[Air-L] Call for abstracts - Special Issue on Alt Tech Platforms - New Media and Society

[Eugenia Siapera]

Dear all,

Sincere apologies, I omitted to specify the word count for the abstracts,
which should be in the range of 300-500 words.

Many thanks, Eugenia

On Thu, Sep 26, 2024 at 2:57 PM Eugenia Siapera <eugenia.siapera at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> We are delighted to announce a call for abstracts for a Special Issue on
> Alt Tech platforms for New Media and Society.
>
> More details below and in this link
> <https://digitalpolicy.ie/call-for-abstracts-sp-on-alt-tech-platforms/>.
>
> We look forward to receiving your abstracts!
>
> Warmly, Eugenia and Marc
>
> ----------------
>
> *Alt Tech Platforms: Into the Mirror Worlds of Reactionary Digital Media*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Deadline for abstract submission: November 30th*
>
>
>
>
>
> *Guest editors: *
>
> *Eugenia Siapera, University College Dublin*
>
> *Marc Tuters, University of Amsterdam*
>
>
>
> *Please send your abstracts to **AltTechNMS at gmail.com*
> <AltTechNMS at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> While much scholarly attention in recent years has been focussed on giant
> social media platforms' responsibility to police their content, a
> potentially more consequential development has been less well noticed: the
> systematic creation of a whole set of parallel, though much less regulated,
> online worlds. As platforms have taken a more aggressive stance towards
> content moderation, following successive misinformation scandals,
> ‘deplatformed’ content producers have migrated to 'Alt-Tech' platforms
> (Rogers, 2020), that have emerged as a critical infrastructure for
> reactionary movements from the alt-right to anti-vaxers (Donovan et al.,
> 2019, Birchall & Knight 2023), whose politics are driven less by
> politicians than by ‘media-of-one’ creators (DiResta 2024) and ‘ideological
> entrepreneurs’ (Finlayson, 2023). In order to theorize these dynamics and
> accurately track them in a fluid and changeable informational ecosystem, we
> see the need for conceptual and methodological innovation.
>
>
>
> Drawing from Naomi Klein's (2023) study of online political realignment in
> the aftermath of the pandemic, this Special Issue uses the metaphor of
> ‘mirror worlds’ to consider how Alt Tech platforms seem to offer complete
> worldviews, ranging from health and wellness to cultural criticism, films,
> games and sport. Moreover, it is not uncommon to encounter modes of
> argument in these mirror worlds that reappropriate aspects of ‘left theory’
> (Di Leo & McClennan 2023) — despite their political objectives usually
> being diametrically opposed. We propose the metaphor as a way to think
> about specific Alt Tech platforms (including Gab, Rumble, 4Chan, Bitchute
> and Telegram), to consider the dynamics that connect them to mainstream
> media, to rethink the relationship between the fringe and mainstream (as
> with the seeming transformation of Twitter/X into an Alt Tech platform
> following its acquisition by Elon Musk) and to address new and understudied
> developments (such as the weaponization of AI by extremists).[1]
> <#m_7707098205001151835__ftn1>
>
>
>
> At its core, the call responds to the challenge to ‘rethink’ and
> ‘re-contextualize’ political communication studies’ ‘functionalist’ legacy
> of concepts to empirically study 'disrupted’ 21st C media environments
> characterised by 'complexity and communication abundance' (Bennett &
> Pfetsch 2018). To go beyond the linear transmission model of 20th C ‘legacy
> media’, how do we rethink these disrupted public spheres in more
> multi-directional, symbolic, ritualistic and above all materialist terms?
> How do Alt Tech platforms mirror and distort the idealised Habermasian
> rational public sphere? How are they reflecting back mainstream/liberal and
> progressive idea(l)s, values, and forms of communication? How are the
> technologies and infrastructures of Alt Tech constructed, mobilised and
> used? What are the contours of the ‘mirror worlds’ they generate? What
> tools, conceptual and empirical, do we need to capture these worlds?  And
> what may be the socio-political repercussions of these ‘mirror-worlds’?
>
>
>
> We invite contributions that address (but which are not necessarily
> limited) to:
>
>
>
> ●      Theoretical approaches to Alt Tech, disrupted public spheres and
> mirror worlds
>
> ●      Methodologies for tracing narrative flows within and between Alt
> Tech
>
> ●      Alt Tech platform walkthroughs and comparative studies
>
> ●      Alt Tech algorithms, users and publics
>
> ●      Cross platform ethnographies
>
> ●      Event-based case studies (e.g. Alt Tech & the 2024 UK
> anti-migration riots)
>
> ●      Ideological entrepreneurs and new reactionary digital politics
>
> ●      ‘Follow the money’: political economic perspectives.
>
> ●      ‘Do your own research’: amateur, populist social theory
>
> ●      Alt narratives, beyond mis/disinformation, propaganda & FIMI
>
> ●      Alt Tech oppositional readings and debunking of mainstream media
>
> ●      Generative AI development and deployment in Alt Tech platforms
>
>
>
> *Timeline*
>
>
>
> ●      November 30, 2024: Deadline for submissions
>
> ●      December 20,  2024: 10-12 abstracts selected for full submission
>
> ●      April 30, 2025: Deadline for full manuscript submission
>
>
>
>
>
> *References*
>
>
>
> Bennett, W. L., & Pfetsch, B. (2018). Rethinking political communication
> in a time of disrupted public spheres. *Journal of communication*, *68*(2),
> 243-253.
>
>
>
> Birchall, C. & P. Knight (2023). *Conspiracy Theories in the Time of
> Covid-19*. Routledge
>
>
>
> Di Leo, J & S. A. McClennen. (2023) *Left Theory and the Alt-Right*.
> Routledge
>
>
>
> DiResta, R. (2024) *Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into
> Reality*. Public Affairs
>
>
>
> Donovan J, Lewis B, Friedberg B (2019) Parallel ports: Sociotechnical
> change from the Alt-Right to Alt-Tech. In: Fielitz M, Thurston N (eds) *Post-Digital
> Cultures of the Far Right: Online Actions and Offline Consequences in
> Europe and the US*. Bielefeld, Germany, Transcript, 49–65.
>
>
>
> Finlayson, A. (2023). This is not a critique: Reactionary digital politics
> in the age of ideological entrepreneurship. *Media Theory*, *7*(1), 28-48.
>
>
>
> Klein, N. (2023). *Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World*. Knopf
> Canada.
>
>
>
> Rogers, R. (2020). Deplatforming: Following extreme Internet celebrities
> to Telegram and alternative social media. *European Journal of
> Communication*, *35*(3), 213-229.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> [1] <#m_7707098205001151835__ftnref1> See for example
> https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazis-are-all-in-on-ai/
>