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Dear colleagues, 

Please find below a reminder of our call for papers for the upcoming
African Women in Media Summit. The deadline is 20 January 2020. Thank
you for sharing widely:  

http://africanwomeninmedia.com/cfpawim2020/  

CALL FOR PAPERS 

CFP: AFRICAN WOMEN IN MEDIA 2020 SUMMIT (#AWIM2020) 

_REIMAGINING FUTURES: WOMEN IN MEDIA, PEACE AND TECHNOLOGIES_ 

29-31 JULY, 2020. JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA 

African Women in Media (AWiM) in partnership with the African Union are
pleased to bring you our fourth annual conference, which aims to bring
together media practitioners, researchers, policy makers and CSOs. With
the theme 'Reimagining Futures: Women in Media, Peace and Technologies',
AWiM2020 Summit takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa on 29-31 July
2020. 

'Re-imagining Futures' reflects innovation in media industries, and the
growing drive to change the narrative of Africa globally, particularly
as African countries work towards achieving a dominant global position,
and urgent objectives like Silencing the Guns by 2020, Free Movement of
People, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Issues
around movement, immigration, peace and security, and the lived
experiences, roles and insights of women in media practitioners, policy
makers, CSOs and researchers make the AWiM2020 Summit a timely focal
point to bring these stakeholders together. 

AWiM2020 aims to explore three thematic areas: 

 	* The prospects of free movement across the continent and the
potential impact for female media professionals in Africa, and media and
creative industries broadly;
 	* The lived experiences of women in media as participants of
peacebuilding and conflict prevention; and,
 	* Emerging technologies and how Africa's media might leveraging these
to improve issues affecting female journalists.

Calls on the media, and particularly women in media in Africa, to
utilise their profession to both raise awareness and mediate in
conflict, gives rise to pertinent questions around the effectiveness of
media-for-peace initiatives, the lived experiences of African women in
the media in security reporting, and policy provisions in this regard.
Understanding the lived experiences of African women in media is
essential to guiding policy and advocacy agendas towards ensuring that
countries and media organisations create the necessary enabling
environment for women in media to effectively execute their work. Part
of this initiative to create enabling environments constitutes a
reliable tool for monitoring how well countries and organisations comply
with women's rights, and a means of obtaining data that will support
journalists to perform their functions. Safety is however indispensable
for bringing about these enabling environments.  

Technologies have contributed both positively and negatively to
empowerment of women in media. On the positive side, it has contributed
to closing the gender gap of media ownership, with female media
entrepreneurs setting up online media organisations. Social media
enabled women only groups has provided spaces for women to share their
stories and challenge existing narratives around women's rights and
gender equality. But it has also presented challenges, with the
Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) reporting that "online
harassment was cited as the biggest threat by 90%" of female journalists
in the U.S. and 71% in Canada. What is the outlook across Africa? 

As we consider how African countries will use the Fourth Industrial
Revolution with emerging technologies like Internet of Things (IoT),
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Realty (VR), Data Science,
Robotics and Blockchain, how might we deploy these for women's
empowerment? How might we close the tech gender gap? How might we
address cyber security? 

Other questions for the Summit include: 

Movement and Migration 

How might easier movement between African countries improve the working
conditions and opportunities for African women working in media? How
might it improve economic contributions of media and creative
industries, for example when we consider the flourishing music
industries? What might we learn from examples like CariCom [1] and the
ERASMUS for journalist project [2]? How might we reimagine journalistic
conversations and representation of migration and displacement in
Africa?  

Peace and Security 

What are the lived experiences of women in  media reporting on peace and
security in Africa? How might continental agendas provide for the
participation of women in media? How might female media producers use
their position and lived experiences to tell the stories in a way that
empowers female survivors of conflict to speak out?  

Emerging Technologies 

How are global media responding to emerging technologies of Artificial
Intelligence, Data Science, Robotics and others? How can these
technologies help the media better know and engage audiences? What can
we learn about gathering, storage and access to data? What is the
outlook for online safety of female journalists in Africa? What specific
technologies can support specific needs of women in media in African
countries?  

In exploring these questions, AWiM2020 Summit welcomes paper, panel
proposals and workshops from researchers, practitioners, CSOs and policy
professionals in the following topic areas: 

 	* Journalism
 	* Globalisation
 	* Fourth industrial revolution
 	* Media and film studies
 	* Intellectual property rights
 	* Global Agendas
 	* Discourse analysis and global implications
 	* Peace and security
 	* Global communication and technology
 	* Intercultural communication and public policy
 	* International conflict
 	* Feminist studies
 	* Migration and mobility 
 	* Postcolonial studies
 	* Culture and media policy
 	* Participatory communication
 	* Audience
 	* Community media
 	* Access and Citizen Empowerment
 	* Cultural studies
 	* Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning
 	* Blockchain, Empowerment and Media
 	* Communication and Development
 	* Communities and Networks
 	* Digital Empowerment
 	* Diversity and Inclusion
 	* Ethics and Trust
 	* Feminism and Political Participation
 	* Gender Mainstreaming and Policies
 	* International Law and Human Rights
 	* Religion and Conflict
 	* Representation, identity, ideology
 	* Terrorism
 	* Transmedia
 	* Sustainability and Environment
 	* Human capital flow
 	* Entrepreneurship

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS:  

Abstract should be 150-300 words in English or French. Please include
details about your positions, affiliations, and email addresses for all
authors. All submissions and enquiries should be sent to
[log in to unmask] with 'AWiM2020 CFP' in the subject line
by 20 JANUARY 2020. 

_*Registration for AWiM2020 will open at the end of February_ 

-- 
Dr Yemisi Akinbobola
co-founder African Women in Media
www.africanwomeninmedia.com [3] 

Links:
------
[1]
https://caricom.org/skill-free-movement-in-the-caricom-single-market-and-economy-csme/
[2]
https://ec.europa.eu/information_society/media_taskforce/doc/mobility/erjo_part1_report.pdf
[3] http://www.africanwomeninmedia.com

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