[Commlist] Call for Abstracts for book chapters - Media and Outer Space: Communication, Media Studies and Understanding the Cosmos

Call for Abstracts for book chapters
Media and Outer Space: Communication, Media Studies and Understanding 
the Cosmos

Following recent confirmation of firm interest from Palgrave Macmillan, 
we are seeking contributions to a forthcoming volume, titled Media and 
Outer Space: Communication, Media Studies and Understanding the Cosmos, 
intended to explore the role of media and communications studies as a 
way of understanding humanity’s current and future explorations of outer 
space.
Despite the growing interest in the social studies of outer space, the 
subject has not been given much attention by media and communications 
studies. Some recent work by media scholars have begun to explore 
aspects of outer space.  But with so little in the way of studies 
available, much less space has been given to theorising on why media and 
communications studies are important to study outer space but also what 
the physical realm of outer space means for the discipline itself.  In a 
plenary address to an academic conference, the media historian John 
Durham Peters attempted to rectify this with an address to theorise how 
communications studies could be a suitable field for providing meaning 
to outer space, especially in terms of how communication and 
communication technologies has changed our experience of time and space. 
We do not want to restrict ourselves to merely thinking about outer 
space-earthly relations but would like contributors to consider how 
media and communications studies can shed light on outer space as an 
environment itself as well as thinking about how humans relate to media 
and technologies used for space exploration.
We envision this book as being the beginning to opening a conversation 
amongst media scholars to think beyond the boundaries of Earth, to see 
the cosmos as a realm of philosophising about what communications means 
as mankind traverses the cosmos, but also to consider the implications 
of communication theory for thinking about outer space as an environment 
for serious scholarly consideration, and advance interdisciplinary and 
international perspectives on the creative potential of media and 
communication theory in the context of outer space.
Media and Outer Space: Communication, Media Studies and Understanding 
the Cosmos offers the first dedicated compendium of media and 
communications scholarly engagement with the emerging field out outer 
space studies and aims to mobilise media and communications theory 
scholars and scholarship to ask new and pertinent questions about 
humanity’s place in the cosmos amidst a rapidly expanding space sector. 
This is important because there have been significant but scattered 
engagements so far but nothing that specifically deals with what is a 
crucial area of space exploration: the role of media and media 
technologies in both reporting on but also their embeddedness within 
infrastructure and technologies of space exploration. Some media and 
communications scholarship has recently begun developing exciting work 
into cosmobiopolitics (Damjanov 2015), popular culture (Froelich 2020), 
celebrity (Damjanov and Crouch 2018), cosmos-politanism (Boyle and 
Mrozowski 2019), extraterrestrial communication (Zapp 2023) or satire 
(Pieterse 2020).  We are opening up the space for media scholars to 
think deeply about outer space as being an environment (following the 
call of the media historian John Durham Peters) that media and 
communications should be taken seriously as a field of study for outer 
space.  Without media, there is no space exploration. From computers to 
sensors, every technology used in space exploration has a media and 
communications component and this needs to be thoroughly examined by the 
field and new insights developed that might enable us to understand the 
history and future of space exploration better.

This book provides a platform to foster an important dialogue between 
different practitioners of media and communications studies outlining 
work that is already ongoing but also challenging media scholars to 
think about what the field can bring to enrich our understanding of what 
is already ongoing in the space sector but to utilise existing, or 
create new, theories of media and communications studies to enhance our 
understanding of outer space.  Additionally to this, as Peters argues 
for, we hope for interdisciplinary contributions that draw upon other 
fields (such as physics, or philosophy) to strengthen communication 
theory. We envision this book as being the first step in a conversation 
that provides a theoretical underpinning to the consideration of outer 
space as an environment that transforms media and communications studies 
into a field not rigidly tied to earthly bonds.
This volume invites contributions that explore the following themes, 
however, we are particularly interested in hearing other perspectives 
that deal with media and communications theory and outer space.  We, the 
editors, do not have any methodological or theoretical preferences. 
Suggested themes (but we very much encourage submissions outside of this 
guideline) for the chapters are as follows:

