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Comic on digital security "Code of Courage"
by Laura Guntrum 25 Sep '25

25 Sep '25

Hello AoIR people, I am happy to share with you our *comic “Code of Courage,” which deals with the digital security of activists*. The aim is to better understand digital risks and to get some initial ideas on how to better protect yourself online, for example during protests, cell phone checks, or internet shutdowns. The comic is currently available in German, English, and Spanish and can be used freely and shared with others. Soon, we'll hopefully also have a burmese version. You can download the comic for free on our website: https://peasec.de/2025/comic/ >English: https://peasec.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/CODE_OF_COURAGE_Comic_txt.pdf >Spanish: https://peasec.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/CODE-OF-COURAGE-online.pdf >German: https://peasec.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/CODE-OF-COURAGE-german_version… *Comic description: * Safety is paramount: online and offline: Alex, Sarah, Maria, and Daniel are four friends who are passionate about human rights—in a country struggling with increasing authoritarianism. Their efforts to organize and amplify their message through social media are met with constant obstacles: internet shutdowns, hacked accounts, direct threats, and constant surveillance—tactics designed to silence dissent and spread fear. Daniel's arrest for his involvement in the protests is a stark reminder of the dangers they all face. Join Maria as she learns more about digital security—and what it means for activists—in four short comic stories. Spread the word! Thanks and all the best, Laura -- Laura Guntrum, M.A. (she/her) Technical University of Darmstadt Science and Technology for Peace and Security (PEASEC), Pankratiusstraße 2, 64289 Darmstadt, 113, Tel.: +49 6151-1620947,guntrum(a)peasec.tu-darmstadt.de,www.peasec.de PGP key:https://peasec.de/team/guntrum/pgp/ 🌲Please consider the environment before printing this email🌲

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CfP - Digital Politics 1-2/2026 "Digital Sovereignty"
by Mauro SANTANIELLO 24 Sep '25

24 Sep '25

Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the double special issue of Digital Politics dedicated to the theme "Digital Sovereignty". Digital Politics (Rivista di Digital Politics, or RDP) is a peer-reviewed, open access scholarly journal published three times a year by Il Mulino. The journal publishes articles in both English and Italian, and adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach to questions about how digital technologies affect political processes, institutions, and actors. *Call for papers "Digital Sovereignty"* In an era of rapid technological change and geopolitical realignment, digital sovereignty has emerged as a crucial yet contested concept. Governments, corporations, international organizations and civil society actors are redefining their roles in managing data, digital infrastructures, and technological ecosystems. The internet, once viewed as a borderless and decentralized space, is now increasingly shaped by national regulations, strategic technological competition, as well as economic and security concerns. The pursuit of digital sovereignty is driven by multiple and sometimes conflicting motivations. On one hand, states seek greater control over digital infrastructures to ensure national security, protect citizens’ rights, and foster economic independence. On the other, global digital interdependence challenges unilateral regulatory efforts, raising concerns about internet fragmentation, economic protectionism, and transnational corporate power. Emerging policies—such as the European Union’s digital regulations, China’s cyber sovereignty model, and U.S. technology restrictions—exemplify these tensions and their global impact. Beyond state-centered approaches, digital sovereignty is also framed as a struggle for autonomy by grassroots movements, indigenous groups, and digital communities seeking to reclaim control over digital infrastructures and governance. Meanwhile, technology giants are asserting their own sovereignty, managing vast digital supply chains, establishing independent data ecosystems, and influencing global governance structures. As digital sovereignty gains prominence, critical questions arise: How can national digital policies balance security and openness? What are the implications of sovereignty-driven regulation for global internet governance? How do corporate and grassroots actors reshape sovereignty debates? What tensions emerge between digital sovereignty and democratic principles? What is the role of scholars and epistemic communities in framing discourses and practices of digital sovereignty? These issues highlight the urgent need for interdisciplinary research and dialogue. We invite submissions that explore digital sovereignty from multiple perspectives, including political science, law, economics, communication studies, and science and technology studies. The themed issue of Rivista di Digital Politics will serve as a platform for scholars and practitioners to engage in meaningful discussions about the shifting landscape of digital governance. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Theoretical and conceptual frameworks of digital sovereignty - Comparative analyses of national digital sovereignty policies - The economic dimensions of digital sovereignty: global integration vs. protectionism - Geopolitical strategies and digital sovereignty - Digital constitutionalism, new powers and the rule of law in cyberspace - Data localization, digital infrastructures, and national security - The impact of sovereignty on digital rights, privacy, and surveillance - Corporate digital sovereignty and transnational technology governance - The role of international organizations in shaping digital sovereignty - Standardization, interoperability, and competing technological ecosystems - Cybersecurity, weaponization, digital militarization, and strategic autonomy - Digital sovereignty in relation to artificial intelligence and emerging technologies - Internet fragmentation and the future of global connectivity The themed issue of Rivista di Digital Politics seeks to foster a dynamic and critical discussion on digital sovereignty’s evolving role in global governance. Scholars interested in participating are invited to submit an abstract of max. 800 words (including a bibliography) + an introductory note by the author(s) of no more than 100 words, *by 30/11/2025*. Abstracts should be sent to: redazione(a)digitalpolitics.it Those who have submitted abstracts will receive a response within two weeks. Final papers should be sent by 04/05/2026, and these should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words, including notes and bibliography. Articles can be written in English or Italian. Articles are peer-reviewed on a double-blind basis. We warmly invite scholars from diverse disciplines and methodological approaches to contribute. Please feel free to forward this call to colleagues and networks who might be interested. We look forward to receiving your submissions. Best wishes, Prof. Mauro Santaniello (PhD) Associate Professor in Political Science ICPC <https://www.internetpolicyresearch.eu/> Director| GIG-ARTS <https://gig-arts.eu/> Coordinator| Giganet <https://www.giga-net.org/> Secretary SWING <https://www.internetpolicyresearch.eu/swing-2025> Scientific Coordinator | UNU-CRIS <https://cris.unu.edu/people> Associate Research Fellow PRIN on Digital Sovereignty <https://www.internetpolicyresearch.eu/internet-and-communication-policy-cen…> Principal Investigator Latest publications <https://docenti.unisa.it/023694/ricerca/pubblicazioni>

