October 30-31 2025 – Stockholm, Sweden
The Media and Communications Department, Södertörn University, in collaboration with the ECREA ARS section, is organising the ARS mid-year conference 2025.
Call for papers
Social media platforms have dramatically changed the ways that people of all ages encounter and engage with news and information, as well as manage vital aspects of everyday life. The algorithmically governed media landscape of today, likewise, not only situates media users in a world of information plenty but shapes our daily practices and impacts on how we think, learn, and socialise.
This entanglement of media technologies and everyday life is challenging for a variety of reasons, not least as the structure of platforms is ephemeral and fluctuating. A notable example is how Twitter was swiftly turned into X, while the outcome of the American election pushed many users to leave the platform for less politicised alternatives. New platforms, similarly, emerge for the management of people’s professional networks, just as young people and children in many parts of the world rapidly gather around TikTok as a key source of information and entertainment.
The ephemerality of “the space of the world” of platforms is particularly pertinent to discuss in politically turbulent times, as the need for stable and predictable spaces for exchange of information and organisation of daily life is crucial – and increasingly threatened. Understanding the role and consequences of the shifting digital landscape for society and human life is an urgent task for scholars of varied fields related to media audiences, with a need to discuss the altering relationships between media technologies, audiences’ practices, and the use of content and information on social media. How do media users – across Europe and beyond – navigate and develop tactics to stay informed and socially connected in this rapidly shifting media landscape – and what does it mean for the spread of information, for social cohesion and for everyday life?
Main topic:
- Navigating algorithmic society
Subtopics:
- Algorithms and datafication
- Cross-European audience research
- Social media and information
- Platforms and everyday life
- Media activism
- Decolonization of the field
- Participatory media
- Audiences and popular culture
- News use and information practices
- Media use and socialization
- Media literacies
- Information disorders
- Theoretical reflection and future perspectives of the field
- Methodological discussions