Category: Publication opportunities

Pink Tide: Media Access and Political Power in Latin America

CALL FOR CHAPTERS
The Pink Tide: Media Access and Political Power in Latin America

Often referred to as the “pink tide” in mainstream news reports and progressive magazines alike, the recognizable democratic political shift in Latin America is both opened by and opened to the actions of broad-based social movements: landless peasants and radical autoworkers in Brazil, indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador, Bolivarian social missions in working class communities across Venezuela, and popular mobilizations for social reform in Uruguay and Paraguay. In each country, the rowdy entrance of labor, peasants, the unemployed, indigenous, women, students, and environmental movements has upset neoliberal plans and national elite control. In Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, radical leaderships instigated constituent assemblies, allowing citizens to revise national constitutions, which in every case, secured extensive democratic, civil, social, political, and economic rights for the popular classes.

These “moments of rupture” in societal political norms and capitalist cultural hegemony unearth the interconnections between media and society that are often obscured during periods of social stability or political repression. The organic links between media and social power are more apparent when the pluralist shell of “it’s just entertainment” is removed. Different internal political and media circumstances constrain and allow different responses to social crises and the possibilities for democratic media Community and public media in Venezuela have arguably progressed the furthest towards participatory access to communication. Other radical and left democratic-leaning governments from Nicaragua and Bolivia to Ecuador, Argentina, and Uruguay also have reflected and responded to working class interests and indigenous social movements.

To varying degrees, governments across Latin America have created or allowed openings for citizen access to media communication, reflecting disparate social relations of power. In each case, the social relations of power reflected in government policy have resulted in changes in media political economies and public access to communication. Political power has had complex impact on media structures, regulations, and practices, on how diverse media produce messages conveying ideological and cultural proposals for the retrenchment of elite power, the uneasy status quo, or a more democratic world. Across Latin American, democratic media reform depends on the political power of working classes and their allies. Contestations over political power across the continent carry manifestations of public media access opened by working class and indigenous movements for democratic rights and economic and social justice.

This Wiley-Blackwell edited book will feature scholarship, research, and accounts of the diverse and complex processes of media change in Latin America in 10-12 chapters assessing conditions of media structure, media relations, media programming, and public access to the media by diverse social groups.

Proposals for chapters should consist of an abstract outlining theme, topic, method, and expected, preliminary, or collected findings. Abstract proposals should be sent by November 15, 2015 to Lee Artz.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Ibero-America

CALL FOR CHAPTERS – Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance in Ibero-America: Concepts, perspectives, and future trendsChapter proposals due: November 15, 2015
Full chapters due: May 31, 2016

Edited by:
Lina M. Gómez, Universidad del Este, Puerto Rico
Lucely Vargas-Preciado, Johannes Kepler Universitat, Austria
David Crowther, De Montfort University, UK

Publisher: Emerald Publishing Group
Book series in Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility

RATIONALE
The practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been growing in attention, importance, significance, and acceptance in the last decades, not only in the corporate world but academia as well.  CSR has been included in multiple debates, comments, theories, studies and research around the world. In spite of this CSR awareness among different sectors, still there is not a shared definition of what CSR should be and include (Ihlen et al., 2011; Crowther & Aras, 2008; Dahlsrud, 2008; Garriga & Melé, 2004). In fact, CSR could mean different things to different people in different scenarios, eras, and regions (Pedersen, 2006). However, CSR is strongly view as a responsible management of economic, social, and environmental resources, that could affect (positively and negatively) the quality of life of different groups of stakeholders, and could also increase or decrease the creation of value for shareholders.  Moreover, thanks to social media and new communication technologies, society, consumers, employees, ONGs, and higher educational institutions are claiming more transparency and responsibility towards corporations.  Today there is more awareness regarding the importance of CSR practices that can benefit society and environment (Du et al., 2010; Schneider, Stieglitz & Lattemann, 2007).

