iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

UDC 2026 Conference - Co-hosted by Project Censored and the Park Center for Independent Media - registration is open! Join us in Ithaca, NY, Oct 22–24! Early pricing ends Sept 13. Program, registration, and travel info: democraticcomm.org

democraticcomm.org

Union for Democratic Communications

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The #UDC2026 abstract deadline has been extended to July 19! This year's theme — "Media, Press Freedom, and Cultural Production in an Authoritarian Age" — is as urgent as ever. We want to hear what you're working on. 400–700 word abstracts welcome. Submission/Info here: www.democraticcomm.org

democraticcomm.org

Union for Democratic Communications

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

UDC 2026 Call for Papers - opening May 1! Join us at Ithaca College, Oct 22–24, with @projectcensored and the Park Center for Independent Media, to take up the theme: Media, Press Freedom, and Cultural Production in an Authoritarian Age. Full Theme and Call for Papers: democraticcomm.org

democraticcomm.org

Union for Democratic Communications

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

UDC is proud to announce a vital new special issue of Democratic Communiqué, guest edited by Bill Yousman: "Freedom of Expression, Campus Politics, Academic Freedom, and the War on Gaza." Read the full issue: openpublishing.library.umass.edu/democratic-c...

openpublishing.library.umass.edu

Democratic Communiqué

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Stine Eckert @stineeckert.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Telling Labor's Story: Workers, Media & Politics. Aug. 18 Conference @ Wayne State U with Hamilton Nolan-The Hammer; Kim Kelly-Fight Like Hell; Jonathan Kissam-UE News; Dave Elsila-UAW’s Solidarity Magazine & Annemarie Strassel-UNITE-HERE. events.wayne.edu/2025/08/18/t... @uniondemcomm.bsky.social

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

CFP Revised and Call Extended for DC Special Issue on Labor and Unionization!!

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Yasemin Beykont @yaseminbeykont.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

It was such an amazing time at #UDC2025 last week! I got to meet and reconnect with amazing people! Also presented part of my dissertation where I offer adopting the term “memesque” to address the commodification practices targeting memes and meme culture. @uniondemcomm.bsky.social

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Lauren Tokos @ltokos.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

It was such a privilege presenting my archival research at the UDC conference in Tacoma, WA, this weekend 🙌🏻 Can’t wait to continue investigating how Robert A. Brady impacted our field. Thank you @uniondemcomm.bsky.social for putting on a great conference!

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Sydney L Forde @sydneyforde.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Unsurprisingly, #UDC2025 was an absolute blast. It was a huge honour to win the Brian Murphy award this year - it will forever live on my bookshelf with pride! Already counting down the 18 months until the next one @uniondemcomm.bsky.social @miccenter.bsky.social @bellisariograded.bsky.social

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Nick Couldry @couldrynick.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

I am both deeply honored by the prize and thrilled for the first time to experience the warmth and SOLIDARITY that is UDC @uniondemcomm.bsky.social . This is the place to be and to connect!!

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Stay in the conversation with the UDC 2025 Starter Pack! Missing from the list? Let us know! go.bsky.app/Fv6xH4y

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

That’s a wrap! Huge thanks to our amazing attendees for sharing their fantastic work and engaging in generative conversation, to our Steering Committee, and most importantly to our Local Organizing Committee at U WashTacoma for their dedication to the org and their incredible work.

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: we must bear the costs of not accepting AI’s inevitability. We must insist on holding open debate on what it means to make it work toward social ends & community goals Let’s not abandon the too bold and too risky the ideas of facing down corporatization of social life. #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: How ever much we are told the digital future is necessary and invisible and we can’t do anything about it, it’s a lie. We don’t need to retrofit the present for the inevitable future. Lets cooperate with each other to achieve a non-cooperation with corporate power. #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: platforms even, when we love them, produce the social for capital. If we want to change how the world is for us, its necessary to resist--head on--the corporatization of how we interact socially #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: our social world is a Leviathan in fragments from expansion of pure environmental extractivism; social extractivism from social media platforms allowed to build the wrong kind of social will; increasing role of commercial AI in capturing the forces of cognitive production #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: I don't trust oversimple recipes for change that can be read out of a rule book, but I also refuse to give up on change #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: my avoidance of oversimple links to practical politics is because while I hope for a better configuration of everything compared to where we are now, I am skeptical that the path is obvious or easily acceptable #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Smythe Lecture: effective theory is a tool for everyday life and everyday resistance. To regard the abstraction of theory with suspicion is to miss the power and practicability of theory #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

At each conference, UDC confers the Dallas Smythe Award to honor a critical media scholar/activist whose work exhibits the spirit of engagement, democracy, teaching, and feistiness to which the UDC is committed. We're thrilled this year to present @couldrynick.bsky.social with that honor #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Huge congrats to @sydneyforde.bsky.social for winning UDC's 2025 Brian Murphy Student Paper Award for her paper is "The Dialectics of Broadband" #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

