[Air-L] Call for Book Chapters - Networked China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement

[wenhong chen]

Dear colleagues, 

Happy New Year!

My colleague Dr. Stephen Reese and I are co-editing the book Networked
China: Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement (Routledge,
2014).
Please feel free to forward the call for book chapters - below and attached
- to interested groups.

best,

Wenhong

********************* CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS********************* 

Networked China
Global Dynamics of Digital Media and Civic Engagement Call for Book Chapters
for the New Agendas in Communication Series

Co-editors

Wenhong Chen, Assistant Professor, Department of Radio-TV-Film

Stephen D. Reese, Professor, School of Journalism 

College of Communication, the University of Texas at Austin

Aim and Scope
The Internet and digital media have become conduits and locales where
millions of Chinese share information and engage in creative expression and
social participation. The Arab Spring and the relative lack of comparable
social upheaval in China highlight once again the importance of
understanding the implications of digital media and technologies for civic
life in the social and historical context. 

Yet, compared to their growing prevalence and significance, research on the
contingent, non-linear, and sometimes paradoxical impacts of digital media
and technologies in Chinese societies remain theoretically underdeveloped
and empirically understudied. Departing from previous studies centered on
censorship or online activism, the proposed volume aims to cast a wider net
and explores how people navigate, negotiate, and transform social landscapes
rooted in the Chinese context, revealing both the power and limitations of
the Internet and other new communication technologies.

Chapter authors are encouraged to update prevailing theoretical frameworks
and revisit the prosumption of digital media and their implications for
globalization, transnational networks and public life. In calling for
theory-driven empirical research with scholarly and policy relevance, we
welcome chapters engaging with diverse theoretical and methodological
approaches, especially interdisciplinary and comparative research. Chapters
will be organized around three interrelated themes: digital media access and
use, transnational/global networks, and civic engagement. 

1. Mapping the Terrain / Digital Media Practices: What are the patterns of
digital media access and use in China? What are the impacts of persistent
censorship and aggressive marketization? 

2. Exploring Glocalized Transnational Networks: What are the patterns of
glocalized, transnational networks straddling boundaries of geography,
identities, and issues? How do digital technologies and media allow local
actors to form these networks in the cloud and on the ground? How does
access to and memberships in such networks vary by class, gender,
generation, urban-rural location, as well as differential digital media
skills and literacy? How does this restructuring work to subvert and
transcend traditional social and official hierarchies?

3. Understanding Civic Engagement Online and Offline: How do digital
mediated communication and interactions contribute to an informed,
connected, and engaged public in China? To what extent do digital media and
technologies facilitate transparency and enhance the visibility of oppressed
groups, particularly compared with print and broadcast media under tighter
government control? To what extent do glocalized transnational networks
affect access to and mobilization of resources for social development and
changes?

Conference 

The New Agendas in Communication Series is a conference and publication
initiative of the College of Communication, the University of Texas at
Austin. It aims to call attention to important emerging new areas of study,
stimulate needed forms of intellectual inquiry, accelerate the research
careers of the conference participants, build community across disciplinary
divides for an important young cohort, and produce edited volumes appealing
to a broad audience. 
Contributors should be junior scholars, including recently tenured associate
professors, assistant professors, and advanced doctoral students.
Single-authored work is preferable, but co-authorship is acceptable as long
as all are junior scholars.

Selected authors will be invited to participate in the “Networked China: New
Agendas” conference at the University of Texas at Austin to present and help
strengthen each other’s work for publication.  As such, a full draft chapter
submission is required from participants prior to the conference.  Travel
and lodging expenses will be supported.

Logistics and timeline 
•	The book will be published in the New Agendas in Communication
Series (Routledge) in 2014, 250-300 pages, with 8-12 chapters. 
•	A 300-500 word abstract should be sent to wenchen2006 at gmail.com by
March 1, 2013. Initial screening decisions will be made by April 1, 2013. 
•	Authors of accepted abstracts will be expected to submit a full
chapter two weeks prior to the conference, to be held in Austin in the third
week of October 2013.


Wenhong Chen
Assistant Professor
Department of Radio-TV-Film, College of Communication
1 University Station A0800, CMA 6.136
University of Texas at Austin
2504 Whitis Ave Stop A0800
Austin, TX  78712-1067
T: 512-471-4952
F: 512-471-4077
wenhong.chen at austin.utexas.edu