[Air-L] Call for chapters for Women and Activism in the digital age - a reminder

[Carmit Wiesslitz, Ph.D]

Dear AoIR's members,


I hope you are well, wherever you are these days.


This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting paper proposals for the edited collection Women and Activism in the Digital Age is March 31, 2020.


Here is, again, the call for chapters:


Women and Activism in the Digital Age (temporary name, edited collection)
Edited by Carmit Wiesslitz, PhD

The #MeToo movement has been mentioned in academic discourse as an effective online campaign that became widely spread and was covered extensively in the news media worldwide. When referring to this campaign, Internet researchers highlight the powerful role of social media platforms in activism in the digital age and many scholars talk about this campaign in this context. However, there is a very limited discourse about the fact that women are the leading figures behind this successful campaign or about their distinctive use of and related experience in the online public sphere. In fact, academic discourse has rarely put forward the topic of women activists and their use of social media. This collection will hopefully open a window into the role and status of women’s groups that aspire to join forces to organize collective action using the Internet, and furthermore to gain an understanding of the discourse that women create on social media and other digital platforms. Hence, this book will present various case studies of women from around the world who use the Internet to facilitate social change on topics, including, but not limited to, the following:

- Women’s groups and social change organizations and their on-going online
   operations.

- Case studies of ad hoc campaigns and spontaneous viral collective action, such as
  the #MeToo campaign.

- Distinct dimensions of Internet activism, from organizing offline/online protests and
  mobilizing for collective action, to producing and distributing memes, videos, and
  podcasts.

- The Internet as a safe space: women’s discourse and online conversations of
   activists or non-activists (features, uses, and perceptions of value)

The book is intended to be multidisciplinary volume that embraces a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, including, but not limited to, media studies, civil society and democracy, social movements, alternative media, feminisms, Marxism/neo-Marxism, globalization, structural/post-structural, and others. Furthermore, this book may offer empirical multidisciplinary perspectives and a wide array of methodologies for researching digital activism using various online platforms and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, What's Up App, and others.

Interested authors should send an abstract of 500 words, 3-5 references, and an up-to-date bio to Carmit Wiesslitz (mailto:carmitwi at hac.ac.il) no later than March 31, 2020, with “Women and activism in the digital age” in the subject line.

Acceptance notices will be sent by May 31, 2020

Full papers of 6,000 to 8,000 words (including all references) will be due November 30, 2020.

I intend to submit a proposal to Palgrave Macmillan (which already expressed its initial interest in this project and is awaiting the submission of a full proposal) after I have a confirmed table of contents and list of contributing authors.

About the editor: Carmit Wiesslitz, PhD, is the author of Internet Democracy and Social Change: The Case of Israel<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498539784/Internet-Democracy-and-Social-Change-The-Case-of-Israel> (2019), published by Lexington Books. Her research areas include civil society, democracy and the Internet, media and social change, alternative media, women's organizations and new media. She is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and Communications at Hadassah Academic College, Israel.



Carmit Wiesslitz, Ph.D
The Department of Politics and Communication
Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem, Israel