[Commlist] CfP Communications: "Media and Platform Governance"

Call for papers

Special Issue “Media and Platform Governance" (https://euromediapp.org 
<https://euromediapp.org>)

COMMUNICATIONS – The European Journal of Communication Research

Guest editors: Josef Trappel, Tales Tomaz (University of Salzburg)


Since October 2020, the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet network “European Media and 
Platform Policy” (EuromediApp) addresses the ongoing fundamental 
transition from the post-World War II media order to a truly global 
communication network and platform order. Digital communication promises 
to bring enormous benefits to citizens and businesses and to improve the 
wellbeing of citizens. However, its set-up is no longer dominated by 
national or European players, but by global oligopolies, mostly 
originating in the United States. These digital platforms increasingly 
determine European communication at all levels, from political 
communication to economic, cultural, sports and 
everyday-life communication. This special issue therefore asks: What is 
the European answer?

We invite contributions to this special issue in four distinct, but 
interrelated topics:

1.     Regulatory context: Internet governance in general and platform 
governance in particular can be discussed from a global, European 
and national perspectives. In this topic of the special issue, 
contributions are welcome that deal with private-commercial governance 
rules, as well as national and European regulatory patterns. For 
example, the design and effectiveness of the German Network Enforcement 
Act (2017), the modernisation and strengthening of antitrust abuse 
control, European and national competition rules in the area of digital 
platforms, such as the proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA), as well as 
the European Commission's draft Digital Services Act (DSA) are all up 
for discussion. Contributors can discuss the chances of success of 
efforts to create a safer digital space in Europe where, on the one 
hand, users' fundamental rights are protected and, on the other hand, a 
level playing field for information and communication-based platform 
companies is established. Keywords are: European and national 
regulation; platform regulation, platform governance, digital 
intermediaries, self-regulation, co-regulation, external regulation, 
government regulation, state regulation, multi-level governance, good 
platform governance.

2.     Economic policy context: Digital platforms were initially 
conceived by their developers as forums for exchange between 
individuals, independent of the mass media. With their wide 
dissemination, a competitive relationship has quickly developed. Due to 
the economic two-sidedness, digital platforms today compete with mass 
media in terms of both usage time and advertising sales. In the past 
decade, digital platforms succeeded in gaining competitive advantages in 
both areas. Especially younger cohorts spend more time using digital 
platforms than mass media, and personalized advertising provides digital 
platforms additional advantages. As a result, mass media advertising 
revenues have eroded, affecting the financial viability of journalism. 
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated and accelerated this trend. 
Contributions are welcome addressing fair competition, regulatory 
responses to oligopolistic or monopolistic concentration of power and 
its abuse. Keywords are: competition, concentration of power, platform 
power and abuse, bequest, manipulation, propaganda; antitrust policy, 
protecting fundamental rights protection, privacy.

3.     Corporate policy context: Mass media and digital platforms create 
public spheres and shape public discourse by producing or 
moderating content. While mass media are responsible for the top end of 
the relevant value chain, thus the generation of content, digital 
platforms delegate this step to their users in order to intervene in a 
moderating capacity only later - often only when necessary. In both 
cases, the operators socially responsible as well as accountable. 
Contributions should discuss the diversity of procedures in the 
production and dissemination of content, as well as justified variations 
of regulatory regimes. Who bears responsibility for algorithm-driven or 
algorithm-generated content? What requirements, if any, should be placed 
on self-regulation within the industry and on individual platform 
companies? Keywords are: accountability, transparency obligation, 
responsibility, algorithms, accountability, infrastructures

4.     Journalistic and editorial context: The platformisation of 
democracy, the public sphere and journalism has fuelled the debate on 
the power of commercial technology corporations and digital platform 
operators such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram and 
Snapchat. Contributions are welcome on issues of governance and 
regulation regarding the power and influence of private media and 
platform corporations on public and political democratic discourses. 
Keywords are hate speech, all kinds of legal or illegal mis- and 
disinformation, structural and situational violation of privacy, 
restrictions on access to content (gatekeeping), lack of labelling of 
advertising and propaganda, etc.

Contributions should not exceed 8000 words (including references, 
tables, footnotes, excluding appendices and supplementary material) 
for articles and 4000 words for Research in Brief or a Debate. The 
language style should be American English, quotation style (APA) should 
be applied. Interested scholars are invited to submit two-page abstracts 
by the end of March 2022. Selected abstracts are invited to submit 
full papers. COMMUNICATIONS is a double-blind peer reviewed journal and 
contributions are accepted only after this process.

Note: No payments from authors will be required.

Timing:

·       Abstracts (2 pages including five key words): 31 March 2022

·       Invitation to submit full paper: 25 April 2022

·       Full paper submission: 30 September 2022

·       End of review process: 31 March 2023

·       Final version of articles: 30 April 2023

·       Publication of the special issue: September 2023


Submission address / contact address: (tales.tomaz /at/ plus.ac.at) 
<mailto:(tales.tomaz /at/ plus.ac.at)>

Please note that your text should be anonymized. Author name(s), 
institutional affiliation(s) and contact information should be sent on 
a separate file or on the body of the e-mail.


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