Participations (special issue)

Deadline: September 30, 2025

The European audiovisual landscape is complex, with a huge variety of content providers and a traditionally strong public service. While only about 10% of all European providers feature public ownership, these play a key role as facilitators of original European productions across the continent (Fontaine, 2024:7; Antoniazzi et al., 2022). However, the US has a substantial and increasing influence on the European audiovisual sector (Schneeberger, 2024:7). The SVOD segment, as the most concentrated market segment in Europe, has the highest share of US (84%) and private (99%) interests (Ene Iancu, 2024:10). In terms of SVOD consumption, a lion part of what is watched originates from the US (Grece & Tran, 2023; Iordache et al., 2023), and earlier concerns on US cultural imperialism have been revived (Davis, 2023; Lotz, 2021). 

Recently, public service media across Europe have experienced dire economic conditions. For example, in Sweden, budget cuts were announced for public service in the spring of 2024 with the argument of unfair competition, while diversity and democratic arguments are downplayed (SOU 2024:34). This development is in line with the European Commission’s focus on competition and on creating a single market. Ultimately, this bypasses opportunities for cultural objectives such as media pluralism, cultural protection or social regulations (Humphreys, 2008:154). Although the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2018) has sought to level the market between domestic and transnational platform suppliers and protect the production of film and television in Europe (Kostovska et al. 2020), the political space to discuss streamed content as culture seems to have shrunk. This has far-reaching consequences for European content and democratic values such as equality and diversity (Jansson et al., 2024). In this special issue for the journal Participations, we aim to investigate what these developments mean for audiences, as fiction consumers, but also – and especially – in their role as citizens. 

On a theoretical level, there is a range of conceptualizations of how fiction (and culture) shapes citizens, including the “political self” (Van Zoonen, 2007), the cultural public sphere (McGuigan, 2005), and civic cultures (Dahlgren, 2009). Scholars have focused on identity formation, articulations of community (Askanius, 2019:273) and  “public connection” (Couldry ea., 2007; Nærland 2019:652), as well as the creation of “lifeworlds” (Bengesser, 2023: 63) to denote more complex orientations of the audience toward the public and the political. 

On an empirical level, the link between fiction and democracy is often presupposed in research relating to democratic values or “the political” (Van Belle, Aitaki and Jansson, 2025). Audiovisual fiction has been argued to directly correlate with political engagement (e.g. Fielding, 2014; Cardo, 2011) and opinion-formation or political attitudes (e.g. Hermann et al., 2023; Swigger, 2017; Adkins et al., 2014; Butler et al., 1995). Indirectly, identities and bodies are assumed to be the glue between connecting audiences and democracy through the viewing of fiction (e.g. Smith, 2020; Yea, 2014). On a more structural level, fiction is seen as contributing to imagined worlds (Randall, 2011) or discourses (Kato, 2015). Regardless of theoretical belonging, most studies have a rather crude understanding of the audience and its agency (see e.g. La Pastina, 2004). This activates questions about how democratic values and political topics are negotiated in relation to the fictional content audiences watch. Further, it includes exploring audiences’ understandings of fiction in relation to their roles as citizens in a democratic European context.

This special issue is interested in contributions that could, but are not limited to, illuminate some of the following topics: 

- The relation between SVODs, reception and citizenship or democracy

- Public service audiences and society

- Fiction and political activism from an audience perspective

- Viewers’ negotiation of identities via fiction, in relation to democracy and politics

- Viewers’ negotiation of political and democratic values in relation to fiction, such as equality, solidarity, community, or freedom

- Fiction audiences and political trust

- Missing audiences/citizens 

- Media pluralism, cultural protection, social regulations, or diversity from an audience perspective

- SVODs’ conceptualizations of audiences and audiences’ conceptualizations of SVODs

- Fiction, ethics, and democracy from an audience perspective

Those with an interest in contributing should submit an abstract (max. 750 words) where the main theme (or argument) of the intended article is described along with an indication of the theoretical and methodological approach of the article. The abstract should contain the preliminary title and five keywords. A clarification on how the article fits into the overall scope of the issue should be included.  

Send your abstract to the editors by 30 September 2025 on jono.van-belle@oru.se, georgia.aitaki@kau.se and maria.jansson@oru.se. 

Scholars invited to submit a full manuscript (maximum 8000 words including footnotes, bibliography, tables and appendices) will be notified by e-mail after the abstracts have been assessed by the editors. All submissions should be original works and must not be under consideration by other publishers. The reference system should be Harvard author-date format. More information on style and formatting can be found on the Participations website: https://www.participations.org/submissions/ 

Deadline for submission abstract: 30 September 2025

Deadline for full paper: 30 January 2025

Estimated publication date: November 2026.