Calls & Grants

Workshop 10.06.2025 - 09.30–14.06.2025 - 15.00 Bergen, Norway Registration deadline 30.01.2025 - 23.59 Apply here Add to calendar The Center for Digital Narrative invites PhD students who are writing a dissertation on digital narratives to participate in a five-day PhD summer school at the University of Bergen from 10-14 June 2025. Participants will: learn methods for researching digital narratives both from a scholarly and an artistic perspective interact with world-leading scholars in digital narrative receive feedback on work in progress from experts and fellow PhD students build a network of colleagues in the field explore beautiful Bergen in June We welcome applications from PhD students in disciplines such as digital culture, literary studies, game studies, media studies, digital art or design. Applicants can be working on a research-based PhD or a PhD using creative practice or artistic research. Content of the summer school The summer school has three main components. Keynotes by Maria Mäkelä (Finland), Yudhanjaya Wijeratne (Sri Lanka), Alexandra Saemmer (France), and Fox Harrell (USA). Feedback on writing: Students will share a draft of a chapter or article they are working on. Participants will be assigned to feedback groups that will work together each morning. Facilitators will include Jason Nelson, Kristine Jørgensen, Jill Walker Rettberg, Caitlin Fisher and other experts in the field. Each participant will be asked to read all the drafts for their groups (6-10 people in each group) and to be lead respondents on two drafts. Each student will get 30-50 minutes discussion time for their draft. Workshops: After lunch participants will choose one of two or more methods workshop options led by experts in the field of digital narrative. Each day there will be a choice between a creative and a critical methods course. Workshop convenors include Gabriele de Seta, Lin Prøitz, Scott Rettberg, Jason Nelson, Alinta Krauth, Caitlin Fisher and others. Each workshop will be about a specific method that is relevant for the study and creation of digital narratives, e.g. within creative practice, digital humanities, narrative analysis or ethnography.

This panel explores data loss as a fundamental rather than anomalous feature of digital infrastructures and datafication processes. While digital societies are often associated with data accumulation, we examine how various forms of loss - from disappearance and destruction to dispossession - shape socio-technical systems and generate new political formations. We seek papers investigating data loss in knowledge and memory infrastructures, including memory institutions, bureaucratic systems, and community archives. Topics of interest include: Data disappearance in digital archives Data destruction as acts of violence or care Community impacts of platform closures and content moderation Critical perspectives on data/software lifecycles Memory technologies as inherently amnesic systems Theoretical frameworks for understanding data loss Methodological approaches to studying loss Politics of loss in relation to memory and justice While STS scholarship has developed frameworks for studying knowledge infrastructures - from cybernetic imaginaries to big data environments - research has primarily focused on data accumulation and persistence. Through concepts like data friction and information infrastructures, scholars have illuminated conditions enabling data flows. This panel extends this work by examining loss and erasure as constitutive forces in digital systems. We especially welcome submissions from early career researchers and scholars examining how data loss intersects with gender, sexuality, racialization, coloniality, and class. We are particularly interested in work that critically engages with these dimensions of power and inequality in digital infrastructures. We encourage submissions exploring how data loss reverberates across: Time (historical erasures echoing in the present) Scale (small infrastructural losses with cascading effects) Space (loss rippling across institutional/national boundaries) Experience (from technical infrastructures to social practices) The panel aims to develop new frameworks for understanding how data loss shapes knowledge infrastructures and influences questions of memory, accountability, and justice.

In recent years, European schools and classrooms have become increasingly dependent on Big Tech ecosystems and their promises to seamlessly interconnect physical devices, educational software and apps, and cloud services. With companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple tightening their grip on classrooms’ transition into digital environments, Big Tech is asserting control over the material infrastructures, discursive framings, and economic logics undergirding educational digitalization. As noted in recent scholarship, the process of platformization provides a useful conceptual tool to describe the implications of this dynamic, namely the transformation of educational content, activities and processes to become part of a (corporate) platform ecosystem, including its economies (data) infrastructures and technical architectures (Kerssens & Dijck, 2021; Srnicek, 2016). In educational research, the broad field of study encompassed under the sociologies of education has proven to provide especially fertile soil for critically analyzing the roles and effects of digital technologies as they become entangled with educational ideas, professional practices, and school materialities (Selwyn, 2019). Applying the analytical lens of platformization, recent work has examined Big Tech influence in public education, including the power of corporate cloud companies and infrastructures in educational governance (Cone et al., 2022; Kerssens, 2024; Kerssens et al., 2023; Williamson et al., 2022). One strand of these studies has engaged specific platform brands such as ClassDojo (Manolev et al., 2019), Google Classroom (Perrotta et al., 2021), as well as various country-specific platforms (Gorur & Dey, 2021; Hartong, 2021), exploring how users and pedagogies are configured in and through the platforms’ technical arrangements (Sefton-green & Pangrazio, 2021). Others have taken up the political economy underpinning platformisation, probing how and to whom data is generated, circulated, turned into assets as it moves across platforms, governmental entities, educational institutions, teachers, and other actors (Birch & Muniesa, 2020; Komljenovic, 2021; Pangrazio et al., 2023). Another strand of research has examined how platformization affects the day-to-day relations of teachers and students in schools and other lived, institutional settings (Apps et al., 2023; Cone, 2023, 2024). Yet as the monetary models, materialities, and embodied effects of Big Tech education come under increasing scholarly, political, and regulatory scrutiny, the apparent disaffection permeating much of the literature on platforms and platformization begs the question of how and where to look for alternatives – both from a practical, administrative, pedagogical, and ethical viewpoint. Specifically, recent years have seen a growing body of calls for critical scholars, activists, and teachers to explore possibilities for reimagining digital education ecosystems that can challenge the status quo of the platform as the infrastructural and pedagogical default for educational digitalization (Selwyn, 2022; Selwyn et al., 2020). With this special issue, we seek to give space for empirical presentations and theoretical frameworks that can nurture such forms of questioning of post-platform education and thereby mobilize the global educational research community around the critical study of platformization – not to reject but rethink the use and potentiality of digital technologies in education (Macgilchrist, 2021). The special issue invites papers that explore possibilities for grounding digital technologies in primary and secondary schooling in other forms of pedagogical and sociological reasoning, infrastructural arrangements, and forms of governance. This can include, but is not limited to studies of: Alternative infrastructures and economic arrangements for digital educational governance of primary and secondary education, hereunder explorations of the promises and pitfalls of alternatives based in open-source or other non-proprietary models for digital design and development Digital degrowth and other critical theoretical resources for thinking with and beyond platforms in ways that foreground other values and criteria of evaluation in schools Studies of power asymmetries and inequality in EdTech development and markets for school education, hereunder alternative forms of market-making and feminist design practices Collective forms of mobilization against big tech across different stakeholders (teachers, unions, politicians) and levels (institutional, sectoral, national, transnational) Countervailing discourses and framings of EdTech, especially in light of current digital backlashes unfolding in different regions Postdigital concepts and design processes that recognize educational realities as messy and historical rather than ahistorical problems to be solved Sociotechnical imaginaries of digital education based in post-platform pedagogies or other models for re-imagining digital ecosystems in schools Institutional interventions based on extending the terms and interests connected to post-platform education.

This special issue will commission articles on videogame theory from scholars in the humanities and social sciences, especially those working in the field of videogame studies. Videogame scholars have drawn on a range of theories to analyse and interpret the medium, including affect theory (Anable 2018), queer theory (Ruberg 2019), visual theory and critical race theory (Murray 2018), and postcolonial theory (Mukherjee 2017). Yet, while a range of theories have been used to gain insight into videogames, videogames are themselves rarely used to gain insight into theory. Unlike film and literature, for example, videogames are not typically mobilized to give voice to theoretical insights that theorists have not yet articulated for themselves. While exceptions exist, like McKenzie Wark’s (2007) Gamer Theory, such experiments are rare. The articles commissioned for this special issue will not simply apply theory to the study of videogames or recapitulate key theories in videogame studies, but explore how and to what extent videogames prompt us to theorize anew. Rather than revising the formalist debates associated with the field’s formative years, articles will utilize videogames to make contributions to broader theoretical conversations in media and cultural studies and/or critical and continental thought. Prospective authors are invited to address how videogame studies can disrupt or reshape critical approaches to media and cultural theories. Potential topics include but are not limited to: Theories of play Theories of subjectivity Theories of affect and the body Theories of posthumanism Theories of technology and materiality Theories of platforms and monetisation Theories of simulation and speculation Media and screen theory Marxism and psychoanalysis Critical race theory Critical disability theory Postcolonial theory Feminist theory Queer theory Genealogies of videogame theory The political potential of videogame theory We encourage submissions from authors writing from global majority contexts and submissions on ability/disability.

