[Commlist] CFP: Conference –‘The Role of Journalism in Endangered Democracy'

*CFP: Conference – ‘The Role of Journalism in Endangered Democracy' *
5-6 June 2026 @ University of Split, Communication and Media Department, 
Croatia.

Abstract submission deadline – 25 April, 2026.


*Rationale*

During the 2016 US presidential campaign the publication of inaccurate 
and, in particular of intentionally inaccurate information, through 
social media and fake websites became a salient reality of the digitised 
information world (Palczewski, 2017; Parkinson, 2016; Silverman & 
Singer-Vine, 2016). It further polarized American society and confused 
voting citizens. The proliferation of the term “fake news” - which is in 
itself an oxymoron - opened up spaces for the interpretation of 
disinformation, or, to deal with what Kellyanne Conway phrased 
"alternative facts". Both the US Congress and the EU reacted with a 
series of activities and guidelines. Indeed, the EU invested heavily in 
establishing fact-checking organizations that have proven to be largely 
ineffective in preventing the spread of disinformation.

Irresponsible amateur publication of information on social media gained 
credibility and acceptance (protected by the concept of “citizen 
journalism”), causing systematic and long-term damage to both 
professional journalism and the quality of citizens’ information 
(Glasser, 1999), but also to long-standing traditions of 
non-professional news production (e.g., in community media). Andrew Keen 
describes this attribution of journalistic value to amateur citizens’ 
sharing of information as a democracy-degrading democratization (Keen, 
2007: 69). Still, amateur information has proven its value during 
particular moments, such as the Arab Spring (2011-2012), with the 
mobilisation of citizens for mass protests against totalitarian regimes 
being assisted through social networks.

Although such information-sharing practices arguably fulfils an 
important political and democratic function, a large part of this 
content cannot be considered journalism, simply because this 
communication does not meet the standards of the journalistic 
profession. This is reflected in the Reuters Institute’s (2025) recent 
use of the term “news creators”, seemingly seeking to shift away from 
the concept of “citizen journalism”. As it is, user-generated content 
was quickly recognized as a low-cost source of information due to its 
speed and accessibility; and tabloids and news portals with limited 
human and financial resources exploited that type of content en masse. 
It is a practice that has provoked significant critiques. For instance, 
Glasser (1999), already some time ago, has gone so far as to criticize 
journalists and editors for leaving the political agenda-setting power 
to citizens, thereby compromising their profession and abandoning their 
role of the “fourth estate” through critical reporting.

Today, “news creators” confusingly offer a complex mix of quality 
content alongside vast amount of pseudo-scientific and intentionally or 
unintentionally false content. Identifying quality within this content 
can be challenging for (social) media users, especially in the light of 
the fact that social media audiences for such abundant sensationalised 
and trivial content exceed those of legacy media (Allcott and Gentzkov, 
2017).

The emergence of citizen-generated information has also been accompanied 
by the growth of alternative and partisan online news sources fuelled by 
populism (Grossmann, 2018). This has, in turn, influenced a shift of 
legacy journalism towards increasingly partisan reporting and 
agenda-setting practices (e.g. Kantola, 2012; Esser and Umbricht, 2014; 
Levendusky and Malhotra, 2016). As a consequence, the ideals of 
journalistic impartiality and detachment from politics have become 
object of political struggle in their own right (Vozab, 2017).

Nowadays, many media organisations have been, or are threatened to be, 
captured by political and financial interests. Cognitive captivity 
occurs when journalists associate themselves with those they report on 
(Schiffrin, 2017), but also self-censorship has become an even more 
present reality among journalists. The existence of external 
fact-checking services problematically suggests that fact-checking is a 
task internal to news organisation. We also face a new trend in 
journalists leaving legacy media houses to launch their own self-branded 
media channels through social media platforms (e.g. Tucker Carlson, Don 
Lemon, Bari Weiss, Megyn Kelly, Matt Taibi, …).

In an attempt to occupy the symbolic communication centre of a 
democratic society, while still remaining outside the ruling powers, 
journalists thus face substantial challenges. It remains logical to 
continue asking how the profession of journalism is recognized, and what 
its capacities are for the 21^st century (and will be)? There are also 
other questions: Should fact-checking be returned more to the newsrooms, 
and shouldn’t the mechanisms of media regulation and self-regulation be 
strengthened? Where should we draw the line between “news creators” and 
“journalists”? Can non-professional journalists still exist? What is the 
social and ethical responsibility of non-journalist news creators, and 
their audiences?

Sources:

Allcott, H. & Gentzkow, M. 2017. Social media and fake news in the 2016 
election. Journal of Economic Perspectives31, 211-235. DOI: 
10.1257/jep.31.2.211

Esser, F. & Umbricht, A. 2014. The Evolution of Objective and 
Interpretative Journalism in the Western Press. Comparing Six News 
Systems since the 1960s. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 91 
(2): 229-249.

Glasser, T. (Ed.). 1999. The Idea of Public Journalism. New York: 
Guilford Press.

Grossmann, M. 2018. Partisan Media and Political Distrust. Miami, FL: 
Knight Foundation.

Kantola, A. 2012. From gardeners to revolutionaries: the rise of the 
liquid ethos in political journalism. Journalism 14 (5): 606-626. DOI: 
10.1177/1464884912454504

Keen, A. 2007. The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday/Currency.

Levendusky, M. & Malhotra, N. 2016. Does media coverage of partisan 
polarization affect political attitudes? Polit Commun 33: 283-301.

LSE. 2018. Tackling the Information Crisis: A Policy Framework for Media 
System Resilience. The Report of the LSE Commission on Trust and 
Technology. London: LSE.

