[ecrea] CFP Media Fields Journal -- Digital Distribution

CFP Media Fields Issue 10: Digital Distribution

Submission Deadline: October 24, 2014



In the past few years, media studies scholars such as Alisa Perren, 
Stuart Cunningham, and Ramon Lobato, have persuasively made the case for 
the importance of studying distribution. No longer considered simply the 
“space between production and consumption,” distribution has quickly 
become a site of study in and of itself. In its myriad forms, 
distribution serves as the construction of difference, as the 
instantiation of hierarchies, and, as Sean Cubitt puts it, “the material 
ground of cultural dominance and political power.” Therefore, the study 
of distribution increasingly becomes a key locus from which to start our 
investigations into the cultural, political, and social ramifications of 
media.

Alongside this newfound attention to distribution, scholars have also 
begun to trace the rise and proliferation of digital technologies. Over 
a decade after the coining of the term Web 2.0, and fifteen years after 
the launch of Napster, the number of platforms and formats for the 
digital circulation of media has skyrocketed and, consequently, their 
ensuing communities have multiplied. Contemporary media studies has 
turned its attention not only to digital technologies themselves but 
also to the new media ecosystems emerging from these technologies.

By considering these two intertwined, burgeoning trends in media studies 
scholarship, this issue of Media Fields Journal will explore how the 
theorization and practice of distribution transforms in light of the 
digital. If distribution is the movement of things—information, 
commodities, values, etc.—through space, the digital has now complicated 
what each of these aspects constitutes. The types of things that can be 
distributed across media have changed; the ways these things move are 
different; even the space through which they move has shifted. 
Furthermore, what phenomena, technologies, and practices fall under the 
purview of distribution have become more varied and disparate.

For the Digital Distribution issue, Media Fields Journal seeks 
submissions that address questions about the role of distribution—as a 
practice, as a space, or as a process—in light of the digital. What are 
these new technologies and platforms, and how do they alter our 
relationships to media content? How are relations of power between 
producers and consumers restructured? How is geographical space itself 
reconfigured or reimagined? How is the exchange of values and affects 
facilitated by digital networks? How does the digital change the very 
metaphors used to discuss distribution, such as pipes, conduits, 
channels, networks, flow, etc.? In turn, how do these metaphors shape 
our projects and our theories of distribution?

We invite submission that engage with the interconnections between 
distribution, the digital, and space in relation to topics such as:

Geography:
Geoblocking, International Censorship, Reformatting, Global Internet 
Penetration and Platform Availability, Satellite and Cable 
Infrastructure, Geographical Case Studies

Informal Distribution Practices:
Piracy Practices and Networks, Do-It-Yourself Distribution, Cyber 
Underworlds and the “Darknet”

Social Space:
Online Fan Practices, Social Networking, Cultures of Hacking, Social Apps

Regulation and Policy:
Cloud Governance, Net Neutrality, Spectrum Management, Privacy Rights, 
Regulating E-Waste

Digital Platforms and Evolving Business Practices:
Connected Viewing and Mobile Media, Content Flow and Windowing, Web TV, 
TV Everywhere, Format Theory, Digital Radio and Podcasting, Platform 
Interfaces and Design, Audience Segmentation and Metadata

Essay submissions are typically 1500-2500 words. We encourage 
submissions from any disciplinary approach relevant to media 
distribution. Scholarly or critical contributions in atypical formats 
are welcome. Along with your submission, please include a 50-word 
biographical statement in the body of your email or as a separate 
attachment. Email submissions or inquiries to issue editors Jennifer 
Hessler and Juan Llamas-Rodriguez at (submissions /at/ mediafieldsjournal.org). 
The deadline for submission is October 24, 2014.



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