[Air-L] CFP: New Media and Society special issue on crowdfunding

[Bertha Chin]

*Apologies for cross-posting*


Call for Papers: New Media & Society special issue on crowd funding.

Edited by Lucy Bennett, Bertha Chin and Bethan Jones

The concept of crowdfunding, where grassroots creative projects are funded
by the masses through websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo has been
steadily gaining attention in the last few years. The 2013 success of the
Veronica Mars movie campaign, along with the successful crowdfunding
projects spearheaded by musicians like Amanda Palmer and, most recently,
actor Zach Braff, has raised much discussion surrounding the rich and
powerful possibilities of this method of funding. However, the practice has
also invited much criticism, not just of Kickstarter but also of
crowdfunding in general.  Among some of the most common accusations
levelled at crowdfunding are: it is used by media conglomerates to exploit
fans; successful artists using the scheme take money away from genuine
independent producers who actually need it; and the time and money spent on
delivering perks to donors detracts from the time and money invested in the
actual project. However, others have argued that the existence of
crowdfunding affords media scholars new ways of examining the role of the
audience in television and film production, that fan agency needs to be
more widely considered in discussions of fan exploitation, and that
‘fan-ancing’ is leading to a new business model for the financing of
artistic projects that is free from studio or network intervention.
This special issue seeks to examine and unravel the debates around
crowdfunding and thus brings together contributors from a range of academic
disciplines. We are seeking papers that offer a wide range of perspectives
on the processes of crowdfunding projects, from analyses of the crowdfunded
projects themselves, to the interaction between producers and audiences,
and to the role that Kickstarter plays in discussions around fan agency and
exploitation. Thus, we invite proposals on, but not limited to, the
following topics surrounding crowd funding:


- Case studies of crowd funding campaigns
- Fandom
- Unsuccessful crowd funding efforts
- The role of the internet and social media in crowd funding
- Producer/funder relationships
- Crowd funding in the music, film, television and games industries
- Anti-fandom
- The role of auteurs and cult names/media in attracting backers
- Fan exploitation and labour
- Rewards and producer accountability


Please send 400 word abstracts, along with a short author biography, by 20th
June 2013. Please email these to bennettlucyk at gmail.com,
bertha.chin at gmail.com <mbertha.chin at gmail.com> and bethanvjones at hotmail.com.



-- 
Dr. Bertha Chin
Independent Scholar
Board Member, Fan Studies Network