Call for Papers: Conferința ULBS REFLECT

Fostering Cross-disciplinary Reflections to Bridge Societal Divides

The XIXth Conference of the Department of Social Work, Journalism, Public Relations, and Sociology

Deadline for submitting abstracts: 2 September 2024
Date: 21-23 November 2024
Venue: Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu

Recent events such as armed conflicts in Europe and neighbouring regions, mass migration, and humanitarian crises involving refugees have profoundly altered the way people live and think about the world. Emerging in the context of distressed societies, still struggling with the aftermath of the pandemic, these developments have not only brought about new challenges but also reinforced deep-seated inequalities of class, gender, ethnicity, and education, to list but a few.

Societies are, therefore, navigating a complicated web of interrelated and overlapping social and political challenges, from demographic shifts to increased vulnerabilities both on and offline, which call for reflections and reorganizations in the ways governments, citizens, and diverse organizations engage in dialogues and collaboration. However, fostering dialogue and cooperation proves challenging within societies characterized by polarization, violent extremism, and a communication landscape marked by increasingly complex and elusive forms of mis- and disinformation. Populism, polarization and information disorders hinder the efforts of the public sphere in addressing the aforementioned issues. 

Across academic disciplines, scholars are engaging with these problems and challenges within multidisciplinary frameworks that increasingly take advantage of technological advancements brought by artificial intelligence. They approach these challenges from diverse perspectives and endeavour to devise innovative intervention strategies to address them. 

Against this background, the primary aim of the conference is to assemble scholars from a wide array of academic disciplines to explore and exchange insights on the latest research trends concerning such contemporary challenges. We welcome contributions from scholars in the social sciences interested in topics related to crises, violence, inequalities and social justice, polarization, mis- and disinformation, AI challenges and threats, and other thought-provoking aspects of contemporary societies. We invite papers that examine these themes through a range of methodological lenses and employ diverse epistemological frameworks. We encourage papers and presentations that adopt innovative methodologies, such as participative methods and digital methods, within multidisciplinary teams.

We welcome both theoretical contributions and presentations based on empirical research from academics, researchers, graduate and postgraduate students reflecting on – but not exclusively – the following themes:

• Vulnerable groups and social justice
• Ageing, life courses, and wellbeing
• Socialization and youth studies
• Children, family, and lifestyles
• Health and illness
• Migration crisis
• Political attitudes and behaviour
• Education and employment
• Decolonial and feminist studies
• Discrimination and social integration
• Environmental sociology
• Communication and media research
• Intercultural communication
• AI: promises, challenges and threats
• Fake news and deep fake
• Citizen journalism
• Media discourse
• Freedom of speech and ethics in journalism
• New trends in public relations

We encourage the submission of proposals based on complete or in-progress research. Interested participants are invited to submit their abstracts (maximum 300 words) by 2 September 2024 by filling out this form. Please indicate the topic of your presentation and how it is relevant to the proposed background and adjacent themes. The conference’s language is English.

Subject to their research topics and academic interests, participants could opt to submit complete papers after the conference to one of the LBUS scientific journals. Their submissions will go through a process of peer review. Please check the submission guidelines for each of the journals, depending on your interest: Saeculum; Social Change Review; EON.

Participation Fee
Academics, researchers, practitioners: 40 Euro / 200 RON
Graduate and postgraduate students: 25 Euro / 125 RON
The participation fee covers conference materials, coffee breaks, and lunches on the conference days.

More details about registration, organization and program can be found on the conference website: https://conferences.ulbsibiu.ro/asjrps/.