ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

March 25-26, 2021

Online Conference

Deadline: January 15, 2021

We invite the submission of abstracts for Media in America, America in Media international conference to be held online on 25-26 March 2021.

This is the third edition of a joint effort of the American Studies and Political Science scholars at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Lublin, Poland) who aim to generate a cross-disciplinary debate that brings together divergent yet complementary voices reflecting on American media environment and America’s portrayals in media across the globe.

Abstracts (150-250 words) in English + a short bio should be sent by January 15th, 2021 to media.ameryka@gmail.com

There is no registration fee. The details can be found on the conference website https://mediainamericaconference.wordpress.com/

For the 2021 edition of Media in America, America in Media conference publication we are pleased to announce the cooperation with two peer-reviewed open access academic journals: Res Rhetorica (Scopus, WoS) and NewHorizons in English Studies (MLA, Erih+).

The post-conference volumes are scheduled for publication in 2021 (NHES) and 2022 (RR).

Since the conference is being held under the patronage of the Polish Rhetoric Society, we are honoured to present our Keynote Speaker, Dr. Jim A. Kuypers (Virginia Tech’s School of Communication), a pioneer in the area of rhetorical framing analysis in political communication.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The one thing we have certainly learnt since our first conference in 2017 is that there are no media trends that cannot be reversed. While in 2019 we hailed the dawn of the TV era, the 2020 annual media report prepared by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic showed the increased consumption of traditional sources of news, especially television... However, some new digital behaviours that are likely to have long-term implications have also emerged in this crisis. Many have joined Facebook or WhatsApp groups for the first time and have engaged in local groups’ online activities. Young people of Generation Z (aged 18-24) have consumed more news through services like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok and the use of Instagram for news has doubled since 2018 and looks likely to overtake Twitter over the next year. Video conferencing has become a new platform for personal communication but has also changed the face of government press conferences. The media have embraced these new technologies in terms of remote working, but also in terms of the production and distribution of content. Due to falling revenues from traditional media outlets, in the last 12 months more publishers have started charging for digital content or tightening paywalls and this is also beginning to have an impact. There is a growing fear of information inequality, where people with less money become more dependent on social media and other lower-quality news spreading damaging misinformation.

There is also a question of a growing bias, yet interestingly, this is not a global phenomenon. Comparing 2020 with data from 2013, the Reuters report has shown the increased preference over time in the UK (+6) for news that has ‘no particular point of view’. At the same time, the proportion that prefers news that ‘shares their point of view’ has declined by a similar amount (-6). On the other hand, in the United States, where both politics and the media have become increasingly partisan over the years, we do find an increase in the proportion of people who say they prefer news that shares their point of view – up six percentage points since 2013 to 30%.

The conference /Media in America, America in Media/ addresses a wide variety of topics across the disciplines of media, political science, language and cultural studies. They may include the following themes, among others:

I. Media in America

1. Media and their representations in America

• Mass media, social media and personalized media
• Rhetoric of media in America - ideology, persuasion, manipulation past and present

• Media roles in the election process
• Media as a tool in identity formation

2. Media theories in America

• Contemporary American theories of communication and media
• Mediatization – American model vs. European model
• Rhetorical perspectives on /logos, ethos and pathos /in media
• Visual media studies, game studies – intertexts and intermediality

3. Media technologies in America

• Technological revolutions – trends and implications
• Media personalities - the role and ethos of a (digital) journalist
• Advertising - role, medium, case studies, micro-rhetorical situations
• Big Data, fake news, bots and apps – new concepts, new challenges

 II. America in Media

1. Images of America in American media

• Representations of the majority and the minorities: ideological, feminist, religious, racial, ethnic, LGBTQ+ and other

• New phenomena, new audiences – America in TV series, podcasts, games, hashtags, infographics, tweets, pins...

• Adaptations in the media: history, literature and art in a new form

2. Images of America in foreign media

• American models – political and advertising campaigns, streaming platforms, newsrooms, sitcoms, talk shows, etc.

