[Commlist] Call for papers: Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies (Documentary film mutations: new opportunities for social justice)

Call for papers: Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies


Documentary film mutations: new opportunities for social justice

Special issue CJCS 12.2 (Fall 2020)


1 October 2019: deadline for abstract submission

15 January 2020: deadline for full proposals (selected abstracts)


Guest Editors:


Fernando Canet Polytechnic University of Valencia

Stefano Odorico Leeds Trinity University

Xoxé Soengas University of Santiago de Compostela


Cinema as a medium was born to capture aspects of reality. Such was the  
initial purpose of the Lumière brothers at the end of the XIX century. 
Approximately thirty years later, Robert J. Flaherty portrayed realities 
far away from western societies, being the premier of his second feature 
film, Moana (1926), which inspired John Grierson to use the term 
‘documentary’ for the first time in a cinematic context. Indeed, 
Grierson and his school were pioneers in using documentary film with 
social purposes, giving a voice to the victims of social injustices 
(Winston 1988). Nowadays, documentary film continues to  pursue its 
social role: the reporting of social issues like human rights 
violations, mass violence, immigration and refugee seeking, domestic and 
gender violence, gender discrimination, workers´ rights, education 
rights, poverty, or housing is still the main aim of engaged documentary 
filmmakers.


However, something has changed in the first two decades of the current 
century: thanks to the potentialities of emerging digital technologies, 
the documentary film genre is currently experimenting, testing and 
developing new forms in order to further pursue its original aim of 
documenting reality and presenting it to society. New forms of 
representation, strategies of communication, participation, 
mobilization, and methodologies for the evaluation of its social impact 
have emerged over this period. Nowadays we should read the documentary 
film form in relation to its synergies with (i) digital media, such as 
social media and big data; and (ii) complementary forms of 
representation like animation* (Formenti 2014; Roe 2013; Skoller 2011; 
Strøm 2015; Ward 2011), immersive experiences in Virtual Reality (de la 
Peña et al 2010; de la Peña 2017; Hardee 2016; McRoberts 2018; Nash 
2018; Rose 2018; Shin and Biocca 2018) and interactive platforms (Aston 
and Gaudenzi 2012; Aston, Gaudenzi and Rose 2017; Miller and Allor 2016; 
Nash 2012, 2014; Smaill 2018; Aston and Odorico 2018).


This special issue is about how digital technology and alternative forms 
of representation can help documentary films, as socio-cultural 
products, to carry out their role of reporting human rights violations 
and social injustices, fostering a more “just society” (John Stuart Mill).


TOPICS:


Therefore, the issue seeks to explore how the construction of meanings 
and their reception is modified by the new opportunities for documentary 
film, in the shape of alternative forms of representation and 
technological changes. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:


  *

    Animated documentary: the representation of the real through animation.

  *

    Web-documentary: interactive documentary practices (i-docs).

  *

    Immersive documentaries and VR filmmaking: the reconstruction of
    reality through virtual and augmented interactive environments and
    how people experience them.

  *

    Transmedia practices: documentary production in association with
    social media campaigns (promotion).

  *

    New forms of citizen engagement, participation and mobilization.

  *

    Methodologies of evaluation of the social impact of documentary
    films through social media analytics (quantitative and qualitative
    methodologies).

  *

    Using big data for monitoring reality and how these new
    contents/evidences can be included in interactive platforms.
    Strategies of data visualization.


Research articles should be 6,000 words in length (including notes and 
references), while Viewpoint articles should not exceed 3,000 words. The 
editors will carry out a preliminary selection of abstracts.


TIMELINE:


1 October 2019: deadline for abstracts


Abstract (maximum 500 words), title and selected bibliography, along 
with a 150-200 word author’s short bio (including your affiliation and 
contact information) should be sent to Fernando Canet ((fercacen /at/ upv.es) 
<mailto:(fercacen /at/ upv.es)>)


15 October 2019: editors’ decision on selected abstracts

15 January 2020: deadline for full articles


Full articles, based on the selected abstracts, should be submitted on 
the Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies web platform 
https://callisto.newgen.co/intellect/index.php/CJCS/about/submissionsby 
15 January 2020, following the Notes for Contributors

https://callisto.newgen.co/intellect/index.php/CJCS/about/submissions#authorGuidelines.


1 May 2020: final decision letters

Fall 2020: issue published


All selected contributions will be subjected to double blind peer 
review, except for the Viewpoint articles, which will be evaluated by 
the Editors.

https://catalanjournal.wordpress.com/content/call-for-papers/

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