[Commlist] Call for Papers: Media Use and Political Engagement: Cross-Cultural Approaches

Call for papers:
Media Use and Political Engagement: Cross-Cultural Approaches
Special Section in the International Journal of Communication (IJOC)

Guest editors: Özen Odağ, Frank M. Schneider, Larisa Buhin, & 
Jinhee Kim

We cordially invite empirical research articles on media use and 
political engagement taking up a cross-culturally comparative design!!!

Democracies around the world are struggling with the global decline of 
civic and political engagement, especially among younger generations 
(Bessant, Farthing, & Watts, 2016; Smith & Thompson, 2015). Recent  data 
from World Value Surveys and the Eurobarometer have yielded  alarming 
results (Whiteley, 2012), showing that young people in most  Western 
countries are increasingly dissatisfied with and disinterested  in 
liberal democracy (Foa & Mounk, 2017; Sloam, 2016). At the same  time, 
this overall decline is paralleled by an increase of new forms  of 
engagement such as lifestyle politics, Internet activism, and  political 
consumerism (Dalton, 2004; 2006; Theocharis & van Deth, 2018).

These developments have contributed to a new understanding of 
citizenship, one in which citizens are increasingly engaging through 
informal, creative, participatory, and digitally networked activities, 
thus moving political engagement into the domain of entertainment and 
personalized communication (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009). Activities 
that formerly took place offline (such as demonstrations, signing 
petitions, political discussions) have now largely moved into the online 
sphere and work in concert with offline civic engagement activity. They 
include a wide range of phenomena such as using social networks to 
access information, using digital platforms to exchange views, using 
mobile applications to access government services, and organizing 
protests on social networks (Bala, 2014). Many of these emergent 
behaviors are not yet fully understood. Their global rise across the 
world as expressed in countless examples of collective action in the 
Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the USA, however, render them a timely 
topic to study from a cross-cultural perspective.

Current scholarship focuses especially on the social and psychological 
factors that connect media use and political engagement (Hsiao, 2018; 
Hsiao & Yang, 2018; Valenzuela, Correa, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2018). Social 
identity, efficacy, injustice perceptions, emotions, values, and  system 
justification beliefs have been identified as crucial  psychosocial 
predictors of digitally enabled political engagement  (Hsiao, 2018; Jost 
et al., 2018; Valenzuela, Correa, & Gil de Zúñiga,  2018; Van Zomeren, 
Postmes, & Spears, 2008). At the same time, our  understanding of these 
effects has remained insufficient and largely  confined to Western 
democratic contexts (such as Europe and the USA;  see Hsiao, 2018, for 
an overview of this extensive research). Although  a few authors have 
taken up a non-Western perspective and investigated  such mechanisms of 
political engagement in the non-Western world (e.g.  Hsiao, 2018; 
Valenzuela, Correa, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2018; Wibisono,  Louis, & Jetten, 
2019), current scholarship is impressively void of  cross-culturally 
comparative approaches to the role of media in  political engagement.

This Special Section aims to highlight the influence of cultural factors 
(societies, cultures, cultural identities, political regimes etc.) on 
the relationship between media use and political engagement. We are 
particularly looking for cross-culturally comparative empirical studies, 
both qualitative and quantitative, that deal with the role of media use 
in political engagement. A central aim of the studies should be to 
understand cultural variance in the theories that have been produced on 
the topic. Studies should thus focus on a minimum of two cultural 
contexts that are compared.

The Special Section is open for a variety of topics. Examples include, 
but are not limited to:
- Cross-cultural studies on the role of satirical new media formats, 
such as political talk-shows and political Internet memes, for political 
engagement;
- Cross-cultural studies on the role of specific social media platforms, 
such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other non-Western 
variants, for political engagement;
- Cross-cultural studies on the role of entertainment media, such as 
political movies and video games, for political engagement;
- Cross-cultural studies on the role of political, religious, cultural 
identity in the relationship between media use and political engagement;
- Cross-cultural studies on the role of ‘cultured’ emotions and values 
in the relationship between media use and political engagement;
- Cross-cultural studies on social-psychological mechanisms in the 
context of echo chambers, fake news, and propaganda

The review process is two-tiered and comprises the submission of an 
extended abstract and a full paper. Full papers will be invited only  if 
they are accepted in the prior review of extended abstracts.  Extended 
abstracts are due April 20, 2020; full papers are due  September 20, 
2020 (see time line below).

The extended abstract (1,000 words max. excluding tables and references) 
should present previously unpublished work on a topic of clear interest 
to the Special Section. The extended abstract would typically include 
information about the cross-cultural purpose, novelty, significance, or 
knowledge gap being addressed, the cross-cultural methodological design 
of the study, and present cross-cultural results, conclusions and 
implications of the work conducted. The extended abstract must provide a 
title, a short  150-word abstract (not counted towards the 1,000 words), 
and up to  five keywords that identify the thematic focus of the work. 
If  accepted, the final full paper (8,900 words) must be turned in by 
September 20, 2020. For further details on formatting, author 
guidelines, and submission process, please visit https://ijoc.org/ 
index.php/ijoc/about/submissions#authorGuidelines.
 
Time line:
Submission Extended Abstracts: April 20, 2020
Submission Full Papers: September 20, 2020
Review Process: September 2020 - January 2021
Revision Process: January - April 2021
Resubmission: May 2021
Final Proofs: June/July 2021
Publication: September/October 2021

All papers in the IJOC are published as open access articles without 
publication fees for the authors. Submissions engaging in open science 
practices will be given particular consideration in the review  process. 
We also especially welcome preregistered studies.

We very much look forward to your extended abstracts!

For submission of extended abstracts, please contact 
(oezen.odag /at/ touroberlin.de). Please use this email also for further 
inquiry on the topic and procedure of our Special Section.

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