[Air-L] CFA - ICA 2025 Preconference: Media, Trust & Technology

[Agata Stepnik]

Hello all, and apologies for cross-posting.


*CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - ICA 2025 Preconference: Media, Trust & Technology*



Submission deadline approaching – 31st January 2025, AEDT.

Abstract length: 300 words



*Registration is now open.*

Click here
<https://mediated-trust-arts.sydney.edu.au/event/ica-2025-preconference-media-trust-technology/>
to
visit the pre-conference site to submit an abstract or register for the
event.



Pre-conference date: Wednesday 11 June 2025, 9:00am-4:00pm.

Location: University of Colorado (CU) Boulder.



The question of trust in media is one of the major questions of our times.
The Edelman Trust Barometer has surveyed trust in media for over 20 years,
and Gallup has surveyed trust in news since the 1970s. Debates about
political polarisation, hyper-partisanship, mis- and dis-information and
propaganda all point to questions about trust in media in general, and in
the news media in particular. With traditional media business models in a
period of ongoing crisis, and the distribution of media content being
subject to rapid change through digitization, platformization and social
media, the historic “gatekeeper” role of traditional media brands has been
losing salience, and new modes of media content distribution, from citizen
journalism to the “creator economy”, are on the rise.



Communication as a discipline has long been engaged with questions of
trust, although the connection has often been implicit rather than
explicit. There has been a particular interest in how different media
technologies reframe trust issues at macro, meso and micro levels (Flew,
2021). Trust has often emerged as a communication question in response to
external developments, such as US President Donald Trump’s claims about
“fake news”, arguments over fact-checking, or questions of political
interference. At the same time, trust is often subordinated to other
concepts, such as truth, ideology and affect. For example, Jürgen Habermas
rarely refers to trust in his extended discussion of communicative
rationality and its relationship to trust-telling, even though he
acknowledges that the acceptance of statements as truthful is never fully a
matter of their epistemic rationality, but rests upon subjective context of
reception and perceptions of the speaker (Habermas, 2018).



This pre-conference will provide scholars in the field with the opportunity
for a focused discussion of the relevance of the concept of trust to
contemporary communication debates, particularly as they pertain to digital
societies and emergent communication technologies.



*Topics*

We welcome contributions that engage with questions of trust arising within:



-              media genres and formats such as news and entertainment;

-              communication professions, such as journalism, public
relations, policy-makers, and influencers;

-              media platforms and expertise;

-              trust in media, government and cultural institutions;

-              technologies of trust;

-              emergent debates around human-machine communication in
relation to media trust issues;

-              information and misinformation, including deepfakes;

-              trust and the future of communications policy, regulation
and governance;

-              conceptualization, operationalization and measurement of
trust.



Papers accepted for the pre-conference may be considered in a special issue
of a peer-reviewed academic journal.



Registration Fee: USD $80 full fee or $40 concession. Fee includes lunch
and refreshments on the day. Registration for the pre-conference is now
open, see link above.



Pre-conference sponsors: Discipline of Media and Communications, The
University of Sydney; Department of Media Studies, The University of
Colorado Boulder; Department of Communication Science, The University of
Amsterdam; Communication Law & Policy Division, ICA; Journalism Studies
Division, ICA; Mass Communication Division, ICA; Political Communication
Division, ICA.



Organizing Committee: Mark Boukes (UvA), Terry Flew (USyd), Tim Koskie
(USyd), Agata Stepnik (USyd), Ted Striphas (U. Colorado).




*Key Dates*

31st January 2025 – Deadline to submit an abstract



21st February 2025 – Acceptance notifications sent out



11th April 2025 – Preconference registration deadline



Questions?

Please email the conference team at mediated-trust.conference at sydney.edu.au


Best,

Dr Agata Stepnik



THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Discipline of Media and Communications,

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences





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