[ecrea] call for contributions - The walk of shame

Call for contributions

 The walk of shame

 Nova Publishers: Science Publishers, Inc. Hauppauge, N.Y., USA 
http://www.novapublishers.com

A book edited by Dr. Mira Moshe* and Dr. Nicoleta Corbu**

 Due to be published in 2013


* Dr. Mira Moshe is a senior lecturer in the Sociology and Anthropology 
Department and the School of Communications at the Ariel University 
Center of Samaria. In 1999 she won the Keren Schnitzer Prize for 
Excellence. In 2000 she won a research grant from the Burda Research 
Center for Innovative Communications. In 1998 and 2005 she won a 
research grant from Israel’s Second Authority for Television and Radio. 
In 2007 and 2009 she won a research grant from R & D Center - Samaria & 
Jordan Rift. Her academic work has mainly focused on the media, 
politics, culture and society. Her most recently published articles 
appeared in Policy Studies, the Journal of Language and Politics, 
Television & New Media, and a chapter under her authorship was included 
in Minority Groups: Coercion, Discrimination, Exclusion, Deviance and 
the Quest for Equality (Nova Science Publishers).

E-mail: (moshe.corbu /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(moshe.corbu /at/ gmail.com)>

 -------------------------------------------------

** Dr. Nicoleta Corbu is a Senior Lecturer and Vice-Dean for Research at 
the Faculty of Communications and Public Relations, National School of 
Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania. She is 
currently the Executive Director of the Center for Research in 
Communications. She has published books in the area of theories of 
communications (History of communications studies, 2007), political 
communications (co-author of Telepresidents: An inquiry into an election 
campaign, 2011) and semiotics of advertising (Global brands: A 
cross-cultural perspective, 2009). Her research interests are currently 
focused on European identity, the European public sphere and framing 
analysis.

E-mail: (moshe.corbu /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(moshe.corbu /at/ gmail.com)>


Argument


The term “walk of shame” is deeply rooted in the idea that shame is a 
difficult emotion stemming from a feeling of inferiority or social 
discomfort, which causes a person to wish to disappear, become 
invisible, be “swallowed up by the earth”. However, sometimes exactly at 
such a moment of disgrace, individuals are publicly exposed to the full 
extent of their misery and must walk “the walk of shame” witnessed by 
family, friends and acquaintances. Shame, considered by some to have 
genetic origins, is an integral part of social circumstances and 
settings in accordance with a set of values, patterns of thought and the 
individual’s physiological makeup. Shame is the result of familial, 
social and media processes. Thus the walk of shame does not take place 
privately behind closed doors, but on city sidewalks, in the workplace, 
in newspaper columns and on television and computer screens. It is not 
surprising, then, to discover that the tremendous power of shame has 
expropriated it from the individual’s control in the private sphere to 
the public sector, creating a collective punishing mechanism whose goal 
is to warn against undesirable behavior. Indeed, a person’s public 
humiliation is a form of punishment, a negative sanction leading to 
disgrace, debasement and mortification. Such an act has a physical 
dimension as well as a media-based one. The physical damage involves 
negating a person’s degree of freedom. The media-based damage involves 
widely publicizing the individual’s disgrace. In both dimensions this 
damage creates a social imbalance in which individuals lose their former 
standing, i.e., their place in the public sphere prior to being 
subjected to the sanction of shame. Thus the person finds 
himself/herself in thrall to an external force (whether physical or 
media-based) whose goal is to further specific interests. It is not 
surprising, then, that in ancient Greece Zeus dispatched Hermes to 
apportion to all human beings an equal amount of justice and shame, in 
order to facilitate their organization into societies and nations. In 
the thousands of years that have passed since then, people have 
transformed their sense of morality and shame into a tool with which to 
repress others and gather ever greater power (as is evident from Michel 
Foucault’s writings on this topic in his book The history of sexuality).

However, in recent years we are witness to yet another phenomenon: the 
disgraced individual’s attempt to change “the walk of shame” into the 
“walk of fame”, from an act of humiliation to an act of glorification, 
from downgrade to upgrade. No longer a shameful crawl through back 
alleys, we now have a well-planned, carefully timed and rehearsed parade 
along the main thoroughfare of popular media. The marcher is transformed 
from a victim thrown to the lions to entertain the masses into a 
gladiator fighting for his life, placing his fate in the hands of 
readers and viewers.

As a result, the blurring of boundaries between the private and public 
spheres, following the expansion of celebrity culture and the 
proliferation of reality TV refugees, as well as the phenomenon of 
politicians chasing television screen time, has become multicultural and 
international.  IT societies, as well as traditional cultures around the 
globe, are witness to well-known private and public figures, CEOs of 
financial organizations and companies side by side with high ranking 
political leaders, MPs and heads of state walking the walk of shame 
through newspapers headlines, paparazzi shots and of course prime-time 
television. Past struggles to achieve privacy, most commonly the morning 
after a night out at a bar, nightclub or party, have been replaced by a 
mass targeting of the public eye, while the victim simultaneously blames 
the media, and the public, for contributing to his or her degradation. 
Hence, this call for papers is targeted at original texts portraying 
current permutations (both qualitative and quantitative) of the walk of 
shame. These could include a wide range of multi-dimensional media 
phenomena focusing on political aspects, national discourse, financial 
crises, security leaks, sex scandals, embezzlement, treason and other 
kinds of cultural configurations.

Target Audience


 The target audience of this book would include professionals and 
researchers working in the field of social sciences, encompassing 
education, political science, information and communications sciences, etc.


Submission procedure


 General guidelines: All entries must be written in American English 
and typed in double-spaced Microsoft Word format (Times New Roman 12 pt. 
font). Texts in PDF format will not be accepted.

Proposals: Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit a 
700-word chapter proposal which clearly outlines the mission and 
concerns of his/her proposed chapter. Each proposal should address one 
of the topics mentioned above. Proposals should be sent directly to the 
editors ((moshe.corbu /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(moshe.corbu /at/ gmail.com)>) by 
January 31^st , 2012. A separate cover sheet should be provided stating 
the name(s), institutional affiliation(s) and e-mail address(es) of the 
author(s). Authors whose proposals are accepted will be notified by 
March 15th, 2012.

Completed chapters: These should be submitted on or before June 15th, 
2012. They should constitute high-quality original papers of a 
theoretical or empirical nature that shed light upon and engage with the 
topic of “The Walk of Shame”.  The submitted chapters should elaborate 
on the ideas and topics that were presented in contributors’ proposals. 
Manuscripts should be prepared in strict accordance with the guidelines 
of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 
(5^th Edition). They should be a maximum of 9,000 words in length 
(including references, tables, figures, appendices and endnotes).

Contributors whose articles are accepted for publication will be obliged 
to sign a document specifying the publisher’s terms and conditions, as 
well as a copyright agreement.

The fact that an abstract is accepted does not guarantee publication of 
the final manuscript. All chapters submitted will be judged on the basis 
of a double-blind reviewing process.

Timetable

January 31st, 2012: Deadline for proposal submission

March 31st, 2012: Notification of acceptance

June 30th, 2012: Full chapter submission

September 30th, 2012: Return of review results

October 31st, 2012: Submission of completed chapters