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The Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2026): First Call for Posters and Demos
by Announce 24 Sep '25

24 Sep '25

*** First Call for Posters and Demos 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 submissions should address HCI challenges using machine intelligence and consider both computational and human- centric aspects. As AI becomes more integrated into everyday technology, understanding its role in meeting human needs is vital for developing effective and responsible systems. This conference fosters collaboration among experts from diverse fields to tackle significant issues in AI and HCI through discussions, workshops, and networking sessions. Posters Posters provide an opportunity for sharing valuable last-minute ideas, eliciting useful feedback on early-stage work and fostering discussions and collaborations among colleagues. We invite submissions relevant to all conference topics. All submissions should convey a scientific result or work in progress that is not yet ready to be published as a full-length research paper at a refereed conference. The page limit for poster papers is 4 pages (references do not count toward the page limit). Submitting a draft poster along with your submission is not required, but is recommended. Accepted poster papers will appear in the companion proceedings of the conference. Each accepted contribution is expected to be presented in person during the poster session. Demos The demonstration track complements the overall program of the conference. Demonstrations show implementations of novel, interesting, and important intelligent user interface concepts or systems. We invite submissions relevant to intelligent user interfaces and which address, but are not limited to, the topics of the conference. All submissions are intended to convey a scientific result or work in progress and should not be advertisements for commercial software packages. The page limit for demo papers is 4 pages (references do not count toward the page limit). Authors further need to submit a video (max. 5 mins) along with their demo paper to showcase their work. Accepted demo papers will be presented as interactive demonstrations at IUI and published in the companion proceedings of the conference. Each accepted contribution is expected to be presented in person during the demo sessions. Important Dates (AoE) • Full paper: December 21, 2025 • Decision notification: January 26, 2026 • Camera-ready submission: February 6, 2026 Topics The topics for the Posters and Demos are the same as for the main track. Submission Instructions Papers must be up to 4 pages (references do not count towards the page limit). Demo and poster submissions do not need to be anonymized. Submissions should follow the ACM Master Article Templates in a single-column format. We adopt the ACM TAPS Workflow. Please prepare your submission for review in a single column format, using the latest templates: Word Submission Template, or the LaTeX template using \documentclass[manuscript,review,anonymous]{acmart} for the LaTeX template. Authors are required to include a proper classification for the paper according to the ACM Classification System (CCS). Additional information on how to use it is available at: https://dl.acm.org/ccs<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…> . A video (up to 5 mins) is required for demo submissions. The video should showcase the system that will be demonstrated during the conference. Please follow the SIGCHI Technical Requirements and Guidelines for Videos (https://sigchi.org/resources/guides-for-authors/videos/<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…>). Please submit your demos and posters electronically to the Precision Conference Submission (PCS) Portal (https://new.precisionconference.com/user/login<http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/GPLists_2021/lm.php?tk=YWlyLWwJCQlhaXItbEBs…>) by the paper deadlines. In PCS, first click “Submissions” at the top of the page, from the dropdown menus for Society, Conference, and Track, please select “SIGCHI”, “IUI 2026”, and “IUI 2026 Posters” or “IUI 2026 Demos”, respectively, and then press “Go”. Note: If the corresponding author (the individual who submits the paper, not necessarily the first author) is affiliated with a participating institution that has an open access agreement with ACM, the Article Processing Charges (APCs) will be waived for publishing the paper. Details are under “Publication and Open Access”. Accessibility Authors are asked to make their paper submissions accessible (so that reviewers with vision impairments can access them, for example). The authors of accepted papers will be required to make their final PDFs accessible. Please use the SIGCHI Guide to an Accessible Submission for detailed instructions. If you are submitting a video as supplemental material, please provide captions, as described in Technical Requirements and Guidelines for Videos. Please refer to the Accessibility page of the conference site for further details and guidelines. Usage of Generative AI All submissions must comply with the ACM policy on the usage of GenAI: the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship and Frequently Asked Questions. Text generated from a large-scale language model (LLM), such as ChatGPT, must be clearly marked where such tools are used for purposes beyond editing the author’s own text. Authors should include a “GenAI Usage Disclosure” section, right before the references, to provide full disclosure of all use of GenAI tools in all stages of the research (including the code and data) and the writing. This section, together with the references, will not be counted toward the word limit. While we do not anticipate using tools on a large scale to detect LLM-generated text, we will investigate submissions brought to our attention and desk reject papers where LLM use is not clearly marked. Publication and Open Access The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%). Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM. Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer: • $250 APC for ACM/SIG members • $350 for non-members This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period. This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.