No better way to end #udc2025 than with the Dallas Smythe Lecture from this year's awardee @couldrynick.bsky.social

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Paulus: workers identify working conditions (job security, labor rights, decreased in freelance work) and collective organization (ability to fight the system that incubates sexual assault in a more systemic way) can go a long way toward protection #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Paulus: the "why" may be more understood, but the "what" has a lot of gaps and doesn't address systemic analysis or issues #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Now: Paulus on making safer work environments in German cultural and media industries. Despite progress, sexualized power is alive and well, so asking why are cultural and media industries so vulnerable to abuses of power and what can be done? #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Stoltzfus & Flores: in our current moment Amish people are seen as public health heroes - a white, hyper-reproductive, and antivaxed ideal #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

UDCers: be sure to stop the by the registration table before leaving tonight to get a special discount code for Smythe Award Winner @couldrynick.bsky.social new book THE SPACE OF THE WORLD

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Happening now: Stoltzfus & Flores on Christian Nationalist policies, eugenics, and genetic resistance, comparing how language and narratives to genetically fabricate and overdetermine two opposite groups - Amish and Mexicans #udc2025

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Kathy Roberts Forde @krforde.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Hey, #academicsky! Are you following the movement to create Mutual Academic Defense Compacts (MADC) among colleges and universities across the US to defend #highered? The UMass Amherst Faculty Senate is tracking all MADC resolutions. The movement is gaining steam! www.umass.edu/senate/madcs...

umass.edu

MADCs Tracker : Faculty Senate : UMass AmherstUMass Collegiate MSeal of The University of Massachusetts Amherst - 1863

MADCs Tracker

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Pawel Popiel @ppopiel.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

Great panel and a big thank you to all the contributors and friends and friends!

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Mediamorphis @mediamorphis.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Attending #udc2025? The SSHRC-supported Global Media & Internet Concentration Project offers a treasure trove of resources, reports and data on the media, internet & telecoms industries in 36 countries and with considerable historical depth for each. 👇 👇 👇

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Kidd: how do we do research that brings in issues of repro justice into the digital and mediatized spheres when digital platforms and surveillance capitalism have intensified the attacks on reproductive justice and basic social sustainability? #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Next up is Dorothy Kidd on repro rights and digital activism in the Trump era, thinking about what movement are in motion to counterattack the attack of the capacity of people around the world to sustain themselves #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Yousman: soft girl/trad wife movement primes a generation for backsliding into dangerous ideology: women only valuable if chosen by man to be wife/woman; queer communities are erased by radical embrace of heteronormativity; bodily autonomy nonexistent #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Yousman: soft girl and trad wife culture is a reaction to girlboss culture and is being validated in culture as normal because of choice feminism while superficially rejecting - but really embracing - capitalism #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Yousman: reality TV trends (Secret Lives of Mormon Wives) are reflecting and reenforcing social media trends like Trad Wives, but it's really just repackaged post-feminist and girl aesthetics #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Yousman on soft girls trad wives, and social media Stepford Wives kicks off with Ballerina Farm, can Nara Smith be far behind? #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Last panel of the day! Social Movements, Feminism, and Reproductive Rights with Lori Bindig Yousman, Isra Ali, Dorothy Kidd, Lars Stoltzfus, Joseph Flores, Aljoscha Paulus, and @tinemalz.bsky.social #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@aaronhere.bsky.social: Protocol instead of a platform has political saliency understanding that there is no good way out of this. So what happens when you build a protocol to protect the user from the protocol itself? #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@aaronhere.bsky.social: resistance and platforms - decentralization as a technology and a politics (idea of a Fediverse of promise and project). This brings us to BlueSky #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@aaronhere.bsky.social: how do we resist enshitification? End to end principle and data transferability and right of exit are two potentials - how do you deal with the core of platformification and platform decay? #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@anismedia.bsky.social: the project all along was controlling eComerce and banning Chinese apps like Alibaba Pay was key #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@anismedia.bsky.social: apps, digital platforms, and operations systems are inherently geopolitical artifacts emerging at a new frontier for inter-regional power conflicts among BRICS+ countries #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@anismedia.bsky.social: trade and geopolitics can't be divorced from the app banning conversation. What actors ultimately benefit from prolonging the conflict and high tech warfare in the short and long term? Turns to Benjamin Bratton's The Stack: On Software of Sovereignty and focuses #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@anismedia.bsky.social: gov't claims that strong digital infrastructure for economic growth, self sufficiency, and digital sovereignty, but may be more about privileging U.S. apps and exercising control #udc2025

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Union for Democratic Communications @uniondemcomm.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

@anismedia.bsky.social: apps are being used to link and grow social justice (and anti-government) movements in India, and those movements can be suppressed thru app banning under national security rhetoric #udc2025

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