Emotional mobilization is both a threat to and an important prerequisite of deliberative democracy in Europe. It can however also be important for creating engagement and understanding in various target audiences. Thus, the dynamics of passion and reason in European public discourse remains enigmatic and is in dire need of scholarly attention for the benefit of multiple stakeholders. Our conference aims to investigate the reciprocal relationship between emotions and the production, content, and audiences of media from a broad perspective. Why are emotional messages attractive and how do they construct their salience? What purpose do they fullfil in media? Can harmful consequences (such as disinformation and conspiratorial meaning-making) be averted and corrected? Or are emotions simply the key difference between the human and non-human condition in future communication determined by Artificial Intelligence and synthetic media?
We invite scholars of media and journalism in the humanities and social sciences to explore questions like these at our forthcoming conference “Media and Emotional Mobilization” at Linnaeus University, campus Kalmar at the shores of the Baltic Sea. The conference aims at an open exchange of ideas in a vibrant and emerging hub of media research in Sweden, the future state-of-the-art “Linnaeus Media Observatory” (LMO, under formation). LMO aims to unite media research and practice in a collaboration between media and journalism studies, media production, research into media and democracy, intermedial studies and journalism education. In the spirit of open communication of research, our aim is to publish the papers of the conference in an appropriate format.
The conference is organized by the Department of Media and Journalism (MJ), the Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies (IMS), Fojo Media Institute and the knowledge environment A Questioned Democracy (IfDem).
Timeline
- Collection of Abstracts opens: 26 May
- Collection of Abstracts closes: 31 August EXTENDED DEADLINE!
- Confirmation of acceptance of Abstracts: 5 September NEW DATE!
- Registration opens: 26 May
- Registration closes: 1 October
Contact information
If you have any questions or inquiries about the conference, please send a mail to meme2023@lnu.se and one of the conference organisers will contact you.