[Commlist] TVLT "Media Awards: Beyond the EGOT" CFP

The Velvet Light Trap Issue #89, "Media Awards: Beyond the EGOT," has 
extended its deadline! We will now be accepting submissions until 
February 28th. If more time is needed beyond that, please email the 
editors at (vltcfp /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(vltcfp /at/ gmail.com)>as soon as possible 
to discuss.

The full CFP is below, and in the following pdf 
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sG8ecgx95Qye2wjfnOINJFcKINgOULPw/view?usp=drivesdk>. 
Please send submissions to (vltcfp /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(vltcfp /at/ gmail.com)>. 
We understand the delays and frustrations inherent to working during a 
pandemic, and will be as accommodating as possible to your requests. We 
look forward to reading your work!

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The Velvet Light Trap#89

Media Awards: Beyond the EGOT


The “big four” American entertainment awards—the Emmy for television, 
the Grammy for music, the Oscar for film, and the Tony for theater, 
often referred to by the “EGOT” acronym—have long served as a barometer 
of mainstream taste cultures in their respective fields. While 
literature on media awards is not completely absent, its scope has been 
narrow. Popular press works on the somewhat standardized journalistic 
narratives surrounding the EGOT, particularly the Oscars. Scholarly 
literature has largely focused on awards as they pertain to the 
international art cinema circuit and its attached film festivals, such 
as the Cannes Film Festival. This call, while respecting the literature 
that addresses these familiar narratives, intends to reimagine and 
reinvigorate discussion of entertainment awards and their meaning within 
the media industries.

Awards are a near-ubiquitous feature of media cultures across mediums, 
narrative forms, industrial roles, and both geopolitical and virtual 
spaces: The Nolly Awards, for the span of a few years, recognized 
achievement in Nollywood films, i.e. the cinema of Nigeria; TikTok user 
Ashley Hufford (@ashleyhufford) recently sought to establish the “Tik 
Tok Tony Awards”; The Ursa Major Awards is awarded for “the furry arts.” 
What purpose do these and other awards serve for their respective 
communities, beyond the oft-stated objective of recognizing excellence? 
In what cases do awards recognize achievement in areas beyond the media 
text? In what aspects of the media industries are awards rarely given, 
but excellence still expected? When is the stated purpose or ultimate 
effect of an award something distinctly separate from excellence?

Furthermore, we are interested in the intersection of awards with 
critical discourse on political, social, and identity-based issues. 
Media award shows have long served as a locus for the discussion of 
issues through sartorial statements, protests on and off the red carpet, 
and political statements in acceptance speeches or other awards forums. 
Recent conversations about inclusion and equity for marginalized 
communities in nominations and organizational membership have served to 
highlight the institutionalized bigotry of the media industries and 
media cultures more generally. This advocacy has come from many 
perspectives, both within those industries, from cultural intermediaries 
in the fourth estate, and from vocal audience members. Such discussions 
have been accompanied by some change, including the establishment of the 
Academy Inclusion Standards in 2020, and the 2019 Tony for Best Musical 
Revival going toOklahoma!, a production which transformed the 
traditional work into an allegory for racism and intolerance in 
contemporary America. It remains to be seen, however, whether these 
gestures signal a larger, permanent shift towards equity, or whether 
they will remain largely symbolic events. Media awards thus provide a 
microcosm of larger representational concerns, one that can serve as a 
rich point of study for scholarly inquiry.

The Velvet Light Trap#89 seeks to challenge and expand our understanding 
of media awards so that we may better understand the media ecologies 
that support such events. These awards bridge media criticism, 
sociocultural issues, national and international politics, and cultures 
of art and entertainment into discourses both in and outside of the 
mainstream. We welcome submissions that push the boundaries of current 
media awards literature, use media award contexts as key case studies, 
or exploring any of the following themes:

● Reimagining our approach to or conception of major awards, ‘awards 
seasons,’ and their attendant discourses, including the Oscars, Tonys, 
Emmys, and Grammys

● Media awards outside North American and Anglophone contexts

● The various meanings of entertainment and media award shows in 
relation to the local, national, and global contexts.

● Historical media awards (defunct or still ongoing), particularly 
situated within sociocultural contexts

● Explorations of the various cultural intermediaries that enable and 
coordinate the hubbub of “awards seasons,” including critics, culture 
writers, and so on.

● Recognition of technical, below-the-line, organizational, or corporate 
achievement

● Recognition of achievement for communities of color and marginalized 
groups (e.g. NAACP Image Awards, the Unforgettable Gala)

● Recognition of achievement in marginalized groups (e.g. the GLAAD 
Media Awards, the Mental Health Media Awards, the Media Access Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in media subcultures, communities, or 
genres (e.g. the Ursa Major Awards, the Saturn Awards, the r/Aww Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in pornography (e.g. the PornHub Awards, 
the GayVN Awards)

● Recognition of social media and digital content achievement (e.g. the 
American Influencer Awards, the Webby Awards, the Streamy Awards, the 
Shorty Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in video games (e.g. the Game Awards, the 
Game Critics Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in comics and animation (e.g. the Annie 
Awards, the Eisner Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in understudied, under-recognized or niche 
media types

● Intentionally subversive media-related awards (e.g. the Razzies)

● Recognition of achievement in relation to conventions and/or 
fandom-specific contexts

● Controversies related to a specific media-related award, award show, 
or win/loss

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words, formatted in 
Chicago Style. Please

submit an electronic copy of the paper along with a separate one-page 
abstract, both saved as Microsoft Word files. Remove any identifying 
information so that the submission is suitable for anonymous review. 
Quotations not in English should be accompanied by translations. Please 
send your submissions to (vltcfp /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(vltcfp /at/ gmail.com)>by 
February 28th, 2021. If additional time is necessary, please email us to 
discuss.

About the Journal

TVLT is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal of film, television, and new 
media. The journal draw on a variety of theoretical and 
historiographical approaches from the humanities and social sciences and 
welcomes any effort that will help foster the ongoing processes of 
evaluation and negotiation in media history and criticism. While TVLT 
maintains its traditional commitment to the study of American film, it 
also expands its scope to television and other media, to adjacent 
institutions, and to other nations' media. The journal encourages both 
approaches and objects of study that have been neglected or excluded in 
past scholarship.

Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the 
University of Texas at Austin coordinate issues in alternation, and each 
issue is devoted to a particular theme. TVLT's Editorial Advisory Board 
includes such notable scholars as Ben Aslinger, Caitlin Benson-Allott, 
Lauren S. Berliner, Dolores Inés Casillas, Aymar Jean Christian, Lisa 
Dombrowski, Raquel Gates, Dan Herbert, Deborah Jaramillo, Lori Morimoto, 
Meenasarani (Linde) Murugan, Safia Noble, Bob Rehak, Debra Ramsay, 
Bonnie Ruberg, Avi Santo, Samantha Noelle Sheppard, Dan Streible, Neil 
Verma, and Alyx Vesey. TVLT's graduate student editors are assisted by 
their local faculty advisors: Mary Beltrán, Ben Brewster, Jonathan Gray, 
Lea Jacobs, Derek Johnson, Shanti Kumar, Charles Ramírez Berg, Thomas 
Schatz, and Janet Staiger (emeritus).


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