[Commlist] CFP: Health and Science Journalism in the 21st Century: Emerging Practices During Crises

CFP: “Health and Science Journalism in the 21st Century: Emerging 
Practices During Crises”
The 21st Century brought dramatic changes and new challenges to health 
and science journalism practices. With a changing media landscape and 
new communication technologies disrupting previous journalism practices, 
journalists in different countries report similar key challenges, 
stressors and threats to professionalism. These challenges include 
funding cuts and increased expectations for productivity, public 
mistrust, difficulty verifying sources, difficulties in covering 
increasingly polarizing topics, discrimination, and online harassment. 
These challenges are further intensified for journalists who reside in 
conflict areas in the Global South, such as South Sudan, Afghanistan, 
and Yemen, and more recently in Ukraine. The COVID-19 pandemic has 
intensified these challenges. Like geopolitical conflicts and wars, the 
pandemic has disrupted economic and social systems, and increased global 
inequities, including in health outcomes.
Health and science journalists are tasked with gaining public trust, 
fighting misinformation, and meeting public information needs, while at 
the same time keeping up to date with rapidly changing science and 
public health information. Integration of new technologies in the 
newsroom, and the increased use and influence of social media have added 
another layer of complexity to the coverage of health and science issues 
in the 21st Century (Shah, Ginossar, & Ittefaq, 2021; Shah, Ginossar, & 
Weiss, 2019). As an unintended consequence of this adoption, journalists 
now cope with increased misinformation and disinformation from different 
sources, as well as online harassment. These challenges are not 
impacting journalists equally. Women, those in communities in the Global 
South, and those whose communities experience geopolitical and other 
conflicts are disproportionally affected by these stresses (Shah, 
Ginossar, & Weiss, 2019). Although the role of health and science 
journalists in providing accurate information has arguably increased in 
the pandemic, the politization of health and science has weakened public 
trust in journalism. Studies show that the current pandemic has resulted 
in politicization of science journalism, especially in nondemocratic 
settings, resulting in censorship and even self-censorship among 
journalists (Litvinenko, Borissova, & Smoliarova, 2022), as well as in 
increased stress (Shah et al., 2022). In view of these changes and the 
important role that health and science journalists play, it is pertinent 
to understand how crises and conflicts have affected journalists and 
journalism practices, including the health and well-being of journalists.
The book “Health and Science Journalism in the 21st Century: Emerging 
Practices During Crises” will explore the emerging practices of health 
and science journalists as they cover conflicts, displacement, and 
global pandemics. We are inviting proposals for chapters from diverse 
perspectives and methodologies exploring journalistic practices in the 
context of science, public health and conflict. We are particularly 
interested in the lived experiences of journalists in the Global South 
and conflict areas.
Some of the questions we seek to answer in this book include the following:
· What can theoretical, empirical, or comparative analyses teach us 
about the emerging practices of health and journalists in the 21st Century?
· How have emerging digital technologies impacted the coverage of 
scientific and of public health issues?
· What is the role of health and science journalism in reducing 
inequities during crises?
· What are the differences in the coverage of public health issues 
across communities, cultures and nations?
· In what ways do social-political processes, including globalization, 
the rise of nationalism and populism impact journalistic coverage of 
science and health?
· What is the impact of local and global crises, including the COVID-19 
pandemic on the ways in which journalists in different contexts cover 
science and public health-related topics?
· What are the challenges faced by health and science journalists in 
countering misinformation/disinformation in different communities and 
countries?
· How do politics and culture influence journalistic production of 
health and science-related stories during wars?
· How can journalistic coverage of science and public health issues be 
improved?
Please provide a title and an abstract of up to 500 words, along with a 
short bio of up to 300 words for all the authors.
Abstract submission deadline: October 30, 2022
Authors will be notified about acceptance by November 15, 2022.
Final submissions of manuscripts: April 1st, 2023.
Please send all submissions to Fawad Shah ((shah /at/ jsu.edu)) and Tamar 
Ginossar ((ginossar /at/ unm.edu)).
References
Ginosar, A., Zimmerman, I., & Tal, T. (2022). Peripheral Science 
Journalism: Scientists and Journalists Dancing on the Same Floor. 
Journalism Practice, 1-20.
Litvinenko, A., Borissova, A., & Smoliarova, A. (2022). Politicization 
of Science Journalism: How Russian Journalists Covered the Covid-19 
Pandemic. Journalism Studies, 23(5-6), 687-702.
Shah, S. F. A., Ginossar, T., & Ittefaq, M. (2021). “We always report 
under pressure”: Professionalism and journalistic identity among 
regional journalists in a conflict zone. Journalism, 14648849211050442.
Shah, S. F. A., Ginossar, T., & Weiss, D. (2019). “This is a Pakhtun 
disease”: Pakhtun health journalists’ perceptions of the barriers and 
facilitators to polio vaccine acceptance among the high-risk Pakhtun 
community in Pakistan. Vaccine.
Shah, S. F. A., Jan, F., Ginossar, T., McGrail, J. P., Baber, D., & 
Ullah, R. (2022). Trauma exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder 
among regional journalists in Pakistan. Journalism, 23(2), 391-408.


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