In the last decade, Ibero-America (including Brazil, Portugal, and Spain), has growth in economic terms, and corporate responsible practices have play a key role. A CSR approach in community-based experience has emerged in the last years in this region. This is due to the support of multilateral agencies (Gutiérrez & Jones, 2004) that have served as a link between government, private sector and society (Calderón, 2011).  However, there are still many inequalities in this region. Therefore, this edited book will focus on how CSR and Corporate Governance in Ibero-America have been employed, analyzed, and examined in different sectors and scenarios (companies, NGOs, higher educational institutions, government) from theoretical (theory development), conceptual, methodological, and empirical approaches. Submissions that are from an empirical approach must be cross-country studies or studies that analyze multiple projects from different sectors within a country. This is because most research in CSR in Latin America has been focused on studying specific initiatives or experiences in a particular country.

Some questions that can guide contributions and could serve as reflection for contributors on possible topics could include:
-How CSR in Ibero-America can be moved forward?
-What present and future trends in CSR and Corporate Governance are presented in Ibero-America?
-How the complex relationship between business and society in Ibero-America can help to advance the practice of CSR?
-How CSR in Ibero-America can be structured to promote compliance and therefore CSR efforts could be translate in actual results?
-Which are the views and input of different groups of stakeholders regarding CSR efforts in Ibero-America?
-What and how CSR is communicated in Ibero-America?
-What are the practical challenges of CSR practices and efforts in Ibero-America? How these can serve as opportunities for promoting creative and engaging responsible practices?

We accept contributions from academics, researchers, and practitioners from a variety of academic disciplines, such as (but not limited to): business management, finance, communication, economics, political science, psychology, cultural studies, health, law, and sociology.

The editors welcome chapters from theoretical, conceptual, and empirical approaches. Empirical studies should be based on quantitative and/or qualitative methods, including case of studies and best practices, particularly of cross-country studies.  Literature review papers are also welcome. Contributions must be in English.  We seek papers that address different aspects of CSR, Sustainability, Governance and Performance, among others; which could cover the following topics focused on Ibero-America (but not limited to):
1.      Corporate Social Responsibility (internal and external practices)
2.      Corporate Governance, policy private, and public sector
3.      Environmental issues
4.      Societal issues
5.      Corporate reporting
6.      Corporate  engagement and education
7.      Corporate  Social Responsibility and Governance:  Non-Financial and Financial Performance
8.      Sustainability
9.      Employee development and labor practices
10.      CSR strategy,  society, customers and suppliers
11.      Business ethics, social accounting  and governance
12.     CSR-Sustainability management
13.     CSR communication

Submission process
Authors are invited to submit, on or before November 15, 2015, a proposal (an abstract of 300-600 words) that clearly explains the purpose of the work proposed, methodology, expected results, and implications.  Proposals should be submitted via e-mail in a PDF attachment to Prof. Lina M. Gómez. The first page of the proposal should include the title of the proposed chapter, authors’ names, affiliation, and full contact details.

By December 15, 2015, potential authors will be notified about the status of their proposed chapter and receive further information regarding the submission process, including the formatting guidelines. Full chapters must be submitted via e-mail in an attached Word file to Prof. Lina M. Gómez  on or before May 31, 2016. Final submissions should be approximately 6,000–8,000 words in length, excluding references, figures, tables, and appendices. Chapters submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or under consideration for publication anywhere else.

Questions
Please address questions to Prof. Lina M. Gómez or Prof. Lucely Vargas-Preciado.

Call for articles: KOME Hungarian Communication Studies Association journal

KOME, an international Open Access journal published by the Hungarian Communication Studies Association is currently seeking articles for its future issues. The journal aims to create a platform for an innovative interdisciplinary discourse in the field of communication and media studies, with a focal point on pure communication inquiry.

KOME is a theory and pure research-oriented journal of communication studies and related fields. Therefore theoretical researches and discussions that helps to understand better, or reconceptualize the understanding of communication are its centre of interests; being either an useful supplement to, or a reasonable alternative of current communication theories. Scholarly perspectives with the aim of creating an intellectual plus in the metatheory of communication, policies or research methods are especially welcomed, as well as linguistic or etymological analyses. KOME is also committed to the ideas of trans-and interdisciplinarity and prefer topics which are relevant for more than one special discipline of social sciences.

