Category: Publication opportunities

CFP In Defense of the Humanities

Publication OpportunitiesCall for Paper Submissions for Special Journal Issue
In Defense of the Humanities: What Does Communication Studies Give?
Guest Editor: Mari Lee Mifsud

In the legacy of a long western history of a “crisis in the humanities,” the latest has been proclaimed [e.g., Don A. Habibi, “The Indispensability of the Humanities for the 21st Century,” Humanities, 5, no.1 (2016)11: 1-23]. Twenty-first century globalization, economic shifts, extensive budget cuts, political divisions, and culture/al wars all take a toll on attitudes towards the humanities in the United States. In 2007, the National Communication Association took stock of the discipline’s intellectual armory in defense of the humanities, giving account in a white paper. Their tally, in brief, shows the study of communication:

-offers essential exploration of the means and modes of democratic life and the orchestration of a free people whose organizing principle is a shared responsibility as citizens to engage in living well together

-offers critical understanding and resources for navigating, critiquing, engaging, and preserving the ever-changing arts of expression, systems of exchange, and structures of power through the ages and across cultures

-maps, archives, and preserves the diversity of human knowing, being, and doing by traversing historical, interpretive, theoretical, performative, critical, and cultural lines.  (Barbara Biesecker, James Darsey, G. Thomas Goodnight, Marshall Scott Poole, David Zarefsky, Barbie Zelizer, Communication Scholarship and the Humanities: A White Paper Sponsored by the National Communication Association, Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 2007)

This special issue of The Review of Communication seeks scholars to continue the tally, and to enhance and add to our intellectual armory for defense of the Humanities. This call extends to all categories of humanistic communication studies, including for example, argumentation, communication philosophy and ethics, critical and cultural studies, discourse studies, media studies, performance studies, public address, publics and counter-publics, rhetorical theory, history, and criticism. The call extends also to categories of communication studies beyond the humanistic, recognizing that science ought not, and perhaps cannot, proceed without the humanities. With these considerations in mind, we invite submissions that explore the following, though all novel and compelling topics are welcome:

-Communication studies as a resource for exploring and exchanging with concepts, practices, and embodiments of difference, the foreigner question, the alien, the other

-Communication studies as a means of examining the ontological, epistemological, existential, and ethical implications of our communicative being, our being constituted by symbolic action and mediated exchange

-Communication studies as a discipline emerging from rhetoric, one of the original liberal arts, yet transforming the binary of humanities and sciences

-Communication studies as a tool for decolonizing knowledge(s) across territories such as ability, class, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexuality.

-Communication studies as a humanistic tool for exploring, critiquing, and engaging the new media of our digital lives together

-Communication studies and digital humanities as a means of shaping and sharpening the cutting edge of knowledge-making

-Communication studies as a method and mode for the public humanities

DEADLINE: MONDAY JULY 31, 2107

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through the ScholarOne Manuscripts site for Review of Communication.

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CFP Othering & Belonging

Publication OpportunitiesOthering & Belonging is a new journal published by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley to investigate and challenge social cleavages and hierarchies based on differential power, privilege, and access to resources.

Call for Submissions

“For its second and future issues, Othering & Belonging seeks written, audio, and video submissions – research essays and briefs, conceptual or theoretical essays, critical commentaries and reflections, photo-essays, interviews, video clips, and more. No written articles will be accepted that are over 10,000 words in length, and pieces under 5,000 words are highly preferable.

For Issue 2 we welcome work that considers what we mean by Othering and Belonging, the mechanisms by which they become manifest across contexts, why it matters, and how we can engender more Belonging in ourselves, our families, our communities, our societies, and our planet.

For more information, see the Editors’ Introduction about who we are and what we publish.”

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CFP Media, Democracy & Political Power

Publication OpportunitiesCall For Papers
Revista Comunicação & Sociedade [Communication & Society Journal] Special Issue “Media, democracy and political power: between the right to communication and hegemony in public agenda” V. 41, n. 3 (Sept-Dec 2017), to be published in December, 2017
Dossier Editor: Dr. Magali do Nascimento Cunha
Full paper submissions due: July 30, 2017

The close relationship between media, democracy and political power in the second decade of the 21st century is the object of this thematic volume of Communication & Society. This proposal is motivated by the observation of the movements that shake up contemporary political contexts in the world and in Brazil, with significant advances in the occupation of the political sphere by conservative and ultraconservative leaders, parties and movements. These advances are represented in the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, in polarized elections in Europe and in the seizure of power in Brazil through the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff. At the same time, popular movements, including those of social minorities, are reconfiguring in reaction to the conservative revitalization. In all these contexts it is observed that traditional media and digital media occupy a prominent place in the mediation of the processes involved, either in the reverberation of prevailing discourses or in the critical expression to them, both in alliances with powers in progress and in oppositionist divergences, in actions of support, confrontation or negotiation.

