Media and Communication

Deadline: October 15, 2026

Academic Editor(s): Berta García-Orosa (University of Santiago de Compostela), Jorge Vázquez-Herrero (University of Santiago de Compostela), and Tomás Dodds (University of Wisconsin – Madison)

• Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 October 2026
  
• Submission of Full Papers: 15-28 February 2027
  
• Publication of the Issue: July/December 2027
  

About the Issue

When discussing the state of mass communication, academic debates oscillate between two simultaneous yet contradictory views: Some have celebrated the democratizing potential of new digital platforms to facilitate citizen discussion and lower barriers to information access; others, however, point to the risks associated with big tech platforms, particularly discursive fragmentation, incivility, and biased algorithmic architectures.

Moreover, traditionally hegemonic actors in the public sphere—the state, political parties, and the media—are experiencing a weakening of their roles, with some of their functions transferring to more volatile, new actors. Additionally, the rapid rise of AI in newsrooms once again places journalism at a turning point.

This thematic issue is structured around two interconnected dimensions: the quality of deliberation in relation to normative models, and the media’s role as mediators of political discourse. The objective is to examine how digital spaces—and increasingly, AI-driven communication environments—reconfigure traditional discussion practices through two main axes: (a) the role of media, digital architectures, and algorithmic systems; and (b) methodological innovation and hybrid intelligence.

We invite submissions related to the following thematic areas, although the list is not exclusive:

• Operationalizing deliberative quality in hybrid media environments and emerging actors in digital public spheres;
  
• The social role of deliberative journalism in the age of AI;
  
• Platform affordances and deliberative design;
  
• Democratic backsliding, disinformation, and resilient public spheres;
  
• Deliberation beyond Western democracies from comparative and global perspectives;
  
• Intelligence methodologies for studying online deliberation and journalism;
  
• AI and the democratic functions of journalism;
  
• Algorithmic curation and information diversity in journalism.
  

Submissions may take various forms, including empirical research or theoretical essays that advance scholarly understanding of deliberation, journalism, and democracy in the age of AI.

Instructions for Authors

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Media and Communication is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

Open Access

Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 100 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.