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Interesting blogpost: why social sciences require "idle time"
by Marra, Monica 18 Nov '25

18 Nov '25

I would like to recommend the reading of a thought-provoking blogpost about how time constraints - or "publish or perish" approach - in academic/research environments are detrimental to the quality of social science research *in particular*. The author is dr. Madiha Tariq. >From the beginning of the post: " [...] The current academic environment leaves little room for patience. Research must show immediate results and individuals must publish or perish. [...] Yet much of what matters in the social sciences depends on the opposite: unstructured, seemingly idle time. The social sciences, more than hard sciences, have methodologically and philosophically depended on forms of work that unfold slowly. Ethnographers observe and absorb. Sociologists return to the same sites until patterns emerge. These rhythms define scholarship that requires patience and openness to the uneventful. The disappearance of extended time from the university changes the texture of intellectual life. It narrows how we think and what we are able to notice." If interested, you can read the whole post at https://shorturl.at/5N245 Regards, Monica Marra -- Dr. Monica Marra, technologist INAF - OAS Bologna via Gobetti 93/3 40129 Bologna, Italy https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Monica_Marra Teleworker Working days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

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'After Technocolonialism' book panel discussion, Nov 26th 5-7pm @Goldsmiths
by Mirca Madianou 18 Nov '25

18 Nov '25

Those of you in London may be interested in this book panel event at Goldsmiths, part of the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Community Lectures. All welcome! After Technocolonialism A panel discussion about the book 'Technocolonialism: when technology for good is harmful' with Helen Kennedy, Jo Littler, Andrea Medrado, Nirmal Puwar and Mirca Madianou Wednesday November 26, 5-7pm, Richard Hoggart Building (RHB) room 137A, Goldsmiths U of London This event, part of the MCCS Community Lecture Series, marks the publication of the book ‘Technocolonialism: when technology for good is harmful’ (https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=technocolonialism-when-tec…) 'Technocolonialism' charts how AI and data practices harm some of the world’s most marginalised people. The panel title ‘After Technocolonialism’ is a provocation. Rather than suggesting the end of colonialism the panellists will explore the practices of resistance, the role of solidarity and participatory research and what ‘the digital good’ might look like. Charting the harms of technocolonialism is the first step towards imagining alternative futures. The event takes place in the space of the exhibition 'Reimagining Digital ID' which showcases the artwork of Karen refugees from the Thailand-Myanmar border. Through their drawings, Karen refugees express their experiences with biometric systems and imagine alternative futures: https://www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=15599 The panel will be followed by drinks and the opportunity to view and discuss the drawings with the research team. Jo Littler is Professor of Culture, Media and Social Analysis at Goldsmiths. Her books include The Politics of Heritage (2005); Radical Consumption (2008); Against Meritocracy (2018); The Care Manifesto (2020); and Left Feminisms (2023). She is part of the editorial collective of Soundings: A Journal of Politics & Culture, a Trustee of the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, a judge for the Stuart Hall Foundation Essay Prize and an elected fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Helen Kennedy FBA FacSS is Professor of Digital Society at the University of Sheffield, and Director of the ESRC Digital Good Network<https://digitalgood.net/> and the Living With Data<https://livingwithdata.org/> research programme, all in the UK. The Digital Good Network asks what a good digital society looks like and how we get there, centring the views of minoritised people in its answers to these questions. Her research focuses on how digital media are experienced by non-expert folk as part of their everyday lives, and how and whether they can be equitable. She is author/editor of four books and over 50 journal articles, as well as numerous publications for non-academic audiences. Mirca Madianou is Professor in the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies and co-Director of the Migrant Futures Institute at Goldsmiths. Her research focuses on the social consequences of digital technologies, infrastructures and AI in global south contexts especially in relation to migration and humanitarian emergencies. She is currently PI on a British Academy grant on digital identity systems in refugee camps in Thailand (https://www.redid.net/) Her latest book is Technocolonialism: when technology for good is harmful<https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=technocolonialism-when-tec…>. Andrea Medrado is Associate Professor in Global Communications in the Department of Communications, Drama & Film, University of Exeter and Co-Vice President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Andrea is currently Co-Investigator for the Project “The Social Foundations of Cryptography”, funded by EPSRC, and Principal Investigator on the Project “Favel IA”, funded by the INCT DSI Consortium in Brazil. Her book Media Activism, Artivism and the Fight Against Marginalisation in the Global South (with Isabella Rega) won the Outstanding Book Award 2024 from the ICA Activism, Communication and Social Justice Division. Professor Nirmal Puwar has been at Goldsmiths University since 2004. Her classic book Space Invaders: race, gender and bodies out of place (2004), has been re-visited for a 20th anniversary issue in the European Journal of Cultural Studies<https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ECS/current>. Live Methods (2013, co-edited with Les Back) has also been re-visited in an anniversary issue in Sociological Review<https://thesociologicalreview.org/announcements/news/live-methods-revisited/>. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Feminist Research and Co-Convenor of the MA Gender, Media, Culture. Puwar is a regular collaborator, seeking contact zones of exchange with and beyond academia, with her expertise in creative methods and spatial practice. For directions to Goldsmiths please see here: https://www.gold.ac.uk/find-us/ Professor Mirca Madianou Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross, London SE14 6NW UK email: m.madianou(a)gold.ac.uk<mailto:m.madianou@gold.ac.uk> @madianou.bsky.social http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/madianou/ https://www.gold.ac.uk/research/centres-units/migrant-futures-institute/ New Book: Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful<https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=technocolonialism-when-tec…> <https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=technocolonialism-when-tec…> New Project: Reimagining Digital ID<https://www.redid.net/>

