ECREA 2024 Pre-Conference
The Informational Influence of Autocracies Abroad
September 23, 2024, 9:00 am - 5:30 pm
This is the official website of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) pre-conference "The Informational Influence of Autocracies Abroad", organized by the European Research Council (ERC) consolidator project RUSINFORM as a one-day event on 23th of Septmeber 2024 in City Hotel Ljubliana. All further information about this event will be published here.
Call for Papers
Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has put the spotlight on the wide range of digital warfare tools that autocracies can use to influence public opinion abroad (see, e.g., Lokot, 2023). However, even before this war, authoritarian states such as Russia (e.g., Glazunova et al., 2022) and China (e.g., Pan et al., 2019) have sought to increase their soft power and exert foreign information influence by delivering their strategic narratives (Miskimmon et al., 2014) to foreign audiences.
This pre-conference aims to explore the past and present of authoritarian regimes' foreign propaganda, including the complex dynamics of its (co-)creators and disseminators, its content, strategies and audiences. By juxtaposing historical and contemporary techniques, the conference aims to generate a deep and nuanced understanding of what has often been referred to as authoritarian regimes' “public diplomacy” (with the latter concept being not unproblematic as such, particularly if it is used to describe practices that include deceptive, covert influence efforts, see e.g. Nip & Sun, 2022).
By organising this conference, we aim to provide a platform for lively scholarly discussion among researchers of the foreign propaganda of authoritarian regimes across the globe, including Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey. By bringing together this community of experts, we seek to facilitate the exchange of novel ideas and collaborative theorising on this timely topic. We welcome cutting-edge contributions on the following topics (among others):
- The production and dissemination of information sponsored by authoritarian regimes, including in news and social media
- Audiences’ use, reception, sense-making, and co-creation of propagandistic content
- Dissemination and flow of propagandistic content on social networking sites (SNS) and through algorithmic intermediaries
- Conceptual innovations that theorise the relations between commonly used concepts, including propaganda, public diplomacy, strategic narratives, and soft power
- Novel research methods for studying foreign propaganda, including the use of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)
- Transnational repression of elites, including activists, journalists and academics
Glazunova, S., Bruns, A., Hurcombe, E., Montaña-Niño, S. X., Coulibaly, S., & Obeid, A. K. (2022). Soft power, sharp power? Exploring RT’s dual role in Russia’s diplomatic toolkit. Information, Communication & Society, 26(16), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2155485
Lokot, T. (2023). Russia’s networked authoritarianism in Ukraine’s occupied territories during the full-scale invasion: Control and resilience. LSE Public Policy Review, 3(1), Article 1.https://doi.org/10.31389/lseppr.85
Miskimmon, A., O’Loughlin, B., & Roselle, L. (2014). Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order. Routledge.
Nip, J., & Sun, C. (2022). Public diplomacy, propaganda, or what? China’s communication practices in the South China Sea dispute on Twitter. Journal of Public Diplomacy, 2(1), 43–68. https://doi.org/10.23045/jpd.2022.2.1.4
Pan, C., Isakhan, B., & Nwokora, Z. (2020). Othering as soft-power discursive practice: China Daily’s construction of Trump’s America in the 2016 presidential election. Politics, 40(1), 54–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395719843219
Submission and Deadline:
Presentation proposals should be submitted to the email address: serge.poliakoff@uni-passau.de with the subject line "ECREA 2024 Pre-Conference". All proposals should be in English.
Proposals should be between 300-500 words, excluding references, and should concisely present the study's main research questions, methodology, key findings and related conclusions. Proposals should be in line with and contribute to the Pre-Conference theme.
̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶d̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶m̶i̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶p̶o̶s̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶A̶p̶r̶i̶l̶ ̶3̶,̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶4̶.̶
The extended deadline for submitting proposals is April 14, 2024.
Submitted proposals will be notified of acceptance/rejection by April 29, 2024.
There is no pre-conference fee.
This is an offline event, so all accepted presenters will be required to present in person.
Costs
The pre-conference is free of charge.
Free coffee, snacks and lunch will be provided for attendees.
The pre-conference will be followed by an evening dinner (on a self-pay basis).
Additional Information:
We plan to support Ukrainian scientists who wish to participate in the event and whose paper will be accepted. Information about the support will be provided in the near future.
The event is organised by the European Research Council (ERC) consolidator project RUSINFORM on "The Consequences of the Internet for Russia's Informational Influence Abroad" (2019-2025), conducted at the University of Passau, Germany. RUSINFORM has received 2 million euros in funding from the European Union to study Russia's influence on foreign audiences, on transmission channels such as social networking sites and search engines, as well as the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency (IRA).
Prof. Dr. Florian Toepfl (chair), Serge Poliakoff (vice-chair), Julia Kling (vice-chair).