February 2026 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Doctoral Summer School - Research on Digital, Media and Information Literacy (ReDMIL 2026)
by Pierre Fastrez 17 Feb '26

17 Feb '26

Dear colleagues, Please find below the call for applications for the ReDMIL 2026 Doctoral Summer School (Research on Digital, Media & Information Literacy), which may be of interest for PhD students researching new literacies. Best regards, Pierre *** CALL FOR APPLICATIONS *** * Doctoral Summer School - Research on Digital, Media and Information Literacy (ReDMIL 2026) “Literacies in the middle” * September 1-4, 2026 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) – Université catholique de Louvain Application deadline : March 30th, 2026 Contact : info-redmil(a)uclouvain.be Website : https://www.redmil.info/ CONTEXT ********** As our daily lives are increasingly shaped by digital, informational, and media environments, it has become common to understand these environments through the lens of the corresponding new literacies that people are expected to mobilize in order to navigate the social world. In this context, literacies are increasingly under pressure. The calls for populations to develop and exercise such literacies have intensified to the point where they are frequently presented as a universal remedy to the multiple crises shaking contemporary societies: post-truth politics, polarization of opinion, rise of populism, new oligarchies, weakening of democratic institutions, climate disruption, etc. Unrealistically high expectations are placed on literacies, as if they alone could solve the major challenges of the contemporary world. When these inflated hopes inevitably collide with reality, disappointment follows. Yet the policies and initiatives meant to cultivate literacies never seem to be given the means to achieve what they are expected to accomplish, as societies fail to provide them with resources that would be essential to deploy on a large scale, resources that they desperately need to educate, emancipate, critique, and propose alternatives. High hopes, insufficient means, growing disillusionment: literacies and the communities that sustain their development find themselves caught in the middle, suspended between ambitious societal expectations and the limited conditions currently available to fulfill them. For its tenth anniversary, and in line with the long-standing philosophy of the summer school, ReDMIL2026 sets out to explore the idea that “being in the middle” does not have to be a liability; it can be a source of strength. From this strategic position, the actors and communities working to advance information, digital, and media literacies can engage in dialogue, join forces, and build a center of gravity strong enough to weigh on global issues. In this sense, new literacies offer a unique opportunity to build bridges. The summer school foregrounds literacies rather than alternative concepts (digital skills, e-competence, …) because the concept offers breadth, depth, and connective capacity. First, literacies extend beyond instrumental skills: they attend not only to how people use digital technology, but to what those uses mean in relation to texts, symbols, and discourses, and to where they are embedded in social practices. Second, literacies bring theoretical and epistemological depth. They draw on a long tradition that integrates critical perspectives, questioning authorship and authority, tracing infrastructures and interests, and situating knowledge within cultural, historical, and political contexts. Finally, literacies function as a boundary object across disciplines and among communities and stakeholders. We identify three trajectories through which such dialogues can take shape. At the disciplinary level, literacy research can drive fruitful alliances between fields such as communication and media studies, information science, law, psychology, engineering, education sciences, philosophy, and more, allowing for complex, multifaceted, and polyphonic solutions that match the scale and complexity of today’s societal problems. At the level of stakeholders, literacy initiatives can bring together researchers, practitioners, industry actors, activists, and policy-makers around the same table, creating a space where agendas can be coordinated, needs and resources can be matched, and shared objectives can be collectively defined. Such coordination contributes to the broader effort of connecting educational initiatives aimed at fostering literacies with the development of regulatory frameworks that hold industry actors accountable for their content governance practices, thereby helping to ease the disproportionate burden placed on individuals to cope with the proliferation of problematic content. Finally, at the intercultural and international level, literacies can provide a space for respectful encounters between diverse lived experiences and reflections emerging across the world in response to global technological platforms. They offer an opportunity to compare perspectives, negotiate meanings, and collectively build understandings that transcend local contexts. In doing so, literacies can contribute to fostering mutual recognition, supporting more inclusive global dialogues, and strengthening our capacity to respond collaboratively to the challenges shaped by transnational digital ecosystems. “Literacies in the middle”, then: not attempting to catch every rebound, but assuming the role of a playmaker, orchestrating the flow of the game and helping the team stay connected. Scope and goal of ReDMIL 2026 Literacy Doctoral Summer School ***************************************************************** The ReDMIL 2026 doctoral summer school is an international training program that aims to contribute to the convergence between digital, media and information literacy research by bringing together researchers from all three communities, to foster the scientific debate and explore connections between them. The summer school alternates between framing presentations by senior researchers and the in-depth discussion of