[Commlist] CFP: Special Issue Continuum on Media and Fakery

*CFP: Media and Fakery Special Issue /Continuum: Journal of Media & 
Cultural Studies/*

Digital communications have inaugurated a proliferation of resources for 
faking the origins of information. As developments such as the 
‘deepfake,’ fake news or AI-generated content destabilise presumptions 
of informational dependability and authenticity, it becomes increasingly 
clear that a new set of communication theories are needed to probe these 
complex mediated relations. We invite scholars working in media, 
communication and cultural studies to submit abstracts that interrogate 
the impact of media fakery on theories of media, communication and 
cultural studies.

A Special Issue on the topic of Media and Fakery will be submitted to 
/Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies./

While all media contains elements of creative fabrication, we define 
media fakery as an attempt to conceal the origins of information that 
must contain a degree of human intentionality to be considered ‘fake.’ 
Rather than understandings of ‘the fake’as merely a vehicle to undermine 
or exploit trust, which inform characterisation of fake news as mis- or 
dis-information, ‘media fakery’ attempts to broaden the scope of 
interrogation. We are interested in a new era marked by an increasing 
acceptance that all of us can ‘fake’ communications; an era of media 
fakery is one in which digital resources for manipulating and 
fabricating content are more broadly available. While scholars and 
journalists survey growing mistrust in the veracity of online 
communications, it is possible too that this mistrust might be a healthy 
adjustment to an experimental, shared space in which all manner of new, 
socially distributed informational manipulations and machinic 
collaborations have become possible. We propose to explore the cultural 
implications of these trends, and to examine fakery’s relevance to 
changes in media ecology more broadly. This proposed Issue considers the 
role of intentionality in the construction of media that purports to 
‘be’something that it is not or originate from a source that it does 
not. Additionally, the Issue explores the way these opportunities for 
fabrication and falsity create an ambiguity around our implicit 
association of content and authorial identities, implicating producers 
and consumers in complex, and (potentially) politically subversive ways. 
The ambiguous (in origin, in veracity, in identity) configures 
encounters with media fakery in ways that enable consumers to question 
the processes of communication they are engaged with, or it allows 
producers a means of self-protection (to both defensive and offensive 
ends). The implications of these digital ambiguities migrate to offline 
worlds, lives, and behaviour, as fakery online comes to irrevocably 
change our notions of relationality.

The fake may destabilise our trust in media and belief systems, but it 
equally destabilises established media and communication theories. In 
problematising existing theories and looking ahead to the theoretical 
and socio-cultural implications of current media trends, this Issue 
hopes to prompt reflection that brings new perspectives to media, 
communication and cultural studies.

Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  * fake news
  * the deepfake
  * public trust in journalism and politics
  * “truthiness,” pseudoscience and pseudo-communications
  * affect, cognitive biases and media psychology
  * the distribution of fake media in social networks
  * Facebook and Twitter bots
  * satirical news websites
  * hoaxes, false authorship and fraud
  * artificial intelligence and authorship
  * gender, ethnicity and sexual identity in digital communications
  * identity theft, catfishing and online identities
  * post-truth political communications
  * astroturfing, front organisations and advertorial
  * public relations and propaganda
  * data mining and targeted content
  * algorithmic aggregators and generators of news
  * “mockumentary” media
  * fakery in transmedial and transnational communications
  * ambiguity, authenticity and intentionality
  * empirical research in media fakery production and reception

//

**

*Submission*

Please submit the following to:**(mediafakery /at/ nottingham.edu.cn) 
<mailto:(celia.lam /at/ nottingham.edu.cn)>

  * 250 word (max) abstract
  * 100-150 word biography
**

**

*Deadlines*

Abstract submission deadline: *1 March 2020*

Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2020

Article submission deadline: 1 July 2020

Editorial review: August 2020

Author revisions based on editorial review: September 2020

Submission to /Continuum/: September 2020

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