Media, Machines and Methods
Date: Thursday 4 June 2026, 8:30am-4.30pm
Location: Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
Communication as a discipline has long been engaged with questions of trust, although the connection has often been implicit rather than explicit. In recent years, the popularity of generative AI tools has accelerated a sense of urgency around how different media technologies and media systems reframe issues of trust, from addressing hallucinations within chat tools, to identifying deepfakes and algorithmic actors, to questions around how much is too much AI in professional media content?
The Practicing Trust: Media, Machines and Methods ICA pre-conference aims to develop new frameworks for understanding the relationship of trust to our understanding of contemporary news and journalism, media industries and practices, and communications and media policy. It seeks to locate trust as being shaped within specific contexts, communities and environments, and to consider how trust is actively influenced by the actions of media organizations, public institutions, and technology companies.
The one-day symposium will draw speakers from around the world, in a dialogue about how media, machines, and institutions concretely affect social trust and digital communication, and methods for researching such trust. We are particularly interested in transformations arising from the development, deployment and use of AI platforms and tools for the transformation of information and communications practice, and what this may mean for the future of news industries and societal and institutional trust.
Confirmed keynote speakers for the event are Professor Herman Wasserman (Professor of Media Studies: University of Cape Town) and Professor Admire Mare (Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Johannesburg).
Pre-conference sponsors : Media and Communications Discipline, The University of Sydney; Communication Law & Policy Division, ICA; Journalism Studies Division, ICA; Media Industry Studies Interest Group, ICA.
Abstract length: 250-400 words
Deadline for Abstracts: 31 January 2026, 11:59 GMT
Notification of acceptance: 23 February 2026
Topics
We welcome contributions that engage with questions of trust arising with relation to:
- Communication professions (such as journalism, public relations, policymakers, and influencers);
- Media platforms and conglomerates;
- Governments and cultural institutions;
- Technologies, transparency, and data justice;
- Human-machine communications and AI generated information and misinformation;
- The future of communications and tech policy;
- Audiences, publics and civic participation;
- Historical and comparative perspectives;
- Research methods and reflexivity.
Abstracts should be 250-400 words in length.
Papers accepted for the preconference may be considered in a special issue of a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Registration Fee: USD $60 full fee or $30 concession. Fee includes lunch and refreshments on the day.
FAQs
Will this be a hybrid in-person/online event?
This is an in-person event only.
Can I submit more than one abstract?
As you can appreciate, we are limited with the number of presentations that can fit into a single day, and we would like to ensure a diversity of voices and perspectives can be heard. While you can submit more than one abstract as lead author, we will only accept a maximum of one abstract to be presented at the pre-conference.
Questions?
Please email the conference team at mediated-trust.conference@sydney.edu.au