emerging research by participating PhD students. Five experts have confirmed their participation in the 2026 edition: Pr. Michael Dezuanni, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Pr. Renee Hobbs, University of Rhode Island, USA Pr. Maarit Jaakkola, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Pr. Hyeon-Seon Jeong, Gyeongin National University of Education, South Korea Pr. Jad Melki, Lebanese American University, Lebanon These five experts will act both as keynote speakers and as mentors for participating PhD students throughout the summer school. The summer school is organized from September 1st-4th, 2026, by the Groupe de Recherche en Médiation des Savoirs (Knowledge Mediation Research Group) at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, in partnership with the Canada Research Chair in Media Education and Human Rights (Université TELUQ, Canada). The goal of this summer school is to allow PhD students researching digital literacy, media literacy, or information literacy: - to benefit from the expertise of renowned researchers in their field, through theoretical and methodological presentations; - to present their own research to an audience composed of these experts, as well as other PhD students and researchers; - to work collectively towards the enhancement of their research work with other participants; - to improve their knowledge of the research undertaken by their peers. The Summer School will start with a poster session (Sept. 1st), followed by six half-day sessions (Sept. 2nd-4th) on the following topics: - theoretical frameworks in the study of digital, media, and information literacies; - epistemological issues in new-literacies research; - methods for observing, documenting, and assessing literacies and their associated educational practices and policies; - designing research with social relevance and valorizing research results in society. Each half-day session will open with one plenary talk by one of our invited experts, followed by presentations of the participating PhD students’ research work, approached from the perspectives developed in the plenary talks. In addition to presenting an outline of their work at the opening poster session, each participating PhD student will have the opportunity to present their work in up to two sessions, on two different topics. In relation to the theme of the 2026’s edition “Literacies in the middle“, participants will be invited to discuss how their research cuts across different disciplines, brings together different stakeholders, or is situated at the intersection of different cultural contexts. The Summer School will also allow for numerous informal interactions between experts, researchers, and PhD students, including a networking dinner and a hands-on workshop on photography and research on literacies, led by Pr. Normand Landry (Université TELUQ, Canada). Participation and presentation from PhD students at the ReDMIL Summer School will be rewarded by 5 ECTS (or equivalent) for their doctoral training. Submission of applications *************************** The summer school is targeted at PhD students who develop their research in the following areas: - the study of new literacies: observing, documenting and/or assessing new literacies; - the study of educational initiatives in media literacy, information literacy or digital literacy practiced by a variety of actors (teachers and educators, employers, associations, parents, media and tech companies, …); - the study of public policies in the fields of digital, media and information literacies at any geographical level; - or any other topic related to digital literacy, media literacy, or information literacy. PhD students wishing to present and discuss their doctoral research at the summer school are invited to submit an application, including the following: - A brief curriculum vitae (one to two pages); - A written presentation of their doctoral research in a maximum of 1500 words (references not included), including the following four sections: - - Problem or societal issue that their thesis intends to address; - - Research question, hypotheses (in the case of a hypothetico-deductive approach) and theoretical framework of their thesis; - - Data collection and analysis method; - - Expected results: the usefulness of their research, from an academic and/or societal point of view (e.g., for the world of education, for the political world, for the media industry). - An abstract of the presentation of their doctoral research in a maximum of 300 words. Applications must be sent in the form of a single file (word or pdf) including CV, presentation and abstract to this address info-redmil(a)uclouvain.be by March 30th, 2026 at the latest. Candidates will be personally notified of the acceptance of their participation on May 4th. Registration ************ Students whose application is accepted and researchers (doctoral or not) wishing to attend the summer school without presenting their work will be asked to pay a participation fee of 120€ to partially cover the organizing costs of the events. The participation fee includes lunches, coffee breaks, and the mid-summer school dinner. Participants will have to cover their own travel, visa and accommodation costs. For participants affiliated with institutions based in the European Union, this summer school should fall within the conditions required to obtain ERASMUS+ travel funding. Participants are invited to get in touch with the ERASMUS+ coordinator of their home institution for guidance. Doctoral students for whom these costs would be an obstacle to participation can contact the organizers directly at info-redmil(a)uclouvain.be. The summer school is able to waive the participation fee and award up to three fellowships of up to 800€ each to help cover participation expenses. _____________________________________________________ Pierre Fastrez — Maître de recherches F.R.S.-FNRS Université catholique de Louvain (BE) Ruelle de la Lanterne Magique, 14 bte 2.03.02 - B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Tél. 32 (0)10 47 29 14 - Fax 32 (0)10 47 30 44

