Greetings Everybody, please circulate the attached CfP, and if working in the area, participating. jk February 20, 2017     Call for Papers   International symposium   Journalism and the search for truth in an age of social media   Implications of “fake news” and internet trolling for democracy, politics and citizen inclusion   Boston University   April 23-25, 2017 https://demsatbu.wixsite.com/conference    Highlights   ·       Aim: As the journalism profession struggles to respond to social media’s proliferating role, fresh social scientific and philosophical perspectives are required to comprehend news in relationship to the pursuit of truth. Such perspectives will allow insight into the limits and potential of news creation. Moreover, they will yield a firmer grasp of professional journalism’s role as the public consumes and responds to news.   ·       Call for papers: Research-based perspectives invited, especially from younger scholars. Travel and lodging support available for paper presenters. Send abstracts to lcrocker@bu.edu   ·       Symposium format: Brief papers and in-depth discussion, built on research and scholarly perspectives. Advocating political or partisan viewpoints is discouraged. The event will have an in-person audience and also be live-streamed. (Papers and live-stream will be archived on our website.)   Key dates (original deadlines extended by one week March 7         Extended abstracts due (~250 words)          Send abstracts & papers to lcrocker@bu.edu March 14       Notification of acceptance decision April 3           Completed papers due (~2500 words) April 23-5      Symposium at Boston University   For program & informational updates please see: https://demsatbu.wixsite.com/conference Overview Social media-based production and consumption of news poses not only unprecedented challenges to journalism’s gatekeeper role in society but also to democratic processes themselves. Social media’s effects reverberate around the world, altering events on a global scale. Although there is a constantly changing kaleidoscope of particular manifestations of these challenges, questions of credibility and truthfulness as represented through information outlets have recently gained renewed prominence.   This was an issue foreseen by James E. Katz’s 1998 article, “Struggle in cyberspace: Fact and friction on the World Wide Web.” Of course in the intervening years, this struggle has broadened well beyond the World Wide Web to encompass an array of rapidly evolving digital outlets and technologies. Indeed, the struggle has become a pivotal dimension concerning how people come to grips with their reality.   Consequently, a sense of crisis has gripped many quarters as the authority of democratic processes and institutions have been questioned. One response has been calls for action that are now reverberating throughout boardrooms, college campuses, and legislatures. In response, steps are already being taken by media giants, but to unknown effect and with virtually no transparency or accountability. Moreover, such steps have been greeted by telling criticism on philosophical, ideological and oligopolistic grounds.   To pursue a clearer understanding of the scope and implications of this dramatic struggle between fact and fiction, which now goes to the heart of the journalistic enterprise, Boston University will hold interconnected sessions April 23-25, 2017.   During these sessions, social media’s interaction with journalism and democracy will be analyzed from philosophical, ethical, practical and political perspectives. Experts from these fields will examine the current situation and consider likely future trajectories. Drawing on such an array of specialties, and by taking a cross-cutting approach, the event co-sponsors anticipate that new insights will be gained into the high-pressure world of journalism and its responsibilities. Discussions will be aimed at laying the conceptual groundwork for recommendations and action at the professional, procedural and policy levels.   Practitioners and subject-matter experts will be invited to give brief papers on selected topics which will then be followed by interrogative discussion. In addition, drawing on an open, peer-reviewed “call for papers,” additional scholars and practitioners will be included in the sessions. The format of the talks will be to organize them into panels. In each panel there will be a brief presentation by the paper author followed by an extended commentary from among panelists.   Audiences, both attending in-person and participating via live-streaming sessions, will have an opportunity to raise questions and contribute viewpoints. Ample time is also scheduled for informal discussion so that discrete ideas can be explored in depth and serendipitous interpersonal connections can be forged. Following the conference, selected papers will be published online and in special issues of peer-reviewed journals so that the ideas developed and expressed during the conference can receive wide circulation. Some talks and interview excerpts will also be posted online to further the event’s impact.   Agenda (subject to change)   EARLY GATHERING, Sunday, April 23, 2017   |   5:00 PM | Informal gathering for meeting and greeting; for those agreeable, video-taping of short interviews for web posting | |   6:00 PM | Cocktail reception | |   7:00 PM | Dinner, remarks and conversation |   DAY ONE, Monday, April 24, 2017   |    9:30 AM | Registration & coffee | |    9:50 AM | Welcoming remarks by Dean Tom Fiedler, College of Communication, Boston University | |  10:00 AM | Journalism’s relationship to truth: What are the pivotal ethical, philosophical and practical considerations? | | 12:30 PM | Lunch and keynote address; followed by informal discussion | |   2:00 PM | Social media in today’s journalism and photo-journalism: How should issues be addressed productively? Is a new compact needed? | |   3:30 PM | Technology trends, trolling, computer algorithms, security and verification | |   5:00 PM | Reception |   DAY TWO, Tuesday, April 25   |    9:30 AM | Registration & coffee | |  10:00 AM | Social media, journalism and democracy: What’s happening around the world? | |  11:30 AM | Philosophical, sociological and behavioral dimensions that affect the journalists’ practices and societal reception of their work | |  12:30 PM | Lunch and keynote address; followed by informal discussion | |    2 PM | PANEL: Presidential politics, journalism’s mission, and the media: What’s the right role for the press? What is next on the agenda? | |    3:30 PM | PANEL— Fact-checking: Promise, pitfalls and perils | |    5:00 PM | Reception and informal discussion |   Boston University Sponsors   ·       Andrew R. Lack Professorship, Department of Journalism, College of Communication ·       Feld Family Professorship in Emerging Media, Division of Emerging Media Studies, College of Communication ·       Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Project on Philosophy of Emerging Computational Technologies: Humans, Values and Society in Transition, Philosophy Department and Division of Emerging Media Studies ·       Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and Engineering     International Scientific Advisory Committee*   1*Baldwin-Philippi, Jessica (Fordham University, New York) 2*Belair-Gagnon, Valerie (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis) Boczkowski, Pablo J. (Northwestern University, Evanston) Bouin, Olivier (Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris) 3*Bowen, Shannon (University of South Carolina, Columbia) 4*Braman, Sandra (Texas A&M, College Station) 5*Brossard, Dominique (University of Wisconsin, Madison) 6*Cushman, Ellen (Northeastern University, Boston) 7*Floyd, Juliet (Boston University, Boston) 8*Guo, Lei (Boston University, Boston) Haldane, John (St. Andrew’s University, Edinburgh) Halpern, Daniel (La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago) Karpf, David (George Washington University, Washington, DC) Kreiss, Daniel (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) 9*Lai, Chih-Hui (National Chiao Tung University, Taipei) 10*Lee, Sun Kyong (University of Oklahoma, Norman) 11*Neff, Gina (Oxford University, Oxford) Nyíri, Kristóf (Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem, Budapest) Ortoleva, Peppino (Università degli Studi di Torino, Turin) 12*Poiger, Uta (Northeastern University, Boston) Schudson, Michael (Columbia University, New York) Stoellger, Philipp (Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg) Vallee, Michaël (Consulate General of France, Boston) 13*Zanette, Maria Carolina (Universidade de Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo)   * Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes and do not imply endorsement.  To summarize: Abstract submission   Abstracts should be sent to Liz Crocker no later than March 7, 2017: lcrocker@bu.edu For information regarding the symposium, please contact the organizer   James E. Katz, Ph.D. Feld Family Professor of Emerging Media College of Communication Boston University Boston, MA 02215 USA Katz2020@bu.edu        For program & informational updates please see: https://demsatbu.wixsite.com/conference