Newman, N., Arguedas, A.R., Mukherjee, M. & Fletcher, R. (2025) Mapping 
news creators and influencers in social and video networks. Reuters 
Institute, University of Oxford. DOI: 10.60625/risj-44pf-1k13 
<http://doi.org/10.60625/risj-44pf-1k13>

Palczewski, M. 2017. Fake news. A continuation or rejection of the 
traditional news paradigm? Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia 
Litteraria Polonica <https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/polonica/index>. 43 
(5): 23-34.

Parkinson, H.J. 2016. Click and Elect: How Fake News Helped Donald Trump 
Win a Real Election. Guardian.com. 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/14/fake-news-donald-trump-election- 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/14/fake-news-donald-trump-election->alt-right-social-media-tech-companies 
(11.08.2022.).

Schiffrin, A. (Ed.) 2017. In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the 
Treath to Democracy. Washington, DC: CIMA.

Silverman, C. & Singer-Vine, J. 2016. Most Americans Who See Fake News 
Believe It, New Survey Says. BuzzFeedNews. 
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/fake-news-survey 
<https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/fake-news-survey> 
(11.08.2022.).

Vozab, D. 2017. Pristrani i neprijateljski mediji te polarizacija u 
novom medijskom okolišu. Političke analize 8 (30): 3-9.

The conference aims to bring together an international mix of journalism 
and media scholars and practitioners to discuss the complexities, 
rewards, challenges and limitations of journalism as profession in the 
21^st century and its role in democracies. We are also committed to 
facilitating meaningful interactions between scholars, educators and 
media industry professionals, through a combination of traditional 
academic panels, seminars, workshops and exhibitions.

We welcome proposals on topics including but not limited to: 

- Journalistic freedom on the edge of survival

- Quality journalism and the value of accountable information – 
experiences from newsrooms

- Approaches in constructive and solution journalism

- The role of social media in shaping democratic majorities – the trend 
of news avoidance and the responsibility of journalists

  - Challenges in journalism education – professional knowledge and skills

-  Fragmented media audiences – how to engage citizens in quality journalism

- Virtual identities and democracy – with a special call for the panel 
Fictional Identities in Digital Space*


* Fictional Identities in Digital Space

As part of the Communication and Media Split 2026 conference, we invite 
you to a panel focused on the phenomenon of fictional and digitally 
constructed identities – avatars, aliases, and virtual characters 
without grounding in reality – that operate and communicate in the 
digital space.

These identities are becoming increasingly present in contemporary 
culture: from artificially created “persons” designed for entertainment, 
marketing, or art, to complex digital constructions that live their own 
“lives” online. They raise questions about the boundaries between the 
real and the virtual, the ways in which audiences communicate and 
identify with them, and the cultural, sociological, and other processes 
they initiate.

We invite all researchers interested in this topic to contribute to the 
discussion from the following perspectives:

-Communication studies – how these identities shape communication 
practices and standards in digital media.

-Cultural studies – which cultural values and processes are represented 
by fictional digital identities.

-Sociology – how audiences and communities respond to and identify with 
them.

-Economics – how fictional identities are monetized through the 
attention economy, new forms of digital labour, and business strategies 
related to virtual characters.

The panel is part of the institutional project Digital Identities, 
Virtual Masks – Communicational, Cultural, and Economic Aspects of 
Virtual Subject Representation (DIVIR), which focuses on examining 
virtual extensions of identity as constructions reflecting the 
possibilities and the risks of contemporary technology. These extensions 
condense the potential and limitations of today’s digital culture, 
resulting from certain strategies, spreading through innovative 
communication practices, and causing wide-ranging impact on culture, 
society, and the individual.

We welcome and encourage wide contribution from the academic community, 
practitioners, and all interested participants to join the discussion on 
this intriguing topic that reveals how digital media are redefining the 
very notions of identity and reality.

Selected papers will be published in special issue of Communication 
Papers, journal published at University of Girona 
https://communicationpapers.revistes.udg.edu/ 
<https://communicationpapers.revistes.udg.edu/>


Conference Program Committee

Viktorija Car, University of Split, Communication and Media Department, 
President

Nico Carpentier, Charles University, Institute of Communication Studies 
and Journalism, Prague, Czech Republic & Visiting Professor at Tallinn 
University, Baltic Film, Media and Arts School

Antonija Čuvalo, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Science

Jelena Jurišić, University of Split, Communication and Media Department

Nebojša Lujanović, University of Split, Communication and Media Department

Nicole Talmacs, University of Malta, Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences

Natalia Vedrić, Deakin University, Faculty of Arts and Education/School 
of Communication and Creative Arts

Conference Organizing Committee(University of Split, Communication and 
Media Department)

Viktorija Car, Antea Boko, Vanja Pavlov & Branka Šegvić

Please send an abstract of between 450 and 500 words, along with the 
title of your paper, a short biographical note (up to 200 words) in an 
email with the subject Communication and Media Days 2026, to the 
following address: (kim /at/ kim.unist.hr) <mailto:(kim /at/ kim.unist.hr)>

We welcome papers from both early-career researchers and established 
academics.  

Presentations will be limited to 15 minutes. 

Conference fee: 100 EUR (50 EUR for PhD students with the certificate of 
enrolment in a PhD study program)

Travel and accommodation expenses are to be covered by the participants. 

Please note the conference will be held in person not hybrid format.

Timeline:

Abstract submission deadline: 25 April 2026
Notification of acceptance: 5 May 2026

Registration deadline: 15 May 2026

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