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Call for Book Chapters : Media, Journalism, and Collective Memory in Africa: Centring Epistemologies, Power and Culture
by silas udenze 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Hello Please could the call below be disseminated through the AoIR listserv. Thank You! Call for Book Chapters Title: Media, Journalism, and Collective Memory in Africa: Centring Epistemologies, Power and Culture Editors: Silas Udenze (University of Toronto, Canada) & Temple Uwalaka (University of Canberra, Australia) Preamble Media and journalism are central to the social construction of collective memory, which shapes how societies make sense of the past to orient the present and imagine the future. Through processes of selection, narration, visualization, and circulation, media and journalistic practices determine which events are remembered, which are marginalized or silenced, and which remain sites of ongoing contestation (Zelizer, 1992; Hoskins, 2014; Neiger et al., 2011). Journalism, in particular, functions as a recorder of events and a key mnemonic institution, repeatedly returning to certain pasts through anniversaries, commemorations, archives, and crisis reporting (Kitch, 2002; Edy, 1999; Nfor & Udenze, 2026), while marginalizing others through silence or distortion. Consequently, the relationship between media, journalism, and collective memory is complex and politically charged. In Africa, history of colonialism, slavery, liberation struggles, military rule, civil war, and authoritarian governance continue to shape contemporary media systems and journalistic practices (Ndlovu et al., 2024; Aiseng & Uzuegbunam, 2025). At the same time, African societies possessrich traditions of oral history, storytelling, ritual, and communal remembrance that coexist (Mbembe, 2002; Udo & Naidu, 2025; Mwambari, 2021; Sanni & Phiri, 2024), often uneasily, with Western-derived media institutions and archival logics. This makes Africa a critical site for rethinking dominant theories of collective memory, which have largely been developed from Western experiences. Scholarship in media and memory studies has emphasized the increasing mediatization of memory, highlighting how digital platforms, social media, and mobile communication technologies shape how the past is recorded, circulated, and contested (Uwalaka et al., 2025; Hoskins, 2024; Udenze, 2025). In Africa, media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, documentary films, and community radio are critical conduits for vernacular memory-making, enabling journalists, activists, artists, and ordinary citizens to document lived histories, challenge official narratives, and sustain counter-memories. These practices blur the boundaries between journalism, activism, and everyday communication, which raises critical questions about authority, credibility, ethics, and power in the production of public memory. Journalism studies further suggest that news media reflect collective memory and structure it through routines of selection, framing, repetition, and temporality (Nfor & Udenze, 2026; Zelizer, 2008). In African media landscapes marked by political pressure, economic precarity, and uneven access to technology, journalists often engage in memory work under conditions of constraint (Nfor & Udenze, 2026). This includes navigating censorship, negotiating trauma, reporting on unresolved past violence, and balancing professional norms with communal obligations (Aiseng & Uzuegbunam, 2025). At the same time, non-elite actors, citizens, diasporic communities, social movements, and cultural producers have increasingly taken on journalistic functions, producing alternative archives and mnemonic narratives that complicate institutional accounts of the past. In other words, media institutions, journalists, artists, and everyday citizens play a crucial role in remembering and forgetting. From newspapers, radio, and television to social media, messaging apps, archives, monuments, and oral storytelling, memory work is embedded in communicative practices that are deeply political in the continent. Consequently, this book seeks to bring these strands of argument into dialogue by interrogating how memory is produced, mediated, and contested across African media and journalism ecologies. It aims to foreground African experiences and epistemologies, challenge Eurocentric assumptions in memory, media and journalism studies, and highlight how communicative practices, both professional and informal, shape collective understandings of history. This proposed book is also interested in how power, technology, and culture intersect in the construction of public memory, and how journalistic norms are reshaped in contexts marked by postcolonial legacies, infrastructural inequalities, and rapid digital transformation. By centering Africa, this proposed book positions the continent not as a peripheral case but as a generative site for rethinking how media and journalism function as arenas of memory, power, and democratic struggle in a rapidly changing world. Key Themes and Topics Theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions, including but not limited to the themes below, are welcome: - Journalism and the politics of remembering and forgetting in Africa - Media representations of colonialism, independence, and liberation struggles - Collective memory, trauma, and post-conflict reconciliation in the media - Digital media, social media platforms, and memory practices and activism - Archives, counter-archives, and vernacular memory-making - Media, memorialization, and national identity formation - Journalism, authoritarianism, and contested historical narratives - Popular culture, Arts, storytelling, and everyday memory practices - Media ethics, truth-telling, and historical accountability - Artificial intelligence, datafication, and the future of memory in African media This call particularly encourages submissions from early-career, mid-level and established researchers, media practitioners, activists, artists, policy analysts based in or working on Africa, as well as interdisciplinary approaches from media studies, journalism studies, memory studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies. Submission Guidelines - Abstract length: 350 words. Include chapter title, abstract, author name(s), institutional affiliation(s), and a short bio (100 words), and send to: memorymediajournalism(a)gmail.com no later than 30 April 2026. Please note that if we reach the number of submissions before this deadline, we might stop receiving abstracts. Accepted paper will go through a double-blind peer review process. The targeted publishers for this project are Routledge African Media, Culture and Communication Studies & De Gruyter Brill’s Media and Cultural Memory. Key Dates - Abstracts submission deadline: 30 April 2026 - Notifications: 8 May 2026 - Full chapter submission deadline (Goes out for peer review): 30 July 2026 - Final manuscripts are due: 16 September 2026 - Book publication date: December 2026 -- Best wishes ------------------------------ Silas Udenze Recent publications: Udenze, S. (2025). “It’s a way to rally my inner circles and get them involved”: The Dynamics of Private Activism on WhatsApp in Nigeria. *Journal of Communication Inquiry*, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599251329299 Udenze, S. (2025). Though Episodic: The Retrospective-Prospective Nigeria’s EndSARS Protest Anniversaries and Its Peculiarities. *Africa Spectrum*, *0* (0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397251360253 Udenze, S. (2024).“No Gree for Anybody!”- “Without our compliance, their power means nothing”: unveiling the subtleness in Nigeria’s socio-political activism <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14797585.2024.2434848>. *Journal for Cultural Research*, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2024.2434848 Udenze, S., Roig Telo, A., & Pires, F. (2024). ‘The EndSARS movement is an umbrella for other challenges’: Assessing Nigeria’s EndSARS protest through the theoretical lens of intersectionality <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17506352241239550?icid=int.sj-abst…> . *Media, War & Conflict*, *17*(4), 501-518. https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352241239550

