Dear Researchers,

The International New Media Conference, organized for the ninth time this year by the Department of New Media and Communication and the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema at Istanbul Gelişim University's Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, will be held in person on December 3–4, 2026, under the theme Digital Platforms Age.

Digital platforms are radically transforming the ways in which individuals communicate, access information, and participate in society. Tech giants such as Meta, Google, and Amazon have transcended their role as mere technological infrastructures and have become indispensable regulators of everyday life. Through the content and interaction data generated by users, these platforms are reshaping both economic and social relations. The platformization process gives rise to asymmetric power structures that consolidate the production, consumption, and distribution of media in a single hand, thereby paving the way for new centers of power that define the boundaries of public discourse. Decisions about which information is made visible and which is rendered invisible — mediated through algorithmic recommendation systems and content moderation mechanisms — are acquiring a political character that shapes the very conditions of democratic deliberation.

The dominance of the platform economy brings with it profound social inequalities and structural vulnerabilities. Digital labor exploitation, asymmetric rights over data ownership, and the monopolistic market structures created by platforms reproduce and even deepen existing economic inequalities. Moreover, the cross-border nature of platforms creates regulatory gaps and renders accountability mechanisms ineffective. The IX. International New Media Conference approaches digital platforms not merely as communication tools, but as arenas in which political, economic, and cultural power is redistributed, and opens to discussion the social repercussions of this transformation. The conference aims to bring together interdisciplinary studies addressing these structural transformations.

Abstracts submitted to the IX. International New Media Conference are subject to a double-blind peer review process. Papers that are found to be inconsistent with research and publication ethics, or in which a risk of plagiarism is detected, will not be considered for review. In this context, the similarity ratio detected by scanning programs must not exceed 20%. Papers presented at the event will be published in two separate volumes — an abstract book and a full-text book — by an international publisher.

The conference participation fee is 1,500 TL for academics and independent researchers, and 500 TL for undergraduate and graduate students.
 

• Digital capitalism and cultural transformation

• Digital platforms and algorithms

• Surveillance capitalism

• Digital data

• Data privacy

• Algorithmic bias

• Digital exploitation

• Algorithmic transparency

• Algorithmic literacy

• Platform capitalism

• Data mining

• Information technologies

• Digital identity

• Digital activism

• Knowledge economy

• Privacy

• Cybersecurity

• Disinformation

• Concentration of media ownership

• Digital public sphere

• Artificial intelligence and cultural production

• Digital labor

• Communication law

• Cognitive capitalism

• Monitoring and/or censorship mechanisms