[ecrea] CfP New Media and Democracy - Special Issue of Cyberpsychology

Call for papers

New Media and Democracy
A special issue of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on 
Cyberspace to be published in autumn 2014.

Edited by Monika Metykova (University of Sussex, UK) and Pablo Sapag 
Muñoz de la Peña (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)

Low voter turnout, ‘boredom’ with politics, disengagement  from 
democratic processes have all been used to characterize the state of 
affairs in actually existing democracies.  Recently in the UK the actor 
and celebrity Russell Brand made news headlines when he admitted not 
voting after being unimpressed with politicians. A UK poll not long 
after suggested that it was anger rather than boredom that discouraged 
the electorate from exercising their right to vote.


Explorations of the role of new media in empowering ordinary citizens, 
in enabling their participation in democratic processes and in 
re-invigorating democratic politics at various levels have been ongoing. 
Studies dealing with the use of new media by political and other elites 
and the impact of such use on democratic processes and political 
communication have received increased attention. Young people, their 
disengagement from institutional politics and the potential of new media 
in remedying the situation appear to be some of the most recent foci of 
research on new media and democracy.


This special issue invites papers that build our understanding of these 
phenomena, it focusses broadly on the roles of new media in democratic 
processes with a particular interest in empirical case studies that use 
interdisciplinary innovative approaches.  Questions addressed by papers 
suitable for the special issue could include the following:

·         Have new media provided political elites with renewed 
democratic opportunities or rather enabled an elitist shift?

·         Do new media enable ordinary citizen’s sustained meaningful 
civic engagement?

·         In which areas of institutional politics and life-style values 
do new media play a role in various countries?

·         What is the relationship between online and offline civic 
engagement?

·         Has the migration of ‘old’ media online enabled new ways in 
which ordinary citizens engage with political discourse?

Expressions of interest should be submitted to both guest editors, 
Monika Metykova ((m.metykova /at/ sussex.ac.uk)) and Pablo Sapag Muñoz de la 
Peña ((pvsapag /at/ pdi.ucm.es))  as an e-mail attachment by no later than 
February 28, 2014. Please include a 500-word abstract, full contact 
information, and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on the author(s). 
Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by March 15, 2014 and 
will then be invited to submit a full paper to the guest editors. 
Manuscripts should be between 7,000 to 8,000 words, including notes and 
references, follow Cyberpsychology style guidelines, and be submitted by 
June 15, 2014. All papers will be subject to anonymous peer review 
following submission.

Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace is a 
web-based, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focusses on social 
science research about cyberspace. The journal is interdisciplinary, 
publishing works written by scholars of psychology, media studies, 
sociology, political science, nursing, and also other disciplines. The 
journal is indexed with SCOPUS, EBSCO Academic Search Complete, the 
Directory of Open Access Journals and the Czech Database of Scientific 
Journals. For further information see http://www.cyberpsychology.eu


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