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AI Justice Public Lecture - Professor Sanjay Sharma on Inclusive AI - 25 Feb at 17:00
by Gavin Duffy 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Hello, I am very happy to invite you to the upcoming session in the community lecture series run by the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths. This session is convened by the AI Justice research strand. The upcoming talk is on Wednesday 25 February, 17:00-18:30 (GMT), with Professor Sanjay Sharma (University of Warwick) discussing his research on Inclusive Futures? Radical Ethics & Transformative Justice for Responsible AI, part of the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) Fellowship. This will be held in person on the Goldsmiths campus at the Professor Stuart Hall Building (LG01) from 17:00-18:30. There will also be a Teams stream of this lecture, the link for which can be found here<https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/39253325176553?p=d5GIySM3WGSoWtNSFM>. This talk will discuss how we can trouble AI, including through centring voices and knowledges which have been excluded from AI’s development, challenging dominant narratives of what ‘responsible AI’ looks like and whose interests are served by these visions. Drawing on critical data studies, speculative design, and abolitionist thought, Inclusive Futures brings to the fore an essential yet under-researched aspect of contemporary AI systems: their increasingly colonial and racialised ideologies. In participation with community-led social justice organisations and networks advocating for equity in AI, Inclusive Futures employs speculative, participatory methods for re-imagining AI from a bottom-up, justice-oriented perspective. Further information about the event can be found here<https://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=15829>. These sessions are open to everyone so please do come along if you're interested. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know at g.duffy(a)gold.ac.uk<mailto:g.duffy@gold.ac.uk>. Thank you very much, Gavin Duffy

