{"id":23056,"date":"2026-04-20T16:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nordmedianetwork.org\/?post_type=phd-courses&p=23056"},"modified":"2026-04-20T16:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:10:22","slug":"phd-symposium-beyond-the-bans-policies-and-pedagogies-in-the-post-digital-era-of-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"phd-courses","link":"https:\/\/nordmedianetwork.org\/fr\/latest\/phd-courses\/phd-symposium-beyond-the-bans-policies-and-pedagogies-in-the-post-digital-era-of-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"PhD Symposium: Beyond the Bans \u2013 Policies and Pedagogies in the Post-Digital Era of Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ECREA TWG Media Literacies and Communication Competencies (MLCC) and the Department of Media Education and Digital Literacy<\/a> at the University of Innsbruck have the pleasure to invite doctoral students and junior scholars to a joint symposium on media literacy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Call for Papers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interdisciplinary Symposium for Emerging Researchers: <\/strong>
<\/strong>Beyond the Bans \u2013 Policies and Pedagogies in the Post-Digital Era of Restrictions<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Organized by the ECREA TWG Media Literacies and Communication Competencies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria | One-day workshop | 15 September 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across Europe and beyond, debates are intensifying around age restrictions on social media <\/strong>for children and young people. Proposals to raise minimum age limits or strengthen age verification are often justified by concerns about online safety, mental health, distraction, exposure to harmful content, and the commercial pressures built into platform design. In various European countries, legal approaches to banning social media are being developed, while the European Commission (2026) recently published its plans<\/a> to develop enforce age limits for social media. Moreover, schools are increasingly introducing restrictions or outright bans on learners\u2019 use of mobile phones during the school day (Campbell et al., 2024; Grigic Magnusson, 2023). The policies of restriction are often justified by concerns related to distraction, wellbeing, academic performance, and the influence of digital media on young people\u2019s social and cognitive development. Digital detox or sufficient use of digital tools is defined as a key factor, but their effects vary (see e.g. Radtke, 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, social media and smart devices play an important role in young people\u2019s communication, identity formation, civic participation, and access to information. Smartphones, as everyday companions, are also a digital tool for all school subjects, but especially for media education. As a result, age restrictions on social media and bans of smartphones raise complex questions about how to balance protection and participation, how responsibility should be shared among families, schools, policymakers, and platforms, and what such measures mean for young people\u2019s rights, agency, and inclusion in digital society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctoral symposium Beyond the Bans <\/em>invites doctoral researchers to explore how post-digital educational systems (see e.g. Jopling, 2023) respond to restrictions and bans and how pedagogical practices evolve in their aftermath. The workshop seeks to foster dialogue on the broader implications of these policies and to examine how different European contexts approach the regulation of digital devices and platforms in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The symposium will take place as a one-day workshop at the University of Innsbruck<\/strong> in Austria and is designed as a collaborative forum where doctoral researchers can present and discuss emerging research. Contributions may be authored by doctoral researchers alone or co-authored with senior researchers or supervisors<\/strong>. The event aims to support early-stage scholarship and encourage comparative perspectives across countries and educational systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topics of interest<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We welcome contributions addressing questions such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policy perspectives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n