Journal of Environmental Media (Special Issue)

Deadline: June 21, 2026

Guest Editors: Luciano Frizzera, Mónica Humeres, and Fenwick McKelvey.

Big AI’s demands for this world are becoming clearer. In 2023, Microsoft announced plans to build new data centers powered by nuclear energy to fuel energy-hungry models (Calma, 2023). Google and Amazon made similar announcements subsequently (da Silva, 2024; Olick, 2024). Plans to build nuclear-powered AI data centers clearly illustrate the scale and consequences of AI as a social blueprint – rendering clear “the choices (implicit or explicit) made in the course of technological innovation” and demanding reflection on “the grounds for making those choices wisely” (Winner, 1986, p. 18). This special issue invites interventions against the growing cyberphysical project of “Big AI” (van der Vlist et al., 2024) or “AI as platform” (Mahnke & Bagger, 2024).

This special issue questions the imbrication of AI and digital sovereignty at work in new articulations of technological nationalism (Charland, 1986; Couture & Toupin, 2019; Grohmann & Costa Barbosa, 2025; Medina, 2011). Theories of the digital sublime and charismatic technologies have long been used to legitimate technologies as social blueprints (Ames, 2019; Carey & Quirk, 1970; Mosco, 2004), but AI arrives at a moment of critical duress for social epistemologies usually found in journalism seem incapable or unable to counter the sociotechnical futures produced by big AI (Bareis & Katzenbach, 2021; Dandurand et al., 2023; Liebig et al., 2024; Valderrama Barragán et al., 2025). We encourage contributions that unite fragmented scholarship as a counterpoint to Big Tech’s global, competitive cyberphysical project (Lai et al., 2026; Salamanca, 2025).

AI’s social blueprint has a ghastly environmental toll that threatens environmental justice (Hogan, 2015; Pasek et al., 2023; Velkova, 2016). We welcome contributions that share findings and digital methods that expose AI’s global technological footprint with an emphasis on the Americas (South and North). Whereas the AI industry itself seeks to bound AI’s toll as merely another technological problem that becomes another benchmark (Jegham et al., 2025), we seek to push media studies, science and technology studies, and communication studies to develop new accounts of AI’s hold on the world.

We hope to move from nationalistic sovereignties to global solidarities. AI’s social blueprint has not developed unopposed; across the world, social movements have turned to fight the spread of toxic data centers and reimagine AI (Halper, 2026; Murphy, 2025; Pasek, 2023). These movements are important sites to theorize the articulations of new political movements and media activism (Baumann et al., 2025; Dunbar-Hester, 2009; Renzi, 2020). We also welcome engaged and speculative research on alternative AI infrastructures that may include local or regional infrastructure, the fediverse, frugal AI infrastructures, decentralized, and/or distributed infrastructures (Coleman, 2021; Gehl, 2025).

Finally, we welcome discussion of what public interest infrastructure would look like for AI. Public interest AI refers to “support those outcomes best serving the long-term survival and well-being of a social collective construed as a ‘public’” (Public Interest AI, n.d.). The Paris Charter on Artificial Intelligence in the Public Interest (2025), published after the Paris AI Summit, aims to “encourage a more comprehensive and inclusive design of AI in the public interest, in terms of technology, organization and institutions that serve different jurisdictions and communities in attaining similar success.” Public interest AI, however, is already a contentious term and not dissimilar to other terms, such as “AI for Good” or “Responsible AI,” that can act as ethics washing (Bourne, 2024; Wagner, 2018). Scholarly attention is required to define public interest AI as a critical concept advancing social and environmental justice.

Key Dates

• 13 April 2026 – Call for Papers
  
• 21 June 2026 – Deadline for abstracts submission
  
• 20 July 2026 – Notification of selected Proposals
  
• 18 October 2026 – Full paper submission deadline
  
• Fall 2027 – Special issue publication
  

Submission Details

We aim to produce a diverse and balanced edition that includes researchers from Latin America. We encourage submissions in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as in English, for this special edition.

Please send a 300-words abstract with bibliographic references and a short biographical note to Luciano Frizzera (luciano.frizzera@me.com) by June 21, 2026.

If accepted, the author(s) will be asked to submit a full article by October 18, 2026.

Accepted articles must not exceed 6000 words (including bibliography) and must be accompanied by 5 keywords, author name(s) and a 100-word max bio, institutional affiliation(s) and contact details.

Authors guidelines and further information about the journal are available here: intellectbooks.com/journal-of-environmental-media.

Articles will be submitted to double blind peer review. Submission of a paper will be taken to imply that it is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

The publication of this special issue is scheduled by fall 2027.

No payment required.

For any queries do not hesitate to contact the special issue co-guest editors.

Editors

Luciano Frizzera (luciano.frizzera@me.com) is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Guelph. He has a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University and an MA in Digital Humanities from the University of Alberta. His primary research discusses the political economy of subjectivation driven by AI and digital platforms. He is also an experienced UX designer and web developer.

Mónica Humeres (monica.humeres@uchile.cl) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Communication at the University of Chile. She is also an Adjunct Researcher at the Millennium Nucleus for the Future of Artificial Intelligence (FAIR), an interdisciplinary research and creative group focused on the cultural, social, and environmental implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Fenwick McKelvey (fenwick.mckelvey@concordia.ca) is an Associate Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University. He leads Machine Agencies at the Milieux Institute. He has successfully organized a number of conferences and preconferences, including (un)Stable Diffusions: A two-day international symposium on AI’s publics, publicities, and publicizations at Milieux Institute, Tiohtià:ke/Montréal.