Games and Literary Theory Conference (GamesLit) is an annual conference for scholars of literature interested in expanding the scope of literary theory, and game scholars concerned with adapting the methodological and theoretical approaches of literary theory for the study of games. This year’s conferece will revolve around the concepts of myth and folklore. The narratives and imagery of myth and folklore are an essential part of the history of video games, with early cases such as Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Sir Tech, 1981), Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Garriott, 1981), and newer hits such as Wukong: Black Myth (Game Science, 2024). Myths and folklore have become increasingly popular for exploring contemporary issues in mainstream video games, such as Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Ninja Theory, 2017), which takes inspiration from Nordic and Celtic folklore trauma and mental health. Often approached now by fans through the lens of the lore, we would like to inquire into the narrative construction of myth and folklore in games and their potential to renew the tales and stories from different traditions as well as their capacity to prompt the creation of new myths. As Juliette Wood (2018: 2) summarises, “myths, legends and folktales emerge as oft-repeated narratives with changing cultural significance that can merge with other genres”. Myths can be understood as the narratives of the sacred, the supernatural and the heroic (Eliade, 1963) and how these are perpetuated through tradition and ritual (Jung and Kerényi, 2001). But myths may also be conceived as those stories and motifs which are continuously repeated in the present and naturalised in social imaginaries and sociopolitical concerns and ideologies (Martínez García, 2017; Barthes, 1993) and thus become essential tools to understand the world we inhabit (Coupe, 2009). Within this framework, we invite proposals that study contemporary readings of myths and folklore in video games and the way in which video games may create new myths through repetition and naturalisation of ideas. In addition, we can think of the myriad fantastic creatures from different cosmologies that permeate games and which invite us to think both “the marvellous and the monstruous” within ambiguous margins (Wood, 2018: 4). Following last year’s focus on adaptation, games participate in the circulation, repetition, and rejuvenation not of specific stories, but of structures and motifs that shape myths. Games allow us to see the transformations of myths and the fantasy genre and we would like to invite speakers to think of the narratives and structures of myth and folklore and the dialogues between genres. Some possible topics might be but are not limited to: Local and global myths and folklore in games. The semiotics and poetics of myths in games. The structures of myth and folklore in games. Revisions and subversions of myths. The genres of myth and folklore. Circulation of myths and motifs between literature and games. Ideology in games.

Recent global challenges and the rise of far-right governments worldwide have intensified the persecution of migrants, transforming borders into harsh zones of exclusion and surveillance. In this climate, migration is increasingly criminalized, and those seeking safety and opportunity are often met with hostility, reinforcing narrow nationalist ideologies. This environment has posed new methodological challenges for research in migration contexts, as well as prompted reflexive considerations on how knowledge is generated, how participants are cared for, and how spaces are created to support human dignity and mobility. This conference invites researchers to propose abstracts that address methodological and reflexive perspectives in the exploration of multifaceted migration experiences and intercultural communication in the context of migration persecution and border closing. Creative methods, such as digital storytelling, participatory media projects, ethnographic film, and arts-based research, offer rich and nuanced perspectives that address current challenges in migration criminalization. These methods not only capture the complexities of diasporic lives, but also empower communities to express their own narratives and co-create knowledge. We encourage contributions that reflect on these innovative approaches to migration and media studies, as they have the potential to deepen our understanding of how identities, relationships, and cultural dialogues are shaped and redefined through media. Beyond methodological approaches, we also encourage researchers to explore more broadly a reflexive analysis of the dynamic intersection of migration, media, and communication. We encourage submissions that propose alternative, reflexive creative methodological approaches and critical epistemologies to address topics such as: - Intercultural encounters and intercultural dialogue - Practices of exclusion, surveillance, and persecution at the border - AI, platform affordances, and infrastructures in relation to migration and intercultural communication - Digital counter publics and diasporic activism - Digital communication - Ethical dimensions of researching migration, media, and intercultural dialogue - Identity formation and sense of belonging In addition to the conference, we will be hosting a joint workshop for PhD students on the 16th of September 2025, in Tallinn. The workshop will focus on creative methods of research, alternative ways of writing, and reflexive approaches to migration, media, and intercultural dialogue. If you are a PhD student and would like to participate, please submit your application via online submission form. Please note that it is possible for Doctoral researchers to attend both the workshop and the conference, or only one event.

Although the early twenty-first century fuelled feminist-hopes that the Internet would revolutionise women and girls’ lives, digital platforms have not necessarily helped society to cast-off the shackles of patriarchy. A cyberfeminist utopia has been replaced by digital labour practices, both paid and unpaid, that remain acutely gendered (Gregg and Andrijasevic 2019; Jarrett 2016). While networked intimacies, desires, and sexualities have proliferated, creating radical potential (e.g., Dobson et al. 2018), they have also generated big business for the technology companies that mediatize and profit from forms of gender-based violence and objectification. Simultaneously, digital platforms have not completely cancelled out creative approaches to challenging sexism and misogyny (Mendes et al. 2019). However, despite the proliferation of hashtag campaigns – for example, to end sexual exploitation and gender-based violence – social media has become a limited channel for feminist consciousness-raising, legal arbitration, or political participation, and at the very least is concurrent with forms of networked misogyny (Banet-Weiser 2018). Meanwhile, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is exacerbating the production, exchange, and normalisation of deep fake and unsolicited pornography at viral scale (Chowdhury and Lakshmi 2023). To address the ambivalence, enduring gendered power dynamics, and inequalities of more-than-digital culture, this call for papers is titled: Postdigital Feminisms: Platformed-Lives, Labour, Intimacies and Activism. The special issue (SI) invites scholars to contribute to the theoretical development of postdigital feminisms and feminisms in the postdigital by exploring critical feminist topics, including gendered intersectional platformed lives, labour, intimacies, and activism. We are interested in creating a dialogue about postdigital theorising, in all its openness and eclecticism (Jandrić et al. 2022), and feminist analysis of postdigital contexts where feminisms come together with other theoretical frameworks within the ‘post’ to be applied to an increasingly blurred digital and non-digital world to understand its particular gendered consequences (Evans et al. forthcoming). We are also interested in challenging what a theory or concept of the postdigital can do in feminist scholarship, research, and activism (Bassett 2015). The SI is open to a range of feminist approaches, methodologies and case studies. This includes discussion of feminist philosophy; feminist histories; activism; language; new tech; AI; labour; class; culture; education; postcolonialism; decolonialism; and feminist futures. Contributions can consider threshold postdigital concepts, principles, and scholarship to develop feminist objects, methods, and concepts of research (Mikulan 2024; Hurley and Al-Ali 2021; MacKenzie 2023). Articles could explore postdigital feminisms’ scope for critical exploration and intersectional feminist analysis of the systemic injustices, internalised misogyny, everyday oppression and suppression of women and girls as well as men/masculinities from a feminist postdigital perspective. Informed by feminist theories of social justice, intersectionality, and technologies, contributions have the opportunity to consider the complexities, exploitation, and imaginaries of the acutely gendered postdigital condition (Evans and Riley 2023; Hurley 2021). Although the SI is not expected to pre-empt or solve all the challenges faced by feminists in the postdigital age, it will facilitate a reflexive space for engaging with the postdigital, both contextually and theoretically, and with a range of feminisms, while debating and developing postdigital feminisms’ parameters, borders, concepts, methods, and interlocutors. Papers can include but are not limited to the below areas and themes: Postdigital feminist theorising Postdigital feminist philosophies. The scope of feminist ontologies, epistemologies, onto-epistemologies, and critical methodologies for theorising the postdigital condition. Postdigital feminist histories. Discussions of the historical roots of feminist engagement with technology, from early women in computing to grassroots online activism; fourth-wave feminism; cyber feminism; cyborgs; manifestos; feminist hashtags; open-source projects; hackers; inclusive design; and diverse user experiences. Postdigital feminist reflexivity. The scope of critical feminist self-reflexivity for considering power dynamics, gendered processes and outcomes of postdigital research. Postcolonial feminisms. Articles considering how digital technologies are framing, representing and inhibiting postcolonial identities, while challenging stereotypes and promoting diverse narratives that reflect the complexities of gendered postdigital experiences. Decolonial feminisms. Challenges to western-centric frameworks of knowledge to highlight Indigenous women, including LGBTQ+’s experiences of technology, ensuring that their unique identities and contributions are recognised and valued while acknowledging that what counts as Indigenous is unstable. Postdigital feminist futures. Speculative articles for reimagining and creating alternative more-than-digital futures that prioritise equity, justice, and sustainability, resisting the commodification and exploitation often associated with mainstream digital practices. Postdigital feminisms. Discussion of postdigital feminism(s) as an open set of theorising as well as intersectional theorising of postdigital feminist contexts/conditions. Platform patriarchy, lives and labour Postdigital feminist languages. Examination of how language functions in the postdigital age, including examples of feminist advocacy for more equitable and inclusive communication practices. Postdigital cultures. Studies of platform architectures; creator economies; neoliberal and postfeminist content and culture analysis to explore the ambivalent gendered visibilities and subjectification by women, girls and non-binary social actors in the postdigital age. Postdigital feminist education. Studies ranging from early years through to primary, secondary, higher education, and de-schooling. Feminist new tech and AI. Analysis of bias encoded within emerging technologies, including large language models and data training sets. Postdigital labour. Evaluation of how participation in the gig economy, including freelance or contract work, occurs within an intersectional nexus of gender, class, race, religion, and sexualities, while being constituted by platform patriarchy and marginalisation of women working in Big Tech. Postdigital intimacies Critical intimacies. Research on and through the postdigital that draws on digital, data, platform, and mediated intimacies literatures to generate new accounts of postdigital intimacies through feminist, queer, anti-racist, and postcolonial theory. Contested intimacies. Exploring feminist accounts of the postdigital that recognise intimacy as violent, failed, incomplete; challenging preconceived ideas of intimacies as based on reciprocity. More-than-human intimacy: Relationships with technology; networked connections as intimate relations; feminist new materialist accounts of the postdigital. Feminist intersubjectivity: Developing more-than-digital accounts of intelligibility, recognition, and relationality, as well as illegibility, misrecognition, and disconnection, that both reproduce and challenge gender power relations. Postdigital activism Postdigital feminist activism: Studies of activism and social movements which challenge the ‘normalised’ culture of misogyny, molestation, and sexual harassment of schoolgirls and women. Global South feminist activism: Case studies discussing digital gender activism in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, as well as by postdigital diaspora, beyond and within the Global North. Activist groups: Case studies of the LGBTQ+ movement; eco-feminisms; and/or indigenous feminist activists in a range of postdigital contexts.

