[Commlist] Call for Papers: ‘Media Ecologies, Identity and Community: family, culture and discourse in the digital era’

Call for Papers: Explorations in Media Ecology


Special Issue: ‘Media Ecologies, Identity and Community: family, culture 
and discourse in the digital era’


Guest Editor

Laura Trujillo-Liñán, Universidad Panamericana —

President, Media Ecology Association. (ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx) 
<mailto:(ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx)>


Abstracts due:

30 September 2026 — 300 words plus a short biographical note.


To view the full call click here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/explorations-in-media-ecology#call-for-papers 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/explorations-in-media-ecology#call-for-papers>


We welcome contributions for a Special Issue on ‘Media Ecologies, 
Identity and Community: family, culture and discourse in the digital 
era’ to be published in Explorations in Media Ecology.


Context and Rationale

The 26th convention of the Media Ecology Association, held in June 2025 
at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico, brought together researchers 
from diverse disciplines to reflect on processes of mediation and their 
impact on human life. Although many panels focused on artificial 
intelligence, other discussions emerged that centred on how digital 
media shape identity and community. The panel Connecting Families Across 
Time and Spaceanalysed

kinkeeping and family timebinding practices and the gendered discursive 
functions involved in maintaining kinship ties. Media and 
Identityexamined the impact of algorithms on our perception of reality. 
Media and Radicalization explored how monetizing interactions on X 
(formerly Twitter) influences the polarization of public opinion. There 
were also debates on digital communication for sustainability and the 
possibility of hidden agendas in organizational strategies, the role of 
urban communication with widows, orphans and strangers, contemporary 
photography as a technological narrative, and the influence of digital 
media on generational differences and critical thinking in the classroom.


These discussions show that the Association is also interested in how 
media act as environments that shape identity, family relations, 
community belonging, cultural memory and activism. Since Explorations in 
Media Ecology has already published a special issue on ‘Artificial 
Intelligence and Media Ecology’, it is timely to devote a special issue 
to these other questions: how technological mediation reconfigures human 
bonds, popular culture and social polarization.


We invite research articles, theoretical essays, ethnographic work, case 
studies and creative proposals that analyse the relationship between 
media, identity and community from an ecological perspective.


Possible Topics

Welcomed topics include, but are not limited to the following. Other 
proposals will be considered provided they relate to identity, community 
and media ecology.


  *

    Algorithms and the construction of reality: How social media
    algorithms shape perceptions of the world, influence individual and
    collective identity, and affect the way wars and conflicts are 
narrated.

  *

    Family connectedness, genealogy and family memory in the digital
    era: The ecology of family timebinding practices and their
    representation in media — for example, talking tombstones —and the
    gendered discursive functions involved in maintaining kinship networks.

  *

    Media and discourse: How monetizing interactions on platforms such
    as X (formerly Twitter) affects the polarization of public opinion;
    polarizing dynamics among young audiences and strategies for
    restoring dialogue.

  *

    Photography and visual culture: Contemporary photography and other
    visual arts as

technological and ethical narratives in the twenty-first century, and 
their role in constructing identities and memories.

  *

    Digital communication, sustainability and social justice: How
    organizations use digital communication for environmental or
    social-responsibility issues and whether hidden agendas exist within
    these strategies; digital and financial inclusion in contexts of
    extreme poverty; communication aimed at sustainability.

  *

    Generations, education and critical thinking: Generational
    differences in the use of digital media and their impact on critical
    thinking in the classroom; media literacy at various educational 
levels.

  *

    Neighbourhood, community and urbanism: Forms of communication with
    ‘the neighbour, the widow, the orphan and the stranger’ in urban
    environments; urbanism, inequality and media ecology.

  *

    Family, identity and health: Identity, mental health and wellbeing
    in digital contexts — for example, the psychological effects of
    networks such as TikTok and Instagram on young people and adolescents.

  *

    Creativity and popular culture: How social networks influence
    fashion, music, film and other creative industries, and how the
    boundary between human and algorithmic creativity is negotiated.