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The OpenQDA team presents the new version 1.0.3 of the open source software for qualitative communication and media research
by ZeMKI 24 Sep '25

24 Sep '25

The OpenQDA team announces the release of version 1.0.3 of their qualitative communication and media research software (open source) Based on our own needs regarding collaborative work, methodological expansion, fair data usage, and support for open research processes, ZeMKI, the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, has been developing OpenQDA since January 2023. You can use the software at https://openqda.org/ and find the source code and developer documentation at https://github.com/openqda. The OpenQDA team is pleased to announce the release of version 1.0.3. OpenQDA has been enhanced with new features, which are now available at https://openqda.org <https://openqda.org/>. Below, we would like to introduce these features: 1.) Project Management The listed projects now show how many documents (sources) are already available in each project. In addition, the project overview now also offers the option of selecting documents, allowing you to immediately proceed to editing (Preparation Editor) a document. 2.) Visualizations All visualizations have been revised and expanded to include various parameterizations. This allows visualizations to be customized even more extensively to suit your specific needs. 3.) Feedback and Help Form It is now possible again to open a dialog for an integrated form via the navigation bar. This enables low-threshold contact with the OpenQDA team without requiring, for example, an account on another platform such as GitHub. 4.) Documentation The user documentation at https://openqda.github.io/user-docs/ has also been expanded to include the above-mentioned features. Support OpenQDA We welcome any form of feedback via all available channels (see below) as well as any form of participation in software development and documentation. If you have a GitHub account, you are also welcome to support us with a star. Links and resources OpenQDA application: https://openqda.org <https://openqda.org/> User documentation: https://openqda.github.io/user-docs/ Source code: https://github.com/openqda/openqda doi: 10.5281/zenodo.17182559 <https://zenodo.org/records/17182559> Contact: openqda(a)uni-bremen.de <https://webmail.uni-bremen.de/horde3/imp/dynamic.php?page=mailbox#> https://zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/9287-2/

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CFP: Knowledge Graphs and Contemporary Media: Power, Practice, Publics
by Indrek Ibrus 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

