ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (March 2024) 

Abstract Deadline (500 words): February 1st, 2023 

Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): June 1st, 2023

Co-editors: Ayleen Cabas-Mijares (Marquette University) and Sharon Adetutu Omotoso (University of Ibadan) 

Feminist political communication underscores feminist intersections, forms, and strategies of power relations in the transmission, interpretation, and usage of political information (Omotoso & Faniyi, 2020). Although these have been largely undertheorized and underexplored, the pursuit of the global sustainable development goal of gender equality has aided more critical considerations of the discords, crisscrosses, accomplishments and/or setbacks encountered by women across geopolitical spaces.  

As scholars extensively investigate the obstinate underrepresentation of women in parliaments and governments as well as threats to women’s rights worldwide, critical communication studies have not paid much attention to the place of feminism as political proposition and collective movement that impacts the lives of millions of women in the Global South. Consequently, much of concerns about women’s involvement in politics for decades has been discussed within political studies.   

With acknowledgement to the critical scholarship that provides comprehensive nuances of feminist political communication on a global scale, the epistemic invisibility (Omotoso, 2020) of feminist political communication within expanding Global South contexts (Shome, 2019) leaves a gap in communication studies as well as comparative politics. Feminisms in the Global South have long histories of calling for alternatives to neoliberalism, neocolonialism, ethnic and ecological annihilation. However, neoliberal and postfeminist sensibilities have attempted to depoliticize feminism, turning it into a quest for personal empowerment instead of a political movement driven by collective action (Dosekun, 2015, 2020; Dutta, 2021; Gill, 2016). Additionally, heteropatriarchal states and right-wing nationalist movements have invoked women’s rights to stigmatize and justify violence against Black and people of color, particularly Muslims, worldwide (Farris, 2017). These erasures and mischaracterizations underscore the urgency of critical communication studies about feminist mobilizing and how it continues to provide tools for anti-colonial resistance. 

To this end, this special issue aims to theorize and showcase critical examinations of feminist political communication from the Global South, given its evolving peculiarities in terms of geopolitics, location, identity, ownership, and agency. With the goal of highlighting critical cultural communication approaches autochthonous to feminist methodologies and practices of the Global South, the special issue aims to present perspectives that have taken center stage in Southern contexts and have often contributed to stronger South-South relationships in feminist politics and activism. This special issue endeavors to center marginalized voices, epistemologies, axiologies, and ontologies while drawing attention to the importance of alternative theorizing and thinking, ultimately providing homegrown solutions to local challenges.  

We seek contributions specifically using qualitative methods and critical/cultural theoretical approaches rooted in critical communication scholarship that present nuanced discourses and practices around feminist political communication.  

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: 

• Critical communication, feminist politics, epistemicide, and knowledge production. 
  
• Communicating feminist political epistemologies of the Global South. 
  
• Critical analyses of practices and phenomena that characterize feminist political communication strategies in the Global South. 
  
• Decolonization and feminist political communication. 
  
• Gender expansiveness and feminist politics in Global South contexts. 
  
• Media (mis)representations of women in politics in the Global South. 
  
• Development communication and politics for social change. 
  
• Intersectionality, theory and praxis in political communication. 
  
• South-South relationships and collaborations in transnational feminist politics. 
  
• Politics of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality in the postcolonial reality. 
  
• Feminist methodological and theoretical interventions in political communication. 
  
• Imperialism, white supremacy, and femonationalism. 
  
• Feminist media and mediated activism across the Global South. 
  
• Futures of feminist political communication in Global South. 

Submission Instructions: 

Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (two-page) CV by February 1, 2023, to the guest editors of the special issue at ayleen.cabasmijares@marquette.edu, and sa.omotoso@ui.edu.ng. Please include all co-editors on your email submission. 

Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by March 1st, 2023, and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references, in Word format, following the 7th APA style) to the guest editors by June 1st, 2023.  

NOTE: Only accepted articles will be asked to submit to ScholarOne (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cccr). Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication of a full essay, which will be subject to anonymous peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors at the above email addresses. 

