[Air-L] CFP: What is Media? | April 14-16, 2016

[Jeremy Swartz]

CALL FOR PAPERS

WHAT IS MEDIA?
Experience • Exploration • Emergence

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON • PORTLAND, OREGON, USA • APRIL 14-16, 2016

What is media today? How is media studies defined? How have media 
technologies transformed media theory and practice? What are the futures 
of media and how are they evolving?

With media including a wider and wider range of concepts, products, 
services, and institutions, the definition of media continues to be in a 
state of flux. Important questions abound and we will address a sweeping 
range of issues at the What is Media? event next April in Portland.

The conference will feature a unique coalescing of media scholars, 
government and community officials, industry professionals, alumni, and 
students, as well as artists, filmmakers, grassroots community 
organizations, and the public. The event will feature keynote speakers, 
roundtables, paper presentations, and special events, in an attempt to 
answer questions about the ever-evolving nature of media.

Presentations/papers/installations may include the following topics (as 
well as others):

• What is a medium? What distinguishes a medium from the media? How are 
they changing? What are the new emerging media? What are immersive 
media?
• What is media studies? What is the relationship between media, 
communication, and film studies?
• How does media studies relate to other areas of inquiry and other 
disciplines?
• What are current approaches to the study of media effects, media 
audiences, and media psychology?
• What can media professionals learn from media studies and vice versa?
• What is media industry studies? and its relationship to political 
economy and media economics?
• What is citizen/civic media? and the roles/responsibilities of the 
media in contemporary democracy?
• What are media ecologies? In what ways do they address the 
environmental crisis?
• How is media similar/different in various cultures? and the 
significance of media in a global context?
• What new economic, cultural, political, and social factors are 
affecting media?
• How does media studies highlight gender, race, and/or indigenous 
concerns?
• What is the philosophy of media? media ethics? media aesthetics?
• How does science and technology studies deal with media?
• What is mediation and/or mediatization?
• What are the relationships between media technologies and media 
content?
• What are the positive/negative consequences of media technologies for 
the public interest?
• What are the current trends in media education and media literacy?
• How have media technologies been embraced by spiritual/contemplative 
organizations?
• Where do media, the arts and sciences converge (e.g. intermedia, 
biomedia, etc.)?
• What laws, regulations, and/or policies are appropriate for the media 
today?
• What are the emerging discourses of media, surveillance and 
cybersecurity?
• What is media archaeology? What can media history teach us about the 
future of media?

Conference Organizers:
Janet Wasko (University of Oregon) and Jeremy Swartz (University of 
Oregon)

Send 100-150 word abstracts of papers or presentations by November 2, 
2015 to:
Janet Wasko • jwasko at uoregon.edu
School of Journalism and Communication
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 97403-1275, USA