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CFA: Academic Summer Camp Faculty
by Daniela Rodriguez 17 Nov '25

17 Nov '25

Applications open: Academic Summer Camp Faculty Telluride Association seeks faculty to teach challenging, tuition-free summer courses for high school sophomores and juniors, on the campuses of Cornell University and the University of Maryland - College Park. Courses may be in either (a) Black studies or (b) any other humanities/social science field, as long as the content engages anti-oppressive and anti-racist frameworks. For 2026, we are particularly interested in courses related to science and technology studies (STS), though any field is welcome. Faculty benefit from the opportunity to pilot courses they might later teach at their home institutions, as well as access to cultural resources at our host institutions. Participants receive no grades or college credit; instead, we emphasize deep inquiry and collaborative exploration. Position details: - Faculty work 8 weeks in total. The 5-week teaching period runs from June 22, 2026 to July 24, 2026. - During the teaching period, faculty are expected to work synchronously from 8:30am-2:30pm M-F; this time includes classes (12 contact hours/week), student lunches, and staff meetings. In addition, faculty will spend 8 hours per week preparing classes and providing feedback on student work. - Faculty will be paid $14,781.60 for the entire program, comprising 8 weeks at $1,535.20/week plus a $2,500 completion bonus. Telluride will reimburse up to $2,558.50 for documented housing/relocation expenses. - Applicants must have a strong teaching record, plus either a terminal degree, or other graduate degree plus equivalent work experience. - Application materials include an online application, resume or CV, cover letter, and a 1-page course description of your proposed course. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis. For the full position description, please click here: https://tellurideassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2026-TASS-Posit… For the application, please click here: https://tellurideassociation.applytojob.com/apply/96gTchWXYF/Academic-Summe… Founded in 1911 by Lucien L. Nunn, Telluride Association’s mission is to prepare and inspire promising students to lead and serve through free, transformative educational experiences rooted in critical thinking and democratic community.

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War in the Smartphone Age, book talk and discussion with Matthew Ford, December 3rd, 3-5pm
by Patrick Smith 17 Nov '25

17 Nov '25

Dear colleagues, With apologies for cross-posting. Just a reminder that the Emergent Nonfiction Lab (part of the Counter Evidentiary Futures project) at the University of Salford welcomes Matthew Ford (Associate Professor, Department of War Studies, Swedish Defence University) for this online talk on his new book *War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity and the Crises at Our Fingertips*, with respondent Miglė Bareikytė (Assistant Professor of Digital Studies, European University Viadrina). You can register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/war-in-the-smartphone-age-book-talk-and-disc… Thanks to smartphones, war is everywhere, all the time. Anyone can view, analyse and comment on photos, videos or other warzone media. Where did this technology come from? And what does it mean for the future of war? This book explains why you see what you do on your phone, and how these devices shape our knowledge, conduct and representation of war in the 2020s. It shows why smartphones are indispensable in peace and wartime: every device is a potential weapon, lines blur between war and daily life, and conflict becomes a shared digital experience. Social media platforms displace state-controlled narratives, amplifying violence and shaping war’s legitimacy. Apps democratise conflict, enabling anyone to identify and attack perceived enemies. As the Ukraine war has shown, this new reality involves complex, unevenly distributed infrastructures, merging civilian communication with military targeting. With war accelerating beyond our comprehension, militaries have raced to benefit from and adapt to the smartphone age. Matthew Ford explores critical questions about today’s hyper-connected battlefield. Matthew Ford is an academic focusing on war and the data-saturated battlefields of the 21st century. His previous book - Radical War (Hurst & Co, London and Oxford University Press, New York 2022) - with Professor Andrew Hoskins from Edinburgh University traces war’s data trajectories, from the epicentres of battle out to distant parts of the world, into history, memory and as it is memed into the platforms that mediate digital culture. Matthew's first book, 'Weapon of Choice - Small Arms and the Culture of Military Innovation', is an analysis of military innovation and culture and was published by Hurst & Co, London and Oxford University Press, New York in 2017. Matthew is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK); an Associate of the IWM Institute; a senior non-resident fellow at the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida; an Honorary Historical Consultant to the Royal Armouries (UK); a former visiting scholar at the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA; a former West Point fellow; and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal for Military History. Miglė Bareikytė holds the Chair of Digital Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), where she is a dual member of the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences and the European New School of Digital Studies (ENS). She has been researching digitalisation for many years, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2022, she has been leading the CRC 1187 project “War Sensing”, which involves investigating civilian media and data practices, digital war witnessing on Telegram messenger, and AI imaginaries during Russia’s war against Ukraine in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Siegen, the Center for Urban History in Lviv, the University of Bern, and beyond. In addition, Bareikytė’s research extends to the study of historical and contemporary disinformation practices and conflicts in platform economies. Best, Patrick -- Dr. Patrick Brian Smith Assistant Professor and University Fellow School of Arts, Media and Creative Technology University of Salford

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CfA Funding for Research Sabbaticals (Fellowships) and Working Groups
by Esther Laufer 17 Nov '25