Guest editors’ bios: 

Ayleen Cabas-Mijares is an assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Marquette University. Using a critical/cultural lens, Cabas-Mijares examines the relationship between media, journalism, and social change, specifically the role of media in the constitution and political strategies of social movements. Cabas-Mijares’ work centers phenomena in the context of Latin America and the Latinx diaspora. Her research has been published in Journalism, Journalism Practice, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and Visual Communication Quarterly. 

Sharon Adetutu Omotoso, a Senior Research Fellow in the Gender Studies Unit of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria is also Coordinator, Women’s Research and Documentation Centre (WORDOC). She has published significantly in her areas of research interest including Applied Ethics, Media & Gender studies, Political Communications, Philosophy of Education, Socio-Political Philosophy, and African Philosophy. Sharon co-edited Political Communication in Africa (2017) and edited the book ‘Women’s Political Communication in Africa (2020). She is currently working on broad gender contexts of theorizing African political communication. 

References 

Dosekun, S. (2015). For western girls only? Post-feminism as transnational culture. Feminist Media Studies, 15(6), 960-975. 

Dosekun, S. (2020). Fashioning Postfeminism: Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 

Dutta, N. (2021). “‘I like It Clean’: Brazilian Waxing and Postfeminist Subjectivity among South Asian Beauticians in London.” Frontiers in Sociology, 6, 646344. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.646344 

Farris, S. R. (2017). In the name of women's rights: The Rise of Femonationalism. Duke University Press. 

Gill, R. (2016). “Post-postfeminism?: New Feminist Visibilities in Postfeminist Times.” Feminist Media Studies, 16(4), 610–630. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2016.1193293 

Omotoso, S.A (2020) ‘Hairiness and Hairlessness: An African Feminist View of Poverty’ In Dimensions of Poverty. eds.  Beck, Valentin, Hahn, Henning, Lepenies, Robert. Springer Publishers: Chams 

Omotoso, S.A & Faniyi, O. M. (2020). Women‘s Recipe for the African Policom Stew. In Omotoso, S. (Ed.) Women‟s Political Communication in Africa (pp.1-8) Springer Publishers: Chams. 1-8pp.  

Shome, R. (2019). Thinking culture and cultural studies—from/of the Global South. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 16(3), 196-218. 

Edited by: Silke Fürst, Daniel Vogler, Isabel Sörensen and Mike S. Schäfer

Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS) is a peer-reviewed journal of communication and media research with platinum open access: https://www.hope.uzh.ch/scoms/. The journal is edited by Jolanta Drzewiecka, Silke Fürst, Katharina Lobinger, and Thilo von Pape. It is the first time SComS publishes three issues in one year.

Issue 22(3) has just been published and can be accessed for free https://www.hope.uzh.ch/scoms/issue/view/312. It includes a Thematic Section on “Changing Communication of Higher Education Institutions” as well as a General Section comprising studies on the value of face-to-face communication in a world where digital communication technologies are omnipresent as well as on the framing of an Imam. The issue contains a dissertation summary, a discussion on working conditions of early career scientists and is complemented by one book review.

March 23-24, 2023 

Online: MS Teams 

Deadline: February 15, 2023

4th International Online Conference: Media in America. America in Media

We invite the submission of abstracts for the Media in America, America in Media international conference to be held online on 23-24 March 2023. This is the fourth edition of a joint effort of American Studies and Political Science scholars from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in 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. 

We are honoured to present our Keynote Speaker, Alexa Weik von Mossner (University of Klagenfurt), a pioneer in the area of affect studies in environmental culture. 

Abstracts (150-250 words) in English + a short bio should be sent by  through an online form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRF4mAEi3ic5m4vOnQhFGHlqlOvQ4udvvHVWtci2bc0n6lAQ/viewform

Deadline: February, 15th, 2023 

Read more: https://mediaameryka.wixsite.com/umcs/call-for-papers

September 21-22, 2023

Division of Gender Studies, School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University, Sweden

Deadline: February 28, 2023

Music cultures in the twenty-first century are strongly shaped by online media. Music streaming, social media, video sharing sites as well as internet-based music production software, radio stations, and music magazines have variously affected the formatting, curation, and consumption of music. Largely centralized around a small number of privatized companies, where human and automated processes intersect, online music cultures are sites of mediations of power.

