Nordicom Review Special Issue (open access)

Deadline for submission of full abstracts: April 25, 2019

Special issue editors: Michał Krzyżanowski (Örebro University & University of Liverpool), Mattias Ekman (Örebro University), Christian Christensen (Stockholm University), Per-Erik Nilsson (Uppsala University), Mattias Gardell (Uppsala University)

Rationale/Abstract:

This Special Issue of Nordicom Review discusses interactive practices of articulating and communicating un-civility in the context of post- and anti-democratic change. It approaches un-civility through an array of mediated online and offline discursive and material practices whose common aim is to either undermine the values of liberal democracy or to outright forge anti-democratic ideologies and a post-democratic normative order. We explore uncivility as a continuum of evolving communicative practices that extend across the entire political spectrum. We therefore do not treat uncivility as strictly pre-defined modes of social and political behaviour that are specific for certain groups (e.g. extremists) or located strictly at the specific poles of the socio-political and ideological spectrum.

We see the exploration of phenomena related to the articulation and communication of uncivility as the crucial factor in understanding the current upsurge and trajectories of racism and right-wing populism in the Nordic Countries, Europe, USA and beyond. We particularly target the ongoing radicalisation of extreme and non-extreme modes of political action (e.g. via the growing number of radical groups) but also explore the normalisation of the politics of exclusion in and by the political mainstream along with its endorsement of nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or Euroscepticism. We view the above processes as interconnected through various interactions and communicative practices within and beyond the online/offline public spheres, as well as in the traditional political realm and in organisations satellite to politics.

Contributions to the Special Issue should address a variety of interactive and communicative practices of uncivility.We welcome contributions dealing with the analysis of uncivility in social/online and/or traditional media or other genres and channels of political communication. Contributions should necessarily draw on interdisciplinary approaches to concepts and models related to uncivility (including e.g. civility/incivility, civic norms, normativity, politics and morality, racism/exclusion and populism) against the background of systematic and empirical, nation-specific and comparative examples of analysing un-civility in specific mediated and wider communicative practices. The aim of the Special Issue is comparative—that is, it aims to look at the Nordic countries in a cross-national comparison. We therefore especially welcome contributions looking at practices and dynamics of uncivility in the Nordic region but will also consider papers looking at other national contexts in Europe and beyond.

It is expected that the Special Issue will be published online and in print in late summer 2020. The selection of papers to be published in this Special Issue will take place according to the following two-step procedure:

• Step 1: Authors are first requested to submit the title and abstract (600 words max incl. references) of their papers along with 5-6 keywords and short bios (150 words max. for each author) to the Special Issue Editors. The deadline for submission of full abstracts is 25 April 2019 and the authors will be notified of the eventual acceptance by mid-May 2019 at the latest.
• Step 2: If the abstracts are accepted, authors will be requested to submit full papers (7000 words max. inclusive of any front or end matter) anonymised for double-blind review and formatted according to the Nordicom Review guidelines. The deadline for submission of full anonymised papers is 30 September 2019 after which double-blind peer-review and other administrative matters will take place according to the timeline to be confirmed by the Special Issue Editors.

Please note that if the submitted papers are incompatible with the earlier/accepted abstracts or are of insufficient academic quality, the Special Issue Editors reserve the right to reject such papers in line with Nordicom Review’s editorial policy.

For any questions as well as abstract & paper submissions please contact:

• Michał Krzyżanowski, University of Liverpool, UK (michal.krzyzanowski@oru.se or michal.krzyzanowski@liverpool.ac.uk)
• Mattias Ekman, Örebro University, Sweden (mattias.ekman@oru.se)

About Nordicom Review

Nordicom Review is an international peer-reviewed open access journal published by Nordicom (Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research) at the University of Gothenburg. The publication of Nordicom Review is supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom Review is indexed by SCOPUS.

View this CFP on Nordicom’s website: https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/latest/news/call-papers-un-civility-racism-and-populism