17 Nov '25

The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) funds innovative research on the societal impact of digital transformation. We support individual researchers (fellows) and collaborative projects (working groups). Fellowships: Time and Space for Focus and Inspiration A fellowship at CAIS provides the freedom to dedicate yourself to your research and the opportunity to become part of a vibrant interdisciplinary community. Step away from daily work routines to gain new perspectives and build lasting connections. As a fellow, you can spend either six or three months in Bochum, Germany. During this time, we will cover your sabbatical leave from work through financial compensation (e.g. for a teaching substitute) or provide grants of up to 2.000 € per month. In addition, we will provide a fully furnished apartment free of charge. You can invite guests for collaboration and receive financial support for research expenses. Private offices and meeting rooms with modern facilities offer optimal working conditions. Find out more: https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/fellowships/ Working Groups: Boost Your Research Collaboration A working group at CAIS enables you to assemble your own team of experts from different locations to collaborate in a stimulating environment. We provide modern meeting facilities and catering for groups of up to ten members. In addition, we will cover travel and accommodation expenses. You can spend up to three weeks in Bochum or get together for several shorter meetings. Find out more: https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/working-groups/ Application The next deadline for applications is 19 December 2025. You can currently apply for a fellowship taking place between April and September 2027, or for working group meetings in 2027. Please use the application forms provided on our website. The funding program is open to excellent scholars and practitioners at all career stages and from all disciplines. Both fundamental research and applied projects are welcome. Questions? Please contact esther.laufer(a)cais-research.de mailto:esther.laufer@cais-research.de.

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Call for Papers: Counter Research Symposium at King’s College London
by Jiali Fan 17 Nov '25

17 Nov '25

Hi all, This is a reminder that there is one week left to submit to Counter Research at King’s College London. Keynote Speaker Natalie Fenton, Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London About the symposium  The Counter-Research Symposium is a one-day event organised by CRIMSON (Counter Research in Media Studies Organized Network), a new cross-institutional research network that centres research on marginalised, precarious, contentious, and often silenced communities. It supports media scholars and activists undertaking politically and emotionally complex work in challenging environments, including closed authoritarian regimes, and whose research directly confronts state and institutional power.  The symposium will bring CRIMSON members together with invited participants to explore the meaning and stakes of counter-research in global media and communication studies - particularly in the context of rising right-wing populism and intensifying attacks on critical theories and DEI initiatives. It will also serve as a space for collective reflection on the methodological, ethical, and emotional challenges of conducting research that unsettles and confronts structures of the state, establishment, and academy.  We welcome contributions that engage with the concept of counter-research and examine its diverse dimensions - epistemological, methodological, and practical. We are especially interested in work that explores positionality and vulnerability in counter-research; interrogates the risks shared by researchers and participants and how these may be entangled; and work that complicates the very idea of the counter and considers how counter-research methods might unsettle conventional approaches to media and communication. We also invite contributions that propose new frameworks for sustaining such scholarship in precarious times, and that reflect on the role of institutions in promoting more inclusive and reflexive scholarly cultures.  We welcome papers related to any of the following topics:  Researcher vulnerability in conflict-ridden contexts  Researcher vulnerability in state-critical research   Conducting research on authoritarian regimes (fieldwork challenges and strategies of resistance or workaround)  Researching the ‘other’: ethics, representation, and power  Researcher–participant relationships in counter-research contexts  Intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, coloniality, and caste in counter-research  How institutions (universities and beyond) respond—or fail to respond—to the challenges of counter-research  Emotional labour, care, and precarity in counter-research  Counter research as a contentious concept (thinking about who is claiming to produce counter discourse or research, why and for what ends)    Submission details  Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words and a short biographical note (up to 100 words) to crimsonsymposium(a)gmail.com by Friday 21 November 2025.  We encourage submissions from PhD students, Early Career Researchers, and scholars in precarious positions or from underrepresented backgrounds.  More information: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/counter-research-symposium Organising Committee: Munira Cheema, King’s College London  Anna Khlusova, King’s College London  Yuval Katz, Loughborough University  Matthias De Bondt, KU Leuven  Woori Han, University of Exeter   Jiali Fan, University of Cambridge  Hong Yu Liu, University of Sussex Jiali Fan, PhD (she/her) Department of Sociology University of Cambridge Recent Publications: In and against the platform: Navigating precarity for Instagram and Xiaohongshu (Red) influencers.<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241270434> New Media & Society The ‘emotional contract’: On obligation and guilt in women influencers’ work with brands.<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2024.2395963> Feminist Media Studies. My working hours may differ from yours. Please don’t feel obligated to respond outside of your normal work schedule.

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New Edited Book: "Digital Authoritarianism in the Making", The MIT Press
by Francesca Musiani 17 Nov '25

