[ecrea] CFP - JACM - Ethnic Minority Media: Between Hegemony and Resistance

*JOURNAL OF ALTERNATIVE AND COMMUNITY MEDIA*

*SPECIAL ISSUE **CALL FOR PAPERS***

**

*

*Ethnic Minority Media: Between Hegemony and Resistance**

The emergence of minority media addressed to ethnic and migrant 
minorities can now be considered a worldwide phenomenon. Like many other 
minorities, migrants’ voices have been “out of the mainstream” (Gross, 
2001) for a long time, but new technologies and media practices have 
given rise to a plethora of specific media, both digital and 
traditional, addressed to this mobile public. Migrant and ethnic 
minority media are here considered agents which have an important 
participation in the public sphere, where social and political issues 
are articulated and negotiated (Habermas, 2001), and struggles over 
hegemonic meanings take place.

In opposition to the biased discourse on immigration present in the 
mainstream media, migrant and ethnic minority media offer a different 
representation of migrant minorities, who become active in the creation 
of the multiethnic public sphere (Husband, 2000). The potential of 
minority media as platforms for the expression, discussion and exchange 
of generally marginalised collectives must be recognized. Minority media 
can have an empowering effect for minorities. As Echevarría /et al/ 
(2015: 99) state, “such media discourses bring about changes in the way 
in which the public sphere is understood and in the role that migrants 
play in it. They contribute to its enlargement, amplifying the issues 
that can be debated, negotiated and struggled for, […] beyond the 
possibilities offered by the mainstream media”.

However, a more thorough analysis of minority media compels us to be 
prudent. Their contents, modes of production, working routines, and 
discourses on topics such as gender and identity must be analysed in 
depth (Retis, 2008). Studies have shown that modes of production and 
working routines in the media can limit their democratising potential, 
due to a lack of journalists and a routine that limits their capacity to 
research and contrast reliable sources (Ferrández Ferrer, 2012; Saitta, 
2015). Funding can also limit their potential, especially in a time when 
an economic and financial crisis has made them even more dependent on 
private funding. A tendency to publish soft information and to avoid 
tough topics, together with self-censorship, have appeared in order to 
satisfy private backers and to maintain advertising (Ferrández Ferrer, 
2014).

When analysing minority media discourses, we must depart from uncritical 
celebrations of minority media as being ‘alternative’. Georgiou has 
asked: “Do alternative and community media challenge hegemonic 
discourses of ethnic and gender stratification?” (2012: 792). This 
encourages us to analyse the discourses and images present in these 
media without assuming that entering the media sphere entails an 
immediate counterhegemonic nature. Echevarría /et al/ (2015) show that, 
although migrant minority media include alternative discourses on topics 
such as citizenship rights and political participation by immigrants, 
other issues, such as gender hegemonic representations remain unchallenged.

A critical perspective on ethnic and migrant minority media would show 
the complexity of media production in the transnational field and reject 
simplistic approaches that assume that the production of minority media 
automatically means a challenge to hegemonic discourses and practices 
(Retis, 2014). This complexity is consistent with the idea of the media 
as active agents in the negotiations and struggles that take place in 
the public sphere; multiple, contradictory, overlapping and changing 
interests are always part of such negotiations.

We invite articles with practical, theoretical, national or 
international perspectives that critically examine how ethnic and 
minority media counteract or not hegemony, including, but not limited to 
issues such as:

  *
    Media consumption: how ethnic and migrant minorities use specific
    minority media to counteract hegemonic discourses.
  *
    Production of ethnic and minority media: funding and economics, soft
    information, censorship and the reinforcement of hegemonic discourses.
  *
    Journalists and media professionals: the role of migrant and ethnic
    journalists in challenging hegemonic discourses and structures in
    the host countries
  *
    Content and discourse analysis:
  * Hegemonic discourses on migration, ethnic minorities, refugees, etc.
    and how they are challenged by ethnic and minority media.
  *
    Hegemonic and alternative discourses about gender, identity and
    citizenship, in the ethnic and minority media.
  *
    Politics of representation of minorities within ethnic and migrant
    minorities (indigenous groups, LGBTQ, ethnic minorities, religious
    minorities, etc.)
  * Journalistic field: elements that might limit the democratising
    potential of ethnic and minority media.
  *
    Public space: ethnic and migrant minority media as spaces for
    construction of multiethnic public spaces.


    *Abstracts due: *15 November 2017

    *Notification of acceptance: *1 December 2017

    *Publication: *final quarter of 2018


    *Guest Editors:*

    Alicia Ferrández Ferrer, University of Alicante, Spain
    ((aliciaff /at/ hotmail.com) <mailto:(aliciaff /at/ hotmail.com)>)

    Jessica Retis, California State University, USA
    ((jessica.retis /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(jessica.retis /at/ gmail.com)>)

    **
    *Submission Guidelines:*

    Authors should send abstracts by 15 November to *both* Guest
    Editors, including:

  *

    Article title and abstract of 500 words (including justification,
    methodology, and main results)

  *

    Authors’ affiliation and contact information

  *

    Short biography (100 words)


    Full articles (6,000 to 8,000 words including notes and references)
    will be required to meet authors’ guidelines published on the
    Journal of Alternative and Community Media website at
    https://joacm.org/index.php/JOACM/pages/view/authors.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------