[Commlist] CFP: Advancing the Audience Turn in Journalism (Special Issue, Digital Journalism)

Call for papers for a special issue of /Digital Journalism/:

**

*Advancing the Audience Turn in Journalism: Changing practices and 
experiences of everyday news use*

Editor-in-chief: Oscar Westlund

Guest Editors: Joëlle Swart, Tim Groot Kormelink, Irene Costera Meijer, 
Marcel Broersma

*TIMELINE:*

Abstract submission deadline: *1 December 2019*

Notification on submitted abstracts: *January 2020*

Article submission deadline: *15 June 2020*

Although news consumption has become increasingly central to academic 
debates about journalism, research that starts explicitly from an emic 
perspective and the everyday experiences of news users remains 
relatively rare. The aim of this special issue is to further 
understanding of how the digitalization of journalism has changed and 
continues to shape everyday news use. Advancing the audience turn in 
journalism requires new theories, new concepts and new methods that can 
help grasp these changes and their implications for journalism.

We are looking for papers related to one or more of the four topics 
below. We invite both theoretical and empirical contributions that take 
practices and experiences of everyday news use as point of departure. We 
welcome comparative and single-country studies from all regions, 
including the Global South.

1.We encourage submissions to tackle the challenge of both *capturing 
and making sense of everyday news use* in a rapidly changing media 
environment. First, how can we develop methods and measures that do 
(more) justice to the complexity and multilayerdness of news use? 
Second, how can we use theories and concepts from other disciplines 
(e.g., anthropology, human-computer interaction) to enhance our 
understanding of everyday news use and users’ experiences of news?

2.We invite submissions that consider the socially-integrative 
potentialities of news, bridging the private world of individuals and 
the public space of collective entities. In the light of political 
polarization, populism, and other current challenges to democracy, how 
do people currently perceive journalism’s civic value? How can *the 
ability of news and journalism to facilitate public connection* be 
understood from the perspective of the news user? How can new formats, 
forms of storytelling and interactive functionalities be employed to 
bring the news in such a way that it connects to people’s lifeworld and 
(public) frame of reference?

3.This special issue also considers *how young people understand and 
make sense of news.* Young people say they turn to professional 
journalism and legacy news media to learn about news issues, but their 
actual news habits hardly reflect this. Rather, their news sources 
include many other genres, such as political entertainment, podcasts and 
blogs, and although critical of the trustworthiness of social media, it 
is still an important source of news which they make sense of through 
affective and social processes and contexts. How can we understand such 
conflicting scenarios and better grasp the orientations, practices and 
contexts through which young people understand and give meaning to news?

4.Finally, the contemporary practice and study of journalism is governed 
by a participatory ideal. Although it is technically possible for news 
users to participate in various stages of news production, research on 
digital news consumption has taught us that users are reluctant to 
participate in the news production process. This raises several 
questions about the feasibility or even desirability of the democratic 
ideal of participation. What are the kind of news production practices 
audiences themselves ignore or wish to take part in? *What would 
participatory journalism ideally look like from an audience perspective?*

**

*Information about submission:*


Proposals should include the following: 1) an abstract of 500-750 words 
(not including references) and 2) an abbreviated bio that related to the 
special issue theme (250 words). Please submit your proposal as one file 
(PDF), with your names clearly stated in the file name and on the first 
page. Send your proposal to (cfpaudienceturn /at/ news-use.com) 
<mailto:(cfpaudienceturn /at/ news-use.com)> by the date stated in the timeline 
below. Authors of accepted proposals are expected to develop and submit 
their original article, for full blind peer review, in accordance with 
the journal’s peer-review procedure, by the deadline stated. Articles 
should target 7,000-8,000 words in length. Guidelines for manuscripts 
can be found _here 
<https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rdij20>_.

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