In this context, online music media have entailed economic, technological, and cultural changes in contemporary music cultures. For example, music streaming illustrates monetary shifts in the music industry, where power is newly negotiated between music recommendation companies and the record, advertisement, and investment markets. Moreover, online music media combine curatorial and algorithmic processes that mediate cultural production and consumption and re-construct listeners as ‘datafied’ users. While the ‘platformization’ of online music cultures impedes the visibility of non-commercial media and practices, global music and media corporations present their own initiatives toward equality in the music industry and activist practices in networked communities on and off commercial sites negotiate the affordances and limitations of these media.

This conference asks: What characterizes mediations of music and power in online music cultures? What are emergent mediations of subjectivity, identity, and difference in online music cultures, and how do they map onto or newly shape discourses of taste, value, and authenticity? What possibilities may online music media offer for centering artistic and fan practices, alliances, and communities that have previously been subjugated in music cultures?

This conference invites presentations from research fields including musicology, popular music, media, gender, postcolonial and cultural studies, which examine emergent mediations of music and negotiations of power in online music cultures. We particularly seek to highlight media technologies, stylistic developments, user practices, and intersectional perspectives that have not yet been emphasized as well as to deepen the understanding of central themes, concepts, and practices in this cultural field and its scholarly inquiry.

Keynote speaker: Eric Drott – Butler School of Music, The University of Texas at Austin

Themes

We invite submissions on topics that may include, but are not limited to:

• Mediations: Intersecting algorithmic and human logics in mediations of music and power
  
• (Re-)mediations of music: Formations and discourses of style, genre, taste, and value in online music cultures
  
• Algorithmic culture: Speculative logics, ‘postdemographic’ technologies, and the datafication of listening
  
• Networked communities: Listeners, communities, and articulations of resistance in online music cultures
  
• New media: Emergent online music and social media and their music cultures
  
• Sites of power: Platformization and centers and peripheries in global cultural economies
  

Abstracts

Please submit abstracts (250 words maximum) via email by 28 February 2023 to mediationsconference@gmail.com.

Please include the title of your paper and a brief biography (100 words maximum).

Organizers

Veronika Muchitsch, Södertörn University

Ann Werner, Södertörn University & Uppsala University 

Contact

For further information, please visit the conference web page or send an email to mediationsconference@gmail.com.

June 28, 2023

Online event

Deadline: February 28, 2023

The call for papers is now open for - The Datafied Family – a free, fully online day-long event on Wednesday 28th June 2023, hosted by Professor Ranjana Das of the University of Surrey, UK, with funding from the Institute of Advanced Studies. 

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Confirmed keynote speakers include Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics, UK; Professor Usha Raman, University of Hyderabad, India; Dr Giovanna Mascheroni, Catholic University of Milan, Italy and Professor Veronica Barassi, University of St Gallen, Switzerland 

From body-trackers, non-human digital support apps, smart home tech, parenting apps and gadgets, surveillance devices from the womb to the cradle, technologies of intimacy and play in the Internet of the Things, and wellbeing and wellness support bots – the textures of family life are changing – at disparate paces across global cultures and economies with a steady increase in family technologies, which are subtly, and not so subtly altering the doing of care, intimacy, leisure, learning, play, routine and more. 

WEBSITE: https://www.ias.surrey.ac.uk/event/the-datafied-family-algorithmic-encounters-in-care-intimacies-routine-and-play/ 

CALL FOR PAPERS 

The Datafied Family – will raise and respond to a set of key questions – without restricting its topics to these alone. Overarchingly, we ask 

1. In what ways have family dynamics – routines, caring, intimacies, leisure, play, learning, parenting and more – been interrupted, (re)shaped, or transformed by the steady algorithmizing of everyday family life? 

2. What material artefacts – toys, apps, smart home tech, educational applications, portals and meta-portals – punctuate family life and to what effect? 

3. What inequalities, injustices, and power dynamics are being rehearsed or reshaped through the datafication of family life? 