This special issue will be bilingual, in Portuguese and English.

CFP Communication for Social Justice Activism

Publication OpportunitiesCall for Book Proposals: Communication for Social Justice Activism

Dr. Patricia S. Parker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Dr. Lawrence R. Frey (University of Colorado Boulder) are pleased to announce, as editors, a new book series on “Communication and Social Justice Activism” to be published by the University of California Press.

Communication for social justice activism involves people (including communication researchers, teachers, students, organizational employees, and community members) using communication theories, methods, pedagogies, and other practices to work with and for oppressed, marginalized, and underresourced groups and communities, as well as with activist groups and organizations, to intervene into inequitable systems and make their structures and practices more just.

This book series, thus, offers a new, important, and exciting outlet for communication scholarship that promotes social justice activism in teaching communication courses and in conducting communication research. The goal is to weave social justice activism into all levels of the communication curriculum, with books in this series serving as primary and supplementary texts in undergraduate and graduate communication courses, and as indispensable resources for communication scholars engaging in social justice communication activism teaching and research.

Books Sought: The series will publish three types of books:

1. Textbooks: Briefer and less expensive than typical course textbooks, these books offer a general overview of a topic that is taught as an undergraduate communication course, through a communication for social justice activism lens.

2. Course Content-focused Books: These books focus on particularly important content that is covered in undergraduate and graduate communication courses, serving as supplemental books for those courses.

3. Case Studies: These books examine specific, extended examples of original communication activism studies, in which researchers intervene, working with others, have used communication theories, methods, pedagogies, and other practices to promote social justice.

Global Campus Human Rights Journal

Publication OpportunitiesThe Global Campus of Human Rights is proud to announce the launch of the Global Campus Human Rights Journal (gchrj), a peer-reviewed online publication serving as a forum for rigorous scholarly analysis, critical commentaries, and reports on recent developments pertaining to rights and democratisation globally. The first issue is now available online.

gchrj is edited by a team of three, led by Frans Viljoen, Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, who is assisted by two co-editors: Vahan Bournazian, Professor at Yerevan State University in Armenia, and Matthew Mullen, Lecturer at Mahidol University of Bangkok in Thailand. They are supported by an International Editorial Advisory Board of experts from a group of world-renowned universities, within and outside the Global Campus of Human Rights, covering a wide range of disciplines.

“There is an increasing need for a forum fostering dialogue and collaboration between stakeholders, including academics, activists in human rights and democratisation, ngos and civil society”  Prof. Viljoen said. “gchrj will be able to fill this need by adopting multi- and inter-disciplinary perspectives, and using comparative approaches”.

The challenges of today’s world are multifaceted and transnational in nature. They cause heated debate and controversy and require multi-layered answers. The contribution of gchrj is to provide expertise to guide responses and solutions and to infuse them with ethical, human rights-based perspectives.

STRUCTURE and SUBMISSIONS
gchrj consists of two sections, each containing full-length peer-reviewed academic articles. The first section contains solicited and unsolicited articles on various themes. The second section provides an overview of recent regional developments on human rights and democratisation across the globe, including analyses of decisions or findings of relevant courts or other bodies.

gchrj is an open access journal and is published biannually. Submissions (in English, French or Spanish) are welcome at any time and should be sent to Isabeau de Meyer. No fees are charged for submission or article processing. Submissions should conform to the guidelines for authors.

CFP China Media Research

Publication OpportunitiesCall for proposals
A special section of China Media Research invites scholars from a broad range of disciplines to submit manuscripts on the theme of “Visual Online Communication in the BRICS Countries”. Visual Online Content here refers to imagery, GIFs, emoticons, pictures and other visual means that accompany text in an online environment, non inclusive of the audiovisual content and moving images. Despite the increasing prominence of visual online content on social media such as WeChat, Weibo, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as traditional mass media websites across the BRICS countries, comparative academic studies focused on visual content are scarce. Recent discussions focused on plurality of emoticons such as hijabs, or emoticons with different facial color. Despite discussions in the public sphere, there is a lack of cross-cultural studies looking at the differences in imagery. This call for submissions therefore hopes to fill this research desiderate. Arguably, a lack of visual communication research in the BRICS countries is attributed to the prevalent Western tradition in communication research. This special section serves to overcome the dominance of Western approaches in visual communications research.

