[Commlist] Call for papers: ECREA Communication History Section Workshop, Luxembourg 2022

Call for Papers – ECREA Communication History Section Workshop, 
Luxembourg 2022

Text:

Luxembourg, 2-4 February 2022//

Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C^2 DH), University of 
Luxembourg **

*A ECREA Communication History Section Workshop, co-sponsored by the ICA 
Communication History Division*

**

*History of Digital Media and Digital Media Historiography*

**

The digital turn has had a transformative effect on all media, and it 
has also influenced the way in which media and communication history is 
shaped, written and disseminated.

First, it has had an impact in terms of devices, distribution, 
production and content, as well as access and participation. Looking at 
these changes with the lenses of history is beneficial, because it helps 
contextualizing “revolutions” and continuities with the past. 
Consequently, the history of digital media can be seen as a new label 
for media histories related to digital politics, economics, technologies 
and cultures shaped by digitalisation. But it also deals with analogue 
media which have been digitised or have resisted digitisation is a new 
and relevant field.

But at the same time, the digital turn is also affecting the shaping of 
media and communication history in various ways. It has changed the way 
in which media historians work at several levels, from access to sources 
and the creation of corpora based on digitised press outlets to 
audiovisual databases and web archives containing online press coverage, 
social media posts, tweets from journalists, etc. Moreover, the impact 
can also be seen in the tools scholars use to research and write media 
history, which often now rely on computational methods (network 
analysis, sentiment analysis, text mining, etc.) or new forms of 
storytelling.

For this workshop, the ECREA Communication History Section is therefore 
calling for scholarly presentations that shed light on changes and 
continuities in the process of digitalisation, both now and in the past, 
or that explore historical practices, with the aim of providing a new 
perspective on media and communication studies and historiography in the 
digital age.

The goal is to improve our understanding of the transition to digital 
technologies in various media (e.g. computerisation in media devices, 
digital production and practices, hybrid broadcasting or online 
switching), the overlaps between analogue and digital and the various 
issues raised by this transition, and the challenges, patterns, 
adaptations and controversies that have emerged during the process.

The legacies of analogue and past models in current digital practices 
are also crucial if we are to understand the media response to the 
emergence of digitalisation. Proposals that explore the co-shaping of 
technological, economic and cultural changes and their influence on 
media professions, users and audiences are also very welcome.

The way in which these changes have affected and transformed the work of 
media and communication historians is also a central theme of the 
workshop. We will also explore the way in which media and communication 
historiography has adapted, integrated, questioned and analysed media 
history in recent decades as a result of digital technologies, whether 
digitised or born-digital sources, databases, the “data deluge”, 
computational methods and new digital narratives. The workshop therefore 
aims to assemble a broad portfolio of perspectives on the topic covering 
a variety of historical periods, national or supranational settings and 
media stakeholders. We are interested in research that addresses the 
full scope of media and communication history from the advent of 
printing to the digital age.

More specifically, this ECREA Communication History Section Workshop 
will be open to papers dealing with:

– *From analogue to digital (or /vice versa/).* We are interested in 
studies of how the advent of new technologies played out in various 
media, settings, companies and countries, and what technological, 
commercial and temporal strategies, as well as cultural tendencies, may 
be revealed by the digitalisation of media and society. Are there 
patterns in specific media, spaces and timeframes? Have media 
contributed to the digitalisation of societies? How have media organised 
their transition from analogue to digital and redefined their content, 
audience, business models, etc.? Why and how in a digital society there 
is a trend called the “return of the analogue”?

– *Reconfigurations or persistence of media practices because of digital 
technologies.* Focusing on professionals and their media practices, on 
professions (e.g. the production of printed press, TV news bulletins, 
fake news, entertainment, etc.) as well as on audiences and 
participation, this topic aims to study the development of media 
production and consumption in the digital age. How do digital media 
reach out to their audience? How do they mobilise, inform, stimulate and 
interact with the public? What is the place and role of amateur 
practices? Have participation and bottom-up innovations increased? Which 
are the most evident and surprising persistent practices in media audiences?