4. How is the algorithmic shaping of domestic routines and rapports encountered in practice, resisted, or reshaped through human agency? 

5. What global perspectives remain less visible and unincorporated in theorising the datafied family, including the disparities between the global north and south? 

The event welcomes paper submissions on its submission portal in the following areas – which are indicated below but not produced as an exhaustive list:

• Surveillance technologies in the home 

• Body trackers 

• Geo-location devices and relationships 

• Datafication of intimacies and sexuality 

• Parenthood, parenting and platforms 

• Childhood, big data and datafication of childhood 

• Rights based perspectives on data technologies in the family 

• Kinship, routines, time and technology 

• Aging, care and emerging technologies 

• Smart home technologies 

• Leisure, play, learning and Big Data 

• Algorithmic cultures, resistance, play and algorithmic shaping of family life 

• Data driven discrimination 

• Data inequalities and injustices 

• Redefining ‘family’ in an era of datafication 

Abstract submission details: 

Final Submission Deadline:28th February 2023 

Notification of Outcome:March 20th 2023 

Event date:28th June, 2023, 930 am to 3 pmUK time.   

Submission portal: please submit your abstract here: https://www.ias.surrey.ac.uk/event/the-datafied-family-algorithmic-encounters-in-care-intimacies-routine-and-play/

If any questions, please get in touch with Professor Ranjana Das, atr.das@Surrey.ac.uk 

June 30 - July 1, 2023

Bled (Slovenia)

Deadline: February 1, 2023

The jubilee, 30th international symposium on public relations research, will be held in-person on June 30 and July 1, 2023 at Hotel Rikli Balance in Bled (Slovenia). Submission deadline for paper abstracts and panel proposals is February 1, 2023.

BledCom 2023 will be a bit different: there will be more keynotes, more formats for presentation and more time to debate. We can announce the first two confirmed keynote speakers: David Haig, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Steve Shepperson-Smith, President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

This year we will not only celebrate the 30th BledCom's anniversary but also the 15th European Communication Monitor's (ECM) anniversary, with a panel discussion moderated by Ansgar Zerfass (University of Leipzig). The panelists will be Ralph Tench (Leeds Beckett University), Dejan Verčič (University of Ljubljana and Herman & Partners) and Tina Cipot (President of the Public Relations Society of Slovenia and Head of Corporate Communications, Lidl Slovenia).

The theme of the 30th conference is "Public Relations and Sustainability". The main purpose of public relations is the synchronization of organizations with their environments – natural, social, cultural, political and technological. Crises and change are the driving forces behind the profession, and as the first become more frequent and the second accelerates the role of public relations in making organizations and societies sustainable increases. Sustainability is the ability of a system (an individual, a group, an organization, society, the planet) to maintain continuity over time. According to the Brundtland Commission (the World Commission on Environment and Development, United Nations), sustainability means ”meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

BledCom invites abstracts that are between 500 and 800 words (including title and keywords) with up to 5 references. We welcome ALL papers that are relevant to public relations and communication management and not just papers that discuss the conference theme. We also welcome panel proposals. Please submit paper abstracts and panel proposals via email to bledcom@fdv.uni-lj.si by February 1, 2023 (Midnight CET).

Decisions will be made by March 4, 2023 after peer review. Full papers not exceeding 6.000 words will be due by September 16, 2023 for inclusion in the conference proceedings.

BledCom 2023 Call for Papers is available here: https://www.bledcom.com/30th-jubilee-bledcom-on-public-relations-and-sustainability

June 12-13, 2023

Loughborough University

Deadline (EXTENDED): January 23, 2023

This symposium, linked to an ongoing transnational research project (PANCOPOP), is designed to bring together scholars interested in the dynamics of health crisis communication and pandemic politics, with a particular focus on the impact of populist leaders and attitudes on the nature, dynamics and effectiveness of public communication processes. We invite proposals for papers that examine populism and communication from any vantage point, in relation to any health crisis and any country, and using any methodological or theoretical approach. However, we are particularly interested in contributions that use original research to investigate topics and questions that are pursued by the PANCOPOP project team, in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also welcome papers that seek to build on existing knowledge to develop practical recommendations for media practitioners and policy makers, with the aim of building more resilient media organisations that are better equipped to withstand the challenges of future pandemics in divided societies. We are open to contributions from researchers at different career stages, including PhD students, and would particularly encourage submissions that examine pandemic communication and populism in countries beyond the West. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• Health crisis communication
  
