[Air-L] 2024 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication (AssoComPol)

[Antonio Martella]

***2024 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication
(AssoComPol)***

The new European public sphere, the crises and challenges of "post-truth"

30 May - 1 June 2024, University of Catania, Italy

https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2024/  (under construction)

One of the salient aspects in the recent dynamic transformation of public
opinion is the process of integration between national and European
communication spaces, which together increasingly converge on a scenario of
complex global interdependencies. While this integrative trend was taking
shape, itself a topic of debate and controversy, the European arena had to
deal with new challenges, that mainly derived from a succession of global
crises (economic, migratory, pandemic, war). These challenges, as well as
generating geopolitical and economic instability, have highlighted a
further and deeper impact of the transformations of the communication
context, such as digitalisation, platformisation, polarization and the set
of phenomena that cluster around the imprecise and debated concept of
post-truth.

The crisis phases have highlighted the progressive shift towards the
European sphere of many issues that previously featured in national
contexts of debate and policy-making. This has made this process of
Europeanization an object of persistent attention in flows of political
communication, and given integration itself a structure of polarized
politicization.

Due to the growing importance of the Union and the greater prominence of
European-level issues in national political-media systems, it can be
hypothesized that the phase of European elections as "second-order"
elections in member countries has ended. One significant aspect is that
they have become an object of interest for some foreign governments who,
through the propagation of fake news and propaganda, attempt to influence
the choices of citizens and governments to the point of undermining the
integrity of the elections. At the level of individual states, we note the
role of populist parties and their leaders, who are accused of spreading
content of dubious veracity to influence electoral contests and
referendums. These processes are considered a threat to the values of civil
coexistence and public debate, and trust in democratic institutions.
The increased salience of the issues now found in European public space
poses challenges to the agency of organized civil society. The structure of
national public spheres has in fact changed, giving greater space to new
actors with the ability to set agendas and influence public debate. In this
context, a different methodological approach has made it possible to
overcome the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy of participatory processes in the
process of integrating the European communication space. It thus seems
appropriate to pay attention to the communicative activities of social
movements that operate at a trans-national level (e.g. environmentalists),
and to those of interest groups that expand their activities towards the
European dimension (trade unions, businesses and consumers). Worthy of
interest are the movements of protest, sometimes labeled as populist, which
mobilize simultaneously in various European countries, displaying networked
transnational connections.

These processes are discursively articulated within a media ecosystem that
is significantly influenced and distorted by phenomena of intolerance and
incivility present in digital environments; communicative exchanges become
radicalized and the very frames of the issues are influenced, causing the
polarization of the arenas of debate.
The world of journalism has followed the process of Europeanization of
national spheres and their politicization, often from a critical
perspective, underlining the inadequacy of the Union's institutional
responses and calling for their reform. This is accompanied by a crisis of
journalism, characterized by loss of legitimacy of traditional media, which
faces the affirmation of a framework of extreme fragmentation in
information practices. It is necessary to deepen our understanding of the
transformation of the news generation process, the impact on the role of
journalists and editorial staff as gatekeepers and guarantors, and what
adaptation and reaction strategies are in place, in the face of the
complexity of the debate on information in European space.
On the basis of this framework, the call for papers solicits contributions
that investigate the transformation of the national and European public
sphere with particular attention to the challenges posed by crises,
disinformation and manipulation phenomena. The areas investigated are those
of electoral campaigns, strategies implemented by political actors and
civil society and by traditional media, the impact of platformization
processes on the fields of political communication, journalism and all
other forms of communication.
Theoretical and empirical analysis papers are welcome, with research
designs that include qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods
methodologies.
Some possible relevant topics, though this is not intended to be an
exhaustive list:


   - changes that have occurred and new communication scenarios in the
   increasingly close and complex relationship between political communication
   and the public sphere;
   - the restructuring of ideologies and propaganda practices;
   - the redefinition of the public agenda in European space;
   - the transformations and controversial nature of the
   international-European public debate with reference to processes of
   ideological and affective polarization, the use of incivility, and forms of
   discrimination online and offline, also with attention to gender issues;
   - policies regarding political communication, information and the
   integrity of elections, formulated by European and national institutions
   (transparency of platforms and privacy; regulation of electoral campaigns,
   etc.);
   - the emergence of new repertoires of extra-institutional political
   communication linked to protests, social movements and civil society
   actors, especially of a transnational nature;
   - transformations and crises of contemporary journalism, with particular
   attention to the growth of new professional models and the role of the
   digital platform;
   - trends that have emerged in the communication styles of leadership and
   parties in a hybrid and platformized communication ecosystem;
   - from a discourse analytical perspective, linguistic and/or multimodal
   aspects of post truth communication;
   - the technological infrastructure of political participation with
   particular regard to young generations (digital parties, networks,
   influencers, memes, UGC);
   - methodological proposals and theoretical contributions to address the
   transformations of the public sphere, disinformation and new forms of
   conflict and political competition;
   - (computational) propaganda techniques and mis/dis-information
   strategies in conflict scenarios.


Paper proposals must include: name, affiliation and email address, a title
and an extended abstract with bibliographic references (600/800 words
excluding bibliography), 3 key words. The proposers must also explicitly
indicate whether they request the paper to be taken into consideration,
after the conference, for publication in the magazine "Comunicazione
Politica". In the event of an equal evaluation by referees, the authors who
have indicated this option will have priority in selection for the
conference.

*Useful information on how to write an abstract for AssoComPol conferences
is available in the “Abstract Instructions” section* (
https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2024/ under construction)


   - Deadline for sending proposals: *11 March 2024*
   - Acceptance notification: *25 March 2024*
   - Complete papers must be sent by *May 22, 2024 *to the conference paper
   room (accessible after login)


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