[Air-L] Call for Submissions // 4S Annual Meeting 2025 in Seattle // Media Narratives in War & Humor as Digital Activism

[Sarah Rüller]

Dear Colleagues,

We are excited to invite abstract contributions to our two open panels for the 4S Annual Meeting 2025, taking place in Seattle, Washington, USA, on September 3-6, 2025.
Our panels are:

#240. “The Role of Media Narratives in War and Conflict: Language, Ethics, and Power”

&

#241. "Memes and Humor as Digital Activism: Subversive Narratives in the Social Media Age”

If you would like to participate in our sessions, please submit an abstract of approximately 250 words and follow the submission guidelines here: 4S Call for Submissions.
Deadline for submission is January 31, 2025.

Panel Summaries

240. “The Role of Media Narratives in War and Conflict: Language, Ethics, and Power”
Media narratives of war are shaped by complex socio-technical systems where journalistic practices, platform algorithms, and state actors converge to mediate global discourses of conflict. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this panel explores the co-constitution of language, media ethics, and digital technologies in shaping perceptions of war and violence. Through an STS lens, we critically examine the interplay of human and non-human actors-journalists, algorithms, users, and platforms-in the construction and dissemination of conflict narratives. We aim to provide new insights into the ways in which media both reflect and shape the socio-political realities of armed conflict.

We invite papers that explore

• The role of algorithmic curation in amplifying or marginalizing particular war narratives.
• How media technologies influence the terminology (e.g., "invasion," "military operation") used to describe conflict and its impact on public understanding.
• The ethical challenges of reporting in algorithmically-driven spaces where sensationalism competes with integrity.
• The ways in which disinformation and propaganda are circulated and moderated by socio-technical systems during conflict.
• The consequences of these dynamics for information literacy and public engagement with discourses of war.

By focusing on the mediation of conflict through sociotechnical assemblages, this panel contributes to STS by interrogating the material, ethical, and political dimensions of media technologies in contemporary warfare. We aim to foster critical insights into how these systems shape not only public opinion, but also geopolitical power. We invite scholars from all areas to submit their work.

241. "Memes and Humor as Digital Activism: Subversive Narratives in the Social Media Age”
Memes and satire occupy a unique space in the socio-technical landscape of digital activism, serving as both cultural expressions and tools of resistance. This panel explores the dual role of digital satire: as a mode of critique that enables activists to subvert dominant power structures, mobilize collective action, and sustain movements, and as content that is shaped, regulated, and commodified by the very platforms it seeks to critique. By positioning memes and satire as socio-technical artifacts, the panel examines how their creation and circulation are influenced by platform algorithms, participatory cultures, and digital communication infrastructures. Through this analysis, we aim to uncover the potential of digital satire to reshape socio-political discourse in an era of heightened surveillance and algorithmic governance.

Topics to be explored include

• The material politics of memes: How do platform infrastructures shape the production, circulation, and reception of digital humor in activism.
• Memes as socio-technical imaginaries: How do they reconfigure notions of resistance, identity, and solidarity in digital spaces?
• The role of algorithms in amplifying or suppressing meme-driven activism.
• The ethical and political challenges of using humor in activism, especially in the context of commodification and cultural appropriation.
• How digital satire amplifies marginalized voices, promotes counter-narratives, and adapts to geopolitical and cultural contexts while confronting the limitations imposed by platform governance.
• How humor and satire navigate platform-specific affordances and constraints, such as algorithmic bias, content moderation, and surveillance, raises critical questions about their capacity to foster meaningful socio-political change.
• Case studies of meme-driven movements, focusing on their socio-technical contexts and global/local dynamics.

By approaching memes and digital satire through an STS framework, this panel highlights the co-production of culture, technology, and resistance in digital activism. It seeks to uncover the hidden infrastructures and power dynamics that shape the subversive potential of humor, offering insights into the broader socio-technical assemblages of online political engagement.

Additional Information

More details about the conference can be found here: 4S Annual Meeting 2025.
For questions, feel free to contact us:

• Yarden Skop (yarden.skop at uni-siegen.de)
• Sarah Rüller (sarah.rueller at uni-siegen.de)
• Konstantin Aal (konstantin.aal at uni-siegen.de)
• Norah Abokhodair (norah.abukhodair at gmail.com)
• Houda Elmimouni (houda.elmimouni at umanitoba.ca)

We look forward to your contributions!
Best regards,
The Organizing Team

_________________

Dr. des. Sarah Rüller (she/her)

Team Leader “Community & Activism” // Information Systems and New Media
Senior Researcher // CRC 1187 - Media of Cooperation
University of Siegen // Kohlbettstraße 15 // 57072 Siegen // Room: US-D 104

Recent Publications:
From Singularity to PlurAIverse: Expanding the AI Design Paradigm. https://doi.org/10.1145/3686169.3686207
Shielding or Silencing?: An Investigation into Content Moderation during the Sheikh Jarrah Crisis. https://doi.org/10.1145/3633071