Baltic Screen Media Review announces a new Call for Papers titled “Knowledge Graphs and Contemporary Media: Power, Practice, Publics” Over the past decade, media have quietly become graph-shaped. Newsrooms, streaming platforms, archives, and social networks now depend on webs of entities - people, places, works, events - and the typed relations that connect them. Under labels such as linked data, the semantic web, and knowledge graphs, these infrastructures coordinate how content is produced, described, discovered, licensed, preserved, and increasingly generated by AI. They sit beneath the interfaces we see, but they structure what becomes visible, recommendable, and valuable. Understanding contemporary media therefore requires understanding the graphs that organise them. The rise of knowledge graphs in media is not an accident of technical fashion; it is the logical outcome of long trajectories in cataloguing, digitisation, and platformisation. Libraries and broadcasters moved from card catalogues to MARC and Dublin Core; heritage institutions spent two decades aligning authority files and opening collections; web companies standardised schema-based markup at scale; collaborative knowledge bases such as Wikidata turned entity curation into a public good; and audiovisual industries confronted the complexity of rights, versions, localisations, and windowing across global markets. In parallel, machine learning made structured, linked metadata indispensable: entity linking, recommendation, search, summarisation, and content moderation all perform better when grounded in persistent identifiers and interoperable ontologies. To all this was added the trust and provenance crises of the synthetic media era, which has led to a renewed emphasis on verifiable origin trails, signatures, and content credentials that are most useful when they are linked. The economics of attention, the politics of authenticity, and the pragmatics of large-scale automation all seem to converge on the need for shared, machine-readable meaning. These developments demand analysis from multiple angles. From the political economy of media, knowledge graphs can be read as new “coordination layers” that concentrate bargaining power and lock in ecosystems - or, alternatively, as public infrastructures that lower search and verification costs, widen market access, and enable plural discovery. Media industry studies can show how graphs reshape workflows: from pre-production knowledge bases and clearance graphs, to versioning and localisation, to explainable recommendation pipelines in the platform back-end. Media economics can evaluate the intangible asset value of metadata itself, model network effects that arise when catalogues interlink across firms and borders, and assess when openness produces positive externalities and when enclosure yields short-term rents but long-term fragility. For media semiotics, graphs offer a new instrument to study meaning circulation: intertextuality, world-building, genre drift, and translation across modalities can be traced as patterns of links among works, motifs, and characters. Audience and reception studies can examine how knowledge graph-grounded explanations and provenance labels affect trust and satisfaction, when serendipity expands or narrows horizons, and how fan communities co-produce knowledge that later feeds institutional graphs. Media archaeology could bring historical depth, showing how past documentation practices prefigure today’s ontologies and how reconciliation of “lost” entities can revive suppressed or minoritised histories. Science and Technology Studies could open the black box of standards and maintenance: ontologies are negotiated, versioned, and policed by communities; their categories include and exclude, often reproducing the centre–periphery dynamics of media culture. For media law and ethics licensing and rights graphs raise questions about privacy and cross-jurisdictional compliance. Provenance frameworks aim to restore trust, yet their governance determines who can certify whom, under what terms, and at what cost. Finally, a public value perspective to media infrastructures asks how these infrastructures can be designed as durable, fair, and pluralistic, especially for small languages and small markets where linked openness may be the difference between invisibility and participation. This thematic issue takes linked data not as a niche technique but as a constitutive feature of contemporary media. We invite contributions from all the perspectives discussed above to open up the phenomenon and to illuminate the diverse implications that linked data has brought to contemporary media. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics: The role of linked data in organizing contemporary media ecosystems. Governance models for media knowledge infrastructures and their societal impacts. How linked data adoption reshapes news and platform discovery. How interoperability standards shape collaboration across media institutions. Cross-ID interoperability among broadcasters, archives, and streamers. Economic consequences of open vs. proprietary media metadata. Linked data, cultural diversity, and the visibility of small languages and regions. Audience trust and transparency in graph-enabled discovery and curation. Legal and ethical frameworks for graph-based media production and reuse. From catalogues to knowledge graphs: historical trajectories and lessons. Research methods for studying media with graph-based datasets. Public value and policy approaches to sustaining linked media data. Fan wikis as co-curators: aligning community and institutional graphs. Graph-aware recommenders and explainability in public service media. Mapping intertextuality and transmedia worlds via entity-relation graphs. Ontology politics: who defines genres, roles, and identities. Privacy-preserving linkage of audience data with content graphs under GDPR. Media archaeology of metadata: reconciling legacy catalogues into RDF. Event knowledge graphs for breaking-news verification. Authority alignment between knowledge graphs and cross-border memory. Knowledge graphs as coordinators in media innovation systems. Ethical risks of automated ontologies: bias, erasure, contested identities. The use of graphs for AI training. Media data spaces (e.g., European initiatives): architectures, incentives, and competition effects. Submission Guidelines We invite scholars, practitioners, and interdisciplinary researchers to contribute original research articles, theoretical essays and industry case studies. Submissions should not exceed 8000 words and must adhere to the journal’s formatting guidelines. All manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review process. - Abstract Submission (400 words) Deadline: October 15th 2025 - Full Paper Submission Deadline: January 23rd 2026 - Publication Date: August 20th 2026 Please submit your abstracts and papers by email to (bsmr/at/tlu.ee <http://tlu.ee/>). For any inquiries, contact the editorial team at indrek.ibrus/at/tlu.ee <http://tlu.ee/>. We look forward to receiving your contributions to this timely discussion. Issue editor: Indrek Ibrus, Tallinn University The Baltic Screen Media Review is a free-to-publish open-access peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the analysis of audiovisual media and screen culture, particularly in the Baltic Sea region and its surrounding areas. It seeks to address media transformations within broader European and global contexts, emphasizing both regional specificities and transnational connections. Published by Tallinn University's Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, the journal serves as a forum for interdisciplinary research, offering insights into film, television, new media, and related cultural phenomena. Find out more: https://sciendo.com/journal/bsmr

