[Commlist] Call for Papers: Journal of Digital Media & Policy (Special Issue: ‘Emerging Debates on Internet Platform Policy and Regulation in Latin America’)

Call for Papers: Journal of Digital Media & Policy


Special Issue: ‘Emerging Debates on Internet Platform Policy and 
Regulation in Latin America’


#JDMPJournal <https://twitter.com/hashtag/JDMPJournal?src=hashtag_click>


Deadlines


Abstracts (400 words): 4 July 2022

Full manuscripts (6,000–8,000 words, including references): 1 November 2022


All submissions should be directed to the guest editors. See the 
journal’s peer review guidelines here 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/56753/1/JDMP_peer_reviewer_instructions.pdf>and 
Notes for Contributors here 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/57055/1/JDMP_NfC.pdf>.


Guest Editors:


Ana Bizberge

Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (UNQ), CONICET, Argentina

(anabizberge /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(anabizberge /at/ gmail.com)>


Rodrigo Gómez

Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM)- Cuajimalpa, Mexico

(rgomez /at/ cua.uam.mx) <mailto:(rgomez /at/ cua.uam.mx)>


Guillermo Mastrini

Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (UNQ), CONICET, Argentina

(gmastri /at/ yahoo.com.ar) <mailto:(gmastri /at/ yahoo.com.ar)>


Principal Editor:


Petros Iosifidis

City, University of London, UK

(p.iosifidis /at/ city.ac.uk) <mailto:(p.iosifidis /at/ city.ac.uk)>


Read the full call here:

https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/66854/1/CfP_JDMP_Emerging_Debates_2022.pdf 
<https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/66854/1/CfP_JDMP_Emerging_Debates_2022.pdf>


In its infancy, the internet was surrounded by discourse that promised 
the democratization of access to information and freedom of speech. 
However, commercialization soon revealed its limitations. Contrary to 
the promise of openness and freedom of the internet, a handful of 
companies act as gatekeepers in the circulation of information, with a 
business model based on large-scale data collection (Snircek, 2018; 
Gillespie, 2017; Cammaerts and Mansell, 2020) or the monopolization of 
knowledge (Innis, 2006). According to McChesney (2013) capitalism 
formatted the internet for corporations. Scholars refer to Platform 
Society (van Dijck, Poell and De Waal, 2018), Platform Capitalism 
(Snircek, 2018), Surveillance Capitalism (Zuboff, 2019), 
‘platformization’ of the ecosystem (Frías Barroso et al., 2016), 
‘digital monopolies’ (Valente, 2019) or ‘platform imperialism’ (Jin, 
2015). Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) have come 
under intense criticism for their undue influence on the media, 
economy,society and democracy (Birkinbine, Gómez and  Wasko, 2017; 
Winseck, 2020). The ‘platformization’ of the internet raises vital 
policy issues around market dominance, accountability, regulation, 
diversity, and ownership of data derived from people’s media use in both 
public and private venues. Those concerns, in turn, have brought the 
issue of communications policy back onto the political agenda in many 
countries, including those in the Latin American region (Kitchin and 
Lauriault 2018). Thus, this special issue aims to discuss policy and 
regulation of internet platforms in Latin America. It addresses the 
question of how the regional reflects global problems, while also asking 
which are the regional specificities in the debate that reflect 
regulatory traditions, market structures and institutional cultures, 
among others. The approach of this special issue draws on the early 
studies of the Latin American School of national communication policies 
whose objectives were: democratization, cultural autonomy and 
development (Solis, 2016; Altamirano, 2020; Gómez, 2022).


The economic and political power of internet platforms raise concerns in 
Latin America among scholars, civil society organizations, traditional 
players in the information and communication sector, as well as 
governments and policy makers. Some scholars in the region have focused 
on the liability of internet intermediaries (Levy and Aguerre, 2019, 
CELE, 2018), freedom of expression in the digital context (Becerra and 
Waisbord, 2021; Del Campo, 2019), the emergence and topics of regional 
and local Internet Governance Forums (Aguerre and others, 2018), and 
ownership concentration and regulation of the internet (Eptic v. 23 n. 
1, 2021), to name a few. There is global concern over how to counter the 
dominance of US corporations in the world communication system. The 
European Union took a leading role and the governments of Australia, the 
UK, Canada, and even the US, are

discussing regulatory intervention. Also, while the OECD members agreed 
to implement a global 15% tax on multinationals (including big techs), 
the dominant approach in Latin American countries is taxing foreign 
digital service providers by extending the value added tax (VAT) 
(Bizberge, 2021). Debates around the world, including the Latin American 
region, involve power imbalance, ownership concentration, tensions 
between the national and the global, digital sovereignty, the public 
interest, cultural diversity and freedom of expression, the protection 
of users and society, privacy, transparency and accountability, the 
notion of communication commons, as well as the relationship between 
legacy media, telecom players and big tech companies, among others.


This special issue focuses on the emerging discussions on internet 
platforms and their economic and policy impact in Latin America- from a 
regional or national perspective- or comparative studies between Latin 
America and other regions. Reflecting the broad scope of issues arising 
from the expansion of the internet and platforms, this call for papers 
welcomes submissions in the following areas:

• digital sovereignty and digital infrastructures in the context of 
regulation;

• freedom of expression and cultural diversity in the age of platforms;

• digital platforms, ownership concentration and regulation;

• internet, media, and communications commons in the regulation debates;

• transparency and accountability in relation to tech companies’ opacity;

• human rights in the context of digital infrastructure and systems.


We will also consider short reports/commentaries with a policy focus of 
between 1,500–2,000 words, as well as books reviews.


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