Nowadays we live and breathe media, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour. News, television, social media, celebrity culture, music, and more. As the media and communication sector becomes ever more diverse and dynamic, and we are going to consume it, we also need to understand it.

Today, the new bio-technical forms of life produced by mainstream digital media and by a whole range of artistic and non-artistic practices confront us with unprecedented theoretical questions, which can be dealt with by combining profound and perplexing perspectives. We need appropriate theoretical frameworks in order to understand the phenomena.

Media studies requires the in-depth analysis and criticism. From newspapers, radio and television, to the Internet and mobile technologies, media, communication technologies and information tools impact our daily lives in countless ways. We use them to socialize with others, to seek out or share information and entertainment and to participate in social and cultural debates. But what are media, exactly? How do media institutions and technologies impact the development of society and culture and influence our activities and behaviours?

In turn, how do users shape media? What role does the economic structure of media institutions play in shaping our relationship with them? In what ways does the organization and presentation of information influence our understanding of the world and our place in it? How are user-generated forms of media such as social networking sites, blogs, and collaborative informational sources like Wikipedia changing the modern media environment?

These are just some of the questions the conference aims to answer. It will also focus on modern communication and information technologies, and try to discover the ways they influence our lives.

The conference will bring together speakers from various fields, including mass media, film studies, games industries, political sciences, education, etc., creating closer ties and connections among scholars from different disciplines working on communication and media studies.

Papers are invited on topics related, but not limited, to:

    Media Cultures
    Cultural representation and power in media
    Politics of media and media in politics
    Censorship, affront and censoriousness in media
    Media Theory
    Psychology of media and communications
    The idea of the virtual
    Cybernetics
    Media discourses
    Media analytics
    Media Technologies and Processes
    Mass media and broadcast media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines
    Cinema and documentary
    Typographic media
    Internet and online media
    Social media
    Media Business
    Media management
    Intellectual property
    Globalization of media
    Advertising and marketing
    Media Literacies
    Media education
    Media training and workforce development