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Job Call -- Professor of Advertising [Open Rank] @ the University of Colorado Boulder
by Tobias Hopp 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

Hi everyone, Hope you are doing well. The Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Design at the University of Colorado Boulder invites applications for an open rank tenure-track (assistant) or tenured (associate or full) position in advertising to begin August 2026. Interested candidates should apply by October 31, 2025. The complete job description can be accessed here: https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/?jobId=67301 I'm chairing this search committee, so please feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions you might have. All the best, Toby -- Toby Hopp, PhD Associate Professor Program Director, Masters of Corporate Communication (MACC) Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Design College of Communication, Media, Design and Information University of Colorado Boulder tobias.hopp(a)colorado.edu 517.974.5148

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Job Call - Assistant Professor of Communication & Media at IE University, Madrid
by Reed VS 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

Hello everyone, My department at IE University is hiring at least one tenure-track Assistant Professor of Communication & Media, to begin in September 2026. Applications are due on 24 November. The call is open but some of our areas of interest include Media Studies and Political Communication; Strategic, Corporate, and Visual Communication; and Critical, Cultural, and International Communication. We are a research-intensive institution with an international student body. Find the full call here <https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=179248215&Title=Ten…> : https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=179248215&Title=Ten… Please don't hesitate to reach out to me or the search chair Dr. Vincent Doyle at vdoyle(a)faculty.ie.edu if you have any questions. Best, Dr. Reed Van Schenck rvanschenck.github.io

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Online Seminar Series of the Data Methods Initiative
by Marcel Garz 23 Sep '25

23 Sep '25

The Data Methods Initiative (https://datamethodsinitiative.org/) is a collaborative academic group committed to promoting the use of computational methods (e.g., deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision) in political science, communications, internet research, and other disciplines. Next talk: "Towards Efficient and Accessible Geoparsing of Local Media: A Benchmark Dataset and LLM-based Approach" by Simona Bisiani (Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI) on October 1, 1:15 - 2:45 pm CET. This seminar introduces an innovative computational framework for extracting geographic references in local news, leveraging open-source, locally-run large language models. The first segment details the methodology, highlights its advantages over traditional approaches, and illustrates its application in identifying spatial patterns in news coverage-shedding light on media deserts and information inequalities across communities. A code demonstration will showcase the implementation using LMUK-Geo, a newly developed annotated corpus of UK local news articles designed for geoparsing evaluation. Attendees will leave with actionable knowledge to integrate these tools and methods into their research on local media landscapes and geographic trends. More info at https://datamethodsinitiative.org/

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Job Call: TT Assistant Professor of Media Policy and Platform Governance (Fordham University)
by Gregory Donovan 22 Sep '25