Co-editors-in-chief
Marton Demeter, PhD; Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church, Hungary
Janos Toth, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

Indexation:
EBSCO’s Communication Source
ERIH Plus
DOAJ
MIAR

All submission undergo double blind peer review. Average turnaround time is 8 weeks. No APC’s, page charges, submission charges; we do not charge authors for publishing their work and do not solicit or accept payment for contributions. KOME assigns DOIs to all published articles and submits article metadata and identifiers to CrossRef. All published articles are archived in REAL, the Repository of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

CFP/ Wi: Journal of Mobile Media – Special Spectrum Issue

CFP Wi: Journal of Mobile Media – Special Spectrum Issue
Submission deadline: September 15, 2015
Publication date: February 2016

Alternately referred to as the radio spectrum and the electromagnetic spectrum, the spectrum is the central medium underpinning all forms of wireless communication. Creative thinking around the spectrum, its management and its uses, however has been fairly limited and thus so too have been radical challenges to its political, technical and economic foundations. Indeed, one could say that dominant approaches to understanding and managing the spectrum are wrapped up in power relations and technological capacity that hearken back 100 years.

The predominant understanding of the spectrum is that it is a set of frequencies used by communication technologies. However, just as Susan Crawford proposed that there are multiple imaginaries of the internet (Crawford, 2007), we can understand the spectrum in a of ways. The goal of this issue of Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, is to bring together a diversity of views of what the spectrum is, how it is used, and how it might be used and thought of in new ways. Together, we will question the fundamental nature of the spectrum. Further, how do we tie new spectral thought to political realities, creating significant and sustainable change not only in spectral epistemologies but in the politics around and the uses of the spectrum?

For this issue of Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, we seek papers and interventions that aim to open up debate and propose new ideas of what the spectrum is and how it might be used, documentation of epistemic disruption and innovative intervention. Papers should be 3,000-5,000 words in length.

Crawford, Susan. (2007). ³Internet Think². Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law.

Please send submissions and inquiries to Dr. Evan Light.
Mobile Media Lab, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

CFP Studies in Cultural Memory

Studies in Cultural Memory
Special issue of: International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics
Deadline: 30 June 2015.

Guest Editors:
Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou (University of Salford)
Christos Dermentzopoulos (University of Ioannina)

This special issue welcomes research across disciplines in the humanities and social sciences and seeks to provide a critical forum for dialogue and debate on the theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues central to an understanding of cultural memory today. Papers should address the ways in which cultural memory is formed, used, presented and represented, appropriated, and changed while being committed to the broad understanding of cultural memory as the interplay of past and present in socio-cultural and historical contexts. In particular, the volume encourages papers that examine questions of cultural memory, its manipulation and its understanding as a methodological and epistemological tool, as well as papers that investigate the relation between cultural memory and new media (including the Internet, social media etc) as well as old media (photography, cinema, TV etc).

Topics might address, but are not limited to, the following:
1)What can scholars, theorists and artists learn through Assmann’s essay?
2)What role does cultural memory play today?
3)What is being done to critique it?
4)How is cultural memory embedded/constructed in film, television, literature, comic books and graphic novels, visual art, and theatre?
5)Can cultural memory be manipulated?
6)What issues does post-memory raise?
7)How are memories used to mobilize groups and form identities?
8)What is the role of social media and the Internet?
9)How is nostalgia related to cultural memory? What is the role of nostalgia in the formation of cultural memory?
10)What is the role of location in the construction of cultural memory?

Interested contributors are invited to send 6,000-7,000 word essays (incl. references), short commentaries (2,500-3,000 words incl. references), and book reviews (1,000-2,500 words) to Christos Dermentzopoulos and Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou on or before 30 June 2015. Contributors should also include their affiliation, contact details and a short biographical note of approximately 200 words. Please follow the journal’s submission guidelines.