RIDL:HE Aims: - Offer a forum for disseminating and discussing high-quality rigorous and robust research in digital learning in higher education. - Provide a critical, collegiate, and impartial space for exploration and academic debate. - Proactively seek participation from those who are marginalised or less able to engage, providing inclusive and flexible ways to take part in the conversation. Scope The philosophy, practice, and politics surrounding the use of digital technologies in higher education globally. RIDL:HE is interdisciplinary in nature and does not privilege any form of research over any other. Criteria for submissions Submissions must be in English and will be reviewed against the following criteria: Relevance of the topic to the conference Originality of the paper Rigour of the research Significance of the research to the wider field Plan for engagement with delegates With a focus on rigorous research, we are looking for submissions in all areas relating to the novel, developing, effective or theoretical application of digital learning in Higher Education. As encoded in our Conference Design Principles: Accepted contributions will meet high standards of academic quality, including the incorporation of critique or new knowledge creation within the session delivery, as well as being presented in an engaging way, moving away from presentation of findings towards collaborative scholarship. Through the submission process, support will be provided for contributors to achieve high levels of quality and research engagement through mentorship. Publication Short and full papers will be published in the Research in Digital Learning in Higher Education open access journal, which will be launched in early 2025. Engaging with delegates We encourage presenters to consider interactive and participatory ways to engage delegates with their research. Rather than formal presentations of papers, we recommend alternative approaches including, but not limited to conversations, discussions, games, and demonstrations. As well as cabaret-style classrooms, we have a variety of other options on campus including break-out spaces, demonstration pods, computer labs, and outdoor spaces, and we encourage presenters to be creative in how and where the engage delegates. Submission types The following submission types are available: Full Paper A full research paper (maximum 5000 words, with shorter submissions also encouraged). Papers are expected to present original research and cover the following areas, with disciplinary flexibility in headings to fit the content/approach(es) detailed: Abstract; Introduction; Research design; Results; Discussion; Conclusions and References. In-person presenters You will be expected to lead a 60-minute facilitated and interactive conversation (although you can be more creative if you wish). Your submission should describe the design of this session. We expect that these sessions will take place in cabaret-style classrooms, but please specify in your submission if you require an alternative space. Online presenters If joining the conference as an online attendee, you will be expected to prepare a short (maximum of 6 minutes) film sharing your research or offer an interactive event as part of the online Fringe. Further guidance will be provided to accepted submissions. Short paper A short research paper (maximum 1000 words) can be used to share works in progress, position papers, or emergent ideas. In-person attendees You will be expected to lead a 20-minute interactive session with delegates. We expect that these sessions will take place in cabaret-style classrooms, but please specify in your submission if you require an alternative space. Online attendees If joining the conference as an online attendee, you will be expected to prepare a short (maximum of 6 minutes) film sharing your research or offer an interactive event as part of the online Fringe. Further guidance will be provided to accepted submissions. Workshop A workshop provides the opportunity for delegates to gain hands-on experience with your research. You will need to specify clear aims and outcomes for the session and how the session will be interactive. Abstracts are required, with a maximum of 500 words. Workshops can for 60 or 90 minutes and can take place in any of the available spaces; please specify your preferences during your submission. Workshops will be facilitated in-person only. Open call This is your opportunity to play. Pitch your own session and let us know the time you need and what physical space you’d like to use. Be as creative as you like in how you address the criteria. An abstract of up to 500 words is required. The Open call will be facilitated in-person only. Peer Reviews Please submit an anonymised paper or abstract. This will then be sent to two peer reviewers on the Academic Committee to review against the criteria. The conference committee will consider feedback from all reviews, which will be accepted as is, accepted with revisions, or rejected. In some cases, we may be able to offer mentorship to help people strengthen their submissions before the final submission deadline. In all cases, we will provide constructive feedback from reviewers. Submissions Submissions should be uploaded to Research in Digital Learning in Higher Education before the end of the 9th February 2025.

We are pleased to announce the Call for Abstracts for the upcoming Workshop “Global Southing Internet, Data and AI studies”, which will be held on 25-26 March 2025 at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford (United Kingdom). We are calling for short papers (10–15-minute presentations) in any area related to Internet, Data and AI studies, with a special focus on authors, theories, approaches, and methods developed in Global South countries. The second day will be dedicated to presentations and discussions. There will be in-person and remote sessions, both limited to space and time availability. We particularly welcome papers about topics such as: > Critical theories of Internet, Data and AI from the Global South; > How social thinking from Global South authors can enrich Internet, Data and AI studies. > Problems in adopting Global North concepts to Global South digital practices. > South-to-South dialogue in digital realities and practices research. > Dissemination of Global South critical Internet, Data and AI theories and approaches in the Global North. > Theories, methods and approaches from Latin America to Internet, Data and AI studies. > Theories, methods and approaches from Africa to Internet, Data and AI studies. > Theories, methods and approaches from Asia to Internet, Data and AI studies. > How theories, methods and approaches from the Global South can enrich the understanding of the production, practices and governance of Internet, data and AI technologies and services. Abstracts must be submitted with the following information: Name Institutional Link 300-400 words outlining the focus of your contribution Up to 5 keywords

The Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication invites applications to fill one postdoctoral fellowship position for the 2025-2026 academic year. Applications are welcomed from scholars who have received their Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in or after May 2022. The term of appointment is: August 1, 2025 – July 31, 2026. Founded in July 2019, the Center on Digital Culture and Society (CDCS) supports critical, interdisciplinary scholarship on digital culture, technology, and society. CDCS aims to develop critical approaches to digital cultural studies and create an intellectual community for dialogue and collaboration among academics, citizens, and activists. CDCS postdoctoral fellowships support research on all aspects of digital culture and society which fall within CDCS’s broad mission. Fellows at the CDCS pursue their own research but are expected to be in residence and to be fully engaged in the life of the Center. Fellows are provided a minimum stipend of $66,300, commensurate with previous postdoctoral experience, a research fund of $3,000, individual health insurance and dependent coverage, a workspace and a computer, and library access. In addition, CDCS will cover $1000 in domestic relocation expenses and $2000 if moving internationally. All postdoctoral fellows must submit documentation to demonstrate eligibility to work in the United States and provide either a notarized copy of a diploma, or notarized statement from a registrar or University official confirming completion of doctoral degree requirements. Non-US citizens selected for this position will be required to apply for an appropriate US visa.

