[Commlist] Call for paper "Problemi dell'informazione": Local matters. Challenges and opportunities for local journalism

Call for papers “Local matters. Challenges and opportunities for local 
journalism” in "Problemi dell'informazione"- extended deadline

/Problemi dell'Informazione/ is an Italian journal of Media and
Communication Research. It is an international academic refereed journal
published by Il Mulino in Italy. Principal Editor:Carlo Sorrentino.
There are no APC (article processing charge) for authors.


Here (https://www.mulino.it/riviste/issn/0390-5195) its national and
international board.

*_Call for Papers_Special Issue*

*‘/Local matters. Challenges and opportunities for local journalism/’.*
Special Issue: Edited by
Maria Francesca Murru, Università degli Studi di Bergamo
Francesca Pasquali, Università degli Studi di Bergamo

Call-for-Papers

The special issue 3/2020 of Problemi dell’Informazione aims to explore 
and critically discuss how local journalism is trying to redefine its 
identity against the economic, cultural and technological challenges of 
the contemporary mediascape. Although the tensions currently affecting 
the local media are partly coinciding with those observed at the 
national level, relevant differences are likely to be found in the 
potential ways out and the concrete repercussions that these shared 
structural conditions have on the way of operating, of intercepting 
audience and reaching economic sustainability. The crisis that has 
affected journalism in recent times is part of the wider digital 
revolution and has manifested with a constant erosion and fragmentation 
of the audience, a huge decline of advertising investments and a wider 
questioning of the credibility of journalistic mediation and trust in 
professional authority. However, as pointed out by Zelizer (2015), the 
use of a unitary concept such as "crisis" risks to overlook not only the 
diversity of underlying political, technological, occupational, ethical 
and social issues but also the potential variety of solutions and ways out.


This issue stems from the belief that this historical moment is 
propitious to give local journalism the analytical attention it 
deserves. The empirical and theoretical acquisitions on the subject are 
still scarce, especially if compared to those concerned with national 
and global journalism (Nielsen, 2015).  The gap is worth filling 
especially now that the challenges and opportunities implied by the 
complex and contradictory scenario together constitute an incredibly 
fruitful starting point to deeply focus on the present and the future of 
local media.

The disruptive and innovative character of the digital revolution has 
not yet fully unfolded, and this is particularly visible in the 
never-ending emergence of new formats and contents. Digital 
storytelling, immersive journalism, data visualization, are some of the 
new paths that are taking root and that promise to deploy new ways of 
representing reality and constructing shared meaning. The combination of 
mass and interpersonal communication that currently characterizes the 
contemporary media ecosystem brings new opportunities for participatory 
involvement of the audience in the various stages of ideation, 
production, and circulation of news. New inquiries are then necessary to 
map the variety of participatory platforms initiated by local newspapers 
and to explore their effects on community belonging, social cohesion and 
civic activism of interest-based communities. The connection with social 
media platforms and the new economy of attention introduced by 
algorithmic mediation, brings a wider reconfiguration of 
disintermediation and remediation dynamics of public discourse. Among 
the many challenges that journalism must face, one of the most relevant 
has to do with how to manage the competition and the cooperation with a 
plurality of collective subjects (from public administration bodies to 
private companies and civil society organizations) that are now 
autonomous in the production and dissemination of news. But there is 
also the necessity to negotiate the grounds of journalism’s credibility 
in a discursive space that appears as increasingly crowded and 
polyphonic. Moreover, local media need to find a way to address the 
wider cultural and political processes that are currently leading to a 
redefinition of the sense of place. Geo-social (Hess, 2013) and 
hyper-local are some of the labels that the most recent academic 
research has adopted to describe how local media are trying to 
restructure the relationship with its geographical area of reference. 
What is at stake is the taken-for-grantedness of the same definition of 
“local media” and the questioning of what makes “local” a still relevant 
perspective on the world. Finally, we cannot speak of the geographical 
bearing without putting into play the role of watchdog carried out by 
local journalism and its social functions in giving citizens a voice, 
triggering their civic engagement and their sense of belonging. The 
deeper implications of such a complex scenario cannot imply but a 
broader redefinition of the social functions traditionally carried out 
by local media, especially concerning the liveliness of the public 
sphere and the well-being of the communities. We invite proposals that 
address this multifaceted phenomenon focusing on topics that include, 
but are not limited to, the following:

• Audience
• Professional identities and organizational cultures
• Local and hyper-local media
• Social and civil functions of local journalism and impact on the 
public sphere
• Participatory/citizen journalism, community media
• Emerging trends in digital storytelling, immersive journalism, data 
visualization

The acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee the publication of the 
article, which will be under blind peer review.


*Submission of proposals*

Extended deadline for abstract submission is January 20, 2020.
Abstract:  250 words maximum (references not included)
Full papers will be due on 20 April 2020 and will undergo a double-blind 
peer review procedure.
Papers: length between max 8000 words maximum (including notes and 
references).
Papers in English and Italian are accepted.
The abstracts must be sent to (probleminformazione /at/ mulino.it) 
<mailto:(probleminformazione /at/ mulino.it)> or via the platform available at 
the address: https://submission.rivisteweb.it/index.php/pdi


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