[csaa-forum] cfp - themed issue on “Rescuing Participation” in Comunicação e Sociedade, edited by F. Ribeiro, A. Melo & N. Carpentier
Carpentier Nico
nico.carpentier at vub.ac.be
Fri Sep 21 01:29:26 ACST 2018
((apologies for cross-posting))
reminder: submission deadline 30 September
Call for Papers for a themed issue on “Rescuing Participation” in
Comunicação e Sociedade
Editors: Fábio Ribeiro (UTAD; CECS-UMinho); Ana Duarte Melo
(CECS-UMinho); Nico Carpentier (Uppsala University, Sweden)
http://www.cecs.uminho.pt/en/call-for-papers-comunicacao-sociedade-36-rescuing-participation/
Participation has become a key concept in Communication and Media
Studies, driven by the enthusiasm and hopes for democratic renewal,
brought about in particular by the potentialities of digital
technologies. These high expectations have not always been grounded in
in-depth reflections about this desire for, and desirability of,
participation. This themed issue of Comunicação e Sociedade wants to
discuss why we want and need participation in our contemporary
societies. It aims to raise questions about which participatory
intensities are considered necessary and sufficient, and why? Why do we,
as societies and/or as academics, desire for increased levels of
participation? What are its societal benefits? Why is participation so
important to us?
Submission: All abstracts (400-500 words) should be sent in .doc format
before 30 September 2018 to the e-mail
comunicacaoesociedade at ics.uminho.pt, CC to the editors: Fábio Ribeiro
(fabior at utad.pt); Ana Duarte Melo (anamelo at ics.uminho.pt) and Nico
Carpentier (nico.carpentier at im.uu.se).
Important dates:
Deadline for abstracts – 30 September 2018
Editor decision (on basis of abstracts) – 15 October 2018
Full article submission deadline – 15 February 2019
Editor decision on full articles – 1 May 2019
Submissions final article – 1 July 2019
Issue Publication – December 2019
+++ Full Call +++
Comunicação e Sociedade
volume 36
Issue title:
Rescuing Participation
Editors:
Fábio Ribeiro, Ana Duarte Melo and Nico Carpentier
Publication date:
Winter 2019
Participation has become a key concept in Communication and Media
Studies, driven by the enthusiasm and hopes for democratic renewal,
brought about in particular by the potentialities of digital
technologies. These high expectations have not always been grounded in
in-depth reflections about this desire for, and desirability of,
participation. This themed issue of Comunicação e Sociedade wants to
discuss why we want and need participation in our contemporary
societies. It aims to raise questions about which participatory
intensities are considered necessary and sufficient, and why? Why do we,
as societies and/or as academics, desire for increased levels of
participation? What are its societal benefits? Why is participation so
important to us?
These questions are becoming more and more relevant, now that the
frustration, disillusion and disenchantment with participation is also
becoming more visible, and the concept of participation can
simultaneously benefit less from being novel or fashionable.
Different groups in society have started to problematize participation,
for a variety of reasons. For instance, some media professionals feel
pressured to interact with the public, without having the proper tools
and resources to do so. Others are confronted with so-called
participatory formats which turn out to be little more than “marketing”,
programmed just to fill gaps in broadcasting schedules or to increase
audience ratings.
Frustration also occurs when the outcome of participation becomes
meaningless because it is incorporated by powerful elites (active, for
instance, in the fields of economics, politics or communication) in
order to legitimate their decisions. Media companies struggle with their
online commenting sections, as they witness their web pages being
flooded with hate and prejudice, disturbing and flaming speech, with
users that speak more than they listen, frustrating the desire
for rational consensus. Moreover, governments are confronted with
troll farms and other organised forms of resistance to their
representative democratic processes, which results in ‘the people’ to be
positioned as a threat to democracy, and not as part of it. These
problems should not be ignored. At the same time we should be careful
not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and acknowledge the social
relevance of participation, and the need to have more (substantive and
maximalist) participation, and not less. There is also a need for a much
more developed legitimation why participation matters, and what kind of
participation matters, so that the notion of participation is not buried
under an avalanche of well-intended critiques. That’s why we now need
academic work that protects, defends and rescues participation.
Proposals for articles should address one or more of the following topics:
> The social relevance of participation - why does participation matter?
> What kind of participation do we need? What kinds of participation
are beneficial for society and why? Where, in what fields does
participation matter?
> What are the conditions for socially beneficial forms of participation?
> What ethics of participation do we need? What are the relations of a
more participatory culture with civility, respect for difference,
tolerance, agonism, listening?
> What counter-strategies should be developed to deal with the abuses
of participation? How do we address the problems with participation?
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Nico Carpentier
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming soon:
----------------------------
RESPUBLIKA! catalogue
Experiments in the performance of participation and democracy
----------------------------
COMMUNICATION AND DISCOURSE THEORY
Collected Works of the Brussels Discourse Theory Group
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To visit:
Iconoclastic controversies: A visual sociology of statues and
commemoration sites in the southern regions of Cyprus
(17/9 to 5/10 in Brasilia)
http://nicocarpentier.net/icontroversies/
& https://vimeo.com/290606097
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uppsala University, Department of Informatics and Media
Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, 753 13 Uppsala, Sweden
----------------------------
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - Free University of Brussels
& Charles University in Prague
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Commlist
http://commlist.org/
----------------------------
International Association for Media and Communication Research
Participatory Communication Research Section
http://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/pcr-section
----------------------------
Researching and Teaching Communication Book Series
http://www.researchingcommunication.eu/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail (UUppsala): nico.carpentier at im.uu.se
E-mail (VUBrussels): nico.carpentier at vub.ac.be
T (UUppsala): +46 (0)18 471 6341
Room (UUppsala): Ekonomikum building E329
Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the csaa-forum
mailing list