[Air-L] CfP: rethinking participatory culture in light of lessons learned from the pandemic

[Katrin Tiidenberg]

Dear AoIR community, 

Baltic Screen Media Review, a journal edited and published by my home institution (Tallinn University, Baltic Film, Media and Arts School) is doing a special issue on participatory practices and culture in the context of pandemic, which I am co-editing.

I am sharing a CfP in hopes there will be scholars here interested in submitting an abstract. 

best

Kat Tiidenberg


Call For Papers: Baltic Screen Media Review - Participation in transition: Rethinking participatory culture 

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed physical interaction among people, but it also continues to shape our relations with media and technology. Mediated and distant interaction and communication became the norm. This led to struggles for some individuals, groups, institutions, practices and services, while others blossomed and thrived. Is participatory culture, as we know it, changing as a result of the challenges of 2020? 

Building on the 2020 volume of Baltic Screen Media Review, which explored the changes that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to media industries, we now call for papers on participation in the context of the pandemic and related crises. 
While the pandemic has posed an incredible challenge in terms of media production, it has concurrently pushed innovation, resulting in a reinvigorated relationship between media and the audiences. Media was the window to the world for locked-down people, and via media and communication technologies people were informed, entertained and able to interact with one another. Yet, the incredible volume of data created from people’s media participation has enhanced rather than diminished the disproportionate power of already powerful platforms and corporations held over access, participation, public speech and cultural discourse. 

This has been a fertile ground for new participatory practices to emerge. We as scholars of participatory culture thus need to renew our focus on not only the empirical expressions of participation, but also on how we make sense of participation and how we conceptualize the effects of macro scale changes on it. Therefore, we call for submissions that explore the concept of participation, its present state and its future from both political and sociological perspectives. 
In this volume of BSMR, we will accept long (4000 – 8000 words w/o ref) and short (2000 – 2500 words w/o ref) articles and commentaries. 
These articles should reflect on and explore a range of issues concerning participatory culture. We invite articles focusing on the Baltic Sea region (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Poland, Germany, Finland, etc.), but analyses of similar issues elsewhere, especially in countries of similar size and circumstances, are also welcome. 
Contributions addressing topics such as (but not limited to) the following are particularly welcome: 

Participatory culture in transition 
The future of participation 
Interactive and participatory practices 
Emergence of new forms of audience engagement 
Crisis-specific participation and crisis participatory culture 
Digitalisation and the power of platforms 
Local vs global, local practices, local alternatives to platforms, local information bubbles 
The digital public sphere 
Collective identity and digital engagement 


Key dates: 
15.03.2021 - Submit abstracts of 200–300 words. 
01.04.2021 – Communication of acceptance of abstracts 
14.06.2021 – Submit full manuscripts that will be sent for blind peer review. 
This issue of BSMR will appear as Volume 9:2, published both online and in print in late 2021. BSMR embraces visual storytelling, we thus invite authors to use photos and other illustrations as part of their contributions. 

All submissions should be sent via email attachment to Katrin Tiidenberg (katrin.tiidenberg at tlu.ee <mailto:ibrus at tlu.ee>) and Alessandro Nanì (nani at tlu.ee <mailto:nani at tlu.ee>). 
Note: BSMR does not charge any author fees
Further info about the journal can be found at https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/bsmr/bsmr-overview.xml?language=en&tab_body=overview <https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/bsmr/bsmr-overview.xml?language=en&tab_body=overview>




Katrin Tiidenberg

Osaluskultuuri professor / Professor of Participatory Culture
BFM, Tallinn University <https://www.tlu.ee/en/bfm>

Recently published:
Tiidenberg, K., Gammelby, A.K., Olsen, L.M. (2020). Agential hysterias: A practice approach to embodiment on social media. In: Warfield, Katie; Abidin, Cystal; Cambre, Carolina (Ed.). Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media (229−247). Bloomsbury Academic.

Books: 
Kuidas mõista andmestunud maailma?Metodoloogiline teejuht (2021) <https://www.tlu.ee/pood/home/325-kuidas-moista-andmestunud-maailma-metodoloogiline-teejuht.html>
Metaphors of the Internet <https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/72208> (2020)
Sex and Social Media <https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Sex-and-Social-Media/?k=9781839094095> (2020)
Selfies, why we love (and hate) them <https://www.amazon.com/Selfies-Love-Hate-Them-SocietyNow/dp/1787437175> (2018)
Ihu ja hingega internetis <https://www.tlu.ee/pood/home/242-ihu-ja-hingega-internetis-kuidas-moista-sotsiaalmeediat.html> (2017)

Executive Boards:
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) <https://aoir.org/>, Secretary
Estonian Young Academy of Sciences / Eesti Noorte Teaduste Akadeemia <https://www.akadeemia.ee/enta/>, Communication Manager

More info:
personal website <https://kkatot.tumblr.com/>
Estonian Research Information system profile <https://www.etis.ee/CV/Katrin_Tiidenberg/est?lang=ENG>