JMAD Conferences

Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD) Conference Call for Papers:
September 6–7, 2018
School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology

Keynote Speakers:

Carole Cadwalladr (Guardian ICT writer)
Professor Mark Andrejevic (Surveillance studies researcher)
Nicky Hager (Investigative journalist)


The Internet and social media create new opportunities for surveillance. Governments, military organisations, intelligence agencies, corporations, market researchers, and advertisers have the capacity to erase privacy and reshape the conditions of human autonomy. Mass media representations can, potentially, legitimise or delegitimise contemporary surveillance practices. These developments threaten journalistic practice just as they create new opportunities for counter-surveilling institutions of power. How then, should we understand the interrelationships which conjoin journalism, media and surveillance? Conference participants will, we hope, respond to this general question. Here, the following themes suggest themselves.

Theorising surveillance

  • Panopticism
  • Michel Foucault
  • Orwellian critiques
  • Neutral and critical approaches
  • Social media and commercial surveillance
  • Consumer profiling (Google)
  • Third party surveillance (Facebook)
  • Prosumers ‘free labour’
  • New advertising strategies

Surveillance and journalistic practice

  • Source protection
  • Encryption/de-encryption
  • Surveilling war reporters
  • Surveilling investigative reporters

Surveillance and privacy

  • Privacy principles
  • Privacy and legal rights
  • Techno-legal gaps
  • Surveillance and citizenship

Media representations of surveillance

  • Reality TV e.g. Big Brother
  • Surveillance in films
  • News and surveillance issues
  • Surveillance in TV crime shows

Counter-surveillance and journalism

  • WikiLeaks
  • Panama Papers
  • Whistle blowers and ethics
  • Leaks, law and policing

Big data

  • Data storage
  • Data mining
  • Dataveillance
  • Algorithmic strategies

Surveillance after Snowden

  • NSA programmes e.g. XKeyScore
  • Five eyes and journalism
  • Post-Snowden news frames
  • Intelligence agency spin doctoring

Surveillance and political activism

  • Geopolitical cyber wars
  • Hacktivism
  • Policing protest movements
  • Anonymous

Gender and surveillance

  • Online sexual harassment
  • Male gaze and surveillance
  • Profiling gender/sexual subjectivities
  • Feminism and surveillance studies

Surveillance and gaming

  • Military, gaming overlays
  • Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs)
  • Game designs and marketing strategies
  • MMOG and algorithmic surveillance

Media and surveillance after 9-11

  • Terrorism discourse and surveillance
  • Surveillance profiling, media stereotypes
  • ‘Islamophobia’ and surveillance
  • Surveillance, fear and the other

Abstracts due: May 31st, 2018 (400 words maximum)
Send to: jmad@aut.ac.nz / wayne.hope@aut.ac.nz / verica.rupar@aut.ac.nz

Conference enrolment details TBA
For more information regarding JMAD, visit the JMAD website: http://bit.ly/29fY4SR or on Facebook: http://bit.ly/29oyIkM

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