[Air-L] CFP - extended deadline (Feb 15): MEA 2021 convention

[Adriana Braga]

EXTENDED AND REVISED CALL FOR PAPERSThe Twenty-Second Annual Conventionof the Media Ecology Association
To Be Held Virtually Via Zoom
Dystopic Futures – Media Ecology inan Algorithm Society
July 08-11, 2021
Extended Deadline: February 15, 2021
Featured speakers
Naomi Klein - Douglas Rushkoff - DavidOlson - Muniz Sodre 
 

THE MEDIAECOLOGY ASSOCIATION (MEA) invites the submission of abstracts ofpapers and proposals for panels for presentation at its 22nd annual convention,which will be held from 8 to 11 July, 2021. In light of the effects of thepandemic on health and travel, we have decided to postpone hosting our annualmeeting at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil until 2022,and will once again hold our convention online via Zoom. The deadline forsubmission is 15 February 2021. 

Theannual meeting of the MEA provides an opportunity for our community ofscholars, educators, professionals and practitioners to exchange experiencesand ideas in a friendly environment. Participants at MEA conventions address awide diversity of topics in our programs, and we encourage submissions thatexplore media ecological approaches from any number of different disciplinesand fields of knowledge and social practice. We are interested in papers, thematicpanels, roundtable discussion panels, creative projects, performance sessions,and other proposals of interest to media ecologists. While we are open toexplorations on any topic of interest to media ecologists, we also include aconvention theme with the aim of generating further discussion and probesinvolving multiple perspectives. Submissions do not have to address the theme,but are invited to do so.

THETHEME OF THE 2021 CONVENTION is Dystopic Futures: MediaEcology in an Algorithm Society. Dystopian societies arerepresented in a variety of science fiction works in an effort to predict thepessimistic consequences of our current practices. Films, books and other formsof art set their narratives in the future, to comment on our present culture whilemaintaining a critical distance. However, nowadays we find ourselves living ina sort of dystopic present with undesirable and frightening realities. Inaddition to our natural, environmental, political, ethical, cultural, healthand social problems, we have to deal with issues brought by technologicaladvances. We are living in a technopoly (Postman, 1992), or in what some recentauthors call an algorithmic society, “a society organized around social andeconomic decision-making by algorithms, robots, and AI agents, who not onlymake decisions but also, in some cases, carry them out.” (Balkin 2016). Whatkind of dystopia can we envisage as a consequence of our dystopic present?

Generaltopics of interest related to the convention theme (but not limited to):
• Fake news, and social media:discursive breakdown and political consequences• Robots and transhumanism
• Algorithmic media: data mining,subjectivity modelling and decision-making
• Big Data, machine learning, AI, andsociety
• Limits of AI development: is itreasonable to talk about an AI takeover?
• Movies and literature: mappingdifferent kinds of dystopias
• Pandemics, economic crash,irreversible climate change and other disasters: what now?
• Any new (and better) world order onthe horizon? Is avoiding dystopia possible?
• Is media regulation still possible?In what sense and by what means?
• Discourse and education in the era oftechnological hegemony
• Politics, health, citizenship, and media
• Disinformation, censorship, andpropaganda
• Crazy talk and stupid talk viadigital media
• Orality and digital literacy in adystopic world
• Arts, technology, and cultural legacy
• Utopia, dystopia and media ecologystudies
 
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION: Please submit paper and panel proposals, in English, by February 15, 2021 to MEA2021Convention at gmail.com. A maximum of two submissions per author will be accepted. 
Authorswho wish their papers to be considered for the Top Paper or Top Student Paper award mustindicate this on their submission(s).
Submission Guidelines for paper andpanel proposals:
1. Include title(s), abstract(s)(maximum 250 words), and contact information for each participant.2. Outline, as relevant, how your paperor panel will fit with the convention theme.
3. Authors with papers submitted aspart of a panel proposal or as a paper proposal that wish to be considered forTop Paper or Top Student Paper must send the completed paper to the conventionplanner by May 5, 2021.
INFORMATION: Pleasedirect questions to Adriana Braga, MEA2021Convention at gmail.com.
For more on the Media Ecology Association, visit www.media-ecology.org.