[Air-L] ReDMIL 2024 doctoral summer school - final call for applications

[Pierre Fastrez]

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS * EXTENDED DEADLINE

Doctoral Summer School - Research on Digital, Media and Information 
Literacy (ReDMIL 2024)
“From mass media to generative AI: Charting the (dis)continuities in 
literacies”

9-12th September 2024

Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) – Université catholique de Louvain

*Extended application deadline : June 14th 2024*
Contact : info-redmil at uclouvain.be
Website : https://www.redmil.info/

*CONTEXT*

The rise of new technologies is shaking up the way people interact with 
digital media and information. The recent and widespread release of 
artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications sparked a lot of 
questions about their impact on users and the societies in which they 
live. Such potential changes need to be put into a historical 
perspective: with each technological innovation came hopes and fears 
related to their putative effects on society, often through the lens of 
techno-determinism.

 From mass media to the information age, to digital transmedia, to 
generative AI, the world contemplated the dawn of the information 
society and the democratization of access to knowledge, the advent of 
citizen participation for all, or the potential of persistent virtual 
worlds (the “metaverse”), transhumanism and augmented reality. At the 
same time, as many concerns have grown across social discourses on 
media, information, and technology: from screen passivity and addictions 
to media violence and pornography, from online sexual predators and 
cyberbullying to fake news and conspiracy theories, from infobesity to 
generalized data surveillance and the collapse of our democratic 
societies in the post-truth era, etc.

At each of these stages, individuals and social groups have developed 
various forms of literacies to thrive in a world populated with these 
technologies and to mitigate their potential deleterious effects. With 
every significant technological innovation, a need to reassess the role 
of media / information / digital literacies arises and, with it, the 
temptation to reinvent them to "keep pace" with evolving technologies. 
With such reinvention comes the risk of changing the target, scattering 
the benefits of educational initiatives, and losing sight of the whole 
picture of what (new) literacies are and what they support.

*CHARTING THE (DIS)CONTINUITIES IN LITERACIES*

The theme for this year’s edition of the ReDMIL summer school is: 
“Charting the (dis)continuities in literacies”.

We wish to inject a historical dimension into our examination of 
research in media / information / digital literacy and devote some of 
our attention to the changes in media, media practices, audiences and 
user communities, but also in imaginaries and narratives that embody the 
hopes and fears we place in media and information technology.

We want to ask what these changes force us to reconsider in research on 
media / information / digital literacy, how they are accompanied by 
changes in the way we theorize media, information, technology and 
literacies, the way we conceive our research methods, our 
epistemologies, and our axiological positions. In reflecting on these 
developments, we are more attentive to continuities than to chiasms and 
so-called paradigm shifts.

Our summer school intends to bring together young researchers who are 
challenged by these issues with the objective of considering these 
questions in a long-term perspective.

  * How can research account for generational changes in people’s
    relationship to media without getting muddled up in the use of
    pseudo-concepts (e.g. the myth of the “digital native”)?
  * How are age-old conceptual debates (protectionism vs. empowerment,
    cognitive vs. socio-cultural approaches to literacies, the
    complementarity of critical thinking and participation, …)
    challenged or reinvigorated by the evolution of digital media practices?
  * How do our methods evolve to integrate the aspiration for more
    inclusiveness, for an increased attention to marginalized or
    under-represented user communities, or for the decolonization of the
    media?
  * What epistemologies can we devise when agentivity and knowledge may
    no longer be the prerogative of the human being alone?
  * What kind of new avenues for research do technical innovations open?
  * What are the disciplinary convergences that these evolutions call
    for? How can interdisciplinarity be channeled to strengthen research
    on new literacies?


*SCOPE AND GOAL OF THE REDMIL 2024 LITERACY DOCTORAL SUMMER SCHOOL*

In this context, the ReDMIL 2024 doctoral summer school aims at 
contributing to the convergence between digital, media and information 
literacy research by bringing together researchers from all three 
communities, to foster the scientific debate and explore connections 
between them.

The summer school is an international training program that will 
alternate between framing presentations by senior researchers and the 
in-depth discussion of emerging research by participating PhD students.

