[ecrea] cfp: Media Practices in Globalized and Multilocal Lifeworlds Between Economics and Subject-Orientation

merzWissenschaft | medien + erziehung
Call for Papers 2012

Topic:
Media Practices in Globalized and Multilocal Lifeworlds Between 
Economics and Subject-Orientation

Responsible editorial team: Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krotz (University of 
Bremen) and the merzWissenschaft (JFF) editorial department

An increasing number of areas of our lives are becoming profoundly 
mediatized. This process is also changing the basic conditions of human 
perception and experience, behavior and activity, and communication. New 
forms and means of communication are emerging: The new smart phones and 
tablets, for instance, allow for highly flexible media practices ? 
regardless of time and place we are able to process media content, 
communicate with other people and send out our own message into the world.
Mobile technology in particular expands the possibility to access 
content and tools for communication, thus increasingly intertwining 
individual and mass communication. Acting and communicating are thus 
becoming multilocal and translocal. In parallel to this, acting and 
communicating are, in a new sense of the word, becoming embedded in an 
economic context: In order to fathom all the options of our 
self-determined living, we have to stay up-to-date with all the given 
media content and tools and engage with the corresponding communicative 
structures. The use of digital media relies on technology and forms of 
organization that have been designed and developed
with an economic interest. What happens to communication and personal 
data beyond the direct experience has become almost untraceable.
Globalization and economization thus accompany the mediatization 
processes. The resulting cultural, political, economic and media 
developments are proving to be closely related, changing the way we 
construct and reconstruct the world. The subject as interpreter and 
shaper of their own lifeworld is increasingly obligated to adapt their 
life to all the requirements ?from the outside world?.

The challenges to the subject in these media appropriation processes can 
be seen as unfolding in different dimensions, such as:

   * Communitization: The social, cultural and political spheres, in
     which different topics are negotiated according to the counterpart
     or audience, are constituted increasingly via mediatized social
     relationships. This creates and reveals new forms of
     communitization that are not based on traditional bonding, and in
     which delimitation is experienced and shaped with mediatic means,
     e. g. in multilocal families, friendships or romantic relationships.
   * Localization: Subjects are forced by medially prestructured
     relationships and negotiations with others to continually present
     their different facets and position themselves in relation to
     various issues, e. g. global or local news topics, and often in
     relation to the design and shape of local, regional or
     transcultural identity.
   * Flexibilization: Mobile media practices allow flexibility in
     subjects? use of media structures or tools. Flexibility has to be
     discussed, however, in terms of society?s demands of the
     individual, which are becoming increasingly more important, e. g.
     in the work place.
   * Condensation: Mediatization leads to an observable condensation of
     communications and relationships. This raises questions of
     proximity and distance in the shaping of our social lives. At the
     same time, it shows the new need for orientation as it becomes
     increasingly difficult to fully understand the consequences of our
     communicative actions, which are observed, recorded and processed
     on a huge scale.

The change in the conditions of socialization and social action and 
perception on the one hand leads to new forms of relationships; on the 
other hand it might lead to a constriction, allowing only the 
structurally possible, which could in turn lead to a fundamental 
uncertainty in our communicative acts. The increasing demand for 
subjects to deal with the requirements of a mediatized lifeworld and to 
actively form it by way of their media activity puts the question of the 
individual between economic interests and their own sovereign acting 
back in the focus of research in the communication and media sciences.

merzWissenschaft 2012 invites you to submit your research papers 
examining processes of media engagement in globalized media markets and 
structures and (multi) local environments from an action-oriented 
perspective, as well as papers analyzing media structures under current 
social conditions, or otherwise targeting these questions empirically or 
theoretically.

merzWissenschaft seeks to back up and push forward the scientific 
discussion with the provision of qualified, international papers from 
various relevant disciplines.

The kind of papers sought:

   * are based on empirical or theoretical research,
   * offer new knowledge, aspects or approaches to the subject, and
   * have not been published elsewhere.


In the first instance, interested authors are asked to submit an 
abstract of no more than 4,000 characters (including spaces) to our 
editorial team ((merz /at/ jff.de)) by 20 February 2012. Please ensure that the 
papers follow the merzWissenschaft layout guidelines. These are 
available at www.merz-zeitschrift.de <http://www.merz-zeitschrift.de/> 
(-> über merz -> für autoren).
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Susanne 
Eggert by phone on +49.89.68989.120 or by e-mail (susanne.eggert /at/ jff.de)

Deadlines Overview:
20 February 2012: Submission of abstracts to (merz /at/ jff.de)
12 March 2012: Decision on acceptance/rejection of the abstracts
11 June 2012: Submission of papers
11 June - 25 July 2012: Peer review
August/September 2012: Revision Period (several phases if needed)
Final submission: 24 September 2012

For the german version of this call for papers please go to 
www.merz-zeitschrift.de


--------------------------------------------
Dr. Susanne Eggert
merz - Zeitschrift für Medien und Erziehung
Pfälzer-Wald-Str. 64
81539 München

fon: 089/68989-120
fax: 089/68989-111

www.merz-zeitschrift.de <http://www.merz-zeitschrift.de/>