•	Mediatisation and Outer Space: Understanding the relationship between 
outer space and earth
•	Science Fiction Imaginaries of Media(s) in Outer Space
•	Netflix and NASA: Filming Outer Space in a Fragmented Media Landscape
•	Communicating Science: Social media and NASA’s quest to inspire new 
generations
•	Media Representations of Commercial Space: NASA, the private sector 
and the neoliberal imaginary
•	A History and Future of Satellites as Media Technologies
•	Media Infrastructures of Space Exploration
•	The Politics of Media and Outer Space
•	Orbital debris as a problem of residual media •	NASA and Deep Space 
Communication Technologies
•	Time, Space and the Problem of Technological Communication
•	Communicating the Universe? Media Studies and Understanding the 
Cosmos. A Media Philosophy Perspective
•	Methods and the Study of Outer Space: Repurposing the Old or 
Developing the New?
•	Teaching Outer Space Theory
•	Speculative Technologies of Interstellar Communication
We particularly encourage contributions that offer interdisciplinary 
perspectives; present empirical studies or theoretical advancements; 
highlight innovative methodologies or frameworks; and / or provide 
insights from diverse geographic, cultural, or professional contexts.

Submission Guidelines:

Contributors are invited to submit proposals for chapters that align 
with the book's theme.

▪ Abstract Submission: please submit an abstract of 250–300 words. 
Please also send a short author(s) biography of 100-200 words.
▪ Deadline for Abstracts: Dec. 1st, 2025
▪ Notification of Acceptance to Authors: Dec. 15th, 2025
▪ Contributions are expected to be 7,000-8,000 words including 
references, footnotes, etc.
▪ Full Chapter Submission: May 31st, 2026
▪ Estimated Official Publication: June 30, 2027

Questions concerning the abstract and submissions may be addressed to 
all the editors of the book. Contact details:

Graham Minenor-Matheson, PhD Candidate, Linköping University, email: 
(graham.minenor-matheson /at/ liu.se) Michael Godhe, Associate Professor and 
Docent, Linköping University, email: (michael.godhe /at/ liu.se)
Please send all submissions to BOTH editors.

Editor biographies:

Graham Minenor-Matheson is a PhD candidate at the Department of Thematic 
Studies: Technology and Social Change, Linköping University whose 
research intersects with the social studies of outer space, history of 
technology and media and communication studies engaging with imaginaries 
involving outer space.   He has expertise in media and cultural analysis 
predominantly of journalism and politics in British media.  Graham has 
two master’s degrees in media studies and cultural analysis and is 
currently pursuing a PhD in Technology and Social Change where his 
current research deals with how the space race as a phrase has been 
constructed within media and what that means for power relations in the 
commercial space age. Graham has a forthcoming co-written chapter on 
(techno)magic in The Mummy franchise in an edited collection to be 
published in 2026. Graham is active on both Twitter and Bluesky where he 
promotes his own research and the work of the Linköping Space Studies in 
Humanities and Social Sciences (LSSH) which, alongside Michael Godhe, he 
is co-founder.

Michael Godhe is a historian of ideas and works as a teacher and 
researcher at the Department of Culture and Society at Campus 
Norrköping, Linköping University. He defended his doctoral thesis at the 
Department of Technology and Social Change at Linköping University on 
the historical study of ideas Tomorrow's experts. Technology, youth and 
progress in popular science and science fiction in Sweden during the 
long 1950s (2003). Together with Luke Goode at the University of 
Auckland, he has launched the transdisciplinary research field of 
critical future studies.  Michael is part of the editorial collective 
for The Journal of Social and Cultural Possibilities, and has written 
extensively on science fiction, media and utopias. Michael is also 
co-founder of Linköping Space Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences 
(LSSH).


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