[Air-L] CFP - Critical Media Studies and the Future of News Debates

[Anthony Nadler]

Critical Media Studies and the “Future of News” Debates - Special Issue of
Communication Review, 2015

Perhaps more than any other major media genre, news media appear to be
facing a pivotal historic moment as mounting debts, declining revenues, and
new competition and formats challenge the viability of “traditional” news
formats.  The future of news may not look much like its recent past.  This
situation raises many questions regarding the survival and mutation of news
formats and styles, the structure of news organizations, the business
models that will support reporting, and the working relationships between
paid and unpaid journalists.

This CFP asks for contributors to this special issue to bring perspectives
from critical media studies into the future of news debates and to bring
insights from those active in the debates to discussions in critical media
studies.  We are also looking for contributors who can integrate work from
the political economy of journalism with cultural approaches.  Some of the
topics that might be addressed include:

Race, gender, class, sexuality, and the future of news.
Changing concepts of “the popular” in the emerging news media.
Fragmentation and stratification in online news.
Rhetorical dimensions of the future of news debates.
Critical media studies and normative thinking about news.
The future of citizen journalism as popular culture.
The role of public intellectuals in the future of news debates.
The power of users and limits to that power in shaping online journalism.
How the cultural and social history of news can inform current choices.
Technophilia and technophobia in thinking about the news.
News media as “technologies of citizenship.”
Media reform activism and public discourse.
What social activists and emerging movements seek in digital news.

Please contact Dr. Anthony Nadler anadler at ursinus.edu if you have any
questions about this special issue.  Submissions of
abstracts of 500 words (maximum) should be sent to Dr. Mary Vavrus
vavru001 at umn.edu.

Submission Dates:
Abstracts Due: January 1st, 2014
Notify Contributors: February 10th, 2014
Full Manuscripts Due: July 1st, 2014
Reviews back by September 1st, 2014 (and access to guest contributors’
essay)
Revisions due by December 1st, 2014



-- 
Anthony Nadler
Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies
Ursinus College