[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
[Commlist] CFP: Revisiting Communication, Technology and Development: A 50th Anniversary Tribute to Dallas Smythe in China
Fri Feb 25 18:03:58 GMT 2022
*Special Issue of Chinese Journal of Communication (CJC) *
*CALL FOR PAPER*
**
*Revisiting Communication, Technology and Development: **
**A 50^th Anniversary Tribute to Dallas Smythe in China *
**
*/Submission Deadline: August 31, 2022 /**//*
*Guest Editors: ***
Yuezhi ZHAO (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Yu HONG (Zhejiang University, China)**
*The general aims and scope of this special issue:***
**
When Dallas Smythe returned from his first trip to China exactly fifty
years ago and then posited his “After Bicycles, What?” question at the
onset of China’s reform and open-up process, he probably could not have
imagined Chinese transnational corporation Huawei’s leadership in 5G
technology or the complex and protracted geopolitical struggles
surrounding it. To many, the so-called Digital Cold War or the
information warfare that the US-led power bloc has orchestrated against
China already signals an accelerated global transition that mixes
geopolitical, ideological, and technological shifts to an amplified
extent. Critically, Smythe’s insights on the politically-embedded nature
of technology, his theoretical bridging of communication to political
economy, and, ultimately, his fascination with the nature and direction
of China’s developmental path, have become ever more pertinent for
anchoring analysis of today’s digitalized global communication for which
China is an important part.
The first aim of this special issue is to bring forth Smythe’s
intellectual legacy so as to link critical inquiry of the unfolding
contestations with social struggles of the 20th century. While critical
scholars often evoke Smythe’s concept of audience commodity and his
treatment of “work” when examining immaterial labour and the new modes
of exploitation in digital capitalism, Dallas Smythe has much more to
offer. His critique of the “dependency road” and his consistent support
for national sovereignties to extend democratic participation in
development and governance, exemplifies the kind of critical praxis
aimed at contesting global power structures. After all, one should
remember that Dallas Smythe blazed a path of challenging Cold
War-enforced sinological orientalism and engaging China’s
self-proclaimed socialist theories and practices of development. For
critical scholarship today though, the so-called China question remains
unresolved, ever-more perplexing, and increasingly challenging. Hence,
it is time to extend Smythe’s pioneering visit to historically situate
China today as part and parcel of the long global transition.
The second aim of this special issue is to revisit, on both the
theoretical and empirical level, the nexus of communication, technology,
and development that has characterized various modernization
trajectories since the 1970s in China and elsewhere. To the extent that
global digital capitalism extends exploitation, polarization, and
depression, the actions of communities, institutions, and states
destabilize any version of digital universalism. In particular, even
though imaginaries and practices from the broadly defined Global South
have manifested themselves at a time of crises and great change, the
knowledge regime has failed to account for their relevance. In light of
diverging paths and competing visions, it is time to extend Smythe’s
critical acumen to the Digital Age and to examine what constitute
development, what mode of social embeddedness makes a developmental
agency, and what material relations enable the communication of specific
development politics.
Ultimately, as the world is at the crossroads of stagnation and
antagonism, as China is hosting the 2022 annual conference of the
International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
in Beijing, we draw inspirations from Dallas Smythe to create a dialogue
space for collectively exploring the possibility for shared development.
We invite conceptually-driven and empirically-based research that
addresses the intersections of communication, technology, and
development within and beyond China from historical, global, and
comparative perspectives. We welcome submissions grounded in varying
understandings of China’s developmental path and/or the contemporary
global order. Contributions in the areas of political economy of
communication, international communication, development communication,
rural communication, participatory communication, labor studies, science
and technology studies, traditional knowledge systems, post-colonial
epistemologies, and other relevant areas are all welcome. Topics of
abstracts could include but are not limited to:
● Rethinking development in the era of digital capitalistic crisis
- Communication and development: paradigmatic shifts and predicaments
- De-westernization, de-imperialization, and the redefinition of
social progress
- ICTs, networked individualism, and collective action
- Digital convergence, global subjects, and the radicalized idea
of the “local”
● Geopolitics of technology, global power shifts, and China’s
developmental path
- The social impacts of technological change and global
interconnections
- Global connectivity, the rise of BRICS, and China’s Belt and
Road Initiative
- Changing concepts of media imperialism, network sovereignty, and
national autonomy
- Digital divide, technological leapfrogging, and Global South
● Divergent ideologies, colliding global visions, and the
resilience of vernacular culture
- Ideology, consciousness industry, and cultural screens
- The contemporary rise of populist politics and progressive
alternatives
- Historical trajectories and future paths of popular democracy
● Capitalism, nature, and socialism
- The material impacts of ICT’s global expansion
- Consumerism and ecological sustainability in the post-pandemic world
- Post-capitalism, digital civilization, and new social imaginaries
● Dallas Smythe in rural China: new challenges on critical
communication research
- Urban-rural relations in the context of digital transformation
- Intellectual property regimes vis-à-vis traditional knowledge
systems in rural rejuvenation
- Re-narrating China’s developmental path and re-imagining
socialism in the countryside
- Connecting scholarship with praxis in local or international
movements
All manuscripts should be submitted by August 31, 2022. All submitted
manuscripts are subject to a rigorous blind peer-review process. All
accepted manuscripts will be published “online first.” The planned
printed publication date is an issue of CJC in March 2024. Submissions
should conform to the editorial guidelines of the Chinese Journal of
Communication found at http://www.informaworld.com/cjoc under
“Instructions for Authors.” Papers for consideration in this special
issue should be submitted online http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rcjc
and should indicate they are intended for inclusion in the special
issue. For inquires, contact Yuezhi Zhao at (yuezhi_zhao_a /at/ sfu.ca)
<mailto:(yuezhi_zhao_a /at/ sfu.ca)> and Yu Hong at (hong1 /at/ zju.edu.cn).
A conference after IAMCR on the topic will be held in July 2022.
Although participating in the conference is not a prerequisite for
submission to this special issue, we encourage potential contributors to
consider joining the conference so that authors would have the chance to
share their insights and views and thus improve the articles to be
submitted to the special issue. Detailed information of the conference
will be released in due time.
---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------
[Previous message][Next message][Back to index]
