[ecrea] Cfp: Workshop “Media Manipulation” | 29 June 2018 | Cambridge, UK

Call for papers: Workshop “Media manipulation: ideologies of influence 
and political economies of intervention in a digital world”

29 June 2018 | Cambridge, UK

The StoryLab Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University and the 
ERC-funded Project “Situating Free Speech: European Parrhesia in 
Comparative Perspective” at the Department of Social Anthropology, 
University of Cambridge, invite paper submissions for a workshop on the 
topic of “media manipulation”.

Manipulation — of attention, opinion, action — has been a salient 
concern in the recent Euro-American takes on digital media and their 
role in politics. While the question of media and power is by no means 
new, our workshop aims to critically engage recent concerns with 
manipulation through an empirically informed discussion of ideologies 
and political economies of mediated influence. Our goal is to situate 
manipulation — as an idea, practice, and analytical perspective on 
social relations — by bringing together empirically and theoretically 
minded papers that explore the relationship between media and social 
influence in diverse geographical and historical contexts — both in and 
beyond Western liberal democracies. We propose to organise the workshop 
around two foci: vernacular ideologies of mediated influence and 
political economies of manipulative interventions.

The focus on ideologies brings to attention how people imagine agents, 
objects, media and mechanisms of manipulation as well as how they 
incorporate them into narratives of influence or indeed into political 
projects of manipulation. What cultural assumptions about agency and 
autonomy, freedom and constraint, causation and responsibility inform 
understandings of manipulation? How do cultural ideas of action frame 
manipulation as practice; what technologies of control do they inform? 
And what forms does manipulation take in response to these vernacular 
ideologies in the context of political orders other than contemporary 
liberal democracies?

The focus on political economies brings attention to the view of power 
as manipulation. How is manipulation, as an expertise of power, arranged 
and mediated in technological, cultural, and social settings? Who 
manipulates and by what means? What modes of manipulation do specific 
media technologies afford? How is manipulation articulated in relation 
to digital media practices, as well as broader grammars of influence, 
which inform political orders other than liberal democracy, for 
instance, in Russia or China? Please find a google document version of 
the call 
here:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aGaiClfBwwKzf0A3hU1BAswH8m32Jyrz.

We invite contributions from across the social sciences and humanities 
and encourage presentations that feature work-in-progress. Participants 
will be expected to give a 15-20 min presentation, followed by an 
extensive discussion. Papers will not be pre-circulated.

To apply, please send a Word or PDF document containing your name, 
institutional affiliation, email address, the proposed title of your 
paper and an abstract (max 300 words) to Taras Fedirko ((tf338 /at/ cam.ac.uk)) 
and Samuel Lengen ((samuel.lengen /at/ anglia.ac.uk)) by 2 May. We will inform 
applicants by 10 May.

We have some funding available and will do our best to cover travel 
costs and accommodation. Our allocation of financial support will 
prioritise graduate students and precariously employed colleagues.

This is an open event. If you wish to attend, please register 
here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/media-manipulation-ideologies-of-influence-and-political-economies-of-intervention-in-a-digital-tickets-45026581718. 
There is no participation fee, free lunch is included.

Convenors:
Dr Samuel Lengen, StoryLab Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Dr Taras Fedirko, Department of Social Anthropology, University of 
Cambridge

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