[Commlist] CFP: / International Scientific Colloquium Journalism and platforms : Information, infomediation and fake news *

*CALL FOR PAPERS: /International Scientific Colloquium Journalism and 
platforms : Information, infomediation and fake news*

https://ejcam.univ-amu.fr/fr/news/4407/colloque-international-journalisme-plateformes-2-information-infomediation-fake-news

**

*Title:* International Scientific Colloquium Journalism and platforms : 
Information, infomediation and fake news


*Special issue editors*:


Amiel Pauline (IMSIC, Aix Marseille Université)

Bousquet Franck (Lerass, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3)

Cabrolié Stéphane (IMSIC, Aix Marseille Université)

Graves Lucas (University of Wisconsin – Madison)

Grevisse Benoît (MiiL, UC Louvain)

Jeanne-Perrier Valérie (GRIPIC, Paris Sorbonne)

Jenkins Joy (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University 
of Oxford)

Joux Alexandre (IMSIC, Aix Marseille Université)

Mercier Arnaud (CARISM, Université Paris 2)

Pignard-Cheynel Nathalie (Université de Neuchatel)

Sebbah Brigitte (Lerass, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3)

Smyrnaios Nikos (Lerass, Université Paul Sabatier – Toulouse 3)

Vovou Ioanna (ICCA Sorbonne Nouvelle, Université Panteion, Athens)


*Deadline for manuscripts*: June 19th 2020


Infomediation platforms (Smyrnaios, Rebillard, 2019) have become the 
dominant force of a ‘reintermediation’ of information online by 
organising a large variety of contents and making them available to 
internet users. Information from journalists, which we would qualify 
here as news, finds itself subject to exogenous imperatives which finish 
by influencing editorial decisions on information medias (Bell, Owen, 
2017). This ‘platformisation’ of information online has coincided with 
an acceleration of the circulation of non-journalistic information 
besides/news/, from satire to disinformation, which increases the offer 
of contents proposed to internet users. In this open environment where 
journalistic productions, disinformation, click traps, infotainment and 
satire live together, journalism needs to rethink itself.


The aim of this conference is to explore new journalistic practices in 
relation to “fake news” at the heart of environments dominated by 
platforms. By “fake news”, and because the polysemy of the term has 
sometimes contributed to its instrumentalisation, we mean more precisely 
‘information problems’ (Wardle, Derakhsan, 2019) in all their diversity.


As such, the conference will consider the question of fact-checking//and 
the way it has been repositioned by criticising “fake news” (Bigot, 
2019). Fact-checking has been called upon during electoral campaigns and 
is becoming increasingly part of a close relationship of collaboration 
and dependence between editors and web platforms which should be brought 
into question (Smyrnaios, Chauvet, Marty, 2017; Alloing, Vanderbiest, 
2018). Over and above the current political situation, “fake news”//on 
the subjects of health, the environment and even clickbait presenting 
false promises and strange revelations, questions the expert status of 
specialist journalists as well as other concerned parties.


*Research Questions*

  * At the information source: media education in the face of the platforms
  * Fighting against “fake news”, a reaffirmation of journalism?
  * Political journalism and health journalism: the challenge of “fake
    news”//to specialised journalists
  * Reception of false information and platforms: a reinforcement of
    cognitive biais?


At the information source : media education in the face of the platforms

**

“I saw it on/Facebook”/. This unequivocal statement from/Reuters 
Institute///(Kalogeropoulos, Newman, 2017) demonstrates the way digital 
environments have changed our relationship to information. The 
intermediary, in this case/Facebook/, is more powerful than traditional 
media as a source of memorised information, opening the door wide to 
“fake news”//by rendering the different sources of information 
interchangeable. This deconstruction//of the source, which journalists 
call upon and confront, which media use as a reliable source of 
information is renewing the historic inspiration of media studies. The 
necessity of a pedagogical attention to source, the one which we often 
consult via the intermediary of web platforms, overlaps on to 
understanding the logic of information production. The platforms also 
present themselves pedagogically when they contribute to highlighting 
the wheat and the chaff in all the content they host (Joux, 2018). 
However they are both advocates and judges, which explains why media 
studies is increasingly transforming into education on web platforms. 
What are the stakes created by the erasure of the source in the 
ecosystems where the platforms are dominating? What are the new 
relationships between information source and information as a source? 
What are the challenges for media studies?