• American media and international reception – a comparative study
• Whose America? – a homogeneous or heterogeneous media image

Due to the interdisciplinary character of the conference, the invitation is addressed to representatives of all scientific disciplines dealing with the topic of media.

Organizing Committee

• Anna Bendrat, Ph.D.
• Elżbieta Pawlak-Hejno, Ph.D.
• Anna Oleszczuk, M.A.
• Agata Waszkiewicz, M.A.
• Lidia Kniaź-Hunek, M.A.

Cardiff University, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies

The School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC) has a long-standing reputation as a world-leading centre for innovative teaching and research. The following studentship is available:

Amnesty, Archives, Activism: Photojournalism and the Development of Human Rights Media Campaigns in Britain since the 1960s

Supervisor and contact information to obtain further details: Dr Tom Allbeson

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/953588-allbeson-tom

Information on the School of Journalism, Media and Culture:

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-culture

Studentship Awards commence in October 2021 covering tuition fees and a maintenance grant (currently £15,285 p.a. for 2012/21 for full-time students, updated each year); and includes access to an additional Research Training Support Grant. There are other opportunities and benefits available to studentship holders, including an overseas fieldwork allowance (if applicable), internship opportunities, overseas institutional visits and other small grants.

ESRC studentships are highly competitive. Candidates should hold a 1st or strong upper 2nd class degree; applications from those holding a relevant research training at the Masters level will be considered for a +3 award; the award is open to home and international (including EU and EEA) students. Successful international student applicants will receive a fully-funded Wales DTP studentship and will not be charged the fees difference between the UK and international rate. For further details see the UKRI web site.

Applications are welcome for full and part-time study as either ‘1+3’ (i.e., one full time year of research training Masters followed by three years of full-time Doctoral study, or the part-time equivalent), or ‘+3’ (i.e. three years of full-time doctoral study or its part-time equivalent), depending on the needs of the applicant.

A completed application form for admission to doctoral study at Cardiff University must be submitted by the deadline of 12.00 noon, 3 February 2021. Incomplete applications or those received after this time will not be accepted. Please make an application via the following link: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research/programmes/programme/journalism-studies

The application must contain the following:

1. Covering letter addressed to Dr Tom Allbeson no more than two pages. It must set out your reasons and motivation for applying to Cardiff University and the journalism and democracy pathway , your understanding and expectations of doctoral study , your academic interests generally and how these relate to the description of the project supplied. Please specify whether you wish to apply for a +3 or 1+3 basis

2. Academic / Professional Qualifications including proof of English Language Competency (7.5 IELTS minimum).

3. References: Two academic references to be presented with the application form

4. Curriculum Vitae: No longer than two pages.

5. Research Proposal: Up to a maximum of 1000 words, not including bibliographic references. Use the following five headings in your proposal:

• Your reflections on the title, aims and purpose of the research;
• An overview of some of the key research literature relevant to the study;
• Your proposals for developing the design and methods of the study;
• A description of potential outcomes of the project for understanding, knowledge, policy and practice as appropriate to the topic;
• Bibliography

All information available in Welsh on request.

Funding Notes

Cardiff University, School of Journalism, Media and Culture, supported by the ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership for Wales (Wales DTP), invites applications for funded PhD study. These studentships known as ‘collaborative studentships’ involve liaison with a non-academic organisation and will commence in October 2021. Short-listed applicants will be invited to interview expected to take place in late February/early March 2021. After interview, a final short-list of applicants will be put to the ESRC Wales DTP Management Group Panel where final decisions will be made. Successful applicants can generally expect to hear by early April 2021.

Fabian Holt

For decades, millions of music fans have gathered every summer in parks and fields to hear their favorite bands at festivals such as Lollapalooza, Coachella, and Glastonbury. How did these and countless other festivals across the globe evolve into glamorous pop culture events, and how are they changing our relationship to music, leisure, and public culture? In Everyone Loves Live Music, Fabian Holt looks beyond the marketing hype to show how festivals and other institutions of musical performance have evolved in recent decades, as sites that were once meaningful sources of community and culture are increasingly subsumed by corporate giants.