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CfP: Journal Issue on Contemporary craft work and digital craft economies
by Williams, Ian Granger 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Special Issue Call for Papers: Contemporary craft work and digital craft economies Craft work can no longer be imagined as separate from the digital. More than a decade after Susan Luckman’s formative description of the “aura of analogue” (Luckman, 2013), craft work and craft economies have undergone a great deal of digitization, shifting and blurring the meanings and associations of long-stable and discrete categories. For instance, “artisanal manufacturing” used to be an oxymoron; today it describes a type of manual labour increasingly understood as offering opportunities for authenticity, creativity, and fulfillment. Digital media and craft have never been mutually exclusive, of course, but craft work and artisanal labour have garnered new appreciation for their pre-digital tools and processes, akin to the rearticulated pleasures that now purportedly flow from consuming non-digital media. However, contemporary appreciations of handmade commodities tend to traffic in nostalgia and obscure a more complicated set of lived relationships among craft workers and their tools, many of which not only utilize digital technology but owe much of their resurgence to the affordances of digital platforms. Craft workers sell their wares on digital platforms, tailor instructional videos for streaming services, and source their raw materials from online marketplaces. Established forms of work are always changing in response to technological shifts, and craft is no different. For instance, concepts like “neo craft” (Gandini and Gerosa, 2023; Gandini 2025) account for craft’s embeddedness with global, digital markets while capturing a growing discontent with white collar work. Contemporary craft work is still (too) often imagined as exclusively the realm of the analog, or as an antidote to digital saturation, but contemporary craft economies are increasingly impossible without engagement with digital technology. And digital craft economies feel increasingly unstable as well as inevitable or unavoidable. Digital platforms have become fraught places to sell and source, with platform owners taking a larger share of craft sales. Advanced automation and AI challenge established notions of authenticity within craft. Craft workers increasingly enter the gig economy. Algorithms nudge crafters to make, promote, and sell their wares in specific ways which are amenable to advertising dollars and circulation in the attention economy. The internet is simultaneously fracturing and consolidating craft markets under the purview of fewer, larger, and more powerful players, not only all-encompassing behemoths like Amazon, but also “crafty” platforms like Etsy. In light of these developments, craft feels as if it is on a precipice: how can craft economies survive in these new conditions, and what do craft workers want that survival to look like? This proposal is for an upcoming special issue which has received strong interest from a leading cultural studies journal. We welcome theoretical inquiry, case studies, and research papers which address the complicated and perhaps inextricable relations between craft, analog and digital technology, and the conditions of artisanal culture and digitized commerce. Possible topics include (but are not limited to): * Cultural exchange via craft work online * Practices and beliefs of digital craft communities * Craft and the gig economy * Rentierism and exploitation on digital craft platforms * The role of algorithmic sorting on digital platforms within craft communities * Philosophical inquiry into craft as a salient category in a digitized cultural economy * Changes in access to craft after digitization as a mode of work along lines of gender, race, and sexual orientation * The role of influencers in the broader craft economy * New challenges to craft work from AI and other forms of advanced automation * Craft’s relation to industry and regimes of mass production * The changing role of video in craft instruction after TikTok/Reels Send abstracts (250-500) words to Ian Williams at igwillia(a)live.unc.edu<mailto:igwillia@live.unc.edu> or Michael Palm at mpalm(a)unc.edu<mailto:mpalm@unc.edu> by March 5, 2026. Ian Williams, PhD Adjunct Instructor UNC Department of Communication

