[Commlist] CFP Eyewitness Textures: User Generated Content & News Coverage in the 21st Century

*Call for Papers: *

**

*Eyewitness Textures: 
<https://symposiumamateurvideojournalism.wordpress.com/>****User 
Generated Content & News Coverage in the 21^st Century 
<https://symposiumamateurvideojournalism.wordpress.com/>***

**

*CFP Extended Deadline*: January 30, 2019

May 23-24, 2019, MacEwan University (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)

Among the many changes introduced by new media technologies to news 
practices, the growing utilization of User Generated Content (UGC) is 
one of the most challenging. Members of the public are capturing 
dramatic events around the world and then sharing them, not only on 
social media platforms, but with professional news media organizations 
which are eagerly incorporating posts, tweets and images into 
professionally produced news stories. The presence of amateur content in 
news discourses is a growing phenomenon that is reshaping the profession 
of journalism, news coverage and public expectations.

The issues raised by these practices often involve tensions between 
labour precarity and professionalism, entertainment and evidence, 
centralized and decentralized management of news rooms, traditional and 
emerging forms of social media news narratives, truth and immediacy.

The symposium <https://symposiumamateurvideojournalism.wordpress.com/> 
will bring together scholars and practitioners to share ideas and 
experiences in connection with the utilization of UGC in professional 
news coverage.

Keynote Speakers

The *keynote speaker on May 23 *will be *Dr. Lilie Chouliaraki*, 
Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics 
and Political Science. Her main research interest lies in the histories 
and challenges of mediated suffering. She is the recipient of three 
international awards for her publications, more recently the Outstanding 
Book of the Year award of the International Communication Association 
(ICA 2015, for ‘The Ironic Spectator’). Dr. Chouliaraki’s work has 
focused on three domains in which the human body-in-need appears as a 
problem of communication: i)  disaster news, ii) humanitarian campaigns 
& celebrity advocacy, iii) war & conflict reporting. She has published 
extensively on how digital platforms and genres (twitter, mobile phone 
footage, selfies) are fundamentally changing conflict reporting and the 
witnessing of war today. Her book on the topic, entitled ‘Witnesisng 
without responsibility. Digital testimonies from conflict zones’ is 
forthcoming in Columbia University Press. Her work has been published in 
French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Danish, Greek and (currently) in 
Chinese.

The *keynote speaker on May 24* will be *Dr. Mette Mortensen,* Associate 
Professor of media studies at the University of Copenhagen and a CARGC 
Faculty Fellow at the Annenberg School of Communication.

She is the Principal Investigator of the large, collective research 
project “Images of Conflict, Conflicting Images” (2017-2021). She is the 
author or editor of seven books, including the monograph /Eyewitness 
Images and Journalism: Digital Media, Participation, and Conflict/ 
(Routledge 2015). She has published articles in international journals 
such as /Journalism Practice/, /Information, Communication & Society/, 
/Media, Culture & Society/, and /International Journal of Cultural 
Studies. /Moreover, she is a member of the editorial collective of 
/Northern Lights: Yearbook of Film and Media Studies /and serves on 
several editorial boards of book series.

Invited Participants

Among the invited talks will be presentations from Derek Thomson, 
Editor-in-Chief of the Observer Program from *France24*; Padraic Ryan, 
Senior Journalist, *Storyful*; Derek Bowler, Head of Social 
Newsgathering, *Eurovision News Exchange*; Paul Moore, Executive 
Producer of News, *CBC Edmonton*; and Natalie Miller, Assistant Editor 
at the *BBC* *UGC Hub*.

Call for Papers

We invite scholars to submit abstracts exploring one or more of the 
following themes:

   1.   How is the use of UGC reorganizing professional practices?

   * User generated content and professionalism in news rooms
   * Role and significance of verification in news production
   * The problems of fake news when working with UGC
   * The growing shift of UGC onto private networks: threats and
     opportunities
   * The challenge and opportunities of new technologies for professional
     news rooms

2.   How is UGC transforming labour practices among journalists and the 
structural organization of news media?

   * Changing labour practices in the newsroom
   * Changing structures, staffing and organization of news desks
   * Organizational changes and emerging business models
   * Emerging forms of produsers and precarious labour
   * Professional labour /vis-à-vis/ labour of love

3.   How is UGC influencing the construction of meaning in news coverage?

   * The impact of user produced content on the form and aesthetic of
     visual news
   * Role of contextualization in UGC verification services
   * The influence of non-professional producers on news narratives,
     framing and agendas
4.   What are emerging themes and tensions in non-professional practices 
of production?

   * Emerging motivations for creating UGC news content
   * Emerging practices and conventions for UGC production
   * Precarity and risk in UGC production
5.   What are the theoretical, methodological and historical 
considerations helping to understand and explain the growing use of UGC 
in professional news coverage?

**Other topics related to the above themes are welcome.

A selection of papers from the Symposium will be invited to participate 
in an edited collection published by a university press.

*Deadline*: Abstracts (300-500 words, including references) should be 
emailed to the convenors by *Jan 30, 2019 *clearly identified by “UGC 
2019” in the subject line. Email: *(UGC2019Conf /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(UGC2019Conf /at/ gmail.com)>*

**

*Conference fees: $75 (CDN). *This includes lunch on May 24, a cocktail 
/ dinatoire reception after the Keynote Talks, and coffee / pastries 
during breaks.

_ACCOMMODATIONS_: Rooms have been reserved with campus housing ranging 
from $79 (Summer Suite) to $129 (Boutique Hotel Room). For more 
information contact Guest Accommodation Services 
<https://www.macewan.ca/wcm/CampusServices/GuestAccommodationServices/GuestRooms/index.htm> 
directly.

For more information, got to the symposium website 
<https://symposiumamateurvideojournalism.wordpress.com/> or contact 
Michael Lithgow at: (UGC2019Conf /at/ gmail.com)

Symposium Committee:

Dr. Michael Lithgow, Assistant Professor, Athabasca University 
(Edmonton, Canada)

Dr. Michèle Martin, Professor Emerita, Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada)

Dr. Arnaud Mercier, Professeur, Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris, France)

Dr. Lucille Mazo, Professor, McKewan University (Edmonton, Canada)



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