Call for applications

Deadline for applications: May 15th 2024

Context

The rise of new technologies is shaking up the way people interact with digital media and information. The recent and widespread release of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and applications sparked a lot of questions about their impact on users and the societies in which they live. Such potential changes need to be put into a historical perspective: with each technological innovation came hopes and fears related to their putative effects on society, often through the lens of techno determinism.

From mass media to the information age, to digital transmedia, to generative AI, the world contemplated the dawn of the information society and the democratization of access to knowledge, the advent of citizen participation for all, or the potential of persistent virtual worlds (the “metaverse”), transhumanism and augmented reality. At the same time, as many concerns have grown across social discourses on media, information, and technology: from screen passivity and addictions to media violence and pornogra phy, from online sexual predators and cyberbullying to fake news and conspiracy theories, from infobesity to generalized data surveillance and the collapse of our democratic societies in the post truth era, etc.

At each of these stages, individuals and social groups have developed various forms of literacies to thrive in a world populated with these technologies and to mitigate their potential deleterious effects. With every significant technological innovation , a need to reassess the role of media information digital literacies arises and, with it , the temptation to reinvent them to “keep pace” with evolving technologies. With such reinvention comes the risk of changing the target, scattering the benefits of educational initiatives, and losing sight of the whole picture of what (new) literacies are and what they support.

Charting the (dis)continuities in literacies

The theme for this year’s edition of the ReDMIL summer school is: “From mass media to generative AI: Charting the (dis)continuities in literacies”.

We wish to inject a historical dimension into our examination of research in media / information / digital literacy and devote some of our attention to the changes in media, media practices, audiences and user communities, but also in imaginaries and narratives th at embody the hopes and fears we place in media and information technology.

We want to ask what these changes force us to reconsider in research on media / information / digital literacy, how they are accompanied by changes in the way we theorize media, information, technology and literacies, the way we conceive our research metho ds, our epistemologies, and our axiological positions. In reflecting on these developments, we are more attentive to continuities than to chiasms and so called paradigm shifts.

Our summer school intends to bring together young researchers who are challenged by these issues with the objective of considering these questions in a long term perspective.

  • How can research account for generational changes in people’s relationship to media without getting muddled up in the use of pseudo concepts (e.g. the myth of the “digital native”)?
  • How are age old conceptual debates (protectionism vs. empowerment, cognitive vs. socio cultural approaches to literacies, the complementarity of critical thinking and participation, …) challenged or reinvigorated by the evolution of digital media practices
  • How do our methods evolve to integrate the aspiration for more inclusiveness, for an increased attention to marginalized or under represented user communities, or for the decolonization of the media?
  • What epistemologies can we devise when agentivity and knowledge may no longer be the prerogative of the human being alone?
  • What kind of new avenues for research do technical innovations open
  • What are the disciplinary convergences that these evolutions call for? How can
    interdisciplinarity be channeled to strengthen research on new literacies?

Scope and goal of ReDMIL 2024 Literacy Doctoral Summer School

In this context, the ReDMIL 2024 doctoral summer school aims at contributing to the convergence between digital, media and information literacy research by bringing together researchers from all three communities, to foster the scientific debate and explore connections between them.  

The summer school is an international training program that will alternate between framing presentations by senior researchers and the in-depth discussion of emerging research by participating PhD students. 

Five keynotes speakers have confirmed their participation to the 2024 edition :  

  • Gianna Cappello, University of Palermo (Italy)
  • Normand Landry, Université TELUQ (Canada),
  • Julian Sefton Green, Deakin University (Australia)
  • Leo Van Audenhove, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium),
  • Emily Vraga , University of Minnesota (USA).

The summer school is organized on September 9th-12th, 2024 by the Groupe de Recherche en Médiation des Savoirs (Knowledge Mediation Research Group) at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, in partnership with the Canada Research Chair in Media Education and Human Rights (Université TELUQ). 

The goal of this summer school is to allow PhD students engaged in the field of digital literacy, media literacy or information literacy:  

  • to benefit from the expertise of renowned researchers in their field, though theoretical and methodological presentations;  
  • to present their own research to an audience composed of these experts, as well as other PhD students and researchers;  
  • to work collectively to the enhancement of their research work with other participants;  
  • to improve their knowledge of the research undertaken by their peers.  

The Summer School will start with a poster session (Sept. 9th), followed by six half-day workshops (Sept. 10th-12th) on the following topics:  

  • theoretical frameworks in the study of digital, media and information literacies;  
  • epistemological issues in new literacies research;  
  • methods for observing, documenting, and assessing literacies and their associated educational practices and policies;  
  • designing research with social relevance and valorizing research results in society.  

Each half-day workshop will open with one plenary talk by renowned experts, followed by a session focused on the research work of the participating PhD students, exploring them from the perspectives developed in the plenary talks. In addition to presenting an outline of their work at the opening poster session, each participating PhD student will have the opportunity to present their work in two sessions, on two different topics. In relation to the theme of the 2024’ edition “From mass media to generative AI: Charting the (dis)continuities in literacies“, participants will be invited to question the axiological positions that underly their research. 

The Summer School will also allow for numerous informal interactions (including a networking dinner) between experts, researchers and PhD students.  

Participation and presentation from PhD students at the ReDMIL Summer School will be rewarded by 5 ECTS (or equivalent) for their doctoral training. 

Submission of applications  

The summer school is targeted at PhD students who develop their research in the following areas :  

  • the study of new literacies: observing, documenting and/or assessing new literacies;  
  • the study of educational initiatives in media literacy, information literacy or digital literacy practiced by a variety of actors (teachers and educators, employers, associations, parents, media and tech companies, …);  
  • the study of public policies in the fields of digital, media and information literacies at any geographical level;  
  • or any other topic related to digital literacy, media literacy, or information literacy.  

PhD students wishing to present and discuss their doctoral research at the summer school are invited to submit an application, including the following:  

  • A brief curriculum vitae (one to two pages);  
  • A presentation of their doctoral research in a maximum of 1500 words (references not included), including the following four sections:
    • Problem or societal issue that their thesis intends to answer;  
    • Research question, hypotheses (in the case of a hypothetico-deductive approach) and theoretical framework of their thesis;  
    • Data collection and analysis method;  
    • Expected results: the usefulness of their research, from an academic and/or societal point of view (e.g. for the world of education, for the political world, for the media industry).
  • An abstract of the presentation of their doctoral research in a maximum of 300 words.  

Applications must be sent in the form of a single file (word or pdf) including CV and presentation to this address info-redmil@uclouvain.be by May 15th, 2024 at the latest.  

Candidates will be personally notified of the acceptance of their participation on June 5th.

Registration 

Students whose application has been accepted and researchers (whether doctoral or not) wishing to attend the summer school without presenting their work will have to pay a participation fee of 120€ to partially cover the organizing costs of the events.  

The participation fee includes lunches, coffee breaks, and the mid-summer school dinner.  

Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation costs. 

For the participants affiliated with institutions based in the European Union, this summer school should fall withing the conditions to obtain an ERASMUS+ travel funding. Participants are invited to get in touch with the ERAMUS+ coordinator of their home institution.  

Doctoral students for whom these costs would be an obstacle to participation can contact the organisation directly to try to find a solution. 

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