17 Nov '25

Dear colleagues, Please allow me to announce that "Digital Authoritarianism in the Making: Repression and Resistance on the Russian Internet", co-edited by Françoise Daucé, Benjamin Loveluck and myself, is published with the MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553674/digital-authoritarianism-in-the-maki… The result of a five-year research programme, ResisTIC (2018-2022, funded by ANR, the French National Research Agency), it is a revised, updated and expanded translation of "Genèse d'un autoritarisme numérique" (2023, Presses des Mines). We are grateful to benefit from the D2O (Direct to Open) programme, funded by participating libraries. The OA version of the book is here https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/6043/Digital-Authoritarianism… and we hope it will reach a large international readership. Kind regards Francesca -- Francesca Musiani, Ph.D. Directrice de recherche | Research Professor, CNRS <http://www.cnrs.fr> Directrice | Director, Centre Internet et Société <https://cis.cnrs.fr/> (UPR 2000 CNRS) Directrice adjointe | Deputy Director, GDR Internet, IA et Société <https://cis.cnrs.fr/presentation-gdr/> (GDR 2091 CNRS) I'm also associated with: i3-CSI <http://www.csi.ensmp.fr/>, MINES ParisTech | Internet Governance Lab <https://internetgovernancelab.org>, American University I co-lead projects: DIGISOV <https://digisov.org> | ClaimSov <https://cis.cnrs.fr/claimsov/> I'm an advisor for: ISOC France <https://www.isoc.fr> | ANSSI <https://www.ssi.gouv.fr/agence/rayonnement-scientifique/conseil-scientifiqu…> | IAMCR <https://iamcr.org/governance/int-council> I help co-editing Internet Policy Review <https://policyreview.info> I'm here on the Web (FR <https://cis.cnrs.fr/francesca-musiani/> | EN <https://cis.cnrs.fr/en/francesca_musiani/>), including my publications.

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The Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2026): Second Combo Call for Workshop Papers
by Announce 15 Nov '25

