We are pleased to invite you to participate in the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Publishing Studies, the annual conference of the Information, Medium & Society Research Network, hosted by the University of Split, Croatia, with online participation available. The conference is convened in close intellectual relationship with the New Directions in the Humanities Research Network, reflecting a shared understanding that questions of publishing, information, and media are inseparable from humanistic concerns. Issues of meaning, interpretation, authority, access, memory, and public life are not only studied in the humanities; they are enacted, negotiated, and institutionalised through publishing platforms and infrastructures.

Information, Medium & Society: Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Publishing Studies, University of Split, Croatia, 30 June - 2 July 2027

Information, Medium & Society: The Publishing Studies Research Network was founded in 2003 with the inaugural International Conference on the Future of the Book. Since then, the Research Network has expanded its scope in two phases. The first was in 2009 when it became the Books, Publishing, and Libraries Research. In this iteration, the Research Network began to look beyond the book as the primary site of investigation. In 2019 the network underwent another change, to become Information, Medium & Society - The Publishing Studies Research Network.

Argument

The humanities ask how meaning is made, interpreted, circulated, and sustained across social worlds. Publishing is one of the primary sites where these questions take material and institutional form.

Mediated Worlds approaches publishing as a mediating practice and cultural infrastructure. Editorial systems, publishing workflows, libraries, archives, databases, discovery tools, and digital platforms do more than distribute content; they actively shape how knowledge becomes visible, credible, accessible, and durable. Through these infrastructures, meanings are authorised, contested, preserved, or lost.

In dialogue with the humanities theme Archipelagos of Meaning, the conference understands publishing infrastructures as connective tissue between distinct yet interrelated worlds: scholarly and public, institutional and informal, local and global. Editors, publishers, librarians, technologists, and designers work at these thresholds, making judgments that shape trust, participation, and the social life of knowledge.

The conference invites contributions that examine publishing not simply as an industry or technical process, but as a domain in which humanistic questions are worked out in practice—through platforms, policies, professional norms, and everyday decisions.

We warmly invite editors, publishers, librarians, researchers, technologists, designers, and scholars from across disciplines and methodological traditions to submit proposals and to join us—either in Split or online—for the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Publishing Studies.

By situating publishing within its humanistic context, the conference offers a space to reflect critically and constructively on how platforms and infrastructures mediate meaning, shape authority, and sustain the social life of knowledge.

Themes

Proposals are welcomed across the field of publishing and information studies, including but not limited to the following five interrelated sub-themes:

• Editorial Judgment, Trust, and Knowledge Authority: Peer review, selection, framing, standards, and professional judgment as foundations of legitimacy, credibility, and trust in scholarly and public knowledge cultures.
• Platforms, Infrastructures, and Publishing Workflows: Submission and review systems, metadata and discovery tools, distribution platforms, analytics, interoperability, and governance, and their implications for labour, scale, and sustainability.
• Libraries, Archives, and Knowledge Stewardship: Libraries and archives as long-term infrastructures of access, preservation, and memory, including digitisation, metadata, discovery, institutional responsibility, and practices of care.
• Access, Sustainability, and the Political Economy of Publishing: Economic, legal, and policy frameworks shaping who can publish and who can read, including open access models, funding structures, rights management, and long-term sustainability.
• Automation, AI, and the Mediation of Knowledge: The role of automation and artificial intelligence in publishing and information systems, including authorship, editorial support, bias, ethics, transparency, and the relationship between human judgment and machine systems.

Format

The conference is organised as a hybrid knowledge experience, integrating in-person and online participation within a unified scholarly environment. All accepted proposals become Presentation Pages, where presenters upload abstracts, media, and reflections, and where participants engage in discussion before, during, and after the event.

In-person presentations hosted by the University of Split, live online sessions, and asynchronous contributions are woven together into a single integrated program. Regardless of participation mode, all delegates have access to the full schedule, session media, and a growing digital archive.

Across all formats, the emphasis is on reciprocal, human-scale scholarly exchange—conversation, reflection, and collaborative inquiry rather than one-directional presentation. The conference format itself reflects its theme, foregrounding publishing platforms as environments in which knowledge is actively shaped.

Publication Pathways

Presenters are invited to develop their work for possible publication in the outlets associated with the Information, Medium & Society Research Network. Contributions may be developed for Information, Medium & Society: Journal of Publishing Studies or for the Information, Medium & Society Book Imprint, which publish research examining media, information, and knowledge as expressed through publishing practices, platforms, and infrastructures. All publication outlets offer both traditional and Open Access options.

Scientific Committee

• Dr. Ina Reić Ercegovac, Conference Chair, Full Professor, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Croatia
• Dr. Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Research Network Chair; Chief Social Scientist, Common Ground Research Networks, United States of America

Submit English Language Proposal

Proposals are accepted from launch until one month prior to the conference start date. The dates below indicate the opening of both the proposal submission and registration periods.

Proposals will be reviewed within two to four weeks of submission.

• Early Launch to 29 November (26)
• Regular 30 November (25) to 29 March (27)
• Late 30 March (27) to 30 May (27)

You’ll be asked to select a presentation format—either in-person at the conference venue or online via our integrated CGScholar (KX) platform—but our hybrid model is designed to support both. You may change your choice at any time if your plans or preferences shift.

Registration Periods

The digital media deadline is one week before the conference.

• Early Launch to 29 December (26)
• Regular 30 December (26) to 29 May (27)
• Late 30 May (27) to 30 June (27)

Learn more: https://informationmediumsociety.com/2027-conference