[Commlist] CfP: FLOW Special Issue on Media Failures

Call For Papers
Flow Volume 28 Special Issue: Media Failures


The idea of “failure” has often been understood as objective and 
one-dimensional, with failure as the opposite of the constructed notion 
of “success.” Failure can also be viewed as a multi-faceted process that 
operates outside of a failure-versus-success model, and occurs across 
layered facets of the media industries that reverberate on cultural, 
political, economic, and aesthetic levels. Failure is transitory and 
shifting: whereas a project may have once been considered a failure, it 
may find success in subsequent temporalities, spaces, and uses. 
Likewise, something that was once lauded as a success may be 
reconsidered as a failure in contemporary industrial and cultural 
contexts. This special issue of Flow invites scholars to grapple with 
broad and narrow considerations of failure as it pertains to media: the 
different ways in which failure has been defined, what it means to fail, 
and the lessons that can be learned from studying failure.


Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:

  *

    Reconsidering projects that were once deemed to be “failures” or
    applying a lens of failure to projects otherwise deemed “successful”

  *

    Failed adaptations (as seen in, for example, “the book was better”
    discourse)

  *

    Failed representations of race in popular media

  *

    Reappropriated uses and lives of failed projects

  *

    Fleeting trends and one-hit wonders

  *

    Industrial or regulatory systems that have failed media producers or
    audiences

  *

    Comparisons between audience, critical, or industry reactions to
    failed projects

  *

    Failure to embody normative gender and sexual representations on screen

  *

    Failure as a counter-hegemonic strategy to create alternative media
    spaces

  *

    Failure as a mode or aesthetic category (cult, “low brow,” and “bad”
    objects)

  *

    Projects canceled mid-development or stuck in “development hell”

  *

    The revisiting or “fixing” of past projects by cultural producers
    and/or audiences


To be considered for this issue, please submit a completed column of 
1200-1500 words, along with at least three images (.gif or .png) or 
embeddable audiovisual materials with image sources. Please send your 
column, media files, sources/citations, and a short bio to Flow’s 
co-managing editors, Laura C. Brown and Ash Kinney d’Harcourt, at 
(flowjournaleditors /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(floweditors /at/ gmail.com)>by Monday, 
January 17, 2022. The Special Issue will be published at flowjournal.org 
<http://www.flowjournal.org/>in early February.


Flow is a critical forum on media and culture published by the 
Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at 
Austin. Flow’s mission is to provide a space where scholars and the 
public can discuss media histories, media studies, and the changing 
landscape of contemporary media.


--


*Upozornění :*****

*Není-li v této zprávě výslovně uvedeno jinak, má 
tato e-mailová zpráva nebo její přílohy pouze informativní charakter. Tato 
zpráva ani její přílohy v žádném ohledu Univerzitu Karlovu k ničemu 
nezavazují. Text této zprávy nebo jejích příloh není návrhem na uzavření 
smlouvy, ani přijetím případného návrhu na uzavření smlouvy, ani jiným 
právním jednáním směřujícím k uzavření jakékoliv smlouvy a nezakládá 
předsmluvní odpovědnost Univerzity Karlovy. Obsahuje-li tento e-mail nebo 
některá z jeho příloh osobní údaje, dbejte při jeho dalším zpracování 
(zejména při archivaci) souladu s pravidly evropského nařízení GDPR.*

*
*

*Disclaimer:*****

*If not expressly stated otherwise, this e-mail message 
(including any attached files) is intended purely for informational 
purposes and does not represent a binding agreement on the part of Charles 
University. The text of this message and its attachments cannot be 
considered as a proposal to conclude a contract, nor the acceptance of a 
proposal to conclude a contract, nor any other legal act leading to 
concluding any contract; nor does it create any pre-contractual liability 
on the part of Charles University. If this e-mail or any of its attachments 
contains personal data, please be aware of data processing (particularly 
document management and archival policy) in accordance with Regulation (EU) 
2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on GDPR.*
---------------
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
---------------