CFP Chinese NGOs, Digital Media & Culture

CALL FOR PAPERS
Chinese Non-Governmental Organizations, Digital Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices and Challenges
Special Issue of Chinese Journal of Communication
Submission Deadline: December 30, 2015

Guest Editors
Pauline Hope Cheong (Ph.D., Associate Professor, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University)
Aimei Yang, (Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California)

The general aims and focus of the Special Issue
In today’s increasingly mediated Chinese societies around the world, innovative forms of non-profit organizing have emerged to address pressing social concerns. While state systems and corporations are sometimes portrayed as inefficient in dealing with local and transnational social and environmental problems, the rising power of civil groups in many Chinese societies are increasingly prominent. Non-government organizations (NGOs) play significant roles in areas such as the building of emerging nations, international civil society and global development, corporate global alliance networks, international relationship and public diplomacy, humanitarian aid, environmental conservation and engaged spirituality. Given the increasing influence of Chinese NGOs in many facets of social, political, and religious life, it is important to examine their mediation, communication networks, and organizational dynamics in their operational and advocacy work.

While a growing corpus of research is being done on Chinese NGOs, we know less about the opportunities and challenges facilitated by Chinese NGOs’ appropriation of various forms of communication, including the use of newer digital media to build their community, social capital and service capacity. NGOs have traditionally faced the challenges of mobilizing their volunteers, translating their abstract principles into embodied interventions, sustaining members’ interest and commitment, and maintaining relationships with resourceful strategic partners. These difficulties are amplified in today’s increasingly media saturated environment where a diversity of ideas, ideologies, information and causes are available, which can serve as competition for Chinese NGOs and may not be compatible with their local and global capacity building. Moreover, although NGOs exist to serve the public good, their work is mired in and may be hindered by local cultural conditions, including value orientations, socio-political governance and regulations, as well as telecommunications infrastructure (or lack thereof) in which they are embedded.  Yet, at the same time, Chinese NGOs may creatively adopt and negotiate their media connections and communication networks to (re)build their trust and legitimacy to members, policy makers, potential donors and other civil actors.

Accordingly, this special issue aims to address the theoretical issues underlying the constitution and evolution of Chinese NGOs and to map empirical research on the mediated and communicative mechanisms fueling Chinese NGO growth and collaborations across different institutional actors.

We invite contributions in the following areas:
–        Historical perspectives on Chinese non-profit organizing, media use and culture
–        Analysis of digital media use and innovation in the constitution of Chinese NGOs
–        Examinations of the use of mobile social media by Chinese civil actors in communication and capacity building
–        Implications of cultural frameworks on volunteering and nonprofit service
–        Potential and limitations of digital advocacy, issue management, and/or fundraising in Chinese societies in Asia and beyond
–        Collaboration and/or conflict in multi-actor/cross-sectoral constellations of private, government and Chinese NGO networks
–       Assessment of globalization and/or glocalization developments in Chinese NGOs and their relationships with international NGOs and international developments
–        Comparative research on non-profit organizing, social value and partnerships
–        Short and longer terms implications of Chinese NGOs, civil society and social change

We welcome multidisciplinary scholarly contributions that draw upon, integrate or cross-fertilize literature from varied divisions of communication and media, information sciences, and management. We seek both qualitative and quantitative research, and papers that present critical reflections on methods, detailed discussions of the specific challenges of doing fieldwork in this area and data-mining on Chinese social media are welcome.

All manuscripts must be submitted by December 30, 2015. All accepted manuscript will be published online first and the planned printed publication date is an issue of CJC in 2017.

Submissions should conform to the editorial guidelines of the Chinese Journal of Communication under “Instructions for Authors”.

Papers for consideration in this special issue should be submitted online and should indicate they are
intended for inclusion in the special issue.

CFP Conflict Mediation and Leadership

Call for Papers
Conflict Mediation and Leadership: Critical Reflections on Management and Banal Culturalism
for Volume 7, Studies in Intercultural Mediation, Peter Lang Publishers, Frankfurt
Editors: Dominic Busch and Claude-Hélène Mayer

Do mediation and leadership go together? And if they do, how do they?

During the past years, the discourse in mediation sciences and practices turns increasingly to the question how mediation is and can be used in management and leadership contexts. Research and popular publications do not only see mediation as an exclusive practice in managing, resolving and transforming conflicts, but also as a tool which can be used in managing and leading individuals, employees and organisations. Some voices seem to view concepts of mediative leadership or management-by-mediation as the new and future concepts of leading people and organisations. Other voices are highly critical that this is possible. Hardly any scientific research exists on mediation, management and leadership, their interrelationships, models, theories and practices.

