[Commlist] Call for papers: Media Events in the Age of Global, Digital Networks (Nordic Journal of Media Studies 2022)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Nordic Journal of Media Studies 2022

Title: Media Events in the Age of Global, Digital Networks

Special issue editors: Kirsten Frandsen (Aarhus University), Anne 
Jerslev (University of Copenhagen), Mette Mortensen (University of 
Copenhagen)

Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 15, 2021


Media Events in the Age of Global, Digital Networks

In today’s media saturated environment, the battle for attention is more 
intensive than ever. Still, some events stand out and gather attention 
and momentum on a greater scale, for example large-scale sports events, 
presidential inaugurations, state funerals, the Eurovision Song Contest, 
major terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.
Media events is a recurring concept that points to both continuities and 
changes in our media landscape. Revisiting this concept constitutes a 
focal point for analysis of the complex role of media in a highly 
globalised and networked society. Dayan and Katz’s seminal study Media 
Events: The Live Broadcasting of History (1992) provided a first, 
important framework for understanding the media’s construction of key 
historical events. This book concerned the ability of broadcast media to 
create ritual events that break with the routines of everyday life, 
unite audiences, and form shared frames of reference. Dayan and Katz 
foregrounded the integrative function of the media and focused primarily 
on celebratory events.
In the intervening years, scholars have critically examined the media 
and the events involved in media events. The first criticism was 
directed at Dayan and Katz’s notion of events, which was challenged from 
the outset for being too narrow. Researchers broadened the analysis of 
media events to include conflictual events such as scandals, acts of 
violence, terror attacks, natural disasters, and so on. Most recently, 
the growing importance of networked media has prompted scholars to 
examine the new conditions and dynamics for the production and reception 
of media events. These contributions have expanded what we can think of 
as media events.
Within other strands of research, scholars have pointed to events as 
increasingly significant communicative tools for a wide range of 
societal agents to attract attention in a networked, connective media 
landscape. Extraordinary large-scale cultural events, aimed at global 
audiences, have been characterised as mega events and described as 
increasingly powerful interfaces between economic, cultural, and 
political interests. In these processes, media are considered absolutely 
pivotal, serving as crucial communicative engines of exposure, 
promotion, and attention. However, it remains unclear how this role is 
performed: Audiences are more fragmented than ever and navigate between 
platforms that not only operate with many different time structures, but 
are also based on datafied processes and logics of connectivity and 
popularity. Moreover, global connectivities also reconfigure the 
relationship between the global and local – for example, Nordic.

Taken together, these more recent contributions and trends have expanded 
what we can think of as media events. But they also raise the question 
of how far and wide the concept might be stretched before losing its 
critical edge – and perhaps even its meaning.
In general,  the 2022 volume of Nordic Journal of Media Studies focuses 
on the technological, commercial, social, cultural, and political 
dynamics shaping current media events in today’s connective media 
landscape distinguished by blurred boundaries between media production 
and consumption. We are  specifically interested in the role of social 
media in the construction of current media events, but also welcome 
analyses with other perspectives on the digital condition, including for 
instance the increasingly complex interplay between media in current 
media events. This may also include analyses of the disruption of media 
events caused by crises such as Covid-19, which might shed new light on 
important aspects of media events.
This volume seeks contributions that further the theoretical, empirical, 
and methodological approaches to understanding and studying media 
events. Subjects include, but are not limited to, the following:
The algorithmic and commercial underpinnings of media events
Media events and the construction of the spectacular
Social media and the construction and production of mega events
Media events and eventification – conceptual challenges?
Eventification as a marketing strategy Eventification and everyday life
Audience experiences and strategies
The configuration of time and place in media events
Media events between the singular and the repetitive Covid-19, 
de-eventification, and emergence of new communicative events
The Internet, media events, and globalisation
Media events from a Nordic perspective
The media dynamics of political scandals and terrorist attacks
Media events and mediatised rituals – integrative and disruptive functions

Please submit proposals of 500 words to the editors of this themed issue:

Kirsten Frandsen ((imvkf /at/ cc.au.dk)(link sends e-mail))
Anne Jerslev ((jerslev /at/ hum.ku.dk)(link sends e-mail))
Mette Mortensen ((metmort /at/ hum.ku.dk)(link sends e-mail))

A selection of authors will be invited to submit full papers (maximum 
8,000 words). Please note that acceptance of an abstract does not 
guarantee publication, given that all papers will undergo double-blind 
peer review. For questions, please contact the editors of this theme issue.

Timetable

Deadline for abstracts: 15 February 2021
Notification to authors: 1 March 2021
Deadline for submission of full papers: 1 August 2021 Peer-review 
process: 1 August–15 October 2021
Submission of final manuscript: 1 January 2022
Publication of special issue: spring/summer 2022

View this Call for papers on Nordicom's website: 
https://www.nordicom.gu.se/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/call-papers-nordic-journal-media-studies-2022
No payment from the authors will be required.



---------------
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
---------------