• Media policy
  
• Media coverage
  
• Public attitudes and news consumption
  
• Pandemic geopolitics
  

Confirmed participants so far include:

Daniel C. Hallin, University of California San Diego, USA;

Beata Klimkiewicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland;

Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University, USA;

Sabina Mihelj, Loughborough University, UK;

Danilo Rothberg, Sao Paolo University, Brazil;

Václav Štětka, Loughborough University, UK;

The Everyday Misinformation Project – with Andrew Chadwick, Cristian Vaccari, Natalie-Anne Hall and Brendan Lawson, Loughborough University, UK.

READ MORE

Media Studies 2/2022 was supported by a subsidy from the Media and Audiovisual Department of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

https://www.medialnistudia.fsv.cuni.cz/en/

FULL ISSUE is available in PDF

Special Issue Introduction

David Selva Ruiz, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt & Miguel de Aguilera Moyano: Current Trends in European Media and Communication Research

STUDIES

Dorien Luyckx & Amber Verstraeten: Flemish journalism students' perception of and preparedness for entrepreneurial job profiles in their future careers 

Mihhail Kremez: Dividing and Uniting News Frames: Framing Russia-related Border Issues in the Estonian, Latvian, Finnish, US Public Service Media and Chinese State Media

She Anglada-Pujol: “Our fans are gonna go crazy when they know we are together”: Fandom identities and self-representation in YouTubers slash fiction 

Daniela Jaramillo-Dent: Algorithmic (in)visibility tactics among immigrant TikTokers 

Helena Dedecek Gertz & Florian Süsser

Migration and educational projects online: A topic modeling approach of discussions on social media groups

Nils Wandels, Jelle Mast & Hilde Van den Bulck: Bureaucracy and authoritative control in contemporary legacy news media companies: A Weberian analysis of a Flemish case study

About the Journal

Mediální studia / Media Studies (ISSN 2464-4846) is a peer-reviewed, open access electronic journal, published in English, Czech and Slovak twice a year. Based in disciplines of media and communication studies, it focuses on analyses of media texts, media cultures, media professionals practices, and media audiences behaviour. We especially support the emphasis on the dynamics of local-global knowledge on media and its mutual connections. The journal is indexed in Scopus, MLA, Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL), and European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS).

Contact: medialnistudia@fsv.cuni.cz

Call for papers for Comunicação Pública no. 34 (June 2023), special issue

Deadline: February 13, 2023

Editors: Catarina Duff Burnay (Faculdade de Ciências Humanas da Universidade Católica Portuguesa) and Paulo Nuno Vicente (Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Languages: Portuguese; English; Spanish

The potential of the digital world has challenged established assumptions about audiovisual and multimedia as contexts and objects of study. Screens multiply, content access devices hybridize, emerging media become increasingly important in everyday life, texts are fragmented and become more complex and the receiver acquires a dual and simultaneous status of consumer and producer. The special issue “Studies in Audiovisual and Multimedia” aims to explore the process dynamics of creation, distribution and reception, map their main technological and social changes and envision and understand the impacts on the industry and on the cultural practices of individuals.

Description and Framework

Kyle Nichols (2006), when discussing the future of television, has replaced the concept of broadcast with something closer to genetic engineering, with viewers working in their personal multimedia laboratories, bringing together content, channels and platforms according to their tastes and desires. Almost two decades later, this reality gains importance, especially among the younger population. Born and/or raised within an evolved technological bubble, the must see generations become proficient in choosing and accessing content and, as a result, in the immediate satisfaction of their informational and recreational needs. The author has predicted that the elderly would maintain a close relationship with the television and the television set, transforming the flow of Raymond Williams  (1974) into a strategy for reception rather than production itself. If this scenario, marked by the diversification of access to sources, increases the supply and the technical improvements of devices, it will also make consumption more flexible and increase the pressure and demand on the producing entities. Faced with a media environment without defined borders, where the internet obtains the status of a medium by directly enabling experiences and content (Johnson, 2019), they have to choose “wars”, “weapons” and “tactics”, according to its nature, positioning, resources and market objectives, for decision making.

