[Commlist] Call for papers: Histories of digital journalism

Call for Papers
HISTORIES OF DIGITAL JOURNALISM
A conference exploring the intersections of history, culture, digital 
technology and journalism

Budapest, Hungary: 24–25 June 2022

*Keynote Speakers*
Mark Deuze (University of Amsterdam)
Laura Ahva (Tampere University)

Although the shared past of digitization and journalism stretches back 
at least to a half-century, digital journalism history is a field still 
in formation. Building on the momentum of the recent ‘historical turn’ 
in digital media and internet studies, the aim of the conference is to 
bring together an interdisciplinary network of scholars to interrogate 
digital journalism histories and to start a global critical exchange on 
various approaches to and aspects of historicising digital journalism.

As digital journalism has been re-configured by socio-historical 
contradictions of communication and complexities of its technological 
innovations, journalism scholarship should continuously strive for 
enhancing critical exchange to advance studies that intersect with 
numerous disciplines, theoretical approaches and methodological 
traditions. Emphasis of the conference is on the plurality of histories 
instead of one single digital journalism history, acknowledging 
diachronic as well as synchronic complexities of social relations, 
political contingencies, cultural traditions and power configurations 
between journalism and digitisation. Instead of enforcing one great 
master narrative, the conference aims to offer a space to embrace the 
co-existence of parallel, sometimes complementing, often conflicting 
historical investigations and narratives.

By aiming to explore the intersections of history, culture, digital 
technology and journalism, the conference welcomes papers and panels 
that are grounded on diachronic or synchronic explorations of digital 
journalism ‘pasts’, while elaborating the relevance of its historical 
findings for digital journalism ‘futures’. The conference invites 
theoretical and methodological reflections on historicising digital 
journalism as well as original single case studies or comparative 
inquiries into the phenomena from the decades of the long digital 
revolution of journalism. The conference welcomes papers that examine 
the digital journalism histories of the global ‘centers’ and we 
especially encourage inquiries from the ‘peripheries’ of digital 
journalism development and scholarship.

*Possible topics include, but are not limited to*
- Mythologies of technology: reconsidering ‘dead’ and ‘new’ technologies 
in journalism
- Transforming social control in the digitized newsroom: investigating 
separation and integration tendencies
- Re-configuring the labour process in digital journalism: between 
standardisation and creativity of digital news production
- Digital platforms, tools and practices in journalism: from Teletext, 
CD-ROMS and Minitel to www, smartphones and social media
- Changing skillsets in digital journalism: deskilling, reskilling, 
upskilling newsworkers
- (Dis)continuities of forms and genres in journalism
- Labour relations of digital journalism: standardisation, 
precarisation, entrepreneurialism
- Liquefied identities of digital journalism: boundary work between 
‘online’ and ‘offline’ journalists, ‘professional’ and ‘citizen’ 
journalists, journalists and ‘technologists’, ‘journalists’ vs ‘bloggers’
- Re-inventing journalistic profiles: from ‘mouse monkeys’, ‘meta 
journalists’ to ‘robot journalists’
- Digitized audiences between participation and commodification
- Business models of digital journalism: from legacy media ecosystem to 
platform capitalism
- Ethical, legal and regulatory issues of digital journalism: from www 
to automation
- Particular online journalistic genres moving online: digital music, 
sport, food journalism

*Technical details and important dates*
Deadline for submitting abstracts and panel proposals is October 20, 
2021 (CET).

Please submit all submissions via this online form: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLTg4do6bMlFrDrcxL6MJJJqudnWJtR9rrRxrRSgtUoo0qiA/viewform 

Panel proposals should consist of 3 or 4 papers, and all the paper 
abstracts belonging to a proposed panel should be submitted individually 
through the form. The maximum length for panel and paper abstracts is 
400 words.

Conference talks will be 15 minutes long followed by 5 minute long 
discussions.

Further information will be found on the constantly updated conference 
website: https://sites.google.com/view/hodj2022/news

*Organizers and contact information*
The conference will be held at Budapest University of Technology and 
Economics (BME), and is jointly organised by the Department of Sociology 
and Communications, Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, BME and the 
Social Communication Research Centre, University of Ljubljana (UL).

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers:
Dr. Tamas Tofalvy, Associate Professor (BME): (tofalvy.tamas /at/ gtk.bme.hu)
Dr. Igor Vobič, Associate Professor (UL): (igor.vobic /at/ fdv.uni-lj.si)

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