Fighting against “fake news”, a reaffirmation of journalism?


Fact-checking has been experiencing an important development in 
publishing since the 2000’s (Bigot, 2017). The increased visibility of 
“fake news”//has given it a new role since the beginning of the 2010’s. 
While dressing itself up as a social mission with obvious uses, 
fact-checking has restated the importance of journalism in producing 
news information in the public sphere. It has also criticised the 
illusion that anyone can be a journalist which the ease of internet 
sharing may have led us to hope for (Mathien, 2010). This reaffirmation 
of specific journalistic savoir-faire is supported differently by the 
platforms./Facebook/, as well/Google///(through the/CrossCheck/project), 
finances publishing to check certain contents, which circulate in their 
ecosystem. However, this recognition of fact-checking//by the platforms 
can be considered as ambivalent. If it relies on the education of 
internet users thanks to the visibility of journalistic work, it also 
corresponds to the imposition of priorities financed by the platforms in 
publishing. We propose to question these major themes here, 
fact-checking and its ambitions for journalism as well as the economic 
and editorial relationships between the platforms and newsrooms. 
Political journalism and health journalism: the challenge of “fake 
news”//to specialised journalists

**

Representing a ‘serious symptom of political breakdown’ (Mercier, 2018), 
the contemporary unfurling of “fake news” is being fed by a growing 
defiance to the position of the ‘knowledgeable’ elite which journalists 
belong to, whether they are ‘general’ or ‘specialist’. In two key 
information areas – politics and health-, areas which are connected to 
major collective stakes, the question of the transformation/adaptation 
of journalists’ professional practices is particularly important. Faced 
with this menace, is it sufficient to generalise the practices of 
fact-checking//and to correct certain problematic practices (hurried 
treatments, insufficient verification, incomplete scientific 
acculturation, …) to restore a curtailed legitimacy? Is turning the 
discursive weapons employed by ‘post-truth’ (Dieguez, 2018) against it 
the best way to renew the codes and modes of expression of specialised 
journalism? Is it enough to remove the “barriers” to the exercise of the 
profession and organise it in a network (Bassoni, 2015), leaning now on 
the practices of all the parties concerned by the containment of “fake 
news”//(in this case, in health, the health authorities, scientists, 
carers, patients and “digital opinion leaders”)?

//

Reception of false information and platforms: a reinforcement of 
cognitive bias?

**

If the proliferation of/fake news/is linked to the technical and 
economic conditions of information circulation, it also relies on 
cognitive domains which do not always promote the truth and forms of 
reception attached to plural contexts. Recognised cognitive biases 
frequently lead individuals to select and believe false information to 
encourage consensus within a group (Festinger, 1954) or through an 
economy of means (Kahneman, 2011). Social illusionism and the illusion 
of truth can thus favour the propagation of false information (Huguet, 
2018). Indeed, individuals perceive “fake-news”//as one of the elements 
of the globally degraded universe of information, including forms of 
propaganda or mediocre journalism (Nielsen et Graves, 2017). Here, the 
public’s perception of “fake news”//is the combination of the interests 
of certain medias which publish it, politicians who contribute to it and 
the platforms who allow it to be distributed. What are the 
characteristics of the public’s reception of “fake news”? What type of 
individual or collective sources does “fake news” call upon? How far can 
platforms and their business models reinforce the cognitive biases 
associated to “fake news”? These questions will be approached by 
considering the modalities of the public’s//reception of “fake 
news”//through their permanence or, on the contrary, their variation 
according to contexts.



How to submit

Propositions should be 6000 characters and include a short biography. 
They will indicate which research theme they are most appropriate to. 
Descriptions of the field of study/corpus and the research methodology 
are expected.

Propositions should be sent to the following address:(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr) 
<mailto:(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr)>The deadline is June 19th 2020

Propositions will be double blind evaluated, replies will be sent out 
during September 2020.




*Contact : *

(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr) <mailto:(jep2021 /at/ outlook.fr)>

Stephanie Lukasik for organization team
(stephanie.lukasik /at/ univ-amu.fr)





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