[Commlist] Call for abstracts: MedieKultur > “PlatformedBodies”

*Posting*

*Call for abstracts*

MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research has a new call 
for abstracts on “Platformed Bodies”.

Over the last couple of decades, the global social, political and 
economic landscape has been marked by rise and dominance of social 
media. These transnational owned social media and communication services 
fundamentally alter both the ways economic value is produced, as well as 
the fundamental ways that social life is lived. To understand this dual 
impact we have seen a wealth of theoretical innovation, with platform 
studies proven to be an immensely powerful instance (Gillespie, 2010; 
Van Dijck, et al., 2018). In an early work, Van Dijck supplies a key 
intervention when suggesting that techno-cultural constructs and 
socioeconomic structures should be integrated in an ecological approach 
to better capture “the mutual shaping of social media and the culture of 
connectivity” (Van Dijck, 2013, 26). In other words, intertwining 
cultural and economic analysis is key for understanding the current 
moment in which digital platforms, services and devices are of 
increasing importance to more and more aspects of society and everyday life.

In this analysis however, the question of the body as a somatic reality, 
a social construct, and a site of experience and contestation, is less 
clear. It is this intersection that this special issue of MedieKultur 
takes aim at. We invite submissions that combine analysis of platforms 
and the body.

Bodies as an situated site of experience has long been of interest to 
media and communication studies. Especially in works inspired by 
critical, feminist and queer theory (Sedgwick, 2003; Ahmed, 2004; 
Sullivan and Murray, 2009), and medical anthropology (Mol, 2002) is the 
body interrogated for the ways it mediates relations of technology, 
identity, sociality, and power. Because “the body” as an analytical unit 
is constructed in many different ways, its analysis also varies. Rather 
than adhere to one definition, however, we invite submissions that 
reflect such multiplicity, presenting different perspectives on the 
platformed body.

We ask that contributions engage with one or more of the following 
general questions:

  * How do bodies emerge in relationship to platforms?
  * What is the body’s relationship to platform content, technological
    infrastructure, and/or its user base?
  * How do platform dynamics intersect with race, gender, sexuality,
    disability, and other categories of body and social distinction?
  * What does attention to the body infuse into the theories of platform
    analysis?

We encourage contributions that explore such topics and questions 
including but not limited to:

  * Health topics: self-monitoring, mediated health communications,
    counterpublic health, and health monitoring
  * Sexuality: hookup apps, porn, media panics, and (de)platformization
    of sex
  * Social media: celebrity, fandom, and influencers
  * Fitness
  * Food and nutrition
  * Geographical Displacement: Platforms of refugee and immigrant life
    and movement
  * Activism and resistance
  * Non-human bodies: Robotics and animals
  * Death and dying

Please submit an abstract of maximum 500 words (excluding references) by 
November 1st 2020 on MedieKultur’s website: 
http://www.tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur

Authors will be notified of their acceptance by November 6th 2020. The 
deadline for submission of full papers is March 1st 2021.

MedieKultur does not charge for submission, review or publishing 
articles, and no payment from the authors will be required.

Articles that are accepted for further process by the editors will go 
into peer-review in March 2021. We expect to have decisions on 
manuscripts and potential further revisions by May. The special issue 
will be published around December 2021.

Editors for this special issue are: Kristian Møller (IT University of 
Copenhagen): (krimo /at/ itu.dk) and Maja Nordtug (University of Southern 
Denmark and Aarhus University): (majan /at/ sdu.dk).

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