VISUAL MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY
round table discussion
in the framework of Media Today international scientific forum

20 April 2018
Higher School of Journalism and Mass Communications at St-Petersburg State University

Call for papers

The advent of digital technologies, most notably the Internet, has fundamentally changed the production, circulation and consumption of images. Once tangible objects, now they have become files loaded with visual information and meta-data identifying various technical parameters. Now images can be made easy and cheap by virtually anyone, in particular since the introductions of camera equipped mobile phones and user-friendly programs for graphic design; they can be sent instantly to recipients virtually anywhere; they can be looked at on screens of different devices if they are not printed and projected; and often enough the once rather clear distinction between image and text is blurred. With all this, the quantity of images exploded, forming data bases for instance of stock photographs and museum collections or the dirty, unsorted archives that we look at when we scroll through the pages of our preferred social media page.

The panel on Visual Studies and Media Anthropology has been created as a platform for multi-disciplinary discussion about the role, modes of existence, ways of investigation of images in contemporary media. We invite researchers concerned with the problematics of new media, visual studies, anthropology of media, image recognition, big data analysis.

We especially welcome talks that concern the following topics:
- Social functions of mediated images
- New technical possibilities of vision and visualization (is it a photograph or does it look like one?)
- Photographic images as material for big data analysis
- Management of digital photographic archives
- Anthropological meaning of photographic images in social media and on the internet

Applications should be sent to visualmedia2018@gmail.com no later than 15 February 2018. Your application should include:
- Your name and affiliation
- A short summary of your talk (no longer than 400-450 words)
- Indication of whether or not you intend to publish your text in the collection of Forum papers (see below)

Publication of papers (no longer than 4000 characters including spaces) is planned in the collection of Forum papers. Publication fee is 1000 Russian roubles. Should you wish that your text is published please indicate that in your initial application. After the approval of your initial publication, the text shoud be sent in no later than 25 February 2018. Publishing your text is not compulsory for participation; likewise, participation is possible with just a text publication.

Program committee of the panel:
Alexander Yakunin, Ph.D, Head of Media Design and IT Chair, St.-Petersburg State University
Boris Sokolov, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Head of Cultural Studies, Philosophy of Culture and Aesthetics Chair, St.-Petersburg State University
Maria Gourieva, Ph.D., senior lecturer, St.-Petersburg State University