The Weizenbaum Institute is organizing its seventh annual Conference on the subject of “Empowering People in Online Spaces: Democracy and Well-being in Digital Societies”. We invite interested scholars to submit papers for presentations. The conference will take place at bUm – Raum für soziales Miteinander in Berlin, Germany from 4 to 5 June 2025. As digital technologies become increasingly embedded in the social fabric, their architectures and affordances co-shape individual and collective experiences across various dimensions. Interdisciplinary research highlights how people use different tools to nurture personal and professional relationships, enhance education, develop new skills, and foster healthier habits. Digital platforms, often powered by artificial intelligence systems, also serve as mediators for community connections, citizen-state interaction, and different forms of political participation, exerting growing influence on individual and collective well-being. This impact, however, is framed by imbalances in economic and political power related, for instance, to the global dominance of technology corporations and the capacity of nation-states to regulate and exert influence over the rapidly evolving digital markets. TOPICS OF INTEREST The conference aims to examine these issues from a citizens and user perspective. It seeks to highlight theoretical and empirical research approaches focused on empowering people’s agency within online environments at both personal and collective levels. Ultimately, we would like to connect research that engages with the interface of digital technologies, democratic participation and individual well-being: - Impacts of (anti)democratic news consumption - The interplay of algorithmic and individual activity in online spaces - Community organization and fringe digital spaces - Online political participation and social cohesion in- and out-side times of crisis - Digital Elections, data-driven electoral campaigning and propaganda - Illiberal communications, reactionary speech and democratic transformations - Public values and political representation in an evolving public sphere - Digital state and platformized public services - Digital identity, collective and individual contestations of digital technologies - Accessibility, inequalities, and vulnerable populations in online spaces - Loneliness and kinship in the digital era - Digital interventions for deliberation and well-being online - Media and digital literacy - Regulatory approaches, ethical guidelines and values for digital governance - Democratic regulatory approaches to digital platforms and artificial intelligence SUBMISSIONS We welcome submissions rooted in inter- or transdisciplinary backgrounds. We are open to theoretical/conceptional contributions, empirical analyses, and technical contributions.

The study of platform governance and generative AI has become increasingly critical as these technologies significantly (re)shape public discourse, societal norms, and policy-making processes. By determining how information is created, shared, and consumed, these technological systems raise complex questions of accountability, fairness, transparency, contestability, and ethics. The AoIR Flashpoint Symposium 2025 in Bremen aims to contribute to these discussions on governance and normative questions. We are seeking papers and panel proposals that focus on analytical concepts, empirical methods, and robust data approaches that are instrumental for studying tech governance. The advent of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT has resurfaced challenges long associated with social media platforms, including misinformation, bias, hate speech, discrimination, power and agency. In this context we have learned that how platforms recommend and regulate content and interactions constitutes an essential part of what they are, and strongly defines their role and responsibility in contemporary societies. What can we learn from these debates for generative AI? We need to assume that generative AI with its technologically advanced forms of automation embedded in complex digital infrastructures will rather exacerbate than relieve those challenges. Understanding these dynamics will be vital for informing public debate and developing regulatory frameworks that uphold human rights and democratic values. The 2025 AoIR Flashpoint Symposium seeks to gather researchers and experts on this topic at a critical time. While we see public attention and daily routines partly move from social media platforms to generative AI, meaningful regulatory activities will be crucial in that space in 2025. The EU advances governance frameworks based on risk assessments and fundamental human rights through the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the AI Act. At the same time, the future of tech regulation in the U.S. remains uncertain at the onset of a second Trump presidency. Meanwhile, around the world, governments aim to reign in both the excesses as well as the freedoms of social media, and global and regional bodies such as the UNESCO develop normative frameworks for the future of social media and generative AI. In addition to these public initiatives, companies’ product policies, ethical principles, and standardization efforts give rise to highly complex governance regimes and normative frameworks for technological systems. In this context, researchers face various challenges when they seek to collect, store, analyze, or share data on platform and AI governance. Platforms change data access requirements and options for researchers regularly, putting established data collection processes at risk. While corporations employ skilled research teams, their findings are typically kept private or focused on advancing corporate interests rather than serving the public good. Government policies have the potential to enable academic and independent research, but poorly designed or enforced regulations may inadvertently obstruct it. Some recent statutory data-sharing rules (e.g., DSA) promise to provide new opportunities for robust research but are currently only in their infancy. As a result of different initiatives, there is now an increasing number of large- and small-scale datasets available such as the EU Transparency Database, the Zuckerberg Files, the Platform Governance Archive, or the FBarchive. However, systematic research and sustained collaborative approaches in this area remain limited. To achieve this, academics, policymakers, and other stakeholders must work together to build the necessary expertise to develop and sustain much-needed infrastructures. The AoIR Flashpoint Symposium 2025 seeks to address these critical challenges by bringing together researchers of various disciplines, practitioners, and policymakers for a two-day symposium. The aim of the symposium is to foster collaboration and critical discourse concerning generative AI and social media platforms, and to enable the research community to more effectively produce robust and independent knowledge about these socio-technical systems and their effects. Topics for Submissions Submissions should contribute to the overall topic and theme of the symposium. Within that general area of research, we value conceptual innovations, empirical explorations, research and policy papers, as well as data repository and research infrastructure initiatives for the field. Questions to be discussed at the symposium include, but are not limited to: ● What are adequate concepts and analytical frameworks to understand platform governance and generative AI? How do we understand key concepts such as power and institutions, responsibility and accountability, while social media platforms and generative AI become increasingly entangled? What are the conceptual and epistemological differences between studying generative AI systems and studying platform governance? ● What methodological approaches can contribute to meaningful empirical evidence while data access is challenging? What can we learn from two decades of empirical social media research for studying generative AI? 2 ● What kinds of data do we already collect as a community, and where are the gaps? What are the main challenges that researchers, policy makers and civil society groups face while attempting to access and archive data in this space? ● How can we enable better cooperation between public institutions, researchers, civil society groups and the tech industry in mandating, creating, curating and maintaining data archives? ● How do we accomplish building research infrastructures and routines for studying tech governance that are sustainable (long-term maintenance, ecological footprint)?

Much has been written about the creative and feminist histories of craft, from Rozsika Parker’s historical reclamation of embroidery and needlework as feminist praxis in The Subversive Stitch (1984) to the global view adopted by Julia Bryan-Wilson’s Fray (2017), which centers issues of race, class and queerness as driving forces within situated craft practices. More recently, Glenn Adamson’s Craft: An American History (2021) argues that Black and indigenous artisans played a critical and central role in the economic and social development of the United States, ending with the assertion that craft still carries the possibility, through digitally mediated platforms, to “save America.” At the same time, media scholars often draw on the language and imagery of crafting to articulate something specific about digital media. For instance, in her work on “critical fabulations,” Daniela Rosner challenges designers to think about their approach in terms of feminist fabrication and even employs the word “craftwork” to frame her study. Similarly, Stephen Monteiro, in The Fabric of Interface (2017), uses metaphors like “stitching,” and “weaving,” to describe digital interfaces, tapping into a tradition that reaches back to Sadie Plant’s Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture (1997). While this language is provocative, the substance of this work rarely engages the field of craft studies or crafters themselves explicitly. The expansiveness of the label “craft,” just like the label “media,” has meant that a consensus on definition remains elusive. Yet the slipperiness of these terms has also conferred a certain productivity and generativity to them as concepts, as makers and scholars have taken up and twisted notions of “craft” and “media” across various disciplines. Rather than articulate specifically what “digital craft studies” is, we aim to map the complex and shifting relationship between the digital and the handmade, between visible craftwork and invisible media infrastructures, and between empowered feminist making and exploited global craft labor. It is our contention that bringing craft studies into conversation with digital studies will reveal a different view on the materiality, feminist histories, and political implications of our current media moment.This special issue is designed to stage a conversation between crafters, artists, digital media scholars, designers, and historians and scholars of craftwork. We want to ask: What is the place of craft’s feminist legacies, its emphasis on handwork and physical making, in an era when so much creative artifice takes place on screens, with data held on very distant servers? What might digital crafting look or feel like (and what is the difference between looking and feeling through craft)? Also, what is the role or use of crafting in the digital “smart” era in which “smart” does not indicate critical thinking but rather the networked intelligence of contemporary technologies of surveillance? How might a focus on craftwork decenter industrial-capitalist and western, Eurocentric genealogies of the digital? Possible topics may include: ● The use (and elision) of craft to make physical components used in digital technologies, especially the role of global labor in hand-making electronic machines and networks ● The role of the hand and handicraft in digital practices like programming and web design ● The craft of building digital tools like mesh networks or interactive and physical computing systems ● Art that brings into relief the crafted materiality of digital media ● Imbrications of traditional and digital craft in the Global South ● Cultural histories of digital craft within global regions that are not defined by western conceptions or standards of “innovation” ● Celebrations of the mundane and the everyday in quotidian practices of craft during the digital era ● Feminist interventions that decenter the digital through handicraft ● Digitality and craft practice as embodiments of political ideologies or identities ● Alternative or radical conceptions of “makers” and “maker spaces / labs” Along with traditional scholarly essays, we are interested in short film, digital media, documentation of a physical project or process, or other craft genres, like patterns. We also invite submissions that partner artists and practitioners with historians and critical theorists for interviews or other formats that generate a dialogue between practice and scholarship. Interested contributors should contact guest editors Christina Corfield and Whitney Trettien directly, sending a 500-word proposal and a short bio no later than February 15, 2025 to ccorfiel@buffalo.edu and trettien@english.upenn.edu. Contributors will be notified by March 21, 2025; article drafts will be due by Sept 5, 2025 and will then be sent out for peer review.

