Digital Journalism (special issue)

Deadline: April 17, 2026

Special Issue Editors: 

• Jonathan Hendrickx, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  
• Jorge Vázquez Herrero, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
  
• Cruz Negreira, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
  
• Sherwin Chua, PhD, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
  

This special issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research that contributes to a better understanding of the audiovisual turn in digital journalism. Said turn builds on earlier forms of multimedia journalism and digital longform storytelling, and ties in within the previously acknowledged audience, emotional and labour turns in journalism.

We invite scholars to submit empirical and theoretical contributions that critically engage with the notion of the audiovisual turn, including how it has been effectuated and can evolve over time. In addition to diverse quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods study designs, we particularly encourage submissions from the Global South, as well as cross-national comparisons that reflect platform-specific and regional differences. Focus areas may include, but are not limited to:

•  The de-institutionalisation of audiovisual journalism and news production by considering non-journalistic interloper actors, including influencers and content creators.
• The infrastructural platform dependency, algorithmic ambiguity and/or the ownership of audiovisual journalism in the platformisation era.
• A historical evolution of audiovisual journalism from the formats of traditional media to current platforms, considering both common and differentiating elements in journalistic practice.
• The production, contents and reception of audiovisual-centric digital journalism, e.g. shortform, vertical videos and/or audio across news outlets’ proprietary as well as social media platforms.
• The epistemology and/or ontology of audiovisual journalism.
• The news experience and audience interaction through shortform videos and other audiovisual formats.
• The production and publication of AI-generated audiovisual news or news-like content and its disinformation effects in a context of algorithmic curation and consumption.

Submission instructions:

Extended abstracts of 500-750 words, not including references, as well as a full list of authors, affiliations, and abbreviated bios for each author. 

Please submit your proposal to this Google Form as one file (PDF) with your names clearly stated on the first page: https://lnkd.in/gNxUZJj7

Full manuscripts, if invited, should be between 7,000-9,000 words.

Timeline:

• Extended abstracts submission deadline: 18:00 CET on April 17, 2026
• Notification on submitted abstracts: May 8, 2026
•  Article submission deadline: October 30, 2026