Call for Papers
WI: Journal of Mobile Media
Special Spectrum Issue
Submission deadline: September 15, 2015
Publication date: February 2016
Alternately referred to as the radio spectrum and the electromagnetic
spectrum, the spectrum is the central medium underpinning all forms of
wireless communication. Creative thinking around the spectrum, its
management and its uses, however has been fairly limited and thus so too
have been radical challenges to its political, technical and economic
foundations. Indeed, one could say that dominant approaches to
understanding and managing the spectrum are wrapped up in power
relations and technological capacity that hearken back 100 years.
The predominant understanding of the spectrum is that it is a set of
frequencies used by communication technologies. However, just as Susan
Crawford proposed that there are multiple imaginaries of the internet
(Crawford, 2007), we can understand the spectrum in a of ways. The goal
of this issue of Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, is to bring together a
diversity of views of what the spectrum is, how it is used, and how it
might be used and thought of in new ways. Together, we will question the
fundamental nature of the spectrum. Further, how do we tie new spectral
thought to political realities, creating significant and sustainable
change not only in spectral epistemologies but in the politics around
and the uses of the spectrum?
For this issue of Wi: Journal of Mobile Media, we seek papers and
interventions that aim to open up debate and propose new ideas of what
the spectrum is and how it might be used, documentation of epistemic
disruption and innovative intervention.
Papers should be 3,000-5,000 words in length.
Crawford, Susan. (2007). ³Internet Think². Journal on Telecommunications
and High Technology Law.
Please send submissions and inquiries to Dr. Evan Light.
(evan /at/ theotherthing.org)
Mobile Media Lab
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
