The past years the Journalism Studies section of ECREA organized successful conferences in Vienna, Odense, Winterthur, Zurich and Pamplona. Coming year, the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, is honoured to host the bi-annual conference. A year of social distancing and exponential growth of the use of digital tools, both in academia and journalism, we hope that in 2021 we will have the possibility to meet each other live again.
The theme of the conference is “Journalism studies meets practice” and will take place 25 and 26 of February 2021. Besides traditional paper sessions we will organize co-creative sessions between scholars and media professionals. In these sessions onetopic is addressed in four short presentations, followed by an organized debate between academics and invited media-professionals with an expertise in the particular theme.
Digital Transition
The conference will particularly focus on journalism in digital transition.
The process of digitalization has challenged professional journalism in every way, not only in its organization but also in the way its products are made, sold, and consumed.
For instance, while the newsroom is still often the core space of journalism, the place where the news-beat is felt, the transition to freelance practices and the collaboration with other professions in the creative industry have challenged both organizations and the identity of the journalistic profession. Also, moving away from traditional forms of consuming journalistic production, the public is offered information and entertainment via a multitude of, mostly online, channels. Technological innovation gives journalists and media organizations a range of opportunities. Algorithmic tools are increasingly used to uncover data and gather information. At the same time, artificial intelligence can provide a more personalized and tailor-made news experience. Technologies provide opportunities for storytelling in which the role of the user is more prominent – for example in interactive stories, immersive productions and podcasts.
At the same time concerns have been voiced about the negative aspects of these changes. It might promote fragmentation, polarization of deliberative spaces and the spread of disinformation, to name just a few of these concerns.
Methodological debate
What is particularly fascinating in the process of digitalization is the question of how to study it. While the field of journalism studies is booming, the debate on methodological thinking is still surprisingly limited. Therefore, we also encourage submissions focusing on methods.
In sum, we encourage submissions in three main areas:
- Research on how the digital transition challenges the field of journalism in the way it is produced, sold and consumed.
- Methodological discussions, challenging current scholarly methods or proposing innovative methods in journalism studies.
- Best practices, especially on how scholarly research is embedded into journalistic practice.
Submissions
Submissions can be sent to ecreajournalism2021@hu.nl no later than 4 September 2020.
Please include in the email (1) the title of your paper, (2) an abstract of no more than 750 words, (3) names and affiliations of the authors.
Submission will undergo scholarly peer-review.Only one proposal per first author can be accepted.Notifications of acceptance will be issued early October 2020.