Examining a diverse range of cases across Europe and the United States, Holt upends commonly-held ideas of live music and introduces a pioneering theory of performance institutions. He explores the fascinating history of the club and the festival in San Francisco and New York, as well as a number of European cities. This book also explores the social forces shaping live music as small, independent venues become corporatized and as festivals transform to promote mainstream Anglophone culture and its consumerist trappings. The book further provides insight into the broader relationship between culture and community in the twenty-first century. An engaging read for fans, industry professionals, and scholars alike, Everyone Loves Live Music reveals how our contemporary enthusiasm for live music is more fraught than we would like to think.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo61910974.html

February 5 - July 2, 2021

Online

Deadline: January 15, 2021

On behalf of the Crisis Communication Section management team:

Because it was not realistic to plan & host a live Crisis Communication conference in 2021, the Crisis Communication Section is offering two different avenues for presentation of research in 2021:

- Live Panel Sessions (two-hours each) on the first Friday of each month from 5 February – 2 July

- Live/pre-Recorded Presentations (up to 20 minutes each) posted on our website https://ecreacrisis.com/

All Live Sessions are Free to Attend.

Theme for Crisis2021: Risk & Crisis Communication & the ‘New Normal’.

As the world responds to 2020 and all of the new challenges it has posed, risk and crisis communication researchers, students, and practitioners have the opportunity to explore issues of work environments, politics, social justice, disasters, ‘ordinary’ crises, learning and teaching, well-being, social responsibility, and technology to name just a few areas connected to the tumultuous year we have all experienced. We are calling for abstracts that look forward from Covid-19 to the future across industries and even for reflective discussions about the role of risk and crisis communication.

You can submit an individual abstract or a panel proposal – send an MSWord document OR pdf attachment to: audra.lawson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

More details available at: https://ecreacrisis.com/call-for-participation-crisis2021/

Deadline for Submission for Live Presentations: 15 January, 2021.

First live panel session: "COVID-19: Learnings and Consequences for International Crisis Communication Research and Practice"

Date: Feb 5 2020 (Friday), 4-6 p.m. CET (10-12 a.m. EST)

The first session will be chaired by Dr. Florian Meissner, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, and endorsed by IPRA –the International Public Relations Association www.ipra.org.

The keynotes will address the following questions:

1) What have we learned from our observations of crisis communication during the pandemic by governments, organizations, health experts, media, and stakeholders around the world?

2) What are the consequences crisis researchers and practitioners need to draw from this pandemic? What is—or should be—on the research agenda for the next years?

Kristiania University College

Kristiania University College provides research and education in the areas of management, organisation, marketing, communication, computer science, health science, innovation and arts. With over 14,500 students and a large educational programme in Oslo, Bergen and online, Kristiania University College is Norway's largest independent broad-based college. Kristiania University College's mission is to contribute to Norway's social and economic development through a problem-driven and applied knowledge development and dissemination, in close cooperation with working life. In order to carry out this task in the most effective way possible, Kristiania University College aims to become Norway's first independent university.

About the Department of Communication, Leadership and Marketing

The school consists of the Department of Communication, Department of Management and Organisation, and the Department of Marketing. The school has an active academic environment within education, research and dissemination, and it leads the college's academic work in the development of an interdisciplinary PhD in Communication and Leadership. The school is an attractive workplace with a generous environment that is supportive and performance-enhancing. The studies we offer are closely related to practice and give our students a good insight into the working life that they will encounter after completing their studies.

The advertised position is affiliated with the Department of Communication. The department currently consists of approximately 20 employees and 500 students. We offer a master's degree in strategic communication and a bachelor degrees in journalism, in creative marketing communications and in PR and communication. A new bachelor's degree programme in communication and political science will also be launched soon. Online studies are also offered.