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CfP Session on Emerging Methods and Approaches for Researching Internet Infrastructures, RGS-IBG 2026
by Finn Dammann 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Dear colleagues, please find here a call for abstracts for a session on "*Emerging Methods and Approaches for Researching Internet Infrastructures* " at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers 2026 (September 1-4, London). We would be pleased to receive contribution proposals from AoIR! Best regards, Finn Dammann & Louis Petiniaud #### *Emerging Methods and Approaches for Researching Internet Infrastructures* In recent years, various academic disciplines have developed a renewed interest in the geographies of Internet infrastructures. This has drawn attention to the often overlooked infrastructural conditions of data flows and their political embeddedness. For example, studies on the geographies of digital network interconnection discuss the importance of urban (colocation) data centres for international data traffic (Monstadt & Saltzman, 2025; Rosa, 2021), work on the geographies of submarine cables, landing stations and Internet shutdowns describe postcolonial path dependencies in transcontinental data flows (Dambrosio et al., 2025; Grover, 2023; Mwema & Birhane, 2024;), studies on the geographies of network topologies reveal state measures of national data isolation or control (Douzet et al., 2022; Limonier et al., 2021; Salamatian et al., 2021), and work on the geographies of digital platforms discuss the close future of a spatially fragmented and simultaneously centralised (post-)Internet (Huston, 2023; Stocker et al., 2021). At the same time, one of the greatest challenges for critical social science research continues to be the challenging empirical and methodological approaches to these often „invisible“ geographies (Furlong, 2021). In this session, we therefore would like to bring together specific methodological and methodological-conceptual approaches for further research on Internet infrastructures. We are interested in both more ‘quantitative’ methods, such as those related to computer sciences and Internet measurements, and more ‘qualitative’ and ethnographic approaches, as well as methods for mapping physical Internet infrastructures. In addition, we welcome ideas for contributions that address broader methodological reflections or establish disciplinary historical references to research methods on Internet infrastructures. Please send a 250-word abstract and a 50-word bio to finn.dammann(a)fau.de andl.petiniaud(a)gmail.com by 27th February 2026. Keywords: Internet Infrastructures, Methods, Digital Geography, Internet Geographies, Cloud *Literature* Dambrosio, S., Díaz Bejarano, N., Duran Brand, C., & Thomley, L. (2025). >From Colonial Ruins to Digital Hub: The Grand Port Autonome de Marseille, a Tale of a Big Data Informal Empire in the Making. /Architectural Theory Review/, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2025.2522341 Douzet, F., Pétiniaud, L., Salamatian, K., & Samaan, J.-L. (2022). Digital routes and borders in the Middle East: The geopolitical underpinnings of Internet connectivity. /Territory, Politics, Governance/, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2022.2153726 Furlong, K. (2021). Geographies of infrastructure II: Concrete, cloud and layered (in)visibilities. /Progress in Human Geography/, /45/(1), 190–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520923098 Grover, R. (2023). Contingent connectivity: Internet shutdowns and the infrastructural precarity of digital citizenship. /New Media & Society/, 146144482311765. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231176552 Huston, G. (2023, August 7). /On Internet Centrality and Fragmentation/. RIPE Labs. https://labs.ripe.net/author/gih/on-internet-centrality-and-fragmentation/ Limonier, K., Douzet, F., Pétiniaud, L., Salamatian, L., & Salamatian, K. (2021). Mapping the routes of the Internet for geopolitics: The case of Eastern Ukraine. /First Monday/. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i5.11700 Monstadt, J., & Saltzman, K. (2025). HOW DATA CENTERS HAVE COME TO MATTER : Governing the Spatial and Environmental Footprint of the ‘Digital Gateway to Europe.’ /International Journal of Urban and Regional Research/, 1468-2427.13316. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13316 Mwema, E., & Birhane, A. (2024). Undersea cables in Africa: The new frontiers of digital colonialism. /First Monday/. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i4.13637 Rosa, F. R. (2021). Internet interconnection infrastructure: Lessons from the global south. /Internet Policy Review/, /10/(4). Scopus. https://doi.org/10.14763/2021.4.1583 Salamatian, L., Douzet, F., Salamatian, K., & Limonier, K. (2021). The geopolitics behind the routes data travel: A case study of Iran. /Journal of Cybersecurity/, /7/(1), tyab018. https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyab018 Stocker, V., Knieps, G., & Dietzel, C. (2021). The Rise and Evolution of Clouds and Private Networks – Internet Interconnection, Ecosystem Fragmentation. /SSRN Electronic Journal/. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3910108 Warf, B. (2011). Geographies of global Internet censorship. /GeoJournal/, /76/(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9393-3 -- Dr. Finn Dammann Institut für Geographie Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg https://www.geographie.fau.de/personen/finn-dammann/ www.geographie.nat.fau.de/en/ng-geographien-digitaler-infrastrukturen

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AoIR Mexico City: Technological imaginaries and futures panel participants needed
by Adrienne Massanari 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Hello all, I am pulling together a panel with some colleagues for AoIR Mexico City around the theme of sociotechnical imaginaries and futures (broadly conceived) and we are still looking for one or two other papers to round it out. Right now we have papers about retrofuturist imaginaries in popular culture, imaginaries of innovation and techno-optimism in AI policymaking in the EU, and technopaganist imaginaries of the early internet. Please email me off-list if you’re interested in participating. Work considering imaginaries in the Global South and/or around marginalized populations is especially welcome. Warmly, Adrienne --- Adrienne Massanari, PhD she/her/hers Associate Professor Communication Studies/School of Communication Faculty Affiliate: Antiracist Research and Policy Center & AU Game Center American University adriennemassanari.bsky.social @adriennemassanari@aoir.social www.adriennemassanari.com Zoom: https://american.zoom.us/j/5761835744 New book: Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right (MIT Press)

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AOIR 2026 Panel Proposal on Digital Criminology - Call for Extended Abstracts
by Piotr Siuda 16 Feb '26

