[ecrea] CFP IJSD special issue: "Sustainability Tales, Fictions and Other Stories from the Movie Industry"

Call for papers: Special Issue on "Sustainability Tales, Fictions and 
Other Stories from the Movie Industry"

Submission of abstract (500 words): 30 October, 2011


Environmental issues have inspired good storytelling in both big and
small budget movies during the last decades. Box office numbers account
for millions of viewers for feature films such as An Inconvenient Truth,
March of the Penguins, The 11 th Hour, The Age of Stupid, Erin
Brockovich, etc., and smaller budget movies with great impact such as
The Big Ask, featured at COP15 (2009 United Nations Climate Change
Conference) in Copenhagen, or The Story of Stuff.

Many of these movies were viewed by millions of people in movie
theatres, at home, etc., but they are also used in organised contexts
such as educational settings, NGO’s environmental campaigns and even by
politicians who engage in environmental sustainability debates. We argue
that movies and other forms of popular culture need to be interrogated
in regard to their role in communicating scientific issues to their
audiences, their role in raising awareness of and initiating debates
about sustainability issues, as well as their role in developing agency
and collective action concerning the sustainability stories they tell.
These intriguing issues are relevant to those engaged in movie script
writing, storytelling and public engagement in sustainability conversations.

This special issue seeks contributions aimed at exploring the role of
movies in conversations about sustainability, but also at unveiling and
critically discussing what narratives are framing the sustainability
discourses told by the movies’ stories.


- Subject Coverage:

Examples of questions that could be addressed include but are not
limited to:


- What are the implicit sustainability narratives behind the
sustainability tales told by the movies?
- What is the intentionality of media choices in portraying
sustainability ideas in movies, including responsibility and other
sustainability principles (imagery, soundtrack, etc.)?
- How are futures (including utopias and dystopias) represented and
discussed in sustainability movies?
- What is the role of sustainability movies in forming public opinions
and perceptions about the issues they portray?
- What are the social, cultural and psychological conditions through
which the public engage with and attach meaning to representations of
sustainability issues in movies?
- What are the roles of movies in developing agency and responsibility
towards environmental issues?
- What is the importance of people and institutions involved in the
movie-making process (e.g. producers, directors, narrators, actors) in
forming opinions about and fostering engagement with sustainability issues?
- What are the effects of movie genre (e.g. science-fiction,
documentary, “docudrama”, cartoons, drama) on the public’s engagement
with a movie’s message?

- Important Dates:

Submission of abstract (500 words): 30 October, 2011

Notification of acceptance: 15 November, 2011

Full papers due: 15 February, 2012

Peer review results: 30 May, 2012

Final paper due: 15 July, 2012


All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please go to:
http://www.inderscience.com/mapper.php?id=35&jid=25

For further information please use the link:
http://www.inderscience.com/browse/callpaper.php?callID=1690



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