In parallel, mediative strategies are frequently considered as particularly suited for a constructive management of conflict in intercultural settings. Traditionally, research on intercultural mediation has tended to rely on the assumption that people from different cultural backgrounds will prefer different modes of disputing as well as managing conflicts. More recently, critical scholars have pointed out that cultural research on these premises is based on Western ethnocentric assumptions shaping even Non-Western cultures according to the West’s ethnocentric imaginations of what is to be seen as the cultural other. Earlier research that now is frequently judged as culturalist had tended to over-generalize and to interpret anything that had been emerged in research on the basis of pre-fabricated cultural assumptions. This tendency can be found in people’s everyday discourse in Western societies, too: Here, people from other countries are consequently interpreted on the background of their assumedly foreign and different culture. What here can be termed as culturalizations in fact must be seen as an act of systematic and blurred discrimination and even racism. Leaders in international organizations here have to face the challenge of deconstructing culturalist organizational discourse – in conflict management in particular. Conditions of a constructive management of culturalisations can be subsumed under the notion of intercultural sustainability.

Volume 7 of Studies in Intercultural Mediation aims at advancing international research, practice and development of mediation theory and practice in the context of leadership. The purpose of this volume is to provide new insights and ideas into theories, practices, methods and techniques of mediation and leadership in the face of discursive culturalizations and the responsible management of cultural affiliations. It aims at contributing to the deeper understanding of conflict resolution processes in individual, cultural, organisational and societal leadership contexts.

We hereby invite abstract/chapter submissions that relate to the theoretical, empirical and practical exploration of mediation and leadership from various cultural perspectives. Authors are invited to contribute to theory, model building and practice regarding mediation and leadership in culturalist perspectives. Questions we would like to tackle in this volume are – but are not limited to – the following:
*What is the basic understanding of mediation and leadership?
*How can processes of culturalization and its responsible management in mediation and leadership be described?
*What mediation, management and leadership theories and practices apply?
*How can the concept of intercultural sustainability narrowed and elicited in regard to mediative leadership?
*What forms of mediative leadership may emerge in the lights of critical cosmopolitanism?
*Which concepts do exist in leadership with regard to conflict resolution and mediation?
*How does mediation theory and practice fit with management and leadership theories and practice, such as participative, servant, autocratic, spiritual, or charismatic leadership?
*What does empirical mediation and leadership research say in terms of the connection of these concepts in various cultural contexts?
*How do concepts such as mediative leadership or management-by-mediation contribute to the discourses on mediation, leadership and management?
*Which opinions exist with regard to the interlinkages of mediation and leadership in theory and practice.

A publication of the planned volume is scheduled for August 2016. Contributors with proposals and works in progress aiming for publication are welcome to contact the editors.

Please submit an abstract of a max. of 250 words until 15 September 2015.
Submissions will be reviewed and feedback will be provided on 1 November 2015.
Upon invitation, full articles should be submitted until 1. March 2016. Articles should not exceed 6.000 words in length excluding references.

The official language of this volume is English. Please use the reference system according to the Harvard Style. Please send your abstract until 1 August 2015 to one of the editors:
Prof. Dr. Dominic Busch, Universität der Bundeswehr, München
Dr. Claude-Hélène Mayer, University of South Africa

CFP IJOC (Un)civil Society in Digital China

Call for Proposals
International Journal of Communication (IJoC)
Special Journal Issue – (Un)civil Society in Digital China

Special Editors
Min Jiang (Ph.D.), Associate Professor of Communication Studies, UNC, Charlotte, USA

Ashley Esarey (Ph.D.), Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada

Rationale
Civil society’s role in furthering democratization and the development of a public sphere has long attracted scholars whose work has traced the historical roots of civil society in China and celebrated its emergence offline and online. While decades of economic reforms have empowered myriad civil society organizations, volatile contention has arisen among social groups along ideological, class, ethnic, racial and regional fault lines. Uncivil exchanges, amplified by the Internet and social media, often work at cross purposes and fail to produce consensus or solutions to public problems. These disputes, and the underlying social/political/cultural schisms, threaten to undermine constructive citizen engagement and the promise of civil society in China. They also challenge the notion of a unified civil society standing in solidarity against a monolithic, authoritarian state.