16 Feb '26

Dear AoIR community, I would like to invite expressions of interest and extended abstracts for a proposed panel on Digital Criminology for the upcoming AoIR conference. Digital criminology has emerged as a productive interdisciplinary framework for examining how digital infrastructures, platforms, data practices, and algorithmic systems reshape crime, harm, justice, and regimes of control. Importantly, this field moves beyond narrow understandings of "cybercrime" as purely online offending, instead conceptualizing criminalization, victimization, governance, and illicit economies as deeply hybrid socio-technical processes, entangled across online/offline environments. In the context of internet research, digital criminology offers a particularly valuable lens for addressing core AoIR concerns: platform power, visibility and surveillance, mediated governance, digital cultures of harm, and the methodological challenges of studying sensitive or encrypted online spaces. This panel aims to bring together scholars working at the intersection of internet studies, criminology, media and communication research, digital sociology, and related fields to explore how digitalization reconfigures criminological phenomena and how internet researchers can contribute to these debates. Possible themes include (but are not limited to): Platform-mediated illicit economies (e.g., darknet markets, encrypted channels, social media drug trade) Digital harms, harassment, extremist networks, and online victimization Datafication, surveillance, and algorithmic governance in policing and justice Visibility regimes, infrastructures of control, and platform moderation practices AI, automation, and bias in criminological decision-making systems Methodological reflections: digital ethnography, computational approaches, research ethics in high-risk online fields Cultural meanings of crime and harm in online communities and digital publics Submission process & timeline To assemble the panel proposal, I kindly invite colleagues to submit an extended abstract (1000–1200 words), prepared in accordance with AoIR guidelines. Deadline for extended abstracts: 24 February 2026 Notification of acceptance for the panel: 26 February 2026 Final panel submission to AoIR (by organizer): 1 March 2026 Please send your extended abstract or expression of interest to: piotr.siuda(a)gmail.com -- *Piotr Siuda* (PhD, Professor of Media Studies) piotrsiuda.com Faculty of Cultural Studies Department of Game Studies and Digital Culture Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland Associate Editor, *Journal of Creative Communication *(SAGE Journals) *Recent papers:* *-- **Ghosted by the drug trade: A digital ethnography of absence, ethics, and epistemic friction on Tinder**, Crime, Media, Culture**.* *-- **Digital drug trading ecologies in context: Technological, geographic, and linguistic variation across darknet platforms*, *International Journal of Drug Policy.* -- *Navigating community-transaction and egalitarian-hierarchy divides: redefining virtual communities in the darknet drug trade and beyond*, *Information, Communication & Society.*

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Research process seminar. Ethnography of Algorithms. 17th Feb at 2pm on Zoom.
by Dan Jackson 15 Feb '26

15 Feb '26

Join us on Tuesday 17th February at 2-3pm (UK time) for the next Research Process Seminar. Hosted by the Media School at Bournemouth University — and open to all. *Ethnography of Algorithms* Based on the research carried out for her new book “Just for You” and ethnographies inside Danish news organisations (Nordicom, Spring 2026) Professor Møller Hartley will reflect on the challenges of studying the technical infrastructures and algorithms when dispersed across sites, clouds, servers and people, even departments inside the news organization. In the talk she will further discuss how we can study how these technologies and infrastructures like LLMs or machine learning models transform the practices and values of journalism, even when ‘its just code’ and even if no journalists are involved in the building/design of the algorithms. *About the speaker* Dr. Jannie Møller Hartley is professor of Journalism and Media Use, at the Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, Denmark. She has worked on the datafication of news production and news use with a special focus on the impact of personalization algorithms and news recommender systems in the news industries, is the PI of the DRC funded project AUTOPUBLICS, Head of the Media and Democracy Section and PI of the Data and AI Centre at RUC. Registration link: https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/DhKazFW_QoSY_46wsGQ5SQ If you can’t make it but would like the recording, please register and we’ll send it to you afterwards. Dan Jackson Professor of Media and Communication Bournemouth University jacksond(a)bournemouth.ac.uk Centre for Comparative Politics and Media Research: https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/centres-institutes/centre-comparativ… U.S. Election Analysis 2024: Media, Voters and the Campaign. https://www.electionanalysis.ws/us/ UK Election Analysis 2024: Media, Voters and the Campaign. https://www.electionanalysis.uk Olympic and Paralympic Analysis 2024: Mega events, media, and the politics of sport. https://olympicanalysis.org ________________________________ BU is a Disability Confident Employer and has signed up to the Mindful Employer charter. Information about the accessibility of University buildings can be found on the BU AccessAble webpages. This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email.

