CFP for special issue on Arts-based Research in Communication and Media Studies

Arts-based Research in Communication and Media Studies
A Call for papers for a Special Issue of Comunicazioni Sociali
Edited by Nico Carpentier (Charles University) and Johanna Sumiala 
(University of Helsinki)

Rationale

As Leavy (2015: ix) writes, arts-based research is “a set of 
methodological tools used by researchers across the disciplines during 
all phases of social research, including data generation, analysis, 
interpretation, and representation.” Its emphasis on doing (making) 
brings in the idea that knowledge is or, expressed more modestly, can be 
embodied and produced through the creation of the artistic practice 
itself. To use Cooperman’s (2018: 22) more poetic formulation, 
“Arts-based research is a research of the flesh where our source 
material originates from the closeness and collaboration of the bodies 
and voices of one another.”

Slowly but surely, arts-based research is making its entry into 
Communication and Media Studies, moving away from our rather exclusive 
focus on the written text. There is, for instance, the work of the 
multidisciplinary Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts or 
scholars at the Communication Studies Department of Concordia University 
(Chapman & Sawchuk, 2015). Communication and Media studies scholars also 
publish their non-written texts in such specialized journals as the 
Journal of Video Ethnography; Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays; 
and Audiovisual Thinking, the Journal of Academic Videos. Moreover, both 
the International Communication Association (ICA) and the International 
Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) have featured 
exhibitions at some of their recent conferences, the former with the 
2017 Making & Doing exhibition and the latter with 2018 Ecomedia Arts 
Festival, taking gentle steps toward (the acknowledgment of) non-written 
academic texts. We, ourselves, have deployed arts-based research, for 
instance, in the Respublika! exhibition, the Mirror Palace of Democracy 
installation (Carpentier, 2019, 2020), and the Youth in the Media City 
book (Sumiala & Niitamo, 2019).

We believe that more could be done in our field, at the level of 
theorizing arts-based research practices and at the level of deploying 
them. With this call for articles, in the special issue of Comunicazioni 
Sociali, we want to further stimulate the discussion on this topic, 
bringing together a diversity of voices, formats and approaches, all 
related to the theme of artistic-academic dialogue. Contributions can be 
longer (academic) articles, but we also want to include multimodal 
formats, more artistic contributions and shorter, policy-oriented 
statements, for instance, from some of the foundations that work on/with 
arts-based research.

We thus call for contributions that focus on:
1/the perceived relevance of, and opportunities generated by arts-based 
research, for Communication and Media Studies,
2/examples of, and experiences with organising, arts-based research 
projects in Communication and Media Studies,
3/the requirements for strengthening this field of inquiry, and
4/the role that Communication and Media Studies scholars can play in 
(initiating) these projects and the subsequent identity politics.

This call follows the “Respublika! Finland: Arts-Based Research or 
Communication and Media Studies? Yes, please” workshop, which took place 
on 6 February 2020, at the Kone Foundation in Helsinki, Finland, and 
created a dialogue between different engaged actors about arts-based 
research projects in Finland. (See http://www.sqridge.org/action.html)

300 to 500-word abstracts should be emailed to both the editors, before 
1 August 2020, at (nico.carpentier /at/ fsv.cuni.cz) and 
(johanna.sumiala /at/ helsinki.fi). Acceptance notifications will follow within 
a fortnight.

Time table

Abstract submission: 1 August 2020
Notification of acceptance: 15 August 2020
First full articles submitted to editors: 1 October 2020
Revised articles submitted to editors: 1 November 2020
Final articles submitted to editors: 20 December 2020

References

 Carpentier, N. (Ed.). (2019). Respublika! Experiments in the 
performance of participation and democracy. Limassol, Cyprus: NeMe.
 Carpentier, Nico (2020). Communicating Academic Knowledge Beyond the 
Written Academic Text: An Autoethnographic Analysis of the Mirror Palace 
of Democracy Installation Experiment. International Journal of 
Communication, 14(2020), 2120–2143.
 Chapman, O., & Sawchuk, K. (2015). Creation-as-research: Critical 
making in complex environments. RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne/Canadian 
Art Review, 40(1), 49–52.
 Cooperman, H. (2018). Listening through performance: Identity, 
embodiment, and arts-based research. In M. Capous-Desyllas & K. Morgaine 
(Eds.), Creating social change through creativity: Antioppressive 
arts-based research methodologies (pp. 19–35). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave 
Macmillan.
 Leavy, P. (2015). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice (2nd 
ed.). London, UK: Guilford Press.
 Sumiala, J., Niitamo, A. (eds.) (2019). Youth in the Media City: 
Belonging and Control on the Move. https://www.youth-in-the-media-city.org/



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Nico Carpentier
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Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
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New MA program on Media and Area Studies
http://marsmaster.cz/
https://vimeo.com/383173852
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New special issue:
Rescuing Participation
https://revistacomsoc.pt/issue/view/103
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New article:
Communicating Academic Knowledge Beyond the Written Academic Text
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13438
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Charles University in Prague
Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism
Smetanovo nábřeží 6, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - Free University of Brussels
& Uppsala University
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SQRIDGE ngo
An intersection of academia and arts
http://www.sqridge.org/
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The Commlist
http://commlist.org/
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International Association for Media and Communication Research
Participatory Communication Research Section
http://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/pcr
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E-mail (CharlesU): (nico.carpentier /at/ fsv.cuni.cz)
E-mail (UUppsala): (nico.carpentier /at/ im.uu.se)
E-mail (VUBrussels): (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Room (CharlesU): Hollar building Room 105
Phone (CharlesU): +420 222 112 134
Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
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