Consider the following examples of new sociopolitical contention:
o   The Internet flame war between Han Han and Fang Zhouzi that delegitimized the notion of “public intellectual” in China
o   Left-Right debate among China’s intellectual communities that spill over into street brawls
o   Vigilantism and breaches of privacy (i.e., instances of “human flesh search engine” and the Guo Meimei Red Cross scandal)
o   Online conflicts between “haves” and “have-nots” amidst extreme inequality
o   Virtual contention between Han and ethnic minorities over the status of Tibet and Xinjiang
o   Racial discourse on mixed-race Chinese and immigrants
o   Clashes over Taiwan’s “sunflower movement” expressed on the Internet
o   Divergent online opinions about the “umbrella movement” in Hong Kong

This special section invites contributors to unpack the multilayered, multidimensional reality and contradictions that define the Chinese Internet, focusing on the big-picture ramifications of online contention. With a population of nearly 650 million, Chinese Internet users are more diverse than the tech-savvy, liberal elites who first went online two decades ago. The groups active online today include politically conservative, nationalistic, apathetic, and even reactionary individuals. They also evince complicated attitudes towards the state, business and other demographic segments. The complex make-up of Chinese civil society and the nature of its self-representation thus challenge, on the one hand, an idealized notion of civil society that is independent from the private sphere, government and business, and on the other, the implicit assumption prevalent in Chinese Internet studies of a liberal subject demanding social justice, media freedom and political reform.

Questions for contributors:
o   What are the characteristics of Chinese civil society? What is its potential or limitations? Does the proliferation of the Internet in China necessarily empower civil society in China? Is the opposite possible?
o   Is civil society always civil? Can it be uncivil, fractious and even reactionary? How does the Chinese Internet amplify or mitigate (un)civil tendencies? To what extent is online public debate or collective action becoming more fragmentary, working at cross purposes, or resulting in “echo chamber” effects and polarization? Do nationalistic, jingoistic and even reactionary forces overwhelm and dominate “civil” discourse?
o   Are the “uncivil” tendencies of the Chinese Internet inevitable in a society composed of increasingly diverse groups? To what extent do commercial and state institutions influence uncivil tendencies online through intervention or even manipulation? What roles do powerful Internet businesses and elite personalities play?
o   Under what circumstances might incivility online prove advantageous for political or social change?
o   What evidence do we have for (un)civil society in China? Examples might include the formation of informal groups and formal organizations, discourses, and their intersection with collective action, social movements, and other social behavior.

Contributions to this special section will map a spectrum of key actors, issues, and orientations of a contentious civil society that has been submerged under a larger body of research on China and established democracies that assume state-society confrontation and fail to explore intra-societal tensions. Collectively, the contributions promise to produce a theoretically-interesting and empirically rich body of work that expands and deepens Chinese Internet research dominated by work focused on such topics as Chinese Internet censorship and propaganda, online activism, civic associations, deliberation and online culture. Insights generated from this special issue will in turn inform and advance research on civil society by debating its essence and examining the conditions conducive or unfavorable to its growth, with implications going beyond China. Although contributions will emphasize what polarizes Chinese society and sometimes seem to tear it apart, we welcome contributions that analyze the prospects for rising above incivility, bridging sociopolitical schisms, and building consensus without compromising self-expression and personal security.

Affiliated Conference
We encourage interested contributors to attend the 13th Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC) that includes as its theme “(un)civil society in digital China.” The conference will be held at the University of Alberta, Canada on May 27-28, 2015. The deadline for submitting paper abstracts (400 words) for the conference is February 15, 2015.

Proposed Schedule for IJoC Submissions
Abstract Deadline July 1, 2015
Notice of Abstract Acceptance August 1, 2015
Full Paper Deadline January 1, 2016

Paper Guidelines
o     Abstracts submitted for pre-screening should be less than 500 words. Please send your abstract to Min Jiang and Ashley Esarey.
o     Submitted papers will go through double-blind peer review.
o     The maximum word count is 9,000 words (including the abstract, keywords, images with captions, references, and appendices, if any). Submitted full papers are not guaranteed acceptance.
o     Formatting of the special section follows Author Guidelines of the International Journal of Communication (IJoC). Articles will be returned to authors if not APA (6th edition) compliant.