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Call for Panelists for Regenerating Trans Technologies Panel
by Hibby Thach 13 Feb '26

13 Feb '26

Hi all! I'm writing to circulate a call for panelists for a panel organized by me and Dr. Oliver L. Haimson at the University of Michigan's School of Information. We will be submitting this to the conference, so here's some details below: *Call for Panelists for Regenerating Trans Technologies* Trans technologies are inherently regenerative. As defined by Haimson (cite), trans technologies “embrace change and/or transition, foster the creation of new trans worlds, and open up new possibilities for what technology means and what it can do.” While many mainstream technologies often exclude or harm trans people, trans people and communities have long used, adapted, and built technologies to support trans care, connection, survival, and creativity. These practices reflect ongoing cycles of breakdown and renewal, as some technologies become unsafe or unusable and new tools, spaces, and practices emerge in response. We invite submissions from scholars, designers, artists, and community practitioners who study, create, or use regenerative trans technologies for a preconstituted panel at AoIR 2026. We are interested in work that examines how trans people remake technologies in ways that prioritize trans care and world-building, and how these efforts challenge dominant assumptions about efficiency, neutrality, and progress in technology design. Together, we aim to curate a set of panel papers that highlight how trans technological practices offer alternative ways of imagining digital futures. We welcome submissions on topics including, but not limited to: technological trans care, community-led design and building, mutual aid, resisting or refusing technologies, AI, AR, VR, social media, platform change or migration, and speculative or creative approaches to trans technological futures. Please send a one-paragraph abstract to hibby(a)umich.edu by February 20, 2026 to be considered for the panel. Selected contributors will be invited to develop extended abstracts for a preconstituted panel submission to AoIR 2026. --- We know this is a tight turn-around, so apologies for that! If anyone has any questions as well, feel free to send them my way. : ) Best, Hibby -- Graduate Student Coordinator Trans Studies Research Workshop / RIW <https://rackham.umich.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty-and-program-funding/rac…> 2024 - 2026 PhD Student School of Information <https://www.si.umich.edu/> University of Michigan Website: www.hibbythach.com LinkedIn: @HibbyThach <https://www.linkedin.com/in/hibbythach/> Bluesky: @hibby.bsky.social <https://bsky.app/profile/hibby.bsky.social> Twitch: @HibbyBoBibby <http://twitch.tv/hibbybobibby> Pronouns: She/Her

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CFP: Digital Platforms and Digital Labor in East Asia and Beyond — Special Issue, Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
by Dechun Zhang 13 Feb '26

13 Feb '26

Dear colleagues, The Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia (JCEA) is pleased to invite submissions for a special issue titled “Digital Platforms and Digital Labor in East Asia and Beyond.” This issue explores how platform companies have become key infrastructures of contemporary life, reorganizing economic exchange, labor relations, and everyday social interaction. With Asia as a central site of platform innovation—from Alibaba, Meituan, and Didi to Coupang, Rakuten, Grab, Gojek, Shopee and beyond—this special issue highlights how platform-mediated work emerges and is contested in diverse political, social, and cultural contexts, and how these experiences speak back to global debates on the future of work. Across the region, ride-hailing, food-delivery, e-commerce, livestreaming, influencer economies, and other platform-based industries are reshaping what it means to work, organize, and be governed. Platforms promise flexibility, entrepreneurship, and new forms of aspirational and creative labor, yet they also deepen precarity through algorithmic management, opaque data practices, and limited social protections. We therefore invite contributions that critically investigate these tensions, foreground workers’ perspectives, and situate Asian cases within comparative and global conversations on digital capitalism and labor. We welcome submissions from communication and media studies, sociology, anthropology, political economy, labor studies, law, Asian studies, and related fields. Submissions may employ qualitative, quantitative, computational, or mixed methods, and may be empirical or theoretical in nature. Potential topics include (but are not limited to): * Algorithmic management, surveillance, and labor control in platform economies * Worker agency, identity, and resistance in gig and creative labor * Regulation, law, and welfare regimes shaping platform work * Gender, class, race/ethnicity, and migration in digital labor markets * Blurred boundaries between production and consumption (prosumption, user participation, datafication) * Transnational digital labor, outsourcing, and cross-border freelancing * Emerging technologies (AI, automation, blockchain, IoT) and the future of work We particularly encourage papers that place Asian experiences in comparative or global perspective, and that extend or challenge existing theoretical frameworks in digital labor studies, platform capitalism, and critical political economy. The full CFP is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13DVKzyEVc0563TVdQUQzpR-yCDR7Yp-4/view?usp=… Submission Guidelines Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words in English and a short author bio to j.c.eastern.asia(a)gmail.com, with “JCEA Special Issue – Digital Platforms and Digital Labor” as the email subject line Key Dates * Abstract submission: 20 March 2026 * Notification of invitation to submit full paper: 1 April 2026 * Full paper submission: 30 September 2026 Further information about the journal is available at: https://jceasia.org/ We very much look forward to your abstracts and to advancing critical conversations on digital platforms and digital labor in East Asia and beyond. Best wishes Dechun Zhang JCEA Managing Editor (on behalf of the JCEA Editorial Board)

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