15 Nov '25

*** Second Combo Call for Workshop Papers *** The Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2026) March 23-26, 2026, 5* Coral Beach Hotel & Resort, Paphos, Cyprus https://iui.hosting.acm.org/2026/<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> The ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (ACM IUI) is the leading annual venue for researchers and practitioners to explore advancements at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). IUI 2026 attracted a record number of submissions for the main conference (561 full paper submissions after an initial submission of 697 abstracts). Although the submission deadline for the main conference is now over, we welcome the submission of papers to a number of workshops that will be held as part of IUI 2026. A list of these workshops, with a short description and the workshops' websites for further information, follows below. AgentCraft: Workshop on Agentic AI Systems Development (full-day workshop) Organizers: Karthik Dinakar (Pienso), Justin D. Weisz (IBM Research), Henry Lieberman (MIT CSAIL), Werner Geyer (IBM Research) URL: https://agentcraft-iui.github.io/2026/<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> Ambitious efforts are underway to build AI agents powered by large language models across many domains. Despite emerging frameworks, key challenges remain: autonomy, reasoning, unpredictable behavior, and consequential actions. Developers struggle to comprehend and debug agent behaviors, as well as determine when human oversight is needed. Intelligent interfaces that enable meaningful oversight of agentic plans, decisions, and actions are needed to foster transparency, build trust, and manage complexity. We will explore interfaces for mixed-initiative collaboration during agent development and deployment, design patterns for debugging agent behaviors, strategies for determining developer control and oversight, and evaluation methods grounding agent performance in real-world impact. AI CHAOS! 1st Workshop on the Challenges for Human Oversight of AI Systems (full-day workshop) Organizers: Tim Schrills (University of Lübeck), Patricia Kahr (University of Zurich), Markus Langer (University of Freiburg), Harmanpreet Kaur (University of Minnesota), Ujwal Gadiraju (Delft University of Technology) URL: https://sites.google.com/view/aichaos/iui-2026?authuser=0<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> As AI permeates high-stakes domains—healthcare, autonomous driving, criminal justice —failures can endanger safety and rights. Human oversight is vital to mitigate harm, yet methods and concepts remain unclear despite regulatory mandates. Poorly designed oversight risks false safety and blurred accountability. This interdisciplinary workshop unites AI, HCI, psychology, and regulation research to close this gap. Central questions are: How can systems enable meaningful oversight? Which methods convey system states and risks? How can interventions scale? Through papers, talks, and interactive discussions, participants will map challenges, define stakeholder roles, survey tools, methods, and regulations, and set a collaborative research agenda. CURE 2026: Communicating Uncertainty to foster Realistic Expectations via Human- Centered Design (half-day workshop) Organizers: Jasmina Gajcin (IBM Research), Jovan Jeromela (Trinity College Dublin), Joel Wester (Aalborg University), Sarah Schömbs (University of Melbourne), Styliani Kleanthous (Open University of Cyprus), Karthikeyan Natesan Ramamurthy (IBM Research), Hanna Hauptmann (Utrecht University), Rifat Mehreen Amin (LMU Munich) URL: https://cureworkshop.github.io/cure-2026/<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> Communicating system uncertainty is essential for achieving transparency and can help users calibrate their trust in, reliance on, and expectations from an AI system. However, uncertainty communication is plagued by challenges such as cognitive biases, numeracy skills, calibrating risk perception, and increased cognitive load, with research finding that lay users can struggle to interpret probabilities and uncertainty visualizations. HealthIUI 2026: Workshop on Intelligent and Interactive Health User Interfaces (half-day workshop) Organizers: Peter Brusilovsky (University of Pittsburgh), Behnam Rahdari (Stanford University), Shriti Raj (Stanford University), Helma Torkamaan (TU Delft) URL: https://healthiui.github.io/2026/<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> As AI transforms health and care, integrating Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) in wellness applications offers substantial opportunities and challenges. This workshop brings together experts from HCI, AI, healthcare, and related fields to explore how IUIs can enhance long-term engagement, personalization, and trust in health systems. Emphasis is on interdisciplinary approaches to create systems that are advanced, responsive to user needs, mindful of context, ethics, and privacy. Through presentations, discussions, and collaborative sessions, participants will address key challenges and propose solutions to drive health IUI innovation. MIRAGE: Misleading Impacts Resulting from AI-Generated Explanations (full-day workshop) Organizers: Simone Stumpf (University of Glasgow), Upol Ehsan (Northeastern University), Elizabeth M. Daly (IBM Research), Daniele Quercia (Nokia Bell Labs) URL: https://mirage-workshop.github.io<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> Explanations from AI systems can illuminate, yet they can misguide. MIRAGE at IUI tackles pitfalls and dark patterns in AI explanations. Evidence now shows that explanations may inflate unwarranted trust, warp mental models, and obscure power asymmetries—even when designers intend no harm. We classify XAI harms as Dark Patterns (intentional, e.g., trust-boosting placebos) and Explainability Pitfalls (unintended effects without manipulative intent). These harms include error propagation (model risks), over-reliance (interaction risks), and false security (systemic risks). We convene an interdisciplinary group to define, detect, and mitigate these risks. MIRAGE shifts focus to safe explanations, advancing accountable, human-centered AI. PARTICIPATE-AI: Exploring the Participatory Turn in Citizen-Centred AI (half-day workshop) Organizers: Pam Briggs (Northumbria University), Cristina Conati (University of British Columbia), Shaun Lawson (Northumbria University), Kyle Montague (Northumbria University), Hugo Nicolau (University of Lisbon), Ana Cristina Pires (University of Lisbon), Sebastien Stein (University of Southampton), John Vines (University of Edinburgh) URL: https://sites.google.com/view/participate-ai/workshop<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> This workshop explores value alignment for participatory AI, focusing on interfaces and tools that bridge citizen participation and technical development. As AI systems increasingly impact society, meaningful and actionable citizen input in their development becomes critical. However, current participatory approaches often fail to influence actual AI systems, with citizen values becoming trivialized. This workshop will address challenges such as risk articulation, value evolution, democratic legitimacy, and the translation gap between community input and system implementation. Topics include value elicitation within different communities, critical analysis of failed participatory attempts, and methods for making citizen concerns actionable for developers. SHAPEXR: Shaping Human-AI-Powered Experiences in XR (full-day workshop) Organizers: Giuseppe Caggianese (National Research Council of Italy, Institute for High- Performance Computing and Networking Napoli), Marta Mondellini (National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Intelligent Industrial Systems and Technologies for Advanced Manufacturing, Lecco), Nicola Capece (University of Basilicata), Mario Covarrubias (Politecnico di Milano), Gilda Manfredi (University of Basilicata) URL: https://shapexr.icar.cnr.it<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> This workshop explores how eXtended Reality (XR) can serve as a multimodal interface for AI systems, including LLMs and conversational agents. It focuses on designing adaptive, human-centered XR environments that incorporate speech, gesture, gaze, and haptics for seamless interaction. Main topics include personalization, accessibility, cognitive load, trust, and ethics in AI-driven XR experiences. Through presentations, discussions, and collaborative sessions, the workshop aims to establish a subcommunity within IUI to develop a roadmap that includes design principles and methodologies for inclusive and adaptive intelligent interfaces, enhancing human capabilities across various domains, such as healthcare, education, and collaborative environments. TRUST-CUA: Trustworthy Computer-Using Generalist Agents for Intelligent User Interfaces (full-day workshop) Organizers: Toby Jia-Jun Li (University of Notre Dame), Segev Shlomov (IBM Research), Xiang Deng (Scale AI), Ronen Brafman (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Avi Yaeli (IBM Research) Zora (Zhiruo) Wang (Carnegie Mellon University) URL: https://sites.google.com/view/trust-cuaiui26/home<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> Computer-Using Agents (CUAs) are moving from point automations to generalist agents acting across GUIs, browsers, APIs, and CLIs—raising core IUI questions of trust, predictability, and control. This workshop advances trustworthy-by-design CUAs through human-centered methods: mixed-initiative interaction, explanation and sensemaking, risk/uncertainty communication, and recovery/rollback UX. Outcomes include (1) a practical TRUST-CUA checklist for oversight, consent, and auditing, (2) a user-centered evaluation profile (“CUBench-IUI,” e.g., predictability, oversight effort, time-to-recovery, policy-aligned success), and (3) curated design patterns and open challenges for deployable, accountable agentic interfaces. Important Dates • Paper Submission: December 19, 2025 • Notification: February 2, 2026 All dates are 23:59h AoE (anywhere on Earth). Organisation General Chairs • Tsvi Kuflik, The University of Haifa, Israel • Styliani Kleanthous, Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus Local Organising Chair • George A. Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Workshop and Tutorial Chairs • Karthik Dinakar, Pienso Inc, USA • Werner Geyer, IBM Research, USA • Patricia Kahr, University of Zurich, Switzerland • Antonela Tommasel, ISISTAN, CONICET-UNCPBA, JKU, Argentina, Austria

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CFP: 2026 Privacy Law Scholars Conference
by Daniel Susser 15 Nov '25

