Open call for Media, Culture & Society’s Crosscurrents special section “Rethinking keywords in media and cultural studies during and beyond COVID-19”
Scholarly discussions on media and culture at the time of COVID-19 often tend to focus on short-term responses, replicating a rhetoric of emergency that shapes debates in the public sphere. As the COVID-19 pandemic approaches the beginning of its third year, however, it becomes increasingly important to reflect on how the cultural and social implications of this global event may solicit a reorganization and reframing of some of the existing conceptual and theoretical tools that have shaped media and cultural studies as a field.
In the effort of promoting long-standing reflections with the potential to inform debates within the field beyond the timeline of the emergency, Crosscurrents will offer a platform for timely interventions and debates around a number of keywords that are crucial for the past, the present, and the future of the field. We invite submissions of short commentary pieces that move from one specific keyword to consider how these notions are imbricated by the current crisis, either COVID-19 specifically or in more general terms. Contributors are asked to engage not only with current events but also with historical debates in Media, Culture and Society and in the wider field, taking a longer, broader theoretical/conceptual perspective. Contributions that consider experience and approaches beyond the West are especially encouraged.
This is an initial list of potential keywords and topics with which this special section aims to engage: Care, Privacy and Surveillance, Globalization, Nation-States and Nationalism, Technology, Time, Memory, Art, Activism and critique, Digital Pedagogy, Gender, Welfare, Public Service Media, Race and Migration, Hope, Utopia and Futures, Sociality, Community and Interaction Online, Fandom and Celebrity, Expertise, Crisis Communication and Events. Authors are also welcomed to submit manuscripts focusing on other relevant keywords, which should be identified clearly in the submission title.
Prospective authors should submit articles of 3,000-4,000 words including references and endnotes.
The articles should be formatted and submitted online according to the journal guidelines provided here: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/journal/media-culture-society#submission-guidelines https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/journal/media-culture-society#submission-guidelines
Selected articles will be published in the Crosscurrents section of Media, Culture and Society. Please direct any queries to (mcsarticles /at/ gmail.com)
No payment from the authors is required to public in Media, Culture and Society.