22 Sep '25

Dear colleagues - The Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University invites applications for a tenure-track position in Media Policy and Platform Governance. Applications are due Monday November 3, 2025 through Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/174378 <https://apply.interfolio.com/174378> -- Gregory T. Donovan, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Media Studies Affiliated Faculty, Urban Studies / New Media & Digital Design Co-PI, Initiative on Migrants, Migration, and Human Dignity <https://migrationjustice.org/> Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus _____ ABOUT THE POSITION We seek a candidate with expertise in media and communication policy, law, or regulation, broadly understood. We are especially interested in someone whose research and teaching speaks to policy or legal implications of internet-based platforms and AI systems, and can connect to subject areas across our four majors: Communication and Culture, Digital Technology and Emerging Media, Film & TV, and Journalism. Areas of interest to our dept include but are not limited to: platform governance, regulation and control of new technologies, conglomeration/monopoly power, moderation practices, misinformation, free speech issues, privacy policy and rights, responsible tech, cybersecurity, media industries, and commerce and regulation of media. We are also interested in scholars whose work has implications for policy development in the context of federal agencies, international treaty organizations, standard-setting organizations, NGOs, or other major sites of governance and policy. Qualifications Applicants with either a JD or a PhD are welcome to apply, so long as they have an active research agenda in the area. Requirements Ph.D. in Communication and/or Media Studies or a related discipline or a JD with relevant specialization, to be conferred by May 2026 A strong research agenda and publication record appropriate to their stage in the profession Ability to teach courses in areas such as Freedom of Expression, Media Law, Platform Governance, Digital Property: Rights, Policies, and Practice, Privacy and Surveillance, Media Regulation, and original courses in their own specialty. Evidence of excellence in teaching Commitment to mentoring and advising students Application Instructions Interested applicants should submit (1) a cover letter with qualifications, including approach to teaching and scholarship; (2) curriculum vitae; (3) 1-2 writing samples (approximately 30 pp maximum in total, solo-authored or first-authored); and (3) the names and contact information for three references. Here in the link to apply using Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/174378 Deadline The deadline for applications is 11:59 pm on November 3rd, 2025. For specific questions, please contact the departmental administrator, Michelle O’Dwyer, at modwyer2(a)fordham.edu.

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Recruiting Participants for a Research Study of Users’ Relationships with Social AI Chatbots
by Peter Royal 22 Sep '25

22 Sep '25

Dear colleagues, I’m a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) working on my dissertation on human-AI communication and relationships, advised by Dr. Steve Jones. I’m seeking to interview current or former users of social AI chatbots. Please see the attached flyer or the description below for key details about the study. I would be very grateful if you would share this with your networks. Please feel free to email me at proyal2(a)uic.edu <mailto:proyal2@uic.edu> if you have any questions. Seeking AI Chatbot Users for University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Research Study Have you used any of the following AI chatbots or platforms (or a similar chatbot/platform)?: · Replika · Nomi · Kindroid · Anima · Paradot · Kuki AI · Character AI · Chai AI · Kajiwoto · Wysa · Woebot Or have you used an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude, Snapchat’s My AI, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, or DeepSeek for things like social interaction, companionship, or emotional support? For example: Having in-depth conversations about your life, experiences, thoughts, feelings, or fictional scenarios Seeking emotional support, advice, or companionship Feeling a sense of connection, attachment, or affection toward the chatbot Customizing a chatbot’s personality and/or feeling it’s uniquely tailored to you If so, you are invited to participate in a research study at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Study Title: Computational Confidants: Meaning-Making and Social Relationships between Users and Social AI Chatbots Principal Investigator: Steve Jones, PhD, UIC Distinguished Professor Co-Principal Investigator: Peter Royal, PhD Candidate Purpose: This study aims to better understand how users perceive their interactions and relationships with social AI chatbots. Who can participate? Adults 18+ Current or former users of AI companion chatbots (e.g., Replika, Nomi, Kindroid), character creation/roleplaying chatbots (e.g., Character AI, Chai AI), mental health support chatbots (e.g., Wysa, Woebot), or similar AI chatbots Individuals who have used AI chatbots like ChatGPT for things like social interaction, companionship, or emotional support Available for English-language Zoom interview What’s involved? Brief eligibility questionnaire Brief questionnaire about demographics, prior experience with technology, and AI chatbot usage 60-minute audio-recorded Zoom interview about your experience of using AI chatbots for things like social interaction, companionship, or emotional support Optional follow-up interview Confidential and anonymized participation Why participate? Share your unique insights Contribute to research on human-AI communication and relationships Participation is confidential and your responses will be anonymized. Interested? Please complete this brief eligibility questionnaire: https://uic.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zglT3nVY5MsZ2m Eligible participants will receive further information via email. Questions? Email proyal2(a)uic.edu <mailto:proyal2@uic.edu> Please share this with your networks. Thank you! Peter Royal (he/him) PhD Candidate Department of Communication University of Illinois Chicago proyal2(a)uic.edu

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