[Commlist] CFP Special Collection for the Communication and Media Section of Global Perspectives on “Trust and Digital Platforms”

*Call for papers*

Special Collection for the Communication and Media Section of /Global 
Perspectives/ on “Trust and Digital Platforms”

*Estimated Timeline*

1 December 2019 - 500-word abstracts

  * Please submit abstracts to Terry Flew ((t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)
    <mailto:(t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)>) and Sora Park ((sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)
    <mailto:(sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)>)
1 February 2020 - notification of invitation to submit full papers 
(6000-8000 words)

1 August 2020 - submission of full papers

1 December 2020 - review process complete

1 May 2021 - publication of articles

*Trust and Digital Platforms*

As online activities and experiences are increasingly mediated through 
digital platforms, a series of scandals and ‘public shocks’ (Ananny & 
Gillespie, 2017)have raised concerns about privacy and security, the 
misuse of user data, algorithmic biases, and the public distribution of 
objectionable and sometimes abhorrent content through the internet 
(Flew, Martin, & Suzor, 2019). Legislators and regulators in many 
countries are now engaged in public enquiries and the development of new 
laws to apply public interest standards to digital platforms, as First 
Amendment arguments about freedom of online expression and claims that 
the platforms are simply intermediaries are increasingly under challenge 
(Napoli, 2019).

This special issue proposes to view such questions from the perspective 
of trust. International surveys have documented a decline in trust in 
social, political institutions over time, including rising distrust of 
the media (Edelman, 2019). Manifestations of declining public trust are 
variously seen in the rise of populist political movements (Norris & 
Ingelhart, 2019), concerns about ‘fake news’ and ‘deepfakes’ (Allcott & 
Gentzkow, 2017), and scandals surrounding leading public institutions, 
from financial institutions and digital platform companies to political 
parties and religious organizations. Trust is a multifaceted concept, 
and important contributions have been made to the field from philosophy, 
political science, sociology and economics, as well as communication and 
media studies. To take one example, the concept of a public sphere rests 
upon an underlying degree of trust in journalists and the organizations 
involved in the production and distribution of news and information 
(Coleman, 2012).

Amidst talk about whether the concerns about the power of digital 
platforms and ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff, 2019)points towards 
‘the end of trust’(McSweeney’s, 2019), this special issue poses 
questions such as:

·Do communication scholars have original insights into questions of 
trust, and how can they draw upon other fields of scholarship around 
trust issues?

·Is trust or distrust a concept that is empirically measurable? Are 
there lessons from earlier ‘social capital’ debates about how to 
understand relations of trust, and what is the relationship of digital 
technologies to trust issues?

·Can government regulation address the power of digital platforms and 
contribute to better relations of trust between platform users and 
providers? What lessons can be learnt from laws passed in other 
jurisdictions (e.g. European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, 
Germany’s Online Hate Speech laws, Singapore’s anti-Fake News laws)?

·Does the global and decentralized nature of such platforms necessitate 
that the lead be taken by non-governmental organizations, or that the 
solutions will be essentially technological in nature (e.g. a 
combination of blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies)?

·Is regulation of digital platforms best understood as being within the 
remit of communications policies, or are the most appropriate measures 
primarily related to economic policies, such as anti-trust and consumer 
protection laws, or by regarding digital platforms as ‘information 
fiduciaries’ (Balkin, 2018; Dobkin, 2018)?

*References:*

Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 
2016 Election. /Journal of Economic Perspectives/, /31/(2), 211–236.

Ananny, M., & Gillespie, T. (2017). Public platforms: Beyond the cycle 
of shocks and exceptions. /Interventions: Communication Research and 
Practice/. Presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International 
Communications Association, San Diego, CA.

Balkin, J. (2018). Free Speech is a Triangle. /Columbia Law Review/, 
/118/, 2011–2055.

Coleman, S. (2012). Believing the News: From sinking trust to atrophied 
efficacy. /European Journal of Communication/, /27/(1), 35–45.

Dobkin, A. (2018). Information Fiduciaries in Practice: Data Privacy and 
User Expectations,. /Berkeley Technology Law Journal/, (33).

Edelman. (2019). /2019 Edelman Trust Barometer/. Retrieved from 
https://www.edelman.com/trust-barometer

Flew, T., Martin, F., & Suzor, N. P. (2019). Internet Regulation as 
Media Policy: Rethinking the question of digital communication platform 
governance. /Journal of Digital Media and Policy/, /10/(1), 33–50.

McSweeney’s. (2019). /The End of Trust/. San Francisco: McSweeney’s.

Napoli, P. (2019). What If More Speech Is No Longer the Solution? First 
Amendment Theory Meets Fake News and the Filter Bubble. /Federal 
Communications Law Journal/, /70/(1), 57–104.

Norris, P., & Ingelhart, R. (2019). /Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, 
and Authoritarian Populism/. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zuboff, S. (2019). /The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a 
Human Future at the New Frontier of Power/. New York: Hachette.

**

*Practicalities*

Please submit a 500-word abstract to Terry Flew ((t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au) 
<mailto:(t.flew /at/ qut.edu.au)>) and Sora Park ((sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au) 
<mailto:(sora.park /at/ canberra.edu.au)>) before 1 December 2019.

The special collection will be published as part of the Communication 
and Media Section of the /Global Perspectives/ journal. The special 
issue will publish full paper submissions of 6,000-8,000 words. 
Publication guidelines can be found here 
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PVInPIfIhzuBvZ2o_DoFG4Jf6FI3UaeXiEnzzLf-gPc/edit>. 


*About the journal*

/Global Perspectives/(GP) is an online-only, peer-reviewed, 
transdisciplinary journal seeking to advance social science research and 
debates in a globalizing world, specifically in terms of concepts, 
theories, methodologies, and evidence bases. Work published in the 
journal is enriched by invited perspectives, through scholarly 
annotations, that enhance its global and interdisciplinary implications.

GP is devoted to the study of global patterns and developments across a 
wide range of topics and fields, among them trade and markets, security 
and sustainability, communication and media, justice and law, governance 
and regulation, culture and value systems, identities, environmental 
interfaces, technology-society interfaces, shifting geographies and 
migration.

GP sets out to help overcome national and disciplinary fragmentation and 
isolation.  GP starts from the premise that the world that gave rise to 
the social sciences in their present form is no more. The national and 
disciplinary approaches that developed over the last century are 
increasingly insufficient to capture the complexities of the global 
realities of a world that has changed significantly in a relatively 
short period of time.  New concepts, approaches and forms of academic 
discourse may be called for.

*About the Communication and Media Section of /Global Perspectives /*

Section Editor: Payal Arora, Erasmus University Rotterdam


The ‘global turn’ in communications, advances in mobile technologies and 
the rise of digital social networks are changing the world´s media 
landscapes, creating complex disjunctures between economy, culture, and 
society at local, national, and transnational levels. The role of 
traditional mass media - print, radio and television - is changing as 
well. In many cases, traditional journalism is declining, while that of 
user-generated content by bloggers, podcasters, and digital activists is 
gaining currency worldwide, as is the impact of robotics and artificial 
intelligence on communication systems. Today, researchers find 
themselves at important junctures in their inquiries that require 
innovations in concepts, frameworks, methodologies and empirics. /Global 
Perspectives/ aims to be a forum for scholars from across multiple 
disciplines and fields, and the Communication and Media Section invites 
submissions on cutting-edge research on changing media and communication 
systems globally.

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