[ecrea] CfP Media, Communication and Nostalgia (Media & Time) - Special Issue

*Media, Communication and Nostalgia
“…you’ll have to wait till yesterday is here”

*

Nostalgia is booming. People recollect and embrace media formats and
communication technologies of their childhood. We witness a revival of
vinyl records and how media design adopts new products to the vintage
appeal of old media technologies. TV dramas, music styles,
advertisements and product design alike are flirting with the charms and
lifestyles of the past. We decorate our apartments with vintage
furniture and rediscover retro-drinks and retro-fashion. People share
memories about past media practices, commodity brands and other everyday
experiences from romanticized pasts to communicate and identify who they
are today, and where and how they belong. The recent hype about
nostalgia however is more than just mere fascination for the past in a
variety of cultural spheres and contexts. It hints to more profound
social and cultural developments: Memory – nostalgic or otherwise – is
not neutral but carries biases regarding political orientations, social
norms, and cultural values. It bears an inherently social dimension.
This special issue thus invites original articles (4000 – 6000 words),
which address nostalgia, through, by and towards media and in various
communicative contexts and ask for the potential role of nostalgia as a
seismograph of cultural and political sentiment.  Media can serve as
vessels, addressees and also lenses through which people look at fond
memories; they can amplify as well as deafen nostalgia and memory.

In research nostalgia has widely been conceptualized as a common element
of individual and collective engagement with the past related to
experiences of loss, lack and longing. Recent publications in media and
communication studies, history, sociology and social psychology
commenced exploring social and  historical implications, origins and
influences of individual and collective nostalgic attitudes, emotions
and practices. Thereby they aim to extend the scope of research beyond
individual emotional states or aesthetics of nostalgic media contents
and to thus emphasize the social implications and consequences of and
influences on nostalgia.  The issue aims to contribute to understanding
the role of nostalgia for constructing and sharing individual/collective
memories and official/alternative histories.

Theoretical contributions and empirical case studies are welcome. Topics
to be addressed by the issue include but are not limited to questions like:

*_Nostalgia & Theory: _*

- The study of nostalgia is a transdisciplinary project. What can we
learn from existing concepts, categorizations and typologies of
nostalgia? How can they be used for media related questions? Is a
specific understanding of nostalgia in the context of media and
communication studies required? What do concepts of nostalgia have in
common, where do they differ? What could alternative or critical
concepts be like?

- What are communalities and peculiarities of concepts such as mediated
nostalgia, mediatized nostalgia and media nostalgia: How are media
(technologies) and nostalgic memories interrelated? Why and how do media
themselves become objects of nostalgic longing?

- Nostalgia is not an exclusive mode of memorization: How is nostalgia
related to other modes of constructing personal or collective memories
and engagements with the past.

*_Nostalgia & Media _*

- What role does nostalgia play for production, commodification,
distribution, and exchange of narratives and mnemonic objects in domains
of public/social communication, from mass communication to popular culture?

- How has nostalgia in media (contents) changed over the course of media
history? What were people/media nostalgically longing for in different
periods and given different contemporary contexts and challenges?

*_Nostalgia & Technology_*

- Nostalgia can be directed towards certain old media technologies. Why
do some people try to keep “dead media” alive? How is nostalgia towards
old media expressed, why are some past technologies like the music juke
box, video game platforms and others still so appealing? Is there a
promise of authenticity in some media? How do media technologies serve
as portals to a personal or historical past? Can media technologies
themselves “be” nostalgic?

- Digital media practices can contribute to nostalgia in, through and
towards media in many ways. Digital artefacts themselves can be the
target of nostalgic sentiment and platforms to share memories and
connect with others: Which features of nostalgia do we find in a digital
memory culture? How does the connective potential of digital
communication enable community formation and identity building among
individuals with shared political, cultural or economic interests?

*_Nostalgia & Community_*

- How does nostalgia for media or communication technologies contribute
to community formation and establishing a sense of belonging in
communities (e.g. retro Gamers, children of the 70s, and so forth).

- What role does nostalgia play for media practices and experiences in
families and other social formations, subcultures, scenes or even
activist groups and social movements? How are media experiences shared
between generations or across cultures and countries?

*_Nostalgia & Society_*

  - Where does nostalgia take us to? Are nostalgic memories anchored in
the national or local histories and cultures or can we observe a
transnational exchange of favorite pasts that return as ideal models of
life. Are nostalgic narratives implicitly conservative or even
reactionary or can they also be progressive?

- How is nostalgia instrumentalized in political communication, for
political goals or social activism? What role do media memories
(content, technologies, practices) play for the articulation of
nostalgia for past political systems or regimes (E.g Ostalgie as
nostalgia for the GDR or nostalgia for the and in the former Soviet
Union) or for envisioning future states of society?

Authors who would like to contribute to the special issue of
/medien&zeit/ should first submit an extended abstract (in English, 600
- 800 words) by *February 15, 2016*.
Editors will review these proposals within two weeks of receipt. Authors
whose proposals are selected will be asked to submit full papers (in
English, 4000 – 6000 words) by July 4, 2016. Papers must be original,
and should not be published or be under review in other journals. All
full papers are peer-reviewed.

Abstracts should be submitted electronically via email as Microsoft Word
or PDF attachments and should include a cover sheet containing
corresponding author's name, paper title, affiliation and email address.

Submissions should be sent to the two guest editors of this special
edition:

(manuel.menke /at/ phil.uni-augsburg.de)
<mailto:(manuel.menke /at/ phil.uni-augsburg.de)>(Manuel Menke MA, Augsburg
University)

(christian.schwarzenegger /at/ phil.uni-augsburg.de)
<mailto:(christian.schwarzenegger /at/ phil.uni-augsburg.de)%20> (Christian
Schwarzenegger MA, Augsburg University)

/medien&zeit/is an interdisciplinary, Vienna-based journal that welcomes
contributions addressing theories, methods and issues of communication
history. Number 4/2016 will be guest edited by Manuel Menke (Augsburg
University) and Christian Schwarzenegger (Augsburg University).

http://medienundzeit.at/call-for-papers-media-communication-and-nostalgia/






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