[Air-l] CFP: Surveillance and Communications

[Shoshana Magnet]

Special Issue of The Communication Review: Surveillance and Communications



Guest Editors: Kelly Gates and Shoshana Magnet


We invite submissions for a special issue of The Communication Review on the contribution of communications research to the study of surveillance.

The age of informatics has resulted in the proliferation of new technologies of surveillance.  Surveillance remains one of the key means by which modern institutions interact with and govern their constituencies.  This special issue of The Communication Review will examine the multiple connections between communications and surveillance.  We hope to foster dialogue on the interconnections between communications theory and surveillance studies.  Has communications theory helped to expand the study of surveillance through attention to the socio-cultural ramifications of surveillance practices? Can communications theory broaden the study of surveillance through its attention to the importance of surveillance technologies as information and
communication technologies, as well as visual media and sound reproduction systems?

The special issue will address such questions as:  How do communicative practices, media technologies, and surveillance practices intersect?  What insights does communications theory and research bring to the study of surveillance as a modern institutional practice?

We are particularly interested in connections between surveillance studies and critical race and feminist theories, as well as theoretical investigations of the ways in which surveillance techniques are used to mark and classify bodies based on social
inequalities.  How are forms of discrimination coded into and perpetuated by surveillance strategies?

We are also interested in the intensification of surveillance in the neo-liberal economy. How is the expansion of new surveillance technologies informed by the logic of privatization?  How has "informationalized capitalism" encouraged the development of new practices and technologies of surveillance?  How do particular surveillance strategies contribute to the conflation of consumption and citizenship?

Topics might include, but are not limited to:
 The relationships between surveillance and communication theory
 The differential application of surveillance strategies based on
social inequalities
 Surveillance technologies as markers of identity
 Surveillance and media interactivity
 Surveillance and the digitization of visual media
 Surveillance and copyright enforcement
 Market research surveillance and consumer citizenship
 Surveillance and reality television
 Surveillance forms and cinematic "practices of looking"

Papers should be between 7500 and 8000 words long and must be received by May 1st, 2007.  Please email them to: Andrea Press and Bruce Williams, Editors, The Communication Review, c/o Tanya Omeltchenko, Managing Editor, at to3y at virginia.edu