[Commlist] Call for Papers: Audiovisual Discourses

Call for Papers Montage AV 31,2, 2022

Issue on “Audiovisual Discourses”

If films or series tell stories about exploitation in labor relationships or
about environmental disasters, they need to be seen not only as artistic
works or entertaining fiction, but as taking positions in current debatesand
dealing with real problems, as well. This is true for offbeat parodies or
dark dystopias as well as for social realism, for sitcoms and entertainment
series as well as for documentaries (many of which deal most obviously with
real social issues). In times of crisis like the current pandemic it also
becomes evident that audiovisual narratives serve as imaginative
crystallizations of diffuse fears and as shared stocks of knowledge that 
make
it possible to communicate about abstract threats.

Looking at films, series, and other forms of moving pictures as 
discourses in
a theoretically-based rather than just intuitive way appears to be a
plausible and worthwhile approach for several reasons First, it allows us to
overcome the borders between genres and to see, for instance, how socially
critical topics are dealt with in both fictional and documentary forms, 
while
the differences between the formal and rhetorical strategies can also be
informative for theory. Second, this avoids simple models of reflection. The
films do not simply take up and represent social developments, but 
themselves
are part of and contribute to understanding reality and shape our images of
it. Third, ties to and interrelationships with discourses in other media may
become visible and possible to investigate. Similar topics may be dealt with
both verbally and audio-visually; images may diffuse into language while a
literary motif may be turned into a filmic form.

A possible problem with making use of the concept of discourse in film and
media studies is to be found in its notorious ubiquity and imprecision. Many
different concepts of discourse are circulating and various more-or-less 
well
worked out theories of discourse exist, aiming at different issues. Semiotic
or narratological notions of discourse (e.g. those of Benveniste, Metz, or
Odin) may help answer quite different questions about film and audiovisual
media than socio-philosophical ones do (e.g. Foucault, Pêcheux, Laclau,
Mouffe, etc.). More analytically oriented concepts and methods that have 
been
developed in social, cultural, and communication sciences (e.g. by Jäger,
Link, Fairclough, or van Dijk) show different strengths and blind spots in
their heuristic approaches.



For this issue of the journal, we are looking for articles that show
awareness of this conceptual jungle and undertake theoretical expeditionsor
explore it using analytic case studies. They might, for instance, consider
the following topics and questions:

What defines the political or ethical perspective of an audiovisual text?
What kinds of referential and discursive connections can be found? How 
can we
think of the relationships between reading a film and socio-philosophical
argumentation? How can we conceive of the participation of audiovisual media
in the way various topics are worked out in social and cultural 
negotiations?

In which discursive formations are the analyzed films situated? What do
audiovisual discourses take as given reality and what do such axiomatic
assumptions show us? For example, how do discriminatory stereotypes and
cliches arise and how can they be combatted?

How do audiovisual media function rhetorically and persuasively and what
means of suggestion and the modulation of emotions do they use? To what
extent can we speak of specific audiovisual forms of discursivization here?
How is the stylistic level of the film related to the discursive level?



We would welcome manuscripts of up to 35,000 characters (about 6800 words).
Christoph A. Büttner (c.buettner [at] filmuniversitaet.de) and Guido Kirsten
(g.kirsten [at] filmuniversitaet.de) will be glad to answer any questionsand
provide further information. Please submit manuscripts by 16 May 2022 to the
above addresses or montage [at] snafu.de.

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