The notion that digital games have the capacity to support learning has long captured the imagination of educators, industry, and the public. As digital technologies have advanced, so has the sophistication of digital games, leading to more ambitious claims about their potential to fundamentally challenge traditional approaches to education, and assertions about their social and cultural role in contemporary society. However, ideas emanating from postdigital studies offer new conceptual tools for rethinking tech-human relations and questioning simplistic narratives and assumptions surrounding digital technologies (Jandrić and Knox 2022). The postdigital rejects the notion of a clear divide between the digital and non-digital realms, recognizing that technology is deeply entangled with social, cultural, and material contexts (Fawns 2022). It acknowledges the continuities and histories that shape our relationship with technology (Knox 2019), rather than viewing it as a disruptive force that operates independently from human experiences. Efforts to expand how we think about digital media—in terms of interconnected network imaginaries (Jagoda 2016) or massive and dynamic interrelations of processes, objects, beings, and things (Fuller 2005)—have created opportunities to revisit how we understand digital games and their relationship to learning and education. For example, Apperley (2010) uses the concept of digital game ecologies to argue for contextually dynamic, ecological, and situated understandings of digital games. Other more recent work employs postdigital concepts to examine relationships between digital games, learning, literacy, and education (Bacalja 2024; Bacalja et al. 2024). Whether conceptualised in terms of digital games, videogames, gaming, or even game literacies, we agree with James Gee’s (2024) recent declaration: we need to focus less on the little g games (the software), and more on the big G games (social and institutional actions that surround the software). This book aims to achieve two main tasks: to expand approaches to conceptualising digital games and gaming in light of our postdigital condition, and to interrogate assumptions about the relationship between digital games, learning, and education. We welcome shorter conceptual chapters (up to 3500 words) as well as longer empirical chapters (up to 7000 words). We also encourage graduate students and early career academics to submit. Contributions may include following topics: ● Postdigital game ecologies and their entanglements. ● Critical inquiries into games and gaming. ● Games as research methodologies and objects of study. ● The interplay between games and education. ● Games as contexts and models for learning. ● Language and literacy practices in and around games. ● Gaming beyond digital/analog binaries (e.g., board games). ● Hybrid and transmedia gaming experiences. ● Platformatization of gaming and gaming culture. ● Games, EdTech, and the education industry. ● Techno-financial futuring in gaming. ● Economic and political actors and narratives.

Researchers from around the world are invited to organise and run local academic meetings around the common theme: ‘Problematising education and digital technology’. All these events will take place during the same week (between February 17th and 21st, week 8 of 2025), with exact scheduling to be determined by each local coordinators to best fit their context. The specific nature and form of these meetings can be determined by the local coordinators. For example, these meetings might be fully face-to-face, fully online, or hybrid. These meetings might last for a couple of hours, or over the course of a full day. These meetings might take the form of roundtable discussions, plenary discussions, short papers, Pecha Kucha presentations or any other suitable academic meeting format. The aim is for people to get together in ways that *do not* involve excessive cost, unnecessary travel and unsociable timings. These meetings will all be based around four common themes, addressed in the form of the following questions: #1. What are the pressing issues, concerns, tensions and problems that surround EdTech in our locality? What questions do we need to ask, and what approaches will help us research these questions? #2. What social harms are we seeing associated with digital technology and education in our locality? #3. What does the political economy of EdTech look like in our region? What do local EdTech markets look like? How are global Big Tech corporations manifest in local education systems? What does EdTech policy look like, and which actors are driving policymaking? What do we find if we ‘follow the money’? #4. What grounds for hope are there? Can we point to local instances of digital technology leading to genuine social benefits and empowerment? What local push-back and resistance against egregious forms of EdTech is evident? What alternate imaginaries are being circulated about education and digital futures? Where possible these local meetings will be recorded, and participants invited to co-produce a brief summary around the four common headline questions. These summaries will be collated, and an open-access report will be produced from this material. We hope that various groups and collectives will come together in different cities and regions – drawing in researchers from multiple universities as well as independent/non-affiliated scholars residing in the region. Local coordinators will be responsible for: Organising and running their local meeting in February 2025 Coordinating the co-production of a brief summary of headline results from their meeting We hope these sessions will establish a loose network of groups that can begin to make lasting connections and develop a sense of intellectual community. As such, we will ensure that contact details are shared between all groups in order for further international collaborations to develop. We also want to follow these February meetings up with a face-to-face event sometime in June 2025 (hopefully in Oxford or London, UK) to bring together representatives from as many of these local groups as possible. If you want to volunteer to act as the named coordinator for a local session, then please email Neil Selwyn – neil.selwyn@monash.edu ** Confirmed meetings so far … Augsburg, Ballarat, Basel, Bergen, Brisbane, Bristol, Buenos Aires (I), Buenos Aires (II), Chicago, Copenhagen, Dublin, Dublin (II), Eastern Cape, Edinburgh, Florianópolis, Gothenburg, London (I), London (II), Madrid, Manchester, Melbourne, New York City, Norwich, Oldenburg, Paris, Perugia, Purdue, Rio de Janeiro, Thessaloniki, Wagga Wagga, Wolverhampton.

Seventh call in this bilateral collaboration, 2024/2025 The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) are launching a call for proposals for outstanding joint UK-German research projects in the humanities. Both funding agencies want to strengthen international cooperation in the fields of arts and humanities to fund academic research of the highest quality within their own countries, and are aware that some of the best research can only be achieved by working with the best researchers internationally. The scheme will provide funding for integrated UK-German projects. The partner agencies will organise a coordinated peer review and a single joint selection process. Funding will be distributed among the research partners according to scholars’ place of work and, more generally, according to the funding rules of each individual agency. Proposals may be submitted in any area of the humanities, as defined in the research funding guidelines of both agencies. Only proposals whose primary aim is to make fundamental advances in human knowledge in the relevant fields may be submitted in response to the call for proposals. Applicants who are uncertain whether their proposal would be eligible should contact the relevant agencies for clarification. Projects must have well-defined joint working programmes that are clearly demonstrating the added value of UK-German collaboration. We expect that each partner substantially contributes to the common project; this also includes taking on organisational responsibilities. Immediate resubmission of unsuccessful proposals from one call to the next is not permitted, but is acceptable for future calls. Applicants who were not successful under the last call may submit different proposals for this call. The duration of the projects will normally be – and must not exceed – three years. Successful projects will be expected to start in early 2026. The UK component may seek up to £420,000 Full Economic Costs (FEC) to which the AHRC will normally contribute 80% FEC. Projects should be integrated but do not have to be symmetrical in the sense that neither the sums nor the items requested have to be identical on the UK and German sides. However, we would expect the work packages to be delivered in reasonably equal shares. The closing date for this call is Wednesday, 19 February 2025. Proposals under this call will need to be submitted through the DFG’s elan portal (by 11:59 p.m. German time). German applicants should note that if they are using the elan system for the first time, they need to set up an elan account by 12 February 2025 at the latest.