Following these considerations, scholars are invited to submit their manuscripts that address the following topics, among others:
– Comparative studies of visual online content from the BRICS countries, including at least one BRICS country as comparative country;
– Content or discourse analysis of journalistic visual content, advertisements, PR and political communication visual content and social web visual content in the BRICS countries;
– Research on use of emoticons in the BRICS countries;
Both qualitative and quantitative approaches investigating visual online content in the BRICS’ countries are welcome. Submissions must not have been previously published nor be under consideration by another publication. An extended abstract (up to 1,000 words) or a complete paper at the first stage of the reviewing process will be accepted. All the submissions must be received by May 26, 2017. If the extended abstract is accepted, the complete manuscript must be received by August 13, 2017. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the APA publication manual (6th edition) and should not exceed 8,000 words including tables and references. All manuscripts will be peer reviewed, and the authors will be notified of the final acceptance/rejection decision.

Please direct questions and submissions to the CMR special section guest editor Maria Faust.

 

Public Anthropology Publishing Competition: Migration and its Discontents

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPETITION
CALIFORNIA SERIES IN PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY, 2017

The California Series in Public Anthropology encourages scholars in a range of disciplines to discuss major public issues in ways that help the broader public understand and address them. Two presidents (Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton) as well as three Nobel Laureates (Amartya Sen, Jody Williams, and Mikhail Gorbachev) have contributed to the Series either through books or forwards.  Its list includes such prominent authors as Paul Farmer co-founder of Partners in Health, Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard and United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti.  Recently, based on his book in the Series, Alex Hinton was requested to be an expert witness at the UN sponsored Cambodian Tribunal regarding the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Each year the Series highlights a particular problem in its international call for manuscripts.  THIS YEAR WE ARE INTERESTED IN SUBMISSIONS RELATED TO GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS.  THE 2017 WINNER WILL BE AWARDED A FORMAL CONTRACT FROM U.C. PRESS.

We are particularly interested in submissions intended for interdisciplinary and public audiences. Prospective authors might ask themselves:  How can they make their study “come alive” for a range of readers through the narration of powerful stories?  They might, for example, focus on the lives of a few, select individuals tracing the problems they face and how they, to the best of their abilities, cope with them.  Prospective authors might also examine a specific institution and how, in various ways, it perpetuates problems centered around globalization and its discontents.  Or authors might describe a particular group that seeks to address a facet of the problem.  There are no restrictions on how prospective authors address GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS – only an insistence that the proposed publication draw readers to its themes through the inclusion of powerful stories about real people.  The series is directed at the general public as well as college students.

The University of California Press in association with the Center for a Public Anthropology will review proposals for publication independent of whether the manuscripts themselves have been completed. We are open to working with authors as they wind their way through the writing process.  The proposals can describe work the author wishes to undertake in the near future or work that is currently underway. The proposals submitted to the competition should be 3-4,000 words long and describe both the overall work as well as a general summary of what is (or will be) in each chapter.  We expect the completed, publishable manuscripts to be between 250-300 pages (or 60,000-100,000 words) long excluding footnotes and references.

Last year’s winners were Ieva Jusionyte, Jeremy Slack, Victoria Stanford, and Wendy Vogt.  If you wish to look at their winning proposals dealing with migration, please click here: 2016 Book Series Winners.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS JUNE 1, 2017
Submissions should be emailed to: bookseries@publicanthropology.org with the relevant material enclosed as attachments. They can also be sent to: Book Series, 707 Kaha Street, Kailua, HI. Questions regarding the competitions should be directed to Dr. Rob Borofsky at: bookseries@publicanthropology.org.

All entries will be judged by the California Series in Public Anthropology’s Editors: Rob Borofsky (Center for a Public Anthropology & Hawaii Pacific University) and Naomi Schneider (University of California Press)

CFP Mobilities, Communication & Asia: Postmodern Frameworks

Call for articles for special issue “MOBILITIES, COMMUNICATION AND ASIA: POSTCOLONIAL FRAMEWORKS” of International Journal of Communication
Edited by Mohan J. Dutta & Raka Shome, National University of Singapore

We are inviting high quality papers on mobilities and communication from interdisciplinary scholars working in the Asian context.

