[Air-L] CfP M/C journal "Dark" - Now Accepting Abstracts

[Luke H]

Hi Everyone, 

A CfP for the “Dark” issue is now up on M/C Journal’s website. Please see below for more details, or head over via the link below to see this and other great CfPs at this journal. Get in touch with your abstracts as you wish to dark at journal.media-culture.org.au <mailto:dark at journal.media-culture.org.au>.

Article deadline: 19 Feb. 2021, 3000 words


http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#dark <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#dark>

'dark'
What is dark often connotes moral registers toward what society hides or fears. Yet ‘the dark' offers space for autonomy from digital visibilities that pervade economic, political and surveillance logics of the present age. While a technical rather than moral definition of darkness (Gehl) opens dark spaces that seek legitimacy and anonymities against structural surveillance, other readings of digitally mediated dark (Fisher and Bolter) suggest tensions between exploitative potentials and deep societal reflection. At the same time, dark algorithms and the dark faces they bias are vying for agency in a world where the power of being off grid and being in control of it are in flux; what happens when economies or nations are kept in the dark or forced to go dark, yet community and society persist? The tensions that darkness, being dark, acting dark, and becoming dark produce, show the normative powers of otherwise remaining in the light. 

This issue expands on tensions around what is dark and connected, challenging binaries that otherwise determine dark from light. Past the Dark Web and its social capacities, we reflect here on how the concept of ‘dark’ might expand opportunities for exploring notions of existence and persistence in dark times that remain datafied and require moral, ethical, and pragmatic responses to selves and communities seeking to be / belong in / of the dark. This issue invites responses to the theme 'dark', understood broadly as operating in and through digital places, powers, and practices whether technical, moral, or otherwise. Are we afraid of the dark?  

Possible considerations include (but are by no means limited to):

Theoretical, empirical, creative, methodological, ethical approaches to darkness;
Social/political activism on dark web or messenger platforms with end-to-end encryption (i.e. Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram);
The aesthetics and transformations of power;
Autonomy from surveillance;
Socio-technical discrimination through algorithmic structures;
Data motility and movement through dark and light spaces;
Comparative Internet governance and legislation of the unseen;
Acts of intrusion, appropriation, and piracy;
Machine readability and social control;
Ethical frameworks for researching dark web and dark social spaces
Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors. Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument. Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography). All articles will be double-blind refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).

Details
Article deadline: 19 Feb. 2021
Release date: 21 Apr. 2021
Editors: Luke Heemsbergen, Alexia Maddox, Amelia Johns, Toija Cinque, and Robert W. Gehl
Please submit articles through this Website. Send any enquiries to dark at journal.media-culture.org.au <mailto:dark at journal.media-culture.org.au>.




Dr Luke Heemsbergen  <https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=pZlj0LcAAAAJ&hl=en>| Lecturer, Communication, SCCA
Member, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation <https://adi.deakin.edu.au/> | Science and Society Network <https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/science-and-society-network/>
C20.05, Burwood | +61 3 924 68786 | Deakin University, Australia