Under the MIGREC, Ana Milojević had a successful presentation at the conference “Digital Fortress Europe: Exploring Boundaries between Media, Migration and Technology” on October 30, 2019 in Brussels, Belgium.
The conference was organized by the European Communication Research & Education Association’s (ECREA) Diaspora, Migration & the Media (DMM) section in collaboration with the ECREA’s International & Intercultural Communication (IIC) section, the Young Scholars Network of ECREA (YECREA), the Netherlands-Flemish Communication Association (NeFCA), and has received support from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB).
The two-day conference “Digital Fortress Europe”, held on October 30 and 31, 2019 in Brussels, Belgium, provided important forum which reflected on the relations between media, migration and technology. These relations touch on the essence of what migration means in our societies. The conference critically reflected on what the much-debated notion of “Fortress Europe” means in the digital age and questioned how it can guide our future thinking on media and migration. As such, scholars of media, communication, migration and technology have contributed to critical discussions on border politics and migration debates.
With the thematic focus on media, migration and technology and all their possible linkages and intersections, this conference was particularly suitable forum for the member of the MIGREC which focuses on developing UoB research capacity in order to contribute to deepening understanding of the migration-related challenges currently confronting Serbia and the wider Western Balkan region.
The conference took place at the Palace of the Academies, and hosted paper presentations within three broad themes:
– Borders and media technologies, particularly focusing on critical research on biometrics, algorithms, drones and cartography.
– Producing and circulating meanings and media on migration, including work on discourse and representation, journalism, popular culture and policy.
– Media uses and technologies by and for migrants and Diaspora, including research on activism, identity, emotion/affect, education, well-being, language and mediated social relations.
After the keynote presentation of Prof. Myria Georgiou, London School of Economics and Political Science, titled “Digital border: The symbolic and material order of Fortress Europe”, MIGREC member Ana Milojević had a successful presentation at the first conference panel: Discourse and framing, chaired by Valériane Mistiaen. On behalf of another MIGREC member Kristina Milić, Ana Milojević had a presentation “Media, framing and immigration attitudes in Serbia”. Based on data from the European Values Study (EVS 2018) and framing analysis of the refugee crisis media coverage (2015-2017), Milojević presented how national media portrayals were related to the attitudes towards immigration in Serbia.