Cyclically, technology enhances the emergence of new cultural objects (Manovich, 2001) in a process of media convergence (Meikle & Young, 2012), making it crucial to pay attention to the technical environment and the social impacts beyond production and distribution platforms and forms of access. In this sense, in an approach to the developments of the last decade, it is necessary to look critically, for example, at the principles of Artificial Intelligence, to better understand the implications of the buzzwords automation, algorithm and recommender systems when used in reference to video streaming platforms, digital social networks or even digital editorial projects. At the same time, it is important to disentangle and analyze the socio-technical effects of its use in decision-making processes, in the levels of user involvement (with platforms and content), in market performances and, more broadly, in the implications of the potential datafication of the life and social dynamics (Møller Hartley et al., 2021; Couldry, 2020; Van Dijck, 2014).

The context described has been shaping what is understood by television (Lotz, 2007, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022), but also by audiovisual and multimedia as concepts. The articulation of sound and moving image, although directly connected to the small screen, represents devices and contents operating simultaneously in a wider and markedly inter, multi and trans media way. These dynamics still have to be envisaged and worked on in accordance with the social fields in which they take place and the habitus of different sociodemographic groups (Bourdieu, 1976) and with the geographical and cultural environments in which they operate, taking into account the opportunities and constraints provided by the contexts of globalization (Giddens, 1995; Featherstone et al, 1995), as well as by the ideas of mobility, representations and identities (Morley, 2000; Hall, 1997; Hall & du Gay, 1996).

Objectives and approaches

Taking into account these lines of thought, the special issue “Studies in Audiovisual and Multimedia” accepts contributions that cross different experiences of production/creation and reception, among others, in the following thematic areas:

• Post-Television and “ecranization” of society

• Audiovisual streaming platforms: production, distribution and consumption

• Multimedia and gamification contents

 • Taste platforming

• Automation and Big Data

• Algorithms and Algorithmic Literacy

• Audiovisual, Representations and Identities

• Regulation of new media environments

• Audience measurement, reception studies, fandom

• Audiovisual production and sustainability (green production)

• New media narratives: genres, formats, strategies

• Language and multimedia practices (narrative universes)

• Interactive Digital Games

• Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities

• Archive(s) and Memory(ies)

• Immersive practices (journalism, entertainment, fiction)

KEY DATES

• 1st Call for Papers: 15 September 2022
  
• Deadline for Submissions: 13 February 2023
  
• Deadline for submitting the final version of accepted paper: 15 May 2023
• Publication date: 30 June 2023
  

Submission guidelines:

Articles must be submitted online via https://journals.ipl.pt/cpublica/index . Authors are required to register in the system before submitting an article; if you have already registered, simply log into the system and start the 5-step submission process. Articles must be submitted using the pre-formatted template of Comunicação Pública. For more information on submission, please read Information for Authors and Guidelines for Authors.

Call for Chapters

Deadline: April 15, 2023

This edited book is intended for the Women, Economics and the Labour Relations series, published by Emerald (editor-in-chief: Dr Martina Topić). The book will provide a much-needed exploration of the intersection of gender and freelance work in the communication industries (public relations, advertising, marketing, corporate comms, and digital communication), with a special focus on national issues and comparative international research.

The exploration of the experiences, practices, and discourses related to communication freelancers from a gender perspective would contribute to the closing of the current research and knowledge gaps, often generated by the lack of individualisation of freelancers among communication professionals in research projects. The editors invite prospective authors to develop chapters addressing the several topics (see full call) through qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approaches.

The editors Anca Anton (University of Bucharest, Romania) and Raluca Moise (University of the Arts London, UK) invite interested contributors to send a 500-word structured abstract together with up to six keywords and a 100-word biography for each author by April 15, 2023. For submission instructions and further details, please see the full call for chapters: https://www.commswomen.uk/2022/12/19/freelancers-2/