– *Temporalities of media through digital technologies.* We are 
interested in research that highlights the complex temporalities of 
media in the digital age, including issues related to programming and 
broadcasting schedules, replay services, remixing and other forms of 
media reuse, presentism and updatism in media practices or maintenance 
and preservation of media devices and content.

– *Persistence and discontinuities in communication*. What remains from 
the analogue era in the digital age of media? Is a binary opposition 
between old media becoming digital and purely digital players relevant 
or is the reality much more complex? What are the legacies? What 
disruptions have occurred (in business models, structures of programmes, 
etc.)? Nostalgia for analogue and early digital media is also a topic of 
interest for our workshop – this echoes the question of legacies.

– *Conceptual media and communication histories.*How can current 
theoretical and conceptual approaches be transferred to past 
scenarios? Is research into digital media useful for generating new 
insights into past media and analogue media? Conversely, are past 
theoretical and conceptual approaches still relevant for analysing 
digital media? How might research on digital media give rise to new 
interests, concepts and approaches that may also provide us with a new 
perspective on past media and the avenues that media have taken?

*– Digital sources, new practices, tools and narratives in media 
history. *How do digitised sources reshape access, analysis, media 
corpora and communication for historians? How do they influence 
historians’ research questions and methods? The way in which media and 
communication historians deal with digitised sources and organise their 
sources, the tools they use and the way in which these tools change 
their work, the innovative forms of storytelling they may develop and 
the need for a “digital media hermeneutics” and critical data literacy 
are central to this session. We aim to get abstracts focusing on 
questions like seriality, authenticity, qualitative and quantitative 
approaches, preservation of and access to sources and corpora, and many 
other issues at the intersection of media history, computational methods 
and digital humanities.

*Our confirmed keynote speakers for this workshop are: *

·Claude Mussou (National Audiovisual Institute (INA), France) on the 
INA’s digitized and “augmented” archive

·Niels Brügger (Aarhus University, Denmark) on Media Events: Dayan & 
Katz Revisited in the Light of Digital Media

*Special hands-on sessions and training***

The local host (C^2 DH) will also organise some hands-on sessions 
related to digital tools and methods during the workshop, on topics such 
as digitised press, text mining, born-digital heritage, network 
analysis, etc. **

*Abstracts of 500 words*proposing empirical case studies as well as 
theoretical or methodological contributions should be submitted by *30 
September 2021*. Proposals for full panels (comprising 4 or 5 papers) 
are also welcome: these should include a 250-word abstract for each 
individual presentation and a 300-word rationale for the panel. 
Abstracts should be sent to: (valerie.schafer /at/ uni.lu) 
<mailto:(valerie.schafer /at/ uni.lu)>. Authors will be informed regarding 
acceptance/rejection for the conference no later than *31 October 2021*.

Early career scholars are highly encouraged to submit their work. Please 
indicate if the research submitted is part of your thesis or 
dissertation project.

The conference registration fee (for onsite conference) will be €150 
(€100 for PhD and Master’s students) and participants will be asked to 
cover their own travel expenses. This fee includes two lunches and one 
conference dinner (on 2 February 2022). Depending on the development of 
the pandemic, the workshop might be moved online, but the goal of ECREA 
Communication History Section is to have it in presence. A final 
decision will be communicated to participants when they will be informed 
about their acceptance no later than 31 October 2021.

Local organisers: Valérie Schafer and Carmen Noguera, C^2 DH, University 
of Luxembourg, (valerie.schafer /at/ uni.lu) <mailto:(valerie.schafer /at/ uni.lu)>

ECREA Communication History Section management team: Gabriele 
Balbi, Institute of Media and Journalism, USI Università della Svizzera 
italiana (Switzerland), (gabriele.balbi /at/ usi.ch) 
<mailto:(gabriele.balbi /at/ usi.ch)>__

The workshop is co-sponsored by the ICA Communication History Division.


We are looking forward to welcoming you. The call for papers is also 
available at : 
https://ecreahistorysection.com/2021/06/29/call-for-papers-ecrea-communication-history-section-workshop-luxembourg-2022/ 
<https://ecreahistorysection.com/2021/06/29/call-for-papers-ecrea-communication-history-section-workshop-luxembourg-2022/>


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