[Air-L] CfP for the Special Issue “Imperialism, Information, Communication and Culture in the Age of Digitalisation”

[Jonas Valente]

Dear AoIR community,

We are pleased to share this CfP for the Eptic Online International
Journal. We welcome articles in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Kind regards,

Jonas Valente
Research Associate - Oxford Internet Institute
Deputy-lead - Media Economy, Technology and Policies Lab (Telas-UFC, Brazil)
Assistant Editor - Eptic Online

*Call for Papers for the Special Issue “Imperialism, Information,
Communication and Culture in the Age of Digitalisation”*

The International Electronic Journal of Political Economy of Information,
Communication and Culture (Eptic Online)
<https://periodicos.ufs.br/eptic/announcement/view/548>invites interested
parties to submit papers for the Special Issue “Imperialism, Information,
Communication and Culture in the Age of Digitalisation”. Articles must be
submitted by 28 February 2025. The issue is expected to be published in
June 2026.

The relationship between imperialism and information, communication and
culture (ICC) is not recent. Decades ago, authors pointed out the role of
the ICC in the advancement of imperialism and its manifestation in the
cultural industry and the media (Schiller, 1976, 1978). In Latin America,
these approaches were also discussed under the umbrella of the notion of
“cultural dependence” (Pasquali, 1980). EPC approaches offered critical
reflections and nuances to these theses, noting that the problems were not
limited to the influx of external companies, services, and content into
countries in the Global South (Bolaño, 2015; Sparks, 2012).

More recently, the theme of imperialism has been revisited by scholars in
communication, information, and culture (Sulehria, 2019). In light of the
rise of digital conglomerates, particularly digital platforms, the term has
also been used to describe this process (Jin, 2015; 2025). With the
reconfiguration of global information, communication, and culture systems
in the age of digitalisation, the theoretical approach to imperialism has
also expanded to encompass the production, circulation, and consumption of
digitalised products and services (Nothias, 2025). While the controversial
concept of digital colonialism (Kwet, 2019; Faustino & Lippold, 2023) has
gained much more visibility, the explanatory key of imperialism has been
less explored.

Although imperialism has never ceased to be a dimension of capitalist
evolution, recent events indicate a resurgence of imperialist agendas and
movements, such as the genocide in Palestine, the worsening conflict in
Sudan, and the most recent interventions by the United States in Latin
America, especially in Venezuela.

Under these conditions, information and communication take on an unusual
centrality in the mode of production, while forms of legitimisation change
with the implementation of a new global system of culture, to use Furtado's
expression (1978), based on extensively horizontalised and interactive
forms of communication, whose democratic appearance hides the essence of a
technical system designed for control and surveillance on a massive and
global scale, with an expanded capacity for manipulation concentrated in a
few American companies, whose power of censorship has proven to be superior
to that of the Cultural Industry of the 20th century. Under these
conditions, it is the historical task of scholars of the Political Economy
of Communication and Culture (PECC) to clarify the coherence of this
articulation between imperialism and the rise of digital platforms, without
neglecting the roles of traditional media and international news agencies,
as well as the contradictions involved.

Editors: Dr Farooq Sulehria (BNU, Pakistan, and Sodertorn, Sweden), Dr
Jonas C. L. Valente (Oxford Internet Institute, UK, and UFC, Brazil), and
Dr Fabricio Zanghelini (UFF, Brazil).

The Special Issue welcomes submissions on:

The dossier welcomes submissions on:

- The concept of imperialism and its history in the field of communication;

- The notion of imperialism as a key to understanding recent
transformations in information, communication and culture;

- The contemporary role of information, communication and culture in
imperialism in the 21st century;

- How information, communication and culture transform nations and
imperialist agendas;

- Digital imperialism, driven by platforms and digital corporations;

- Imperialism and asymmetric global flows of information, communication and
culture;

- Attacks on freedom of expression and the right to information and
communication;

- New and old forms of dependence related to information, communication and
culture in nations and regions on the periphery of capitalism in the face
of imperialist advances;

- Use of data for surveillance and promotion of disinformation and hybrid
wars;

- The role of digital corporations in conflicts such as the genocide in
Palestine;

- Attacks on freedom of expression and the right to information and
communication;

- Impacts on subjectivity and forms of resistance to digital imperialism
and related to information, communication and culture.

*References:*

BOLAÑO, César. *The culture industry, information and capitalism*.
Springer, 2015.

BOLAÑO, César Ricardo Siqueira. *Campo aberto para a crítica da
epistemologia da comunicação*. Aracaju: Edise, 2015.

BOLAÑO, César. *Ucrânia: imperialismo e guerra da informação*. Outras
Palavras, 21 mar. 2022. Disponível em:
*https://outraspalavras.net/geopoliticaeguerra/ucrania-imperialismo-e-guerra-da-informacao/*
<https://outraspalavras.net/geopoliticaeguerra/ucrania-imperialismo-e-guerra-da-informacao/?utm_source=chatgpt.com>.
Acesso em: 6 jan. 2026.

FAUSTINO, Deivison; LIPPOLD, Walter. *Colonialismo digital*: por uma
crítica hacker-fanoniana. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2023.

FURTADO, Celso. *Criatividade e dependência na civilização industrial*. São
Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1978.

JIN, Dal Yong. *Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture*.
Routledge, 2015.

KWET, Michael. Digital colonialism: US empire and the new imperialism in
the Global South.* Race & Class*, 60(4), 2019, 3-26.

NOTHIAS, Toussaint. An intellectual history of digital colonialism. *Journal
of Communication*, 2025.

PASQUALI, Antonio. *Comunicación y cultura de masas*. Venezuela, Monte
Avila Latinoamericana, 1980.

SCHILLER, Herbert I. *Communication and Cultural Domination*. Armonk, NY:
M.E. Sharpe, 1976, 98-103.

SCHILLER, Herbert I. Media and imperialism. *Revue française d'études
américaines*, p. 269-281, 1978.

SPARKS, Colin. Media and cultural imperialism reconsidered. *Chinese
Journal of Communication*, *5*(3), 2012, 281–299.

SULEHRIA, Farooq. *Media imperialism in India and Pakistan*. Routledge,
2018.

-- 
Jonas Valente