[ecrea] Call for Papers: New Media & Society special issue on crowdfunding

Call for Papers: New Media & Society special issue on crowdfunding.

Edited by Lucy Bennett, Bertha Chin and Bethan Jones

The concept of crowdfunding, where grassroots creative projects are 
funded by the masses through websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo 
has been steadily gaining attention in the last few years. The 2013 
success of the Veronica Mars movie campaign, along with the successful 
crowdfunding projects spearheaded by musicians like Amanda Palmer and, 
most recently, actor Zach Braff, has raised much discussion surrounding 
the rich and powerful possibilities of this method of funding. However, 
the practice has also invited much criticism, not just of Kickstarter 
but also of crowdfunding in general.  Among some of the most common 
accusations levelled at crowdfunding are: it is used by media 
conglomerates to exploit fans; successful artists using the scheme take 
money away from genuine independent producers who actually need it; and 
the time and money spent on delivering perks to donors detracts from the 
time and money invested in the actual project. However, others have 
argued that the existence of crowdfunding affords media scholars new 
ways of examining the role of the audience in television and film 
production, that fan agency needs to be more widely considered in 
discussions of fan exploitation, and that 'fan-ancing' is leading to a 
new business model for the financing of artistic projects that is free 
from studio or network intervention.

This special issue seeks to examine and unravel the debates around 
crowdfunding and thus brings together contributors from a range of 
academic disciplines. We are seeking papers that offer a wide range of 
perspectives on the processes of crowdfunding projects, from analyses of 
the crowdfunded projects themselves, to the interaction between 
producers and audiences, and to the role that Kickstarter plays in 
discussions around fan agency and exploitation. Thus, we invite 
proposals on, but not limited to, the following topics surrounding 
crowdfunding:

- Case studies of crowdfunding campaigns
- Fandom
- Unsuccessful crowdfunding efforts
- The role of the internet and social media in crowdfunding
- Producer/funder relationships
- Crowd funding in the music, film, television and games industries
- Anti-fandom
- The role of auteurs and cult names/media in attracting backers
- Fan exploitation and labour
- Rewards and producer accountability

Please send 400 word abstract proposals, along with a short author 
biography, by 20th June 2013. Please email these, along with any other 
enquiries, to (bennettlucyk /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(bennettlucyk /at/ gmail.com)>, 
(bertha.chin /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(bertha.chin /at/ gmail.com)> and 
(bethanvjones /at/ hotmail.com) <mailto:(bethanvjones /at/ hotmail.com)>. Final, 
selected, articles will be due during January 2014.