About the position

We have a 100% position vacant as associate professor of communication at the Department of Communication. The position is intended for teaching in the programmes offered in the department, research activities. The succesful canddate will contribute to strengthening the academic environment related to the planned PhD programme. Ideally, the position should be filled as soon as possible, but this is negotiable to some extent.

Tasks

• Plan and carry out teaching, where the subject is communicated in a Norwegian and international context
• Supervision and examination
• Maintain dialogue and networking with relevant parts of working life
• Research and development work
• Meetings with academic staff and academic management

The teaching at Kristiania University College requires that the person hired speaks a Scandinavian language, and can also teach in English.

The person appointed must be prepared for organizational and work changes. Changes in tasks may be relevant due to the future development of study programmes at the school.

Applicant requirements

Norwegian doctorate in the relevant field of study or equivalent foreign doctorate or competence at the corresponding level, documented by scientific work of the same scope and quality

The applicant must have research and teaching expertise in one or more of the following academic areas in communication:

• strategic communication
• organisational communication
• crisis communication
• digital methods / "computational social science"
• Experience from supervision, teaching and/or programme management at the college and university level
• Experience from participation in research projects and experience with participation in national and international research networks
• Experience in obtaining externally funded research projects

Applicants must be able to document pedagogic and didactic competence related to higher education and the development of teaching and supervision. If you do not meet the competence requirement, you must complete the college's course for basic pedagogical competence (15 credits) within a period of two years from accession. The course is offered by the college.

The candidate will be assessed in relation to the Regulations for employment and promotion in teaching and research positions pursuant to the University and College Act.

If there are no applicants who are eligible for permanent appointment as associate professor, an applicant may be added for a temporary period of up to three years if the expert committee finds that he or she has the prerequisites to obtain the necessary qualifications within that time. A new expert assessment will be carried out by the end of this period.

Furthermore, it is emphasised that you have

• Relevant experience from communication work
• The ability to build and maintain networks, regionally, nationally and internationally
• Good cooperation skills and the willingness to contribute to a constructive working environment, while being independent and reliable
• Good communication skills, both orally and in writing. The languages of work and teaching is Norwegian (or another scandinavian language) and English
• High working capacity and motivated to develop new knowledge in collaboration with others

Emphasis is placed on personal suitability for the position.

Applicants shall submit their application electronically to our application portal with the necessary information about education and practice, including the following content:

• Application text clearly setting out the motivation for the position and the applicant's educational platform
• CV with full details of education, practice and other professional activities
• List of scientific works and/or development projects. The documentation shall contain a full overview of scientific activity or other activity of significance for the position. Applicants can deliver up to 15 scientific works/publications
• Plan for future research
• Diplomas and certificates, including link to the diploma portal (vitnemalsportalen.no)

Qualified applicants must be prepared to hold a trial teaching session/lecture

We offer:

• An exciting job at a high-performance college
• A pleasant and stimulating working environment
• Great premises in central Oslo
• Good opportunities for professional development
• Corporate sports teams and private gym
• Salary to be agreed

The workforce shall as far as possible reflect the diversity of the population. We encourage all eligible candidates to apply. 

Application deadline: 8th of January 2021

Are you wondering what it's like to work with us or do you have other questions about the position?Contact Professor Anders Olof Larsson, tel.+47 47 96 87 80, AndersOlof.Larsson@kristiania.no

Only applications submitted via our application portal will be considered.

An evaluation will be conducted of relevant candidates. 

Read more here: https://www.kristiania.no/en/about-kristiania/vacant-positions/?rmpage=job&rmjob=142&rmlang=UK

University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

The Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) invites applications for the full-time position of Professor (tenured) in Communication Studies. The professorship is with the Department of Communication and Media Research DCM and comes with one fully funded PhD position. The appointment begins in early 2022.

