groups of people? How is it used by 
democratic or authoritarian regimes, terrorist or criminal groups to 
create compliance and counter resistance? How is fear central to 
nationalistic discourses in different nations? What parallels can be 
established between contemporary media environments and earlier regimes 
in which fear occupied a central stage? And how can people resist 
feeling threated by messages that attempt to stir it up? These are just 
some of the questions the Lisbon Winter School aims to discuss. *We 
welcome proposals by doctoral students and early career post-doctoral 
researchers from all over the world *to discuss the intertwined relation 
between media and fear in different geographies and temporalities. The 
list below illustrates some topics for possible consideration. Other 
topics dealing with media and fear are also welcomed:

·Media and the dissemination of fear

·Fear, populism and the media

·Terrorism and the media

·Moral panics

·Reporting war and tragedy

·Fear and the democratic process

·Communication techniques to create fear

·Fear and identity formation

·Algorithms, AI and the promotion of fear

·Promoting fear against gender, racial and religious minorities

·Fear as tool of compliance

·Fake news and disinformation

·Fear, anxiety and irrationality

·Fear and (self-)censorship

·Fear in the public arena in specific national or regional contexts

·Climate anxiety

·Visual media and fear

·…

*PAPER PROPOSALS*

Proposals should be sent to *(lisbonwinterschool /at/ gmail.com)* 
<mailto:(lisbonwinterschool /at/ gmail.com)>**no later than 15 September 2024 
and include a paper title, extended abstract in English (700 words), 
name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and a brief bio (max. 
100 words) mentioning ongoing research. Applicants will be informed of 
the result of their submissions by early-October.**

**

*FULL PAPER SUBMISSION *

Presenters will be required to send in full papers (max. 20 pages, 1.5 
spacing) by 15 December 2024.

*CONFIRMED KEYNOTES:*

David Altheide, Arizona State University

Carlo Bordoni, University Mercatorum

Isabel Capeloa Gil, Catholic University of Portugal

Frank Furedi, University of Kent

Nelson Ribeiro, Catholic University of Portugal

Johanna Sumiala, University of Helsinki

Barbie Zelizer, Annenberg School for Communication, University of 
Pennsylvania

More to be Announced

For more information visit lisbonwinterschool.com 
<http://lisbonwinterschool.com/>

*ORGANIZERS*

Nelson Ribeiro

Barbie Zelizer

**

*CONVENORS*

Sarah Banet-Weiser

Risto Kunelius

Francis Lee

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