The Media Mapper project will hold its half-day symposium on April 17, 2026, at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

We are no longer accepting proposals. Please check back for event details.

Call for Proposals:

Please submit your proposals to Ennuri Jo (ennuri.jo@asc.upenn.edu) by Monday, January 12, 2026 11:59pm EST.  Please share this page with colleagues and friends by using this link: https://www.mediamapper.app/symposium

CARGC invites early-career film and media scholars, doctoral candidates, and multimodal media practitioners to try out Media Mapper and present their creation to the Annenberg and the UPenn community in CARGC’s Spring Semester Symposium. 

We are looking for projects that explore media practices and objects on a global scale with an emphasis on the Global South. Priority will be given to projects that engage with ecological and environmental discourse; those working on Blue Humanities are especially welcome. After the workshop and the event, workshop participants’ maps will be added to the Media Mapper website, with everyone’s permission. Upon agreement, the maps (and/or the corresponding essays or multimedia texts) may be prepared into a dossier for publication.  

There are two ways you can participate in this project at this time:

1. Working Group

We invite you to join our working group and create your own media map. Starting in 2026 we will meet virtually and workshop our projects. The sessions will include hands-on instructions on how to engineer the map for your dataset, and we will exchange feedback and ideas on each others’ deployment of the media mapper.

The feedback from the working group will be used for future builds of Media Mapper: you will have an opportunity to discuss its new functionalities.

The number of workshop participants will be limited to 9 people. Two people from the workshop will be invited to present their mapping projects to the members of the Annenberg School of Communication community in a half-day Spring symposium, to be held April 17, 2026.

2. CARGC Symposium, April 2026

On April 17, 2026, Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication will host its Spring Semester Symposium, where scholars will present their use case of the media mapper. Participants of the Working Group will present their work to the public at the University of Pennsylvania.

Join us!

To join the working group and/or present your work at the Symposium*, please share your project with us according to the following guidelines:

  1. Title of your research project and/or proposed title for your map

  2. 1-2 page abstract of your project, including description of your research and what you want to accomplish with a geo-visual representation of your work 

  3. your name, institutional affiliation / location**, and email address 

  4. Any references for your project or your past work relevant to creating the map, if at all (prev. written or multimodal publications, artist statements for creative works, etc.)

  5. Any familiarity or experience with mapping tools (arcGIS, Mapbox, etc.), or web development (neither are required; those with zero experience are welcome)

  6. Please select one or two of the following options, and confirm your availability (please copy-paste the statements and make adjustments as needed):

  • I will participate in the virtual workshops only: I can participate in the monthly 1 hour workshops

  • I would like my project to be considered for the Symposium: I will be available for the in-person presentation on April 17. 

Please email your proposal to Ennuri Jo (ennuri.jo@asc.upenn.edu) by Monday, January 12, 2026, 11:59pm EST.

*You are welcome to join the working group without committing to the Symposium, depending on your availability

**Depending on your location we may be able to provide a travel stipend for Symposium presenters, especially for the precariously employed / early career scholars