The position requires a specialization in individual (micro-level) issues of communication and media research from a social scientific perspective. This includes but is not limited to research fields like media exposure, media use and media effects and/or audience studies and/or media and online communication content. Moreover, candidates should be able to contribute to teaching in other areas on the Bachelor level, for instance journalism research or media economics and media management.

Finally, they should also take the digital transformation of communication and media into account in their current and/or future research and teaching activities.

Candidates must have completed a Ph.D. in communication studies or a closely related discipline (with proven experience in media and communication). They need a strong publication record (including peerreviewed articles in international journals) as well as positively evaluated teaching experience in the required specialization. Experience in acquiring competitive third-party research grants is desirable.

Moreover, candidates should have some international academic experience and sound skills in (quantitative and/or qualitative) social scientific research methods.

The teaching load is 6-7 hours per week and includes courses in the French-language Bachelor program “Sciences de la communication et des medias” as well as in the bilingual French/English Master program “Business Communication”. The position thus requires proficiency in French and English. Administrative languages at the University of Fribourg are German and French. A passive knowledge of German is expected in the medium term.

The salary is competitive. The University of Fribourg provides equal opportunities for women and men and aims at achieving gender balance.

Candidates should send their complete application in a single PDF file that includes

• a cover letter describing their motivation and qualification for the position;
• a CV including lists of publications, presentations, teaching experience, research grants, and academic service;
• teaching evaluations;
• a one-page statement on research interests;
• a one-page statement on teaching philosophy;
• a one-page statement on institutional work/academic service at previous institutions;
• the names of three professional references;
• three papers recently published, forthcoming or under revision

to the dean’s office (decanat-ses@unifr.ch) and to Ms. Nadège Rives (nadege.rives@unifr.ch), administration secretary at the DCM, until 1st of March 2021.

Authors: John Hartley, Indrek Ibrus, Maarja Ojamaa

It is only since global media and digital communications became accessible to ordinary populations – with Telstar, jumbo jets, the pc and mobile devices – that humans have been able to experience their own world as planetary in extent. What does it mean to be one species on one planet, rather than a patchwork of scattered, combative and mutually untranslatable cultures? One of the most original and prescient thinkers to tackle cultural globalisation was Juri Lotman (1922-93). On the Digital Semiosphere shows how his general model of the semiosphere provides a unique and compelling key to the dynamics and functions of today's globalised digital media systems and, in turn, their interactions and impact on planetary systems.

Developing their own reworked and updated model of Lotman's evolutionary and dynamic approach to the semiosphere or cultural universe, the authors offer a unique account of the world-scale mechanisms that shape media, meanings, creativity and change – both productive and destructive. In so doing, they re-examine the relations among the contributing sciences and disciplines that have emerged to explain these phenomena, seeking to close the gap between biosciences and humanities in an integrated 'cultural science' approach.

Purchase here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/on-the-digital-semiosphere-9781501369223/?fbclid=IwAR0o5LSDdhk5L6sLcRT6qEHo8qvtGuShDCl-dKFJ5a-x8rx-tRsssg7MBrc

Special Forum of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022)

Contribution Deadline: June 1, 2021

Contribution Length: 1000-2000 words inclusive of all notes and references

Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio U)

In the past decade, TV representations of female masculinity have proliferated and diversified worldwide. Notable examples include the white lesbian landowner Anne Lister in the historical drama Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO, UK/USA, 2019-), the African American lesbian Denise in the web series Master of None (Netflix, USA, 2015-2017), the tomboyish participants of the girl group elimination shows Youth With You 2 (iQiyi, China, 2020) and Sisters Who Make Waves (Mango TV, China, 2020), the cross-dressing female protagonist raised as a boy in the drama Bromance (SETTV, Taiwan, 2015-2016), the butch lesbian beauty contest segment, “That’s My Tomboy,” in the Philippine daytime variety show It’s Showtime (ABS-CBN, Philippines, 2009-), and the Taiwanese-American K-pop girl band member, Amber Liu who has been famous for her gender-nonconforming persona and homosocial-natured group singing and dancing performances on Asian TV in the early 2010s.