In recent years, European schools and classrooms have become increasingly dependent on Big Tech ecosystems and their promises to seamlessly interconnect physical devices, educational software and apps, and cloud services. With companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple tightening their grip on classrooms’ transition into digital environments, Big Tech is asserting control over the material infrastructures, discursive framings, and economic logics undergirding educational digitalization. As noted in recent scholarship, the process of platformization provides a useful conceptual tool to describe the implications of this dynamic, namely the transformation of educational content, activities and processes to become part of a (corporate) platform ecosystem, including its economies (data) infrastructures and technical architectures (Kerssens & Dijck, 2021; Srnicek, 2016). In educational research, the broad field of study encompassed under the sociologies of education has proven to provide especially fertile soil for critically analyzing the roles and effects of digital technologies as they become entangled with educational ideas, professional practices, and school materialities (Selwyn, 2019). Applying the analytical lens of platformization, recent work has examined Big Tech influence in public education, including the power of corporate cloud companies and infrastructures in educational governance (Cone et al., 2022; Kerssens, 2024; Kerssens et al., 2023; Williamson et al., 2022). One strand of these studies has engaged specific platform brands such as ClassDojo (Manolev et al., 2019), Google Classroom (Perrotta et al., 2021), as well as various country-specific platforms (Gorur & Dey, 2021; Hartong, 2021), exploring how users and pedagogies are configured in and through the platforms’ technical arrangements (Sefton-green & Pangrazio, 2021). Others have taken up the political economy underpinning platformisation, probing how and to whom data is generated, circulated, turned into assets as it moves across platforms, governmental entities, educational institutions, teachers, and other actors (Birch & Muniesa, 2020; Komljenovic, 2021; Pangrazio et al., 2023). Another strand of research has examined how platformization affects the day-to-day relations of teachers and students in schools and other lived, institutional settings (Apps et al., 2023; Cone, 2023, 2024). Yet as the monetary models, materialities, and embodied effects of Big Tech education come under increasing scholarly, political, and regulatory scrutiny, the apparent disaffection permeating much of the literature on platforms and platformization begs the question of how and where to look for alternatives – both from a practical, administrative, pedagogical, and ethical viewpoint. Specifically, recent years have seen a growing body of calls for critical scholars, activists, and teachers to explore possibilities for reimagining digital education ecosystems that can challenge the status quo of the platform as the infrastructural and pedagogical default for educational digitalization (Selwyn, 2022; Selwyn et al., 2020). With this special issue, we seek to give space for empirical presentations and theoretical frameworks that can nurture such forms of questioning of post-platform education and thereby mobilize the global educational research community around the critical study of platformization – not to reject but rethink the use and potentiality of digital technologies in education (Macgilchrist, 2021). The special issue invites papers that explore possibilities for grounding digital technologies in primary and secondary schooling in other forms of pedagogical and sociological reasoning, infrastructural arrangements, and forms of governance. This can include, but is not limited to studies of: Alternative infrastructures and economic arrangements for digital educational governance of primary and secondary education, hereunder explorations of the promises and pitfalls of alternatives based in open-source or other non-proprietary models for digital design and development Digital degrowth and other critical theoretical resources for thinking with and beyond platforms in ways that foreground other values and criteria of evaluation in schools Studies of power asymmetries and inequality in EdTech development and markets for school education, hereunder alternative forms of market-making and feminist design practices Collective forms of mobilization against big tech across different stakeholders (teachers, unions, politicians) and levels (institutional, sectoral, national, transnational) Countervailing discourses and framings of EdTech, especially in light of current digital backlashes unfolding in different regions Postdigital concepts and design processes that recognize educational realities as messy and historical rather than ahistorical problems to be solved Sociotechnical imaginaries of digital education based in post-platform pedagogies or other models for re-imagining digital ecosystems in schools Institutional interventions based on extending the terms and interests connected to post-platform education Submission Instructions Abstracts of maximum 500 words must be sent to Lucas Cone (lc@hum.ku.dk) and Niels Kerssens (n.kerssens@uu.nl) before January 31st. We encourage original research articles based either on empirical or conceptual analyses of issues pertaining to the call. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to join an author workshop before the deadline for full paper submissions. Additional information will be provided for accepted papers about how and where to submit the full paper. All papers should be aligned with the journal's Aims and Scope. The special issue is set for publication during 2027. Accepted articles will be published online first.

There is growing sentiment within new media studies that the work of researchers must not only diagnose current issues around media, but also provide strategies for hope. As a recent issue of the journal Media Theory indicated, critique is not a silver bullet for the concerns of media, as it comes “with its own intellectual and political limitations” (Phelan et al 2024: 3). Nonetheless, critique remains a fundamental and necessary activity to articulate the matters of concern that are the roiling subtext of contemporary life: from surveillance capitalism to data colonisation, from labor exploitation to ecological disaster. Yet how do media studies researchers move with and beyond critique? To what degree is it possible for research to provide meaningful and hopeful perspectives that, at a minimum, enable just forms of coping with the contemporary plurality of crises and sow the seeds of thought and actions that lead to human and non-human flourishing? Special Issue Topics Submissions may include (but are not limited to) explorations of the following topics: Media theorists, collectives, and projects that have contributed to media studies’ utopian tradition. The utopian disciplinary visions of the political economy of communication, feminist media studies, new materialism, cybernetics, the environmental humanities, etc. Media studies collectives / conferences / working groups dedicated to critiquing and reconstituting digitally mediated societies. The genres of utopian media studies research such as the manifesto, participatory research with civil society, new media art and design, the speculative or fabulatory final chapter of monographs, policy recommendations reports. The role of hope, optimism and utopian thinking in the study of technology. The ways a utopian media studies can avoid the traditional perils, risks and exclusionary mechanisms associated with utopian thinking. Reflections on how utopian and hopeful thinking can inform, shape and re-orient media studies methodologies. Distinctions between the planetary and the local when it comes to media utopias. The question of how utopian traditions can be more structurally integrated into media studies programs and curricula.

The role of digital spaces in contemporary literature is becoming increasingly significant. Exiled authors use digital media to voice their work, to stay in contact with their former audiences, and to build international communities. Sometimes, the digital is the only possible place to publish texts that are banned or censored elsewhere. Notable examples include Syrian exile Aboud Saeed, who writes politically critical novels on Facebook; Kurdish author Yavuz Ekinci, who was imprisoned for a pro-Kurdish tweet; and Ugandan poet Stella Nyanzi, who publishes almost exclusively through social media. The conference "Digital Exile Literature" will focus on the role of the digital in contemporary exile literature. In light of the DLA's expansion to include works by exiled authors currently residing in Germany, the event aims to discuss case studies that illustrate the diverse digital practices of exile writers. These include the use of social media platforms and personal blogs for self-representation and exchange, offering not only opportunities for the dissemination of literature but also for networking with communities both in the home country and in exile. Additionally, the conference will examine the role of digital archives. Many contemporary exile authors digitise their works for pragmatic reasons, which affects both long-term preservation and global access. Digital methods of analysis and AI-assisted translations are increasingly available, but these innovations also present challenges such as online harassment or hacking, particularly in relation to politically sensitive texts. Key topics we would welcome submissions on: Digital self-representation and community building: Case studies on how exiled authors use social media, blogs, and other digital platforms to share their work and connect with audiences globally and in exile. Challenges of digital dissemination: Analysis of the unique obstacles faced by exiled authors in digital spaces, such as online harassment, censorship, and hacking, especially for politically sensitive works. Digital archives and preservation: Exploration of the benefits and implications of digital archives, focusing on how exiled authors preserve their works online for accessibility and long-term storage and how archives deal with them Digital tools in literary analysis: Discussion on the use of digital methodologies, AI-assisted translations, and other technologies that influence the interpretation and accessibility of exile literature. Researchers at all career stages in (Comparative) Literature and Culture Studies, Sociology, Book Studies, and related disciplines are invited to submit papers on the questions outlined above. Presentations that combine archive-related research with theoretical and methodological reflection or explore the potential of digital approaches are particularly welcome. Travel expenses and accommodation costs will be covered for presenters of accepted papers through a fixed stipend aligned with the country of travel.

