Exploring the new boundaries of journalism: call for papers, ECREA pre-conference 2018

The Faculty of Communication of Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) (Lugano, Switzerland) is hosting the biannual European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) conference from October 31st to November 3rd. Among all the pre-conferences that will anticipate the main event on October 31st, one will fit perfectly for those researchers interested in exploring new types of hybrid journalism, especially those powered by data-driven reporting, cybersecurity and coders/hackers entering newsrooms all over the world.

The “Dissolving Boundaries of Hybrid Journalism. Rethinking News Work Between Data-Drivenness, Hacking and Activism” pre-conference, whose call for papers is now open, aims at bringing together researchers from all over the world to analyse contemporary journalism in light of its growing networked, open and participatory nature. As the conference website states, journalism’s boundaries “are more and more contested as journalists are forced to renegotiate the space between producers and users in a digital environment, characterised by high choice and a participatory culture”.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

The role of data-driven reporting in shaping the journalistic culture
The borderline between activism and journalism
Hybrid journalism and investigative journalism
The importance of cybersecurity for and its impact on journalism
Alternative technologies and networks for reporting and news-making
The consequences of dissolving boundaries and shifting norms for journalistic authority
Ethical challenges of hybrid journalism
The amalgamation of pop culture and news reporting
The consequences for newsmaking of different role conceptions of actors participating in the networked news production
Specific genres of hybrid journalism
Hybrid forms of journalism and advertising
The organizational implementation of hybrid journalism

The pre-conference is organized by Dr Colin Porlezza, senior researcher at the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ) of the University of Zurich and Philip Di Salvo, researcher at the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) at Università della Svizzera italiana. The pre-conference is taking place on October 31st 2018, in Lugano, Switzerland, USI campus.

Abstracts of 500 words should be sent via email to [email protected] by 20 May, 2018. All submissions will be blindly peer-reviewed and acceptance notifications will be sent out on June 11, 2018. All the information regarding the conference are available here:

For more news and information on European media and media research sign up to our monthly newsletter