Along with this surge in masculine female TV culture, there has been a growing body of scholarship on media and public imaginaries of female masculinity in different geo-locales since the late 1990s. J. Jack Halberstam (1998) famously noted that “far from being an imitation of maleness,” female masculinity is one of many “alternative masculinities” that manifests a continuum of various masculine traits and identities embodied or enacted by cis-females, such as tomboyism and butchness, the definitions and calibration of which are often socioculturally and racially modelled (p. 1). Moreover, the culturally specific understandings and imaginaries of female masculinity have been important threads in world gender studies and global queering theory, as research by Helen Leung (2002), Audrey Yue (2008), Todd A. Henry (2020), and others has discussed.

With a specific focus on global TV cultures in the 2010s, we intend this Forum of Communication, Culture & Critique to initiate a productive transnational, cross-cultural conversation about the variety of ways in which female masculinity has been imagined, idealized, troubled, deconstructed, and remodified on contemporary TV, and the relation of these representations to the sociocultural contexts from which they emerge. We aim to explore the following questions:

• How are TV images of female masculinity constructed through negotiation with local, transregional, and global media and public discourses?
• How and why can TV imaginaries of female masculinity in certain sociocultural contexts be linked to, or decoupled from, female heterosexuality/homosexuality?
• In what ways can ethnicity, class, and geopolitics complicate TV representations of female masculinity?

Entries dedicated to non-Anglo-American cultures from a de-Western-centric perspective are especially welcomed.

Potential forum entry topics may include but are not limited to:

• Gender-nonconforming or trans female celebrities on TV
• TV representations of masculine female athletes, warriors, spies, soldiers, or other forms of “heroic,” “aggressive,” or “rebellious” masculinity in women
• The ways in which gender non-conformity and class in women intersect in TV representations
• The intersectionality of female masculinity and non-Caucasian, non-Anglophone-speaking identities on TV
• Cross-dressing female characters and/or drag king culture on TV
• Televisual imaginaries of heterosexual-identified, masculine women
• TV framing of gendered differences and subjectivities of masculine and feminine women/lesbians

Submission Instructions:

The Forum section of the Journal of Communication, Culture & Critique aims to publish short, commentary pieces exploring contemporary issues in communication, media, and cultural studies for an international readership.

Please submit the full entry (1000-2000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, as well as a short bio (max. 75 words, including current status, contact email, and affiliation), by June 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of this Forum section at jingjamiezhao@gmail.com and nge@ohio.edu.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by August 1st, 2021. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.

NOTE: Accepted Forum submissions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as the related special issue topic of “Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV.” There is a separate CFP for those full-length papers.

Special Issue Editors:

Jamie J. Zhao is a global queer media scholar and currently Assistant Professor of Communications at the Sino-UK collaborative institution, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and another PhD in Film and TV Studies from the University of Warwick. Her research explores East Asian media and public discourses on female gender and sexuality in a globalist age. Her academic writings can be found in a number of journals and edited volumes, such as the journals Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies, Continuum, Critical Asian Studies, and Transformative Works and Cultures, and the anthologies Global Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and

Queer (LGBTQ) History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019) and Love Stories in China (Routledge, 2019). She also coedited the anthology, Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (HKUP, 2017).

Eve Ng is an associate professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Ohio University. Her research includes work on cultural production and viewer engagement around LGBTQ media, social media and participatory practices, and LGBTQ advocacy, and has appeared in Communication, Culture & Critique, Development and Change, Feminist Media Studies, Journal of Film and Video, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Popular Communication, Television and New Media, Transformative Works and Culture, and the Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights (2017).

