[Commlist] CFP: Infrastructures and Inequalities Conference

Infrastructures and Inequalities: Media industries, digital cultures and 
politics

Call for Papers ECREA Mid-Year Section Conference

21-22 October 2019, University of Helsinki, Finland


Joint Conference of three ECREA Sections:
Communication and Democracy; Digital Culture and Communication; and 
Media Industries and Cultural Production

Abstract Deadline 1 June 2019

Confirmed keynote speakers:

  *

    Lisa Parks, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  *

    Kaarina Nikunen, University of Tampere

In a turn to ‘infrastructuralism’ (Peters 2015), media and communication 
scholars are increasingly attentive to the materialities and politics of 
the technological, organisational and cultural infrastructures that 
underpin media today. Platforms, data centres, software, but also new 
forms of organising cultural production and labour, shape the politics 
of digital cultures and transform the media industries. Digital and 
media infrastructures have become elemental to everyday life. They are 
significant in reproducing existing social and cultural inequalities, as 
well as creating new power struggles. As digital/media infrastructures 
unfold in everyday life, they bring challenges across multiple domains, 
from the foundations of social justice to the industrial structures 
underpinning our everyday interactions with media and communication 
systems. This conference aims to address the politics and inequalities 
that emerge, as technological and media industries adopt, dismantle and 
transform infrastructures to channel and process communication flows. 
Media infrastructures (broadly) operate under different and uneven 
conditions that configure media labour, media production, and the 
politics of communication and access (Starosielski and Parks 2015). This 
conference seeks to examine digital/media infrastructures and 
inequalities from an inter- and multi-disciplinary perspective, inviting 
papers to interrogate the significance of the ‘infrastructural turn’ in 
media and communication studies to our understanding of media 
industries, democracy and digital cultures.

During this joint-ECREA section conference, we aim to engage with 
questions concerning inequalities and the infrastructures of digital 
culture, media industries and (digital) democracy through addressing 
topics such as (but not limited to):


  *

    The value, significance and relevance of infrastructure studies to
    media industry studies, the study of media and democracy, as well as
    digital culture

  *

    The industries and labour that operate and control specific
    technological media infrastructures, such as data centres, cloud
    computing, cable/satellite networks, content delivery networks

  *

    The politics and power dynamics of digital/media infrastructures

  *

    The significance of digital/media infrastructures in everyday life,
    especially related to the reproduction of social inequalities

  *

    The impact of digital/media infrastructures on culture, society,
    politics and democracy

  *

    The impact of digital/media infrastructures on media labour and
    cultural production

  *

    The organisational and cultural infrastructures of the media industries

  *

    Experiences and affective relationships that emerge in connection
    with media infrastructures

  *

    Forms of logistical media

  *

    Temporalities of media infrastructures

  *

    Emerging questions for the foundations of social justice in the
    digital media infrastructural turn


Submission details

Please submit a 300-word abstract for individual proposals.

Panel proposals should include a 300-word panel rationale plus 
individual 200 word abstracts from a minimum of four speakers.

All abstracts for individual as well as panel proposals should be 
submitted through EasyChair:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=infrastructuresandin


Deadline for submission is 1 June 2019. Notifications of acceptance will 
be issued by 30 June 2019.


Registration and Fees

Early bird registration €100 (until 12th August)

Early bird reduced student fee €50 (until 12 August)

Full fees €120  (to be paid until the 15th of September)

Reduced student fee €60 (to be paid until the 15th of September)


For more information and enquiries, contact:

Julia Velkova, University of Helsinki at (julia.velkova /at/ helsinki.fi)

Anne Kaun, Södertörn University at (anne.kaun /at/ sh.se)

Sander de Rieder, University of Ghent at (sander.deridder /at/ ugent.be)


Or consult the conference website:
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/infrastructures-and-inequalities

Scientific Committee:


Ysabel Gerrard, University of Sheffield

Catherine Johnson, University of Huddersfield

Ana Jorge, Research Centre for Communication and Culture, Universidade 
Católica Portuguesa

Anne Kaun, Södertörn University

Maria Michalis, University of Westminster

Christina Neumayer, IT-University of Copenhagen

Sander de Rieder, University of Ghent

Emiliano Treré, University of Cardiff

Julia Velkova, Consumer Society Research Centre, University of Helsinki


---------------
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
---------------