Five *keynotes speakers *have confirmed their participation to the 2024 
edition:

  * *Gianna Cappello*, University of Palermo (Italy)
  * *Normand Landry*, Université TELUQ (Canada),
  * *Julian Sefton-Green*, Deakin University (Australia),
  * *Leo Van Audenhove*, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium),
  * *Emily Vraga*, University of Minnesota (USA).


The summer school is organized on September 9th-12th, 2024 by the Groupe 
de Recherche en Médiation des Savoirs (Knowledge Mediation Research 
Group) at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, in partnership 
with the Canada Research Chair in Media Education and Human Rights 
(Université TELUQ).

The goal of this summer school is to allow PhD students engaged in the 
field of digital literacy, media literacy or information literacy:

  *   to benefit from the expertise of renowned researchers in their
    field, though theoretical and methodological presentations;
  *   to present their own research to an audience composed of these
    experts, as well as other PhD students and researchers;
  *   to work collectively to the enhancement of their research work
    with other participants;
  *   to improve their knowledge of the research undertaken by their peers.


The Summer School will start with a poster session (Sept. 9th), followed 
by six half-day workshops (Sept. 10th-12th) on the following topics:

  *   theoretical frameworks in the study of digital, media and
    information literacies;
  *   epistemological issues in new literacies research;
  *   methods for observing, documenting, and assessing literacies and
    their associated educational practices and policies;
  *   designing research with social relevance and valorizing research
    results in society.


Each half-day workshop will open with one plenary talk by renowned 
experts, followed by a session focused on the research work of the 
participating PhD students, exploring them from the perspectives 
developed in the plenary talks. In addition to presenting an outline of 
their work at the opening poster session, each participating PhD student 
will have the opportunity to present their work in up to two sessions, 
on two different topics. In relation to the theme of the 2024’s edition 
“From mass media to generative AI: Charting the (dis)continuities in 
literacies“, participants will be invited to question the axiological 
positions that underly their research.

The Summer School will also allow for numerous informal interactions 
(including a networking dinner) between experts, researchers, and PhD 
students.

Participation and presentation from PhD students at the ReDMIL Summer 
School will be rewarded by 5 ECTS (or equivalent) for their doctoral 
training.

*SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS*

The summer school is targeted at PhD students who develop their research 
in the following areas:

* the study of new literacies: observing, documenting and/or assessing 
new literacies;
* the study of educational initiatives in media literacy, information 
literacy or digital literacy practiced by a variety of actors (teachers 
and educators, employers, associations, parents, media and tech 
companies, …);
* the study of public policies in the fields of digital, media and 
information literacies at any geographical level;
* or any other topic related to digital literacy, media literacy, or 
information literacy.

PhD students wishing to present and discuss their doctoral research at 
the summer school are invited to submit an application, including the 
following:

  *   A brief curriculum vitae (one to two pages);
  *   A presentation of their doctoral research in a maximum of 1500
    words (references not included), including the following four sections:
      o Problem or societal issue that their thesis intends to answer;
      o Research question, hypotheses (in the case of a
        hypothetico-deductive approach) and theoretical framework of
        their thesis;
      o Data collection and analysis method;
      o Expected results: the usefulness of their research, from an
        academic and/or societal point of view (e.g. for the world of
        education, for the political world, for the media industry).
  * An abstract of the presentation of their doctoral research in a
    maximum of 300 words.


Applications must be sent in the form of a single file (word or pdf) 
including CV and presentation to info-redmil at uclouvain.be by *June 14th, 
2024 *at the latest.

Candidates will be personally notified of the acceptance of their 
participation on June 17th.

*REGISTRATION*

Students whose application has been accepted and researchers (whether 
doctoral or not) wishing to attend the summer school without presenting 
their work will have to pay a participation fee of 120€ to partially 
cover the organizing costs of the events.

The participation fee includes lunches, coffee breaks, and the 
mid-summer school dinner.

Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation costs.

For the participants affiliated with institutions based in the European 
Union, this summer school should fall withing the conditions to obtain 
an ERASMUS+ travel funding. Participants are invited to get in touch 
with the ERAMUS+ coordinator of their home institution.

Doctoral students for whom these costs would be an obstacle to 
participation can contact the organization directly to try to find a 
solution.