International Journal of Communication

Deadline: February 15, 2021

The International Journal of Communication will publish a Forum timed to appear with the 120-year anniversary of Paul Lazarsfeld’s birth, in August 2021. We are inviting contributions of 1500- to 3000-word essays that reflect on the late sociologist’s legacy for communication research and for empirical social research more broadly.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Lazarsfeld and the institutionalization of social science research
• Lazarsfeld’s media research program, beyond the best-known studies of opinion leaders and personal influence
• Under-explored aspects of Lazarsfeld’s intellectual history
• Lazarsfeld as historian of empirical research methods
• The reception of Lazarsfeld’s research programs and methodological contributions around the world, including his native Europe
• Questions of credit and division of labor in Lazarsfeld-directed research projects
• Histories of lesser-known and uncompleted projects and proposals
• Lazarsfeld’s place in the remembered history of media and communication research

We aim to publish 4 to 5 open access essays in late summer 2021. Potential contributors should write to the Forum editors (Hynek Jeřábek and Jeff Pooley) with a 150- to 200-word abstract, by February 15, 2021. The deadline for completed drafts (1500 to 3000 words) is April 15, 2021.

Timeline

• February 15: Abstract (150 to 200 words) of proposed contribution
• April 15: Completed drafts (1500 to 3000 words)
• August: Forum publication in International Journal of Communication

Forum Editors

Hynek Jeřábek (Charles University) - hynek.jerabek@fsv.cuni.cz

Jeff Pooley (Muhlenberg College) - pooley@muhlenberg.edu

Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Papers

Paper Abstract Deadline (500 words): March 1, 2021

Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): August 1st, 2021

Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio U)

Since the beginning of China’s self-modernizing process and the birth of Chinese feminist movements in the first decade of 20th century, women’s bodies and desires have frequently been marshaled in service of male-dominated nationalistic and (post-)socialist discourses of China and Chineseness. The ideological-political mobilization of female gender, sexuality, and subjectivity has considerably transformed and complicated contemporary Chinese televisual representations of women. In the 21st century, Chinese cyberspace, along with its flourishing creative and media industries, has witnessed an unexpected “boom in women-oriented literature and culture” (Sun & Yang, 2019, p. 28). Notably, the rise of local media and literature produced by and/or for women, along with flows of feminist and LGBTQ movements within and beyond China in the new millennium, first nurtured the cyber literature genre of “matriarchal fiction.” Such fiction is often “set in a society ruled by women … [and] describes a woman’s ascent to power in the public arena, or her success at establishing and heading a happy domicile including one or more male sexual partners” (Feng, 2013, p. 85). This matriarchal narrative maneuver later led to the widely popular “big heroine dramas” of Chinese TV in the past decade, the narratives of which focus on the life trajectories, professional obstacles, familial relationships, and romantic lives of female protagonists living in either the contemporary era or a temporally and spatially remote world (Sun & Yang, 2019, pp. 26-28). At the same time, a growing number of reality shows, talk TV shows, dating programs, and lifestyle shows in the post-2010 years have addressed themes related to women’s socio-cultural roles in both professional and private milieus, such as parenting skills, same-sex friendships and homosociality, and marital-familial issues in contemporary China characterized by cosmopolitanism, post-feminism, digitization, (post-)globalization, and deterritorialization.

Situated within this intriguing context, this special issue of Communication, Culture & Critique explores images, imaginaries, and performances of women that have dominated the post-2010 Chinese televisual screen. Seeing televisual spaces as a locally, transculturally, and globally mediated ground for the subject formation of “Woman” during this digital, globalist age, the issue aims to consider the following questions:

• How have emerging TV genres, formats, aesthetics, temporalities, and platforms contributed to the “doing”/construction and “undoing”/deconstruction of womanhood in the contemporary Chinese-speaking context?
• In what ways have female gender and sexual subjectivities been in constant negotiation, if not entanglement, with the mainstream hetero-patriarchal, authoritarian, ethno-nationalistic cultures that remain prevalent in the televisual space and industry of post-2010 China?
• How does research on the women-centered TV culture in the past decade open up new analytical possibilities for interrogating existing understandings of China, Chineseness, and Chinese media and popular communication in general?

