History of Media Studies

Deadline: September 15, 2026

History of Media Studies solicits proposals for a special section on the histories of publishing in the media, communication, and film studies fields. The focus of the special section is on the role of publishers—both commercial and nonprofit—in these fields’ development. We are keen to highlight the contributions of publishing houses and publication initiatives from around the world, including those beyond the Anglophone North Atlantic.

Most existing histories of the media, communication, and film studies fields take the publication context of the works they survey for granted. The premise of the special section is that specific publishers—and the wider world of academic publishing—have made a difference in the development of local, national, and subfield traditions of scholarship. Very