CFP Research About Communication

CALL FOR PAPERS
Research about Communication: History, current situation and prospective
Special issue of DISERTACIONES: Anuario Electrónico de Estudios en Comunicación Social
Edited by Manuel Martínez Nicolás (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain) and Miguel Vicente Mariño (Universidad de Valladolid, Spain)

Deadline for submitting full articles: 15/10/2015

The scientific research of communication has experienced during the last 25 years a pronounced expansion. During this period, it has not only reinforced its scholarly institutionalization (proliferation of university programmes, strengthening of scientific societies, launching of specialized journals…) but it has also increased its position within Social Sciences and Humanities, as far as it fully deals with one of the key features of current societies: the analysis and comprehension of the digital and communications revolution. Connected to this renewed energy, lately one can perceive a growing interest to address a reflexive approach towards the scholarly community itself, in order to analyse their scientific practices and epistemological options, to reveal its knowledge interests, to evaluate the outcomes it is producing, to account of the institutional devices influencing in research tasks or to highlight the strengthens and weaknesses that define the scientific study of communication.

There is no doubt that the reflexive attitude is an indicator of maturity within a scientific community. Moreover, it is the required path to follow in order to meet your own identity and, even more, to gain a certain degree of recognition in the general scientific field. Communication research has benefitted during the last years from the heuristic value of this reflexive approach, as the proliferation of projects dealing with the analysis of the conducted research, generally labelled as “metha-research” studies, as they synthetize the predominant objects of study, methods and theoretical approaches in the field or in their specific domains. Besides these type of publications, usually focused on the current research, there is a growing interest in renewing the history of studies about communication. Under the International Communication Association (ICA) sponsorship, and in collaboration with the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and the European Communication Reseach and Education Association (ECREA), London hosted the conference New Histories of Communication Studies in June 2013, putting forward an ambitious agenda for a comparative historiography and opening a great scholarly avenue for establishing and consolidating international networks and common projects. The recent joint project between ECREA and ALAIC (Asociación Latinoamericana de Investigadores de la Comunicación) to edit a volume titled Connecting paradigms: Communication studies in Latin America and Europe, where the editors ask for contributions “including a historical perspective, a detailed analysis of the current debates and future proposals”, indicates that this agenda has already started its development in specific actions.

DISERTACIONES proposes this special issue to strengthen this reflexive approach, and invites the scholarly community to send their contributions, preferably as empirical studies, helping to increase the knowledge about the field of Communication Research, and covering, among others, the following aspects:

1. The scientific production in this field, in order to identify the predominant objects of study, topics and problems; the theoretical and methodological approaches; the authors, schools and traditions; the research outputs and the contributions to the progress of the scientific knowledge about communication, etc.

2. The main features and the internal structure of the scientific community of communication researchers: research groups, networks and scholarly relations, institutional and educational profile and background of researchers, epistemological and paradigmatical adscriptions, etc.

3. The socio-institutional context in which the scientific labour is inserted, empashizing the organization of research (universities, specialized centres, companies), the public scientific policies, the funding programmes for research, the regulation to access teaching and researching opportunies (accreditation processes, system of rewards, etc.), the influence of the social and historical contexts in the research practices, etc.

4. The process of secondary institutionalization of Communication Research, particularly referred to the scientific societies (constitution, roles, functions, activities, organization, etc.), scientific journals (procedures, criteria, etc.), publishing companies and book series.

All these features of Communication Research can be approached from diverse disciplinary strategies and perspectives. Hence, within the analysis of the scientific production one can find both quantitative studies (bibliometrics, content analyses) and critical evaluations about results and contributions regarding specific domains and topics (political communication, audience/reception studies, organizational communication, etc.). Additionally, the inquiry about scientific communities, socio-institutional contexts and secondary processes of institutionalization welcome contributions from a wide array of social sciences, such as Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Economy, Etc.). Transversally, all these aspects can be approached from a historical perspective, both in terms of dealing with certain moments or periods in the past and in revisit their evolution across time and space.