This call invites proposals concerning critical, interdisciplinary research dedicated to explorations of the mutually implicative relation between womanhood and television in post-2010 China. We conceptualize “China” in a critically expansive way, one that exceeds Mandarin-speaking, Han-Chinese culture. Thus, we especially welcome topics concerning Chinese TV representations of non-Chinese, and/or non-Mandarin-speaking, and/or non-Han women. We are also interested in representations of cross-cultural or transnational familial-marital relationships relating to women’s roles as daughters, mothers, and wives; non-heteronormative women; or male-to-female (MTF) or female-to-male (FTM) transgender and cross-dressing personas and performances. Thus, we seek studies of women’s TV culture from a decolonial, de-Euro-American-centric, and de-Han-centric perspective. The goal is to unveil the intricacies, possibilities, and controversies of identity and agency within a largely authoritarian, patriarchal party-state, thereby helping to establish new theoretical and methodological frameworks at the intersection of Chinese TV studies, China studies, and Chinese gender, feminist, and queer studies.

Potential topics examining TV in China may include but are not limited to:

• Portrayals of female friendship and sisterhood
• Narratives of middle- or high-class women’s professional and familial struggles
• The framing of female singledom and marital strife on reality TV and dating shows
• Historical and xianxia (“immortal hero”) dramas featuring female protagonists (such as “big heroine dramas”)
• Imaginaries of young women’s and schoolgirls’ gendered life experiences and romantic relationships (including childhood traumas, parent–child relationships, and female homoeroticism and homosociality)
• Representations of women who are ethnic and cultural minorities in the Chinese and Sinophone worlds (such as Tibetan, Uyghur, Taiwanese aboriginal, or foreign-born ethnic-Chinese women)
• The intersection of womanhood, ethnicity/race, nationality, and class on TV (such as images of Thai lesbian stars, Taiwanese and Hong Kong female celebrities, Euro-American Caucasian women, or Southeast Asian female migrant workers)
• Transgender and cross-dressing women on TV (including those appearing in music and operatic performances on TV and impersonation shows, and TV images of transgender subjects and bodies)
• The production, distribution, and consumption of online TV programs related to women’s self-representation and self-making, facilitated by the growing popularity of China’s cyber communicative platforms and digital media
• Representations and censorship of feminist voices and cultures
• China’s transcultural, transnational adaptation and appropriation of women-centered televisual genres, formats, and aesthetics (such as soap operas and gossip TV, which are traditionally considered feminine and appeal to predominantly female audiences)

Submission Instructions:

Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (2-page) CV by March 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of the special issue at jingjamiezhao@gmail.com and nge@ohio.edu.

Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by April 1st, 2021 and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, by August 1st, 2021.

Acceptance of the abstracts does not guarantee publication of the papers, which will be subject to double-blind peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.

NOTE: Accepted full-length paper contributions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as a Forum section on the related topic of “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s.” The Forum, which seeks shorter essays, has a separate CFP.

Special Issue Editors:

Jamie J. Zhao is a global queer media scholar and currently Assistant Professor of Communications at the Sino-UK collaborative institution, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and another PhD in Film and TV Studies from the University of Warwick. Her research explores East Asian media and public discourses on female gender and sexuality in a globalist age. Her academic writings can be found in a number of journals and edited volumes, such as the journals Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies, Continuum, Critical Asian Studies, and Transformative Works and Cultures, and the anthologies Global Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019) and Love Stories in China (Routledge, 2019). She also coedited the anthology, Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (HKUP, 2017).

Eve Ng is an associate professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Ohio University. Her research includes work on cultural production and viewer engagement around LGBTQ media, social media and participatory practices, and LGBTQ advocacy, and has appeared in Communication, Culture & Critique, Development and Change, Feminist Media Studies, Journal of Film and Video, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Popular Communication, Television and New Media, Transformative Works and Culture, and the Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights (2017).