15 Nov '25

Hi all, submissions to the 2026 Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC) are now open. Please see below for more info! Best, Daniel -- Daniel Susser <http://www.danielsusser.info/> Associate Professor Dept. of Information Science Cornell University CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Privacy Law Scholars Conference 2026 www.privacyscholars.org <https://privacyscholars.org/plsc-2026/> The Program & Planning Committee of the Privacy Law Scholars Conference invites submissions for the 19th annual conference (PLSC 2026) to be held in person on Thursday and Friday, May 28 and 29, 2026, with a new mentorship-focused pre-conference on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27, at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana. We are excited to introduce several new elements to PLSC and to this Call for Submissions, so please read in full. Key dates: Submissions due: January 20, 2026 by 11:59 PM Pacific time, no exceptions. Notification of acceptance: Approximately three to four weeks later. Full workshop paper drafts and Discussion Session summaries due: May 7, 2026 by 11:59 Pacific time. Registration: You can register for PLSC 2026 here <https://privacyscholars.org/product/plsc-2026-conference-registration/>. What is PLSC? PLSC is a paper workshop conference. It offers no opportunity or obligation to publish. The goal is to provide support for in-progress scholarship related to law and technology and information privacy law. To do so, PLSC assembles a wide array of privacy law scholars, policymakers, and practitioners who engage in scholarship. Scholars from non-law disciplines—including but not limited to surveillance studies, technology studies, feminist and queer studies, information studies, critical race studies, social sciences, humanities, and computer science—are critical participants in this interdisciplinary field. We follow a format in which a discussant, rather than the author, introduces and leads a discussion on a paper. For paper sessions, attendees read papers in advance and offer constructive feedback as full participants in the workshop. Having your paper accepted is NOT a requirement for attending and contributing to the conference, and indeed many attendees do not present a paper. If you are new to PLSC or would just like to familiarize yourself with PLSC norms and the roles of authors, commentators, and active participants, please read the Guide to PLSC. What do we mean by “Privacy”? The boundaries of privacy as a discipline are dynamic and contested. Although PLSC emphasizes the law of privacy, concepts from other fields play critical roles in our understanding of privacy and in shaping the law. For example, the following topics have received significant attention at previous PLSCs: the concept of “cyber civil rights”, AI and algorithmic governance, police practices such as predictive policing, political/social/cultural dimensions of data-intensive technologies, algorithmic bias and discrimination, and privacy’s unique importance to marginalized populations, among many more. Both in the substance of scholarship and in the governance of the PLSC, we are committed to building an anti-racist and anti-subordination scholarly community around privacy law. We are dedicated to incubating scholarship that examines the intersections of technology, law, and policy and its ability to dismantle--or entrench--social hierarchies of all kinds. What kinds of submissions does PLSC accept? This year, we are accepting two types of submissions, both of which can be submitted on the same submission portal: Abstracts for Paper Sessions: These abstracts have been, are, and will continue to be the generative core of PLSC. We will accept approximately 70-80 abstract submissions for scholarly works-in-progress to be workshopped in concurrent sessions at PLSC. Proposals for Discussion Sessions: Running concurrently with Paper Sessions, Discussion Sessions bring together participants interested in particular topics to engage in informal collaboration and idea generation. Discussion sessions have no papers and no commentators. See below for more details. How to submit an abstract or discussion session proposal? The submission portal is available here <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeFZm3-gyWJjb4SOKwmXP63i5XUFvTuFm3…>. Please use this link for both types of submissions. Paper Sessions: You will be asked to provide your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information, as well as the same information for all co-authors, if applicable. Abstracts: The core of your submission is an anonymous abstract of 500-700 words. Abstracts that are below 500 words or above 700 will be rejected. Successful abstracts explain the main contributions of the paper and how it relates to the existing relevant scholarly literature, referencing that literature in the body of the abstract using in-text citations. Legal scholars may be unfamiliar with this requirement, but some examples demonstrate what we mean <https://privacyscholars.org/2457-2/>. Your abstract should include enough specific information to enable the PPC to appreciate both the genesis of the project and the nature of its contribution to the field. It should demonstrate awareness of the existing relevant literatures and explain how the work relates to those literatures, such as how it expands upon them, makes connections between them, or differs from them. That said, we understand that part of the benefit of workshopping a paper at PLSC is precisely to get feedback about how to situate one’s work in the scholarly literature. A typical law review abstract will generally be insufficient for submission.Submissions must be anonymous. If your own prior work is part of a literature to which your abstract refers, the abstract should refer to your work in the third person--e.g. “As Smith argued in (2019),” rather than "my/our work published in the XYZ law review" or "my/our work presented at last year's PLSC." Abstracts that reveal the identity of the author(s) will be rejected. There is no option to upload papers. Bibliography: You must also include a bibliography in a separate box; this does not count toward the 500-700 word limit. The purpose of the bibliography is to show the primary literature and sources on which your project is based. You may include up to 10 sources. Note that this is not a list of professional references; it is a bibliography, a list of sources that describe the core of the literatures with which you are engaging. We do not recommend simply cutting and pasting your first ten footnotes. Abstracts that are not accompanied by a bibliography of no more than 10 sources will be rejected. This is a new requirement, so please take note. Keywords: Finally, you must select up to three keywords from a list provided. This is essential to categorizing your work and assigning appropriate commentators. Multiple Submissions: There is no limit to the number of abstracts that one person may submit, but PLSC does have rules about how many we accept. If an author submits abstracts for more than one single-author paper, we will only accept one of those papers. Someone can be a co-author on up to two accepted papers unless it is a senior scholar added to papers as a final author as is customary in some fields. The PPC reserves the right to only accept a limited number of these submissions as well. Works in Progress: PLSC is a works-in-progress conference. We will not accept papers that have already been published or are far enough along in the publication process that they cannot benefit from feedback. Funding: Any funding and sponsorship must be disclosed, and there is a space in the abstract submission portal to do so. We will not accept papers that are subject to pre-publication review/veto by a sponsor, or those where the sponsors control the content of the paper. Award Consideration: If your submission is accepted and you would like to be considered for PLSC’s paper awards, your draft paper must be submitted on time. No exceptions. Discussion Sessions: You will be asked to provide your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information, as well as the same information for any co-organizers, if applicable. Proposal: A proposal for a Discussion Session should include a (1) title/topic, (2) a maximum 200-word summary of what you hope to discuss, and (3) a maximum 100-word statement of need–namely, why this topic, why now. Co-Organizers: Multiple people can organize a single Discussion Session. Please include all names in the submission portal. Responsibilities: Discussion Sessions have no papers and no commentators. Organizers are responsible for moderating their own sessions. Sessions will be listed on the PLSC schedule ahead of time so participants can determine which sessions, if any, they would like to attend. Possible Topics: We are excited to experiment with Discussion Sessions after receiving feedback from PLSC attendees and PPC members. There is no set number of sessions or series of topics we have in mind; this will be entirely participant-driven. Some ideas include: So-called “birds-of-a-feather” sessions on topics of mutual interests, sessions on how to teach law and technology-related courses, sessions focused on responding to fast-moving or ongoing current events, and many more. Mentorship Pre-Conference: Mark your calendars for PLSC’s first half-day pre-conference event focused on mentoring junior scholars and building a collegial community. It will take place immediately before PLSC on Wednesday, May 27, at IU Bloomington, from approximately 1-5 PM local time. The Junior Scholars Council and the PPC are hard at work planning this event. More details will follow soon. Hotels: Our hosts at IU Maurer have arranged for rooms at nearby hotels. Please use the links below to make your reservations. There are many other hotels within a 15-minute walk to IU Law. Indiana Memorial Union, The Biddle Hotel 900 E. Seventh Street, Bloomington, IN 47405 Reservations <https://bookings.imu.indiana.edu/search-rates?arrival=2026-05-26&departure=…> and Hotel Information <https://imu.indiana.edu/hotel/index.html> The Graduate, by Hilton, Bloomington. 210 E Kirkwood Ave, Bloomington, Indiana, 47408 Reservations <https://book.passkey.com/event/51128344/owner/50920553/landing> and Hotel Information <https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/indgbgu-graduate-bloomington/> Please email info(a)privacyscholars.com <mailto:info@privacyscholars.com> if there are any questions or concerns. - PLSC Program & Planning Committee