Rupture signifies a break or interruption in continuity. It can also represent a breakdown of social relations. The concept of ruptures connects to diverse fields, such as archeology and genealogy, as methods and tactics that interrogate the relationship between knowledge and power, challenge hierarchies, question dominant discourses, and reactivate local knowledge. This conference theme focuses on the idea of exploring alternative internet histories and theoretical perspectives on the internet and technologies, often overshadowed by the dominance of Western discourses and big tech media. Despite often not being recognized as technology producers due to our colonial history, Brazil’s history of dissidence and breach of norms has fostered innovation, and dissidence creating different time layers in both creating and consuming them, from early tech adopters to movements bridging the digital divide, from social activism to entertainment. These disruptions are processes that deeply influence vernacular and popular cultures, intellectual frameworks, interfaces, social platforms, and networks. An important recent rupture was Brazil’s challenge to the economic and cultural dominance of the platform “X,” defending its political sovereignty in a court of law. The theme of ruptures for #AoIR2025 recognizes these significant contemporary moments and the broader impact of such breaks on society and technology. Brazil has played a pioneering role in developing theoretical frameworks for the study of digital cultures, media, activism, and digital law, as well as in the promotion of open-access science. In the early 2000s, Brazil hosted major international events and key discussions on free software community and culture and initiated programs like “Cultural Points,” a State digital literacy initiative. Additionally, since the 1960s, both Brazil and Latin America have been at the forefront of disruptive uses and reflections on digital technologies. The widespread use of social media platforms in Brazil since the early 2000s, such as Orkut, apart from the intense production and consumption of games and other digital artifacts like memes and fan works plays has also played a crucial role in shaping sociabilities and subjective experiences. However, digital transformations and platformization, coupled with an economic crisis, have also led to challenges, such as the intensification of precarious labor, the proliferation of disinformation, and conspiracy theories became a local and global challenge. Countries from the Global South have become data colonies, as legal frameworks lag behind and platforms from the Global North exploit local labor and data, as many of these countries were unable to approve legislation to avoid data exploration because of different lobbies from these platforms. Queer, Black, Indigenous, Feminist, and other marginalized communities are actively resisting these trends by developing alternative imaginaries, metaphors and uses for digital technologies. Drawing on these reflections, we encourage diverse conceptualizations and approaches to the theme of ruptures in the context of the internet and digital technologies. We ask: How do both ruptures and continuities shape the histories of digital technologies? How can we develop strategies and tactics to address the ruptures caused by platformization? What creative digital experiments have emerged—and disappeared—through the use of these technologies? How can we engage with intersectionality, race, gender, and geography in these discussions and in the future of Internet Studies? How can we dismantle data colonialism and build emancipatory alternatives? We specially seek research that expands critical perspectives and challenges current understandings of digital ruptures and continuities from both local and global perspectives. We welcome submissions on the following topics and beyond: Alternative internet and technology histories Ruptures and continuities of digital media scholarship Digital Humanities methodologies Everyday practices of technological dissidence Internet infrastructures and sustainable futures Disinformation and the public sphere Disruptions in audio/visual models on digital platforms Algorithmic antagonisms Community dynamics in digital platforms Celebrity and fan culture disputes and affects (transformative/toxic fandom, cancel culture, etc.) De-platforming strategies and tactics Intersectional dissidences in social media practices and representations Law, sovereignty and regulation of digital platforms Digital labor ruptures Peripheral creator economies and digital influencers Climate change and scientific digital practices Popularization of science in digital platforms Ruptures in Digital Humanities studies Archiving and collecting as a disruptive practice in Internet Studies Digital solidarity economies Low-tech creativities Tactical ruptures in the history of art and media activism Practices of disconnectionWe also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the internet beyond the conference theme. The committee extends a special invitation to students, researchers, and practitioners who have previously not participated in an AoIR event to submit proposals, and to scholars from the Global South, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color globally, LGBTQIA+ peoples, scholars living with disabilities, and people outside or adjacent to the academy. With this in mind, AoIR is committed to investing more than ever before in travel scholarships, as well as other initiatives, to support conference participants. Moreover, we will for the first time experiment with forms of multi/bilingualism to further our mission of diversity and inclusivity within internet research.

Media and communication research has traditionally focused on the present, often asking: What are the consequences of each “new” medium? How do digital media and their infrastructures impact contemporary cultures and societies? With this conference, however, we aim to shift the perspective—from analyzing present-day impacts to envisioning future possibilities. What can we learn from the current mediatization and datafication of society to imagine possible futures? What roles might media discourses, technologies, and practices play in ongoing and future societal transformations? In raising these foundational questions, the conference is broadly situated within the fields of media, communication and information research. Topics may include: the role of media discourses, technologies, and practices in narrating and shaping the future; the importance of media policy and governance in building better futures; recent technological developments such as communicative AI and their potential role for future media environments; ways in which our narratives of the past, media history, and archeology shape our imaginaries of the future; digital gaming and emerging forms of entertainment; future media-related challenges for future sustainability and quality of life; and methodologies in media and communication research that address emerging media-related developments from a forward-looking perspective. With discussion topics like these, the ZeMKI’s 20th anniversary conference is not about speculative forecasting but is grounded in media and communication research. We aim to explore long-term trends emerging from today’s media-related transformations and reflect on our visions of the future. We invite those who have previously engaged with us—our cooperation partners, ZeMKI fellows, guests, and friends—and those interested in starting new conversations. Presentations may cover any area of media and communication research, provided they also address the question of where a mediatized and datafied society might be heading.

The society is continuously changing with a rapid pace under digital transformation. Taking advantage from a solid transformation of digital communication and infrastructures and with great progress in AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT (Internet of Thinks), ML (Machine Learning), Deep Learning, Big Data, Knowledge acquisition and Cognitive technologies, almost all societal areas were redefined. Transportation, Buildings, Factories, and Agriculture are now a combination of traditional and advanced technological features. Digital citizen-centric services, including health, well-being, community participation, learning and culture are now well-established and set to advance further on. As counter-effects of digital transformation, notably fake news, digital identity risks and digital devise are also progressing in a dangerous rhythm, there is a major need for digital education, fake news awareness, and legal aspects mitigating sensitive cases. DIGITAL 2025 continues a series of international events covering a large spectrum of topics related to digital transformation of our society. We solicit both academic, research, and industrial contributions. We welcome technical papers presenting research and practical results, position papers addressing the pros and cons of specific proposals, such as those being discussed in the standard fora or in industry consortia, survey papers addressing the key problems and solutions on any of the above topics short papers on work in progress, and panel proposals. Industrial presentations are not subject to the format and content constraints of regular submissions. We expect short and long presentations that express industrial position and status. Tutorials on specific related topics and panels on challenging areas are encouraged. The topics suggested by the conference can be discussed in term of concepts, state of the art, research, standards, implementations, running experiments, applications, and industrial case studies. Authors are invited to submit complete unpublished papers, which are not under review in any other conference or journal in the following, but not limited to, topic areas.

Special Issue Editor(s) Julian Sefton-Green, Deakin University julian.seftongreen@deakin.edu.au Luci Pangrazio, Deakin University luci.pangrazio@deakin.edu.au Andy Zhao, Deakin University xinyu.zhao@deakin.edu.au How edtech is made: Researching an evolving industry-education complex Education(al) technology, or its popular abbreviation edtech, has been framed as an unavoidable solution to many of our contemporary social and educational problems, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (Williamson et al., 2020). A growing body of research is looking at how edtech apps and software are used in everyday settings; however, what needs more attention is critical investigation into the rapidly developing edtech industries (Decuypere et al., 2024; Williamson, 2022), as a specific institutional form of ‘production culture’ (Caldwell, 2008). Such an investigation should include the roles of investors, companies, distribution networks, governments, schools, and labour, as well as other intermediaries that create digital services and content for schools and education (Hillman et al., 2020; Ortegón et al., 2024; Regan & Khwaja, 2019). This special issue will ask: Where is the evidence that helps us map and understand the edtech industry? How can we collect the evidence? What are the established and new conceptual vocabularies that we can employ in analysing edtech as industry? And what are the opportunities and challenges of researching this industry? Articles in this special issue will contribute to how we can critically think and talk about edtech through a production culture and industry lens. This lens draws attention to how edtech industries are made through both state and corporate policies and cultural practices on the ground. We believe that a focus on edtech as industry allows us to reveal and interrogate the political economy and belief systems that underpin the everyday operation of technology in and for education. We invite empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions that address the industries of edtech across various educational, geographical and/or sociocultural contexts. We are especially interested in bringing together original empirical case studies. Topics may include but are not limited: edtech ownership and business models how edtech articulates with or is shaped by state-based policies and initiatives edtech brokers and intermediaries forms of labour in the production of and engagement with edtech content and products value creation in edtech modes of financial investment in edtech the assemblage of actors involved in the industry platformisation of learning and education edtech industries in the Global South and non-English speaking countries Submission Instructions Please submit a 300-word abstract, title and author details to Dr Andy Zhao (xinyu.zhao@deakine.edu.au) before the submission deadline. Please note that all abstracts must align with the journal’s aims and scope. Authors will be invited to submit full papers in ScholarOne once their abstracts are accepted. All final papers (expected to be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, including references) will be subject to blind peer reviewing and refereeing processes. Please remember to select the special issue title when submitting your full manuscript in ScholarOne. Papers will be published online as soon as they are accepted with the Special Issue as a whole to follow.

Media and Communication, peer-reviewed journal indexed in the Web of Science (Impact Factor: 2.7) and Scopus (CiteScore: 5.8), welcomes article proposals for its upcoming issue "Exploring Engagement With Complex Information: Perspectives on Generative AI as an Information Intermediary," edited by Monika Taddicken (TU Braunschweig), Esther Greussing (TU Braunschweig), Evelyn Jonas (TU Braunschweig), Ayelet Baram-Tsabari (Technion—Israel Institute of Technology), Inbal Klein-Avraham (Technion—Israel Institute of Technology), and Shakked Dabran-Zivan (Technion—Israel Institute of Technology). The thematic issue aims to facilitate a multi-perspective reflection on the intricate relationship between generative AI and public engagement with complex information. In the realm of public engagement with complex information, the thematic issue aims to understand how and for what reasons people use generative AI. The focus shall be on the potential benefits offered by generative AI to diverse audiences—evident in enhanced information access, personalized content experiences, and efficiency—and the corresponding risks of misinformation, reinforced biases, polarization, and the erosion of traditional structures of knowledge production. As such, generative AI introduces new complexities that complicate the public’s engagement with information and may challenge conventional notions of well-informed democratic discourse.