El Anuario Electrónico de Estudios en Comunicación Social “Disertaciones” es una publicación arbitrada e indizada, editada conjuntamente entre la Universidad de los Andes de Venezuela (Departamento de Comunicación Social de la ULA Táchira, Grupo de Investigación Comunicación, Cultura y Sociedad y Laboratorio de Investigación Educativa Simón Rodríguez (LIESR)) y la Universidad Complutense de Madrid de España (Grupo Mediación Dialéctica de la Comunicación Social MDCS). En la última evaluación de Latindex, Disertaciones fue indizada cumpliendo un 100% de los criterios de calidad tomados en cuenta por este índice regional.

CFP The Spanish Civil War 80 years on: Discourse, Memory and the Media

CALL FOR ARTICLES

Catalan Journal of Communication and Cultural Studies – Special Issue 8.1 (Spring 2016)
*Special Issue: ‘The Spanish Civil War 80 years on: discourse, memory and the media’*
Guest Editors:  Ruth Sanz Sabido (Canterbury Christ Church University), Stuart Price (De Montfort University) and Laia Quílez Esteve (Rovira i Virgili University)
Deadline for contributions: *15 October, 2015*

The Catalan Journal of Communication and Cultural Studies invites submissions for a 2016 Special Issue that will mark the eightieth anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, by presenting a collection of papers that represent the latest perspectives on the
cultural, historical, regional, political, and social aspects of the Civil War and its legacy.

If it is true that ‘history is written by the victors’, the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War provides a textbook example of this tendency: the victorious Nationalists spent the following thirty-six years (1939-1975) trying to eliminate any remaining vestiges of those who had fought against them. For the losers, this meant in effect both a constant purge
of any dissenting ideologies, and the physical persecution of anyone who was suspected of sympathising with the Republican cause. Furthermore, the ‘pact of silence’ that was agreed during the transition to democracy meant that the problems caused by the Civil War and the dictatorship remained unresolved long after Franco’s death, maintaining deep-rooted
divisions in contemporary Spain.

It was only approximately thirty years after Franco’s death that the recovery of memory was promoted through social, political, and cultural means, so that the unheard voices of the past began to gain attention. However, this remains a highly contentious area, since the old struggles often re-emerge in contemporary political and socio-economic issues within the country. The Law of Historical Memory provides guidelines on several issues related to memory, from the exhumation of mass graves to the alteration of street names to eliminate references to agents of the dictatorship. However, the limited extent and application of this Law by the Government has led to the further polarisation of political perspectives (while thousands of families are still looking for the graves of their relatives).

This Special Issue considers Memory as yet another site of struggle, a contemporary re-enactment of the old divisions that are very much part of the country’s identity and which still permeate social, political and cultural life in contemporary Spain. The collection of articles will acknowledge the reproduction of these tensions, but will also offer a clear-sighted account of the conflict, grounded in a variety of historical and political discourses, oral testimonies, and analyses of media outputs.

Among other aspects, this issue is concerned with the ways in which children and grandchildren of victims and survivors of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship relate to the memory of the repression, and to the development of the democratic transition. The examination of these issues from the perspective of generational memory involves several considerations, including the socialization of memory, the institutionalization and revision of the past, the connections between popular culture, media practices and representations, and the uses of memory through time in relation to the changes in the policies of remembrance.

We invite contributions from scholars, researchers and practitioners from around the world to submit full articles on topics that may include, but are not limited to, the following:
– Media representations of trauma and violence in the Civil War, Franco’s repression, the final years of the dictatorship and the transition
– The significance of the conflict in contemporary Spain
– Memory and the Civil War
– Postmemory and Civil War, Francoism and the Transition
– Collective identities (national and regional)
– The work of Memory Associations in Spain
– Women in the Civil War and beyond
– The struggle of anarchists and libertarian communists
– Constructions of ‘national’ (Spanish) memories and their national and regional significance
– Social perceptions of the Civil War, the dictatorship and the transition
– Using the past to look into the future

The journal plans to include articles between *6000 and 7000 words*, as well as brief research notes and reports of around *3000 words* for the Viewpoint section. Full articles for proposed contributions should be sent to catalan.journal@urv.cat by *15 October 2015*. All contributions will be subjected to double blind peer review. And please follow the guidelines for authors.