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CFP Special Issue - Climate Crisis and Communicational Challenges
by Andrea Medrado 14 Nov '25

14 Nov '25

Dear all.Hope this finds you well. Guest editors of the dossier Climate Crisis and Communicational Challenges, Claudia Sarmento (PUC-Rio/King’s College London), Andrea Medrado (University of Exeter, UK) and Katarini Giroldo Miguel (UFMS), invite submissions of studies that aim to rethinking communication strategies for addressing the climate crisis, considering the climate emergency and the rise of anti-scientific discourses. Submission deadline: January 12, 2026 Publication: First semester of 2026 Articles, in Portuguese or English, must follow the submission template and editorial guidelines of the journal ALCEU (PPGCOM/PUC-Rio).https://revistaalceu.com.puc-rio.br/alceu/announcement/view/8 Full Call and Proposed Thematic Axes Amid the increasing occurrence of extreme weather events, such as heat waves, forest fires, droughts and floods, there is consensus among scientists that the window of action to contain global warming is closing. Maintaining current levels of greenhouse gas emissions may lead to the so-called “point of no return,” that is, the collapse of natural systems, with irreversible consequences for humanity. In this context, the way the environmental crisis is communicated is crucial to inform the public, mobilize society, and produce collective responses. However, media discourse around the climate emergency has turned into a political battlefield, especially in countries like Brazil, marked by recurring environmental disasters, and where the rise of populist movements fosters anti-scientific narratives while predatory land exploitation advances. This scenario poses urgent challenges on the future of life on the planet, requiring communicative responses equal to the urgency. Research shows that the population is concerned and consumes news about climate change, although there are high levels of misinformation and disinformation on the subject (Ejaz et al., 2024). Journalistic coverage plays a central role in shaping understanding and social implications of climate risk. By choosing sources and frames, media influence public perception of a complex and transversal problem. For Beck (2010), the climate crisis is not only about ecological decline but also about our political and communicative capacity to respond to it. Since the Rio-92 conference, one of the most significant milestones in the history of global environmental negotiations promoted by the UN, research on the anthropogenic causes of rising temperatures has advanced considerably. At the same time, the production and consumption of content have undergone a profound transformation. Traditional media organizations face disruptive changes that affect all forms of communication. Although environmental headlines are abundant, news coverage demands analysis, depth, and commitment to the socio-environmental cause, elements sometimes incompatible with newsworthiness criteria and the immediacy of the digital age (Hackett, 2017). According to Bueno, environmental journalism should incorporate pluralism and diversity (2007), but the theoretical assumptions of the field are not aligned with contemporary journalistic practices (Girardi et al., 2020). Although the topic is no longer invisible, the number of journalists systematically covering the environment remains small in all Latin American countries (Koop, 2020). It is cyclical coverage, with peaks of interest driven by events such as disasters and international conferences (Hansen, 2019). The emergence of non-hegemonic media, in turn, contributes to diversifying the debate (Loose, 2024). These outlets broaden criticism of the capitalist and colonialist economic development model and highlight voices and knowledge traditionally erased from global negotiations. However, these initiatives still face significant barriers to being heard and struggle with unstable funding models (Sarmento, 2023). In such a scenario that combines the amplification of climate risks with public policies that contradict preventive and responsive measures, the objective of the dossier Climate Crisis and Communicational Challenges is to gather reflections on the transformations, obstacles, and possible paths of communicative practices in the face of the climate emergency and its multiple unfoldings. Considering that environmental communication, as a field of knowledge, still appears marginal within Communication Science in the Global South (Holanda et al., 2022), we would like to invite interdisciplinary studies on the mediatization of the ecological collapse. >From this perspective, some central questions arise: To what extent do journalists and other communicators remain focused only on crisis moments, such as the floods in Rio Grande do Sul in 2024? What are the impacts of media concentration on the diversity of narratives about the climate crisis, especially in the Global South? How does the predominance of catastrophic views (the so-called language of collapse) contribute to explaining the causes and transversal impacts of climate warming, and to what extent does this framing foster social engagement or cause alienation? How do collective emotions such as fear, anger and hope shape social responses to the climate crisis? With the expansion of independent media, to what extent is there room to discuss issues such as environmental racism and climate justice, and what strategies have been adopted by community media, including Indigenous, riverside, and quilombola groups, to challenge dominant narratives about the crisis? How is it possible to rethink communication strategies for the climate crisis in the face of environmental urgency and the rise of anti-scientific discourses? Suggested Themes (not exhaustive) - Analyses of discursive disputes around the climate crisis within a context of political polarization and disinformation; - Research exploring the intersections of environmental journalism with other fields, such as economics, politics, and science; - Studies on non-hegemonic media and their efforts to include marginalized voices and knowledge; - Critical investigations of media framings of specific environmental events; - Perspectives on activist and community use of digital media for engagement around environmental issues; - Theoretical approaches and empirical studies on artificial intelligence and the climate crisis; - Critical decolonial approaches that challenge conventional paradigms in communicating the ecological crisis. About the editors: Andrea Medrado is Associate Professor in Global Communication and Co-Director of Research in Communication at the Department of Communications, Drama and Film at the University of Exeter (UK). She is the author of the book Media Activism, Artivism and the Fight Against Marginalisation in the Global South (Routledge, 2023 – co-authored with Isabella Rega), which highlights the power of dialogue in uniting marginalized communities in the Global South. She is Co-Vice President of IAMCR (re-elected until 2028), where she has led a series of webinars featuring more than 50 scholars from different continents. Claudia Sarmento is a journalist and researcher with a postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship (ECOLA Project), developed in partnership between the Department of Communication at PUC-Rio and King’s College London, and funded by UKRI. She is the author of the book Alternative Forms of News Reporting in Brazil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). Her work focuses on environmental journalism, alternative media, and decolonial communication in Latin America. Katarini Giroldo Miguel is a Lecturer in the Journalism undergraduate program and the Graduate Program in Communication at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS). She holds a senior postdoctoral fellowship from CNPq, leads the research group Communication and Mobilization of Social Movements in Networks (CNPq-UFMS), and investigates environmental and feminist media activism. She served as coordinator of the research group Communication, Science Dissemination, Health and Environment at Intercom between 2021 and 2024. References: BECK, U. Sociedade de risco: rumo a uma outra modernidade. Trad.: Sebastião Nascimento. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2010. BUENO, W. Jornalismo ambiental: explorando além do conceito. Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente, Curitiba, n.15, 2007. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.5380/dma.v15i0.11897. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2025. EJAZ, W.; MUKHERJEE, M.; FLETCHER, R. Climate change news audiences: analysis of news use and attitudes in eight countries. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, 2024. Disponível em: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2025-01/Ejaz…. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2025. GIRARDI, I.M.T.; LOOSE, E.B.; STEIGLEDER; D.G., BELMONTE; R.V. MASSIERER, C. A contribuição do princípio da precaução para a epistemologia do jornalismo ambiental. Revista Eletrônica de Comunicação, Informação & Inovação em Saúde, Rio de Janeiro, v.14, n.2, 2020. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.29397/reciis.v14i2.2053. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2025. HACKETT, R.A. Democracy, climate crisis and journalism: normative touchstones. In: HACKETT, R.A.; FORDE, S.; GUNSTER, S.; FOXWELL-NORTON, K. (ed.). Journalism and climate crisis: public engagement, media alternatives. London: Routledge, 2017. p. 20-48. HANSEN, A. Environment, media and communication. London: Routledge, 2019. HOLANDA, J.S.P.D.; KÄÄPÄ, P.; COSTA, L.M. Jornalismo ambiental: características e interfaces de um campo em construção. Intercom: Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Comunicação, São Paulo, v. 45, p. e2022109, 2022. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-58442022109pt. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2025. KOOP, F. Environmental journalism in Latin America. In: SACHSMAN, D. B.; VALENTI, J. M. (ed.). Routledge handbook of journalism. London: Routledge, 2020. p. 383-391. LOOSE, E.B. Jornalismo e crise climática: um estudo desde o Sul Global sobre os vínculos do jornalismo com a colonialidade. Florianópolis: Editora Insular, 2024. SARMENTO, C. Alternative news reporting in Brazil. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

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