  *

    Family connectedness, genealogy and family memory in the digital
    era: The ecology of family timebinding practices and their
    representation in media — for example, talking tombstones —and the
    gendered discursive functions involved in maintaining kinship networks.

  *

    Photography and visual culture: Contemporary photography and other
    visual arts as technological and ethical narratives in the
    twenty-first century, and their role in constructing identities and
    memories.

  *

    Generations, education and critical thinking: Generational
    differences in the use of digital media and their impact on critical
    thinking in the classroom; media literacy at various educational 
levels.

  *

    Family, identity and health:Identity, mental health and wellbeing in
    digital contexts — for example, the psychological effects of
    networks such as TikTok and Instagram on young people and adolescents.

  *

    Polarization and social cohesion: The influence of media on
    political, religious or cultural polarization, and strategies to
    strengthen community cohesion.


What we are looking for:

  *

    Articles (Peer Reviewed): The longer and more formal works of the
    issue: full scholarly arguments, empirical studies and sustained
    theoretical essays. All articles are sent out for peer review.

  *

    Probes (Editorial Review): Shorter and less formal pieces: an
    observation, a provocation, a first sounding of an idea. Probes are
    reviewed by the guest editor and the editorial team.

  *

    Pedagogy (Editorial Review: Work about teaching: syllabi and course
    designs, classroom exercises, and reflections on what identity,
    family and polarization look like from the front of a room.

  *

    Book reviews (Editorial Review): Reviews of recent books on media,
    identity, community and discourse. Please propose the title to
    (ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx) <mailto:(ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx)> before writing.


How to Submit:

Abstracts of 300 words and a short biographical note should be submitted 
by 30 September 2026 by email to Laura Trujillo-Liñán, 
(ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx) <mailto:(ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx)>, with the subject line 
‘EME Special Issue – Identity and Community’. Please indicate which 
section you are writing for. Questions about scope, fit or format may be 
sent to the same address at any point before the deadline.


Manuscript submission: 30 October 2026

Notifications (Manuscript Review): November 2026

Finals manuscripts due: 1 December 2026

Target publication: March 2027


Contributors are asked to submit original papers in the journal’s 
requested manuscript format. Formatting guidance: Notes for Contributors 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/104524/1/EME_NFC_May_26.pdf>(PDF).


About the journal:

Explorations in Media Ecology, the journal of the Media Ecology 
Association, accepts submissions that extend our understanding of media 
(defined in the broadest possible terms), that apply media ecological 
approaches, and/or that advance media ecology as a field of inquiry. As 
a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary publication, EME 
welcomes contributions embracing diverse theoretical, philosophical and 
methodological approaches to the study of media and processes of mediation.


Special Issue Guest Editor:

Laura Trujillo-Liñán

Universidad Panamericana

· President, Media Ecology Association

· Organiser of the 26th MEA Convention

(ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx) <mailto:(ltrujill /at/ up.edu.mx)>


Laura Trujillo-Liñán is Full Professor-Researcher at the School of 
Communication of Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City, where she has 
taught since 2008, and a member of Mexico’s National System of 
Researchers (SNII, Level I). She currently serves as President of the 
Media Ecology Association and as a Trustee of the Institute of General 
Semantics in New York.


Her research brings Aristotelian philosophy — and in particular the 
notion of formal causality — to bear on media theory. Her book Formal 
Cause in Marshall McLuhan’s Thinking: An Aristotelian Perspective 
(Institute of General Semantics, 2022) received the MEA’s Marshall 
McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in 2023, and she received the Louis 
Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in 2025. She publishes in 
Spanish and English on media ecology, general semantics, the ethics of 
technology, and the effects of artificial intelligence on human reason 
and public discourse.


She organized and hosted the 26th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology 
Association at Universidad Panamericana in June 2025 — the convention 
from which this special issue arises — and co-designed, with the 
Institute of General Semantics, an international doctoral programme in 
media ecology. She is also the founder and president of the Asociación 
Mexicana de Semántica General. As guest editor, she is committed to an 
issue that is rigorous in its scholarship and genuinely international in 
its authorship, and she especially welcomes work from scholars writing 
beyond the field’s traditional centres.

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