[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
[Commlist] CFP Special Collection for the Communication and Media Section of Global Perspectives on “Trust and Digital Platforms”
Wed Aug 14 12:10:57 GMT 2019
*Call for papers*
Special Collection for the Communication and Media Section of /Global
Perspectives/ on “Trust and Digital Platforms”
*Estimated Timeline*
1 December 2019 - 500-word abstracts
* Please submit abstracts to Terry Flew ((t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)
<mailto:(t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)>) and Sora Park ((sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)
<mailto:(sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)>)
1 February 2020 - notification of invitation to submit full papers
(6000-8000 words)
1 August 2020 - submission of full papers
1 December 2020 - review process complete
1 May 2021 - publication of articles
*Trust and Digital Platforms*
As online activities and experiences are increasingly mediated through
digital platforms, a series of scandals and ‘public shocks’ (Ananny &
Gillespie, 2017)have raised concerns about privacy and security, the
misuse of user data, algorithmic biases, and the public distribution of
objectionable and sometimes abhorrent content through the internet
(Flew, Martin, & Suzor, 2019). Legislators and regulators in many
countries are now engaged in public enquiries and the development of new
laws to apply public interest standards to digital platforms, as First
Amendment arguments about freedom of online expression and claims that
the platforms are simply intermediaries are increasingly under challenge
(Napoli, 2019).
This special issue proposes to view such questions from the perspective
of trust. International surveys have documented a decline in trust in
social, political institutions over time, including rising distrust of
the media (Edelman, 2019). Manifestations of declining public trust are
variously seen in the rise of populist political movements (Norris &
Ingelhart, 2019), concerns about ‘fake news’ and ‘deepfakes’ (Allcott &
Gentzkow, 2017), and scandals surrounding leading public institutions,
from financial institutions and digital platform companies to political
parties and religious organizations. Trust is a multifaceted concept,
and important contributions have been made to the field from philosophy,
political science, sociology and economics, as well as communication and
media studies. To take one example, the concept of a public sphere rests
upon an underlying degree of trust in journalists and the organizations
involved in the production and distribution of news and information
(Coleman, 2012).
Amidst talk about whether the concerns about the power of digital
platforms and ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff, 2019)points towards
‘the end of trust’(McSweeney’s, 2019), this special issue poses
questions such as:
·Do communication scholars have original insights into questions of
trust, and how can they draw upon other fields of scholarship around
trust issues?
·Is trust or distrust a concept that is empirically measurable? Are
there lessons from earlier ‘social capital’ debates about how to
understand relations of trust, and what is the relationship of digital
technologies to trust issues?
·Can government regulation address the power of digital platforms and
contribute to better relations of trust between platform users and
providers? What lessons can be learnt from laws passed in other
jurisdictions (e.g. European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation,
Germany’s Online Hate Speech laws, Singapore’s anti-Fake News laws)?
·Does the global and decentralized nature of such platforms necessitate
that the lead be taken by non-governmental organizations, or that the
solutions will be essentially technological in nature (e.g. a
combination of blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies)?
·Is regulation of digital platforms best understood as being within the
remit of communications policies, or are the most appropriate measures
primarily related to economic policies, such as anti-trust and consumer
protection laws, or by regarding digital platforms as ‘information
fiduciaries’ (Balkin, 2018; Dobkin, 2018)?
*References:*
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the
2016 Election. /Journal of Economic Perspectives/, /31/(2), 211–236.
Ananny, M., & Gillespie, T. (2017). Public platforms: Beyond the cycle
of shocks and exceptions. /Interventions: Communication Research and
Practice/. Presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International
Communications Association, San Diego, CA.
Balkin, J. (2018). Free Speech is a Triangle. /Columbia Law Review/,
/118/, 2011–2055.
Coleman, S. (2012). Believing the News: From sinking trust to atrophied
efficacy. /European Journal of Communication/, /27/(1), 35–45.
Dobkin, A. (2018). Information Fiduciaries in Practice: Data Privacy and
User Expectations,. /Berkeley Technology Law Journal/, (33).
Edelman. (2019). /2019 Edelman Trust Barometer/. Retrieved from
https://www.edelman.com/trust-barometer
Flew, T., Martin, F., & Suzor, N. P. (2019). Internet Regulation as
Media Policy: Rethinking the question of digital communication platform
governance. /Journal of Digital Media and Policy/, /10/(1), 33–50.
McSweeney’s. (2019). /The End of Trust/. San Francisco: McSweeney’s.
Napoli, P. (2019). What If More Speech Is No Longer the Solution? First
Amendment Theory Meets Fake News and the Filter Bubble. /Federal
Communications Law Journal/, /70/(1), 57–104.
Norris, P., & Ingelhart, R. (2019). /Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit,
and Authoritarian Populism/. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zuboff, S. (2019). /The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a
Human Future at the New Frontier of Power/. New York: Hachette.
**
*Practicalities*
Please submit a 500-word abstract to Terry Flew ((t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)
<mailto:(t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)>) and Sora Park ((sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)
<mailto:(sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)>) before 1 December 2019.
The special collection will be published as part of the Communication
and Media Section of the /Global Perspectives/ journal. The special
issue will publish full paper submissions of 6,000-8,000 words.
Publication guidelines can be found here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PVInPIfIhzuBvZ2o_DoFG4Jf6FI3UaeXiEnzzLf-gPc/edit>.
*About the journal*
/Global Perspectives/(GP) is an online-only, peer-reviewed,
transdisciplinary journal seeking to advance social science research and
debates in a globalizing world, specifically in terms of concepts,
theories, methodologies, and evidence bases. Work published in the
journal is enriched by invited perspectives, through scholarly
annotations, that enhance its global and interdisciplinary implications.
GP is devoted to the study of global patterns and developments across a
wide range of topics and fields, among them trade and markets, security
and sustainability, communication and media, justice and law, governance
and regulation, culture and value systems, identities, environmental
interfaces, technology-society interfaces, shifting geographies and
migration.
GP sets out to help overcome national and disciplinary fragmentation and
isolation. GP starts from the premise that the world that gave rise to
the social sciences in their present form is no more. The national and
disciplinary approaches that developed over the last century are
increasingly insufficient to capture the complexities of the global
realities of a world that has changed significantly in a relatively
short period of time. New concepts, approaches and forms of academic
discourse may be called for.
*About the Communication and Media Section of /Global Perspectives /*
Section Editor: Payal Arora, Erasmus University Rotterdam
The ‘global turn’ in communications, advances in mobile technologies and
the rise of digital social networks are changing the world´s media
landscapes, creating complex disjunctures between economy, culture, and
society at local, national, and transnational levels. The role of
traditional mass media - print, radio and television - is changing as
well. In many cases, traditional journalism is declining, while that of
user-generated content by bloggers, podcasters, and digital activists is
gaining currency worldwide, as is the impact of robotics and artificial
intelligence on communication systems. Today, researchers find
themselves at important junctures in their inquiries that require
innovations in concepts, frameworks, methodologies and empirics. /Global
Perspectives/ aims to be a forum for scholars from across multiple
disciplines and fields, and the Communication and Media Section invites
submissions on cutting-edge research on changing media and communication
systems globally.
---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------
[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
