Journalism Studies (special issue)

Deadline: June 15, 2025

Much journalism is produced, consumed and given meaning through interconnected cycles, waves, rhythms and rituals. While such fluctuations, some of which are recurring, consistently have been paid some attention within journalism studies, there has been little focus on broader seasonal patterns related to weather or/and culture. The more recent interest in seasons and seasonality within the (environmental) humanities and social sciences — e.g. Fischer and Macauley (2021) and Bremer and Wardekker (2021) — has thus largely bypassed journalism studies. This may be due, in part, to the fact that this interest partly has emerged in relation to climate change as “seasonal disruption has been occurring at a faster rate over the last several decades” (Fischer and Macauley 2022, 13); another and related reason for the neglect of seasons may be that seasonal disruptions primarily have surfaced in weather reporting, which has never figured prominently in journalism studies.

The recent interest in, and somewhat changed significance of, seasons provide fertile ground for a broader discussion of the intersections of journalism and seasonal patterns. Few people, arguably, live in “seasonless places” (Orlove 2003, 121), which means that most of us inhabit what have been called “seasonal cultures” (Bremer and Wardekker 2021, viii). As diverse amalgamations of astronomy, biology, meteorology, everyday observations, historical data, memory, power and culture, seasons provide important interpretive layers for understanding and situating ourselves and our communities in relation to continuity and change; and as Carey (1989) emphasized through his notion of “ritual communication”, journalism is an integral part of such processes.

Journalistic coverage of the weather follows and is inscribed within seasonal patterns (see e.g., Zion 2016; Bødker & Simonsen 2023). However, seasons consist of many other interrelated rhythms. Given the prominence of (national) politics in journalism, it is unsurprising that one of the most widespread terms linking journalism and seasons is the notion of the silly season, which — in certain countries — connects journalistic content to the rhythms of national politics, particularly the summer period when parliament is in recess. Yet, seasonal journalism (Bødker 2025), which concerns seasonally recurrent forms of journalistic content, is also tied to a range of other important rhythms, including those related to sports, fashion, education, theatre, film, music, religious festivals, holidays, finance, business, international meetings, and more. A seasonal perspective is related to, but also distinct from, “issue-attention cycles” (Downs 1972), which — as the name suggests — focuses on how journalistic attention to issues develops and fades, and what drives such waves, which may or may not be linked to seasons. A seasonal perspective is more likely to be interested in incremental changes over time, or in understanding significant disruptions to what would normally be expected.

Analyzing journalism as seasonal will, arguably, reveal important insights into how journalism aligns with and helps (re-)negotiate broader societal and/or natural rhythms. The goal of this special issue is to assemble work based on this premise. It aims to encourage and develop analytical perspectives on seasonality and journalism through a series of culturally and geographically diverse empirical and theoretical investigations that may explore both the production and consumption of journalism.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of possible themes to address within the framework outlined above:

• How are particular types of journalistic content, forms and/or tropes related to seasonal rhythms, such as the opening of parliament, the start of the football season, or specific religious events and holidays?
  
• How is the production and consumption of journalism linked to seasonal patterns, such as (almost) pre-written content published at specific times of year? How is such predictable content received and appropriated by audiences?
  
• How do seasonal disruptions feature in journalistic productions (e.g., the coverage of heat waves, floods, or changing patterns of tourism), and how are such productions interpreted?
  
• How can a seasonal perspective be related to or enhance environmental or climate change journalism?
  
• How is journalism related to the increased challenges to the four-fold, temperate seasonal pattern that has been imposed on indigenous cultures in settler countries?
  
• How is the perspective of seasonality, both theoretically and empirically, linked to other concepts of fluctuations within journalism studies (e.g., cycles, waves, rhythms, and rituals)?
  
• What are some of the methodological approaches and implications of studying seasonal patterns in journalism?
  

References:

Bremer, S. and Wardekker, A. (eds.) (2021) Changing Seasonality: How Communities are Revising their Seasons. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Bødker, H. (forthcoming, 2025). Seasonal Journalism and Climate Change. In Eldridge II, S. et al (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies (second edition). London: Routledge.

Bødker, H. and Simonsen, S. (2023) Danish Public Service Online Weather from 2005-2022: from Meteorological Data and Information to Leisurely Commonality. Media, Culture & Society 46(3): 591–606.

Carey (1992) J.W. Communications and culture: Essays on media and society. New York, NY: Routledge.

Downs, A. (1972) Up and down with ecology — the ‘issue-attention cycle’. The Public Interest 28: 38-50.

Fischer, L. and Macauley, D. (eds.) (2022) The Seasons: Philosophical, Literary, and Environmental Perspectives. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Zion, L. (2016) The Weather Obsession. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Submission Instructions

The format of the special issue is full research articles of 6000 and 9000 words, inclusive of the abstract, tables, references, figure captions, endnotes. WHen submitting your manuscript please select the "seasonalities of journalism" issue. The articles will appear as they a finished but will appear as a collection once all articles are completed. This will most likely be in the spring of 2026.

Submit here.