The global movement of capital, commodities, and labor is constituted amid political and economic structures that render salient certain meanings of mobility while at the same time erasing other possibilities for interpreting mobility. Further, the global movement of capital, while enabling and encouraging mobility for some, also render many others immobile, disconnected/erased from the possibilities of movement. To that extent, mobility and immobility are not binaries but are interrelated—an interrelation that expresses and captures the numerous desires and violences of globalization. The figure of the migrant and the various processes of migration make these relations visible while rendering invisible other imaginations of migrancy. Linked to this are mediated and communication practices—such as technology, films, music, social media, remittances, cultural commodities, and more—that play an intrinsic role in shaping and informing various types of migratory movements or lack therefor. Additionally, the transnational migration of communication practices themselves constitute new forms of mobilities and immobilities, agency and identity formations, imaginations and desires.

Communication is central to these above-mentioned processes.  For example, technology firms are constantly developing new communication language through software that requires a constant flow of transnational expert workers who are often treated in problematic ways (in terms of cultural recognition and wages) in “host” nations. Similarly, finance capital globally circulates through communicative values and processes (including migrant remittances to their nation of “origin’—a process itself underwritten by non-western values of domesticity and familiality). Transnational movements of celebrities and popular culture (for instance, in Asia) serve diasporic populations in many parts of Asia that have implications for their migrant experience as well as the production of a transnational Asian identity. Disempowered and often stateless migrants (for instance migrant Bangladeshi workers in Asia) connect to or engage their music in their diasporic situations —to produce some sense of cultural security in an otherwise coercive exploitative condition (lacking decent food, shelter, wages and more).

Relations of gender, sexuality, religion, class and nationality are central considerations in these phenomena since migration itself is often wrought with gender and religious violences, discrimination and exploration of poor laborers, and the devaluing of peoples of particular nations in global migratory practices (for instance, White Europeans or Americans are usually seen as “expatriates” while the word migration is reserved for mobilities of non-western peoples even within non-western ‘host’ nations).

Communication Studies as a formal field has hardly paid attention these issues—issues that require urgent exploration from a communication perspective.  Such an exploration will further move the field of Communication Studies into considerations of the many dilemmas and challenges of the 21st century that are grounded in the politics of migration.

This edited Special Section seeks to comprehend such phenomena, with specific attention to Asia. It will examine the interplay of communication (broadly considered)—particularly mediated practices—and im/mobilities, attending to how the intersection between the two illustrate the movement of people, labor, representations, commodities, technology and more, across global circuits of culture, economy, and geopolitics.

Submissions will be limited to 6000 words, all-inclusive

We first solicit detailed abstracts of approximate 500-600 words.  Due:  April 31, 2017. Please send abstract to Mohan Dutta at cnmmohan AT nus.edu.sg

Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by May 31, 2017.

Final papers due:  July 31, 2017 Please submit to Mohan Dutta at cnmmohan AT nus.edu.sg

Please follow the author guidelines prepared by the International Journal of Communication.

CFP Media & Information Literacy & Intercultural Dialogue

The Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue (MILID) Yearbook 2017 is currently seeking proposals of articles. The MILID Yearbook is a peer-reviewed academic publication and a joint initiative of the UNESCO-UNAOC University Cooperation Programme on Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue. The cooperation programme was launched in 2011 within the framework of the UNESCO University Twinning Programme (UNITWIN). The MILID University Network now consists of 19 universities from all regions of the world. The MILID Yearbooks 2013, 2014 and 2015 have been published in cooperation with the Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research (NORDICOM) and since 2016 directly by UNESCO.

The year 2017 comes with lots of challenges and major alterations taking place worldwide in the realms of politics, economy and social life. It has become more challenging than ever before to make sense of the abundance of information charged with agendas, hidden messages, fake news and leading frames. This does not concern only media but all forms of information including research findings on which important policy and decisions are based. Thus, understanding the media and making meaning of the information environments become an essential constituent of the learning process.Perceived as a fundamental citizenship competency in the 21st century, MIL contributes to helping people understand how they come to know or learn, transforming information into acquired knowledge based on which decisions can be made. Today, MIL is believed to be transforming, reforming and reinventing the dynamics of learning in many countries and contexts. Intending to delve deeper and explore the main aspects of this change, “Media and Information Literacy in Critical Times: Re-imagining Ways of Learning” has been selected as the main theme for the MILID Yearbook 2017.

Submissions
All submissions must be in English following the format stated bellow:

  • Title
  • Author
  • Abstract (200-300 words) with the essential aspects of the work.
  • Keywords (between 4 and 6)

Abstracts should be sent to the following email addresses: cg.comunicacion.educacion@uab.cat; a.grizzle@unesco.org.

Important Dates

  • Deadline for submitting abstracts: April 22nd, 2017
  • Notification of acceptance: April 30th, 2017
  • Deadline for submitting full articles: June 1st, 2017

For further information and guidelines, please click here