International Media Readings in Moscow "Mass Media and Communications-2021"

A crucial change of institutions we observe today is clear: media and policies are changing, legacy linear media are giving floor to non-linear new media, user engagement and participation through social media platforms, including what is perceived today as dark participation are growing. Everything becomes in a way blurry, liquid and uncertain: professional routines, practices, roles, perceptions, possibly even norms and values. As a result, we find ourselves living in a liquid society where uncertainty, flux, change, conflict, and revolution become permanent conditions of everyday life. This feeling of uncertainty has been intensified in recent pandemic times, when people, companies and institutions had to quickly migrate to online, re-structure their professional and personal routines, and learn to live in the new pandemic/post-pandemic world. At this year’s conference we welcome discussions about uncertainty as a new challenge for journalism and the society, and the new opportunities uncertain/liquid modernity can offer to people, media, institutions, and industries. We will discuss the impact Covid-19 pandemic had upon all spheres of our life – social, economic, cultural, political, academic and others, looking at how journalism in different countries reacted and adapted to these new challenges and risks. We will also discuss new digital gaps and inequalities that arose in the pandemic and post-pandemic world in terms of journalism education, unequal access to information, digital/social inclusion, information security, among other things. Theoretical and empirical papers are both welcome, with preference during selection process being given to papers with solid methodological base and original approach.