[Commlist] CFP. Communication & Sport special issue: Sport Communication and Social Justice

*/Communication & Sport/*

*Call for Papers*

*Special Issue **on **/Sport Communication and Social Justice/*


*//*

/Communication & Sport/is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a 
Special Issue on “Sport Communication and Social Justice.”  Now in its 
seventh year, /Communication and Sport (C&S)/ is a cutting-edge, 
peer-reviewed bimonthly journal that publishes research to foster 
international scholarly understanding of the nexus of communication and 
sport. /C&S/ publishes research and critical analysis from diverse 
disciplinary and theoretical perspectives to advance understanding of 
communication phenomena in the varied contexts through which sport 
touches individuals, society, and culture. In 2018, /Communication & 
Sport/ was the winner of the prestigious PROSE Award as the Best New 
Journal in the Social Sciences. /Communication & Sport/ has a current 
Clarivate Analytics two-year impact factor of 2.395 and is ranked 14/83 
(Q1) in the Communication and 17/50 in Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & 
Tourism categories, ranking above many longstanding legacy journals in 
both Communication/Media and Sport Studies.  Detailed information about 
/Communication & Sport/ may be found 
at:https://journals.sagepub.com/home/com.


*About the Special Issue*

*/Sport Communication and Social Justice/*


Sport has long been a conduit for societal debates on important and 
often contentious topics. In particular, media sport is a highly 
celebrated and influential constituent of popular culture that 
intersects with shifting political, economic, technological and cultural 
conditions (Whannel, 1992). This context creates tensions where 
mainstream media representations are framed around normative ‘accepted’ 
production practices by dominant organisations, which fosters an 
(in)visibility and marginalisation of non-normative groups around 
gendered, raced, disability and sexuality dynamics. These tensions are 
inexorably embedded in power, politics and issues of social justice.


At the same time – as Bell Hooks (1990) reminds us – marginality is not 
simply “a site of deprivation” but instead, it can also be “the site of 
radical possibility”. Here, leading athletes from traditionally 
marginalized groups have been able to seize on their visibility to 
highlight issues of inequality and discrimination through innovative, 
mediated and highly symbolic forms of protest, from Tommie Smith and 
John Carlos’s Black Power Salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics to 
Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest in 2016. Through social media, these 
iconic moments have started to transcend individual athletes’ activism 
and communities have coalesced around hashtags such as #takingaknee and 
the U.S. women soccer team’s high profile “Equal Play. Equal Pay” campaign.


While mainstream media organizations continue to play an important role 
in how these debates are framed, the emergence of new sport/digital 
media has the potential to disrupt dominant relations of power, offering 
renewed forms of ‘democratization’ and the prospect of meaningful change 
(Hutchins & Rowe, 2012, 2013; Wenner, 2015). Within a contemporary 
moment dominated by a highly commodified and corporatized media sport 
landscape, marginality can itself be re-fashioned as a commodity, 
centered on “celebritized” marginal subjects that can be exploited by 
media organisations and global sporting corporations for marketing and 
public relations purposes. For instance, consider the rainbow flag 
be-decked advertising campaigns from U.S. corporations Visa and Coca 
Cola that surrounded the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics following a 
repressive approach against LGBT rights activists by the Kremlin and 
Russian lawmakers.


Despite these memorable examples, discussions of activism, civic agency 
and social change have largely been the domain of the political 
sciences, sociology and political communication. Only relatively 
recently has the field of sport communication began to contribute to 
such debates, stimulated in part by the rapid expansion of digital and 
social media which has led to new ways of communicating in sporting 
cultures, a new visibility of cultural (counter / resistant) narratives, 
and mediated forms of democratic renewal. Importantly, following Dart 
(2012), this shifting sport media landscape has led to articulations of 
seemingly ‘old issues’ and cultural debates in new relatively distinct 
ways, bringing to the surface /original /critical questions in /new 
/emerging contexts. These are questions that focus on the nature of 
power, the way in which sport media serves to uphold, challenge, contest 
and negotiate dominant narratives within socio-political structures and 
the role and function of representation in effecting progressive social 
change.


In this special issue of /Communication & Sport/, we welcome theoretical 
and empirical inquiries that address the theme of “Sport Communication 
and Social Justice” by examining the following areas and other relevant 
topics:


  * The emergence, resistance and contestation of new sport cultures via
    mainstream and alternative sport media platforms;
  * The capitalization on – and exploitation of – marginalization and
    resistance in the context of a neo-liberalized enterprise sport
    media culture;
  * The dynamics of public opinion and audience meaning-making with
    respect to sport, politics and social justice;
  * The negotiation of identity politics in sport media representation;
    in particular, issues of (in)visibility (and resistance) of
    marginalized, non-normative groups who remain mostly
    under-represented in mainstream sport media (e.g. gender, race,
    disability, sexuality, etc.);
  * The use of sporting platforms (media and sporting mega events) as a
    vehicle for social justice campaigns by activists, social movements,
    and other actors;
  * The causes and consequences of athlete activism as symbolic protest;
  * The role and function of sporting media representations (including
    self-representations and encounters between representations and
    reception practices) in addressing social justice issues;
  * The role and function of non-mediated communication practices
    (interpersonal, group, organization) in effecting and generating
    social change in a sporting context.


*Manuscript Submissions *


*Manuscripts for the special issue should be submitted beginning June 
3^rd 2019 and before **October 1^st 2019*at 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/commsport to facilitate full 
consideration. In the submission process, authors should highlight in 
their cover letter that the submission is for the “Sport Communication 
and Social Justice” special issue of /Communication & Sport/ and choose 
“Sport Communication and Social Justice Special Issue” as the 
“Manuscript Type.” Manuscripts should follow the Manuscript Submission 
Guidelines athttps://journals.sagepub.com/home/com.All manuscripts will 
be subject to peer review under the supervision of the Special Issue 
Editors and Editor-in-Chief. Expressions of interest, abstracts for 
consideration, and questions may be directed to the Special Issue 
Editors: Dan Jackson ((jacksond /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(jacksond /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)>), Emma Pullen 
((epullen /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk) <mailto:(epullen /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)>), Michael 
Silk ((msilk /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk) <mailto:(msilk /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)>) or 
Filippo Trevisan ((trevisan /at/ american.edu) <mailto:(trevisan /at/ american.edu)>).



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