The “manosphere” refers to a heterogenous group of online communities that broadly promotes anti-feminism, misogyny, and hateful ideas about women, trans, and non-binary people. These communities attract, among other others, involuntary celibates (Incels), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pick-up artists (PUA), and Men’s Rights Activists (MRA). Although these communities are different, they share a broad ideology that women are to blame for a society in which men are victims, and that feminism is the cause of societal ills. These communities frequently endorse pseudo-science to justify male supremacy and produce hateful and violent narratives, which can lead to extremist behaviour with dangerous and fatal real-world consequences. First appearing in social media in the late 2000s-early 2010s, these groups are broadly understood to have historical roots from movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the numbers of individuals who frequent these online spaces are hard to determine, the communities they have come to represent have become more prominent in the mainstream due to well-publicised violent (and often tragic) actions undertaken by self-proclaimed members. Additionally, some prominent influencers, who share overlapping ideologies with the manosphere, find audiences beyond the online community in the mainstream media. This collection invites research that interrogates the causes, impact, and repercussions of this manosphere and networked misogyny. Research that engages with the following, and other, topics is welcomed: The reasons why and how men enter and exit the manosphere or similar communities What makes men vulnerable to the manosphere ideologies How these communities function and evolve, and network across online spaces The relationship between online groups and real-life violence The mechanics of radicalisation and extremism within networks of misogyny Analysis of memes, trolls, and other online tools used in such communities How influencers and public figures capitalize and cultivate the manosphere Discursive strategies used by members of the manosphere to support their ideology and ideas Overlap between the manosphere and other movements, such as the far right and white supremacy groups Mainstreaming of manosphere ideas and ideologies Counter narratives and movements (e.g., #metoo movement) Toxic narratives and ideologies in other spheres (e.g., arts, culture, politics) We welcome submissions that employ diverse methodologies and draw from a range of disciplines, including: sociology, anthropology, ethnography, gender studies, psychology, media studies, political science, among others.

Digital technologies have assumed a multifaceted role in transnational migration, especially for people who migrate to/from a highly platformized society such as China. More than 50 million people of Chinese origin are estimated to live outside China, especially in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and North America, although emigration to other parts of Asia, as well as Africa and Latin America, has also picked up. While the majority identify as Han Chinese, many ethnic minority Chinese also migrate around the world. At the same time, China hosts nearly 1.5 million immigrants. The country’s digital ecosystem creates unique opportunities and challenges for both groups. Researchers have examined the Chinese diaspora’s homeland and ethnic media use from the perspective of identity construction and political intervention. Others have looked at how Chinese emigrants employ homeland platforms, such as WeChat and Sina Weibo, as a migration infrastructure and ethno-transnational media, and how they serve as tools for digitized diasporic governance. Some scholars have also investigated the use of local and global platforms by immigrants arriving in China. Even as Chinese migrants experience racism online, Chinese platforms are not immune to exclusivist narratives targeting immigrants, either. Digital nationalism and populist discourses are important contexts in which immigrants and emigrants are represented by Chinese social media. This special issue of the Chinese Journal of Communication aims to expand our understanding of transnational migration in the digital age, especially as it relates to platforms, publics, and policies. It explores how digital platforms (Chinese and non-Chinese), their sociotechnical affordances, and the discourses they produce (or censor) bear upon transnational migration between China and various parts of the world, including Southeast Asia, Oceania, Africa, and Latin America, as well as North America, Europe and the rest of Asia. We are particularly interested in submissions that draw attention to the implications of digital technologies for migrant communities and the relations of power they (re)produce, user practices that work with or around digital affordances to achieve individual or collective goals, and national or supranational laws and regulations that shape digital industries and ecosystems and their impact on transnational migration.We invite contributions that address questions such as, but not limited to, the following: • What are the ways in which transnational migrants to/from China—or particular ethnicity-, religion-, income-, gender-, or sexuality-based groups within migrant communities—use digital technologies? • How do the sociotechnical affordances of digital devices and platforms, from interface design to algorithmic features such as filter bubbles, shape their use by transnational migrants to/from China? • How do transnational migrants to/from China deal with technological, financial, and/or linguistic barriers to communication through digital devices and platforms? • How do the business models of digital industries bear upon transnational migrant experiences to/from China? Who are its key stakeholders and intermediaries? • How does the attention economy of digital platforms influence transnational migrant experiences to/from China? How do these migrants negotiate their (in)visibility in this attention economy? • What are the discourses about transnational migration to/from China emerging in digital spaces? What are the ideological underpinnings of such discourses, and how do they impact domestic or international politics? • What are the emerging national/supranational laws and policies vis-à-vis digital platforms, and how do they impact transnational migration to/from China or migrant experiences? Who are their key stakeholders and intermediaries? • How will emerging trends in digital society, from augmented reality to the increasing use of artificial intelligence, impact transnational migration to/from China?

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) supports researchers who have fled their home countries by making it easier for them to join research projects and apply for funding under the Walter Benjamin Programme. The following requirements must be met in principle: The person has not been outside their home country for more than three years at the time of application and they have residential status in connection with an asylum procedure within the EU and are recognised as being at risk, or in lieu of proof of residency status, they are able to present credible third-party evidence of being at risk no more than 12 months prior to application. This way, the DFG also underlines its solidarity with researchers from Ukraine and Russia who had to flee their home country due to the current war situation triggered by the Russian attack. By integrating them swiftly in the German research system, the aim is to enable them to maintain continuity in their academic work. Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) unterstützt aus ihrem Heimatland geflüchtete Forschende durch die Erleichterung der Mitarbeit an Forschungsprojekten und die erleichterte Antragstellung im Walter Benjamin-Programm (Option Walter Benjamin-Stelle). Voraussetzungen: - Die Person darf sich noch nicht länger als drei Jahre außerhalb ihres Heimatlandes aufhalten (Zeitpunkt der Antragstellung) und - Es muss ein aufenthaltsrechtlicher Status im Zusammenhang mit einem Asylverfahrens innerhalb der EU vorliegen, aus dem eine anerkannte Gefährdung hervorgeht oder - Statt eines aufenthaltsrechtlichen Staus muss ein glaubwürdiger Nachweis der Gefährdung von einer dritten Stelle vorgelegt werden, der nicht älter als 12 Monate alt sein darf (Zeitpunkt der Antragstellung). (Information available in German and English. The deadline is just a dummy, the grant is open at the moment)

Do you study the past? Perhaps you even do historical research and know the difference between the Internet and the Web, and even how to historically and technically explain them? Chances are this Call for Articles may be of interest to you... Are you conducting groundbreaking research in the field of Internet or web history? Do you spend hours immersed in the archives of the web? You didn't dare but would like to propose an article for a first publication... Would you like to share methodological and critical issues that demonstrate a promising work in progress? Do you want to discuss your project with advanced researchers who will be ready to help you develop your paper and support you in this first experience with friendliness and rigor? This Call is definitely for you! This call for papers is addressed to early career researchers whose research focuses on the history of the internet and/or the web, and histories of digital cultures — or any historical topic within the scope of the Internet Histories journal. We invite any interested early career researchers (masters students, doctoral students, and post-doctoral researchers) to send us an original article, between 6,000 and 8,000 words, by 1 October 2025. If the scholar has a PhD degree this must not have been awarded more than three years prior to the time of submission, exclusive of any leaves (parental, medial, etc.). Co-authored submissions will be accepted if all authors are early career researchers. In this case, the award will be evenly split between all authors. The journal embraces empirical as well as theoretical and methodological studies within the field of the history of the internet broadly conceived — from early computer networks, Usenet and Bulletin Board Systems, to everyday uses of the Internet with the web, through to the emergence of new forms of the internet with mobile phones and tablet computers, social media, and the Internet of Things. The journal is the premier outlet for cutting-edge research in the closely related area of histories of digital cultures. All selected articles will be published in a special issue of the journal Internet Histories in the second half of 2026 and also automatically be nominated for the “Internet Histories Early Career Researcher” Award, which carries a prize of 500 euros. In addition to the prize the winner will be asked to give a brief talk about the article (online or onsite). The winning article will be made free to access for one year.