[Air-L] CFP: Studying Politics across Platforms

[Leticia Bode]

Apologies for cross-posting. Please see below for a call for papers for an
upcoming issue of Political Communication, guest edited by me and Emily K.
Vraga. This call should be of interest to many doing work in this area!

Best,
~Leticia



*Call for papers*

*Symposium in Political Communication*

*Studying Politics Across Media*

Guest editors:

Leticia Bode (Georgetown University)

Emily K Vraga (George Mason University)



The work in political communication with an emphasis on digital
technologies, new media, and social media is growing rapidly. However, the
majority of this research is narrowly construed, typically focusing on a
single medium or platform at a time. Though this tendency has been
criticized, it shows little sign of disappearing. With this special issue,
we hope to jumpstart the field of Political Communication to focus on the
broader media environment and interactions between the use of multiple
media platforms.

Theoretically, such an effort addresses important questions in political
communication. What are differences in the framing and effects of political
events across platforms? Do news and political stories spread the same way,
to the same people, in different places? What role do the audience and the
affordance of a medium play in this process? In short - how does political
communication happen in the complicated modern media environment?

We see this manifesting in myriad ways. Scholars could approach this
theoretically, adapting a theory from one medium or platform to test its
utility across other media spaces, or comparing multiple platforms in terms
of audiences, structure, affordances, uses, or other attributes. Empirical
work could consider the influence of individuals’ use of several media
spaces on outcomes such as knowledge, information seeking, or
participation, or on candidates’ or campaigns’ use of diverse platforms to
target and persuade mass audiences. Work with an international focus is
strongly encouraged.

This topic is of utmost importance, given the growing role that digital,
mobile, and social media platforms are playing in political communication,
and the parallel growing scholarly attention to this area.



*Timeline*

May, 2016: Call for papers published

October 1, 2016: Deadline for full paper submissions. Use the online
submission system and follow the journal’s submission guidelines (
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=upcp20&page=instructions#.VxoqRFK9iFI)