ICS and IREX announce: International Symposium on Critical Thinking and Media Literacy
It is our great pleasure to invite you to the International Symposium on Critical Thinking and Media Literacy, to be held on February 03 – 04, 2022, online via Zoom.
The Symposium aims to build momentum around critical thinking and media literacy as an international priority with a specific emphasis on youth. The two-day online event will bring together an international audience of students, academics, researchers, and scholars to discuss and present the current approaches in teaching media literacy, news literacy, and critical thinking, providing different learning practices and approaches.
The symposium will spotlight key topics in media literacy education delivered by universities in Macedonia, compared with Western Balkan, EU, and U.S. conceptual frameworks and the latest trends of teaching media literacy. ICS will present the findings from the research of media literacy education across different universities in the country, and spotlight the challenges faced by students and professors as well as the potential need for modernization of ML in higher education.
The event will also discuss the needs for different kinds of literacy as related to information, including but not limited to digital technologies, data, visual texts, and news; media literacy connected to specific forms of communication, such as media art, games, and learning, social media, and transmedia; different perspectives provided by digital storytelling, youth media, civic engagement, and critical pedagogy; questions of policy, history, assessment, and evaluation; as well as topics related to popular culture, global media, teacher education, and identity.
Call for papers
The Symposium will launch an international journal focused on the academic reflection of media and information literacy issues, media education, critical thinking, digital media, and new trends in related areas of media and communication studies. The journal will be devoted to addressing contemporary issues and future developments related to the interdisciplinary academic discussion, the results of empirical research and the mutual interaction of expertise in media and information studies, media education as well as their sociological, psychological, political, linguistic, and technological aspects.
The symposium looks for significant contributions to all major fields of media and information literacy in theoretical and practical aspects. Authors are invited to submit papers on any subject related to and within the scope of the symposium topic(s) listed above. The aim is to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners from both academia as well as industry and civil society to share cutting-edge development in the field.
All authors are kindly encouraged to contribute through a presentation of their research abstracts. All submissions will be peer-reviewed and evaluated based on originality, technical and/or research content/depth, and readability.
We seek to publish work that advances new knowledge among the global network of media literacy scholars and practitioners. Submissions from academics, researchers, and practitioners at any stage of their career, including graduate and Ph.D. students, will be accepted. Submission of abstracts and full papers is free of charge. The papers will be reviewed by an international editorial board.
The Symposium is being organized as part of USAID’s Media Literacy Project YouThink. It is a five-year USAID-funded program that works with youth to help them navigate and shape an information ecosystem that informs and engages rather than divides and polarizes. The project is implemented by IREX, Macedonian Institute for Media, the Institute of Communication Studies, and the Youth Educational Forum.
Important dates
Registration for attending the Symposium
- Registration is open to anyone until January 31, 2022. Register at the following LINK.
Submission of paper abstracts and full papers
- Deadline for abstract submission is January 14, 2022. Send abstracts in PDF to and .
- Notification on acceptance/rejection of abstracts by January 24, 2022.
- Full papers (5.000 – 8.000 words) must be submitted by February 28, 2022.
- All submissions must be in English.
- The Editorial Board will accept only previously unpublished articles.
Instructions for preparing the abstracts:
- Abstracts should be written in English;
- Abstracts should contain 200 – 300 words (not including footnotes);
- The title of the abstract should not contain more than 20 words, should be in capital letters, and should not contain abbreviations;
- Abstracts should be computer-generated, using Times New Roman font, 12 font size and 1.15 spacing for basic text, 10 font size and 1 spacing for text in footnotes;
- Abstracts should contain 3-5 keywords;
- The abstracts, together with the short biography of the authors, should be sent in PDF format to and with the subject “Article abstract – International ML journal“.
USAID’s project on media literacy YouThink is implemented by IREX together with the Macedonian Institute for Media (MIM), the Institute of Communication Studies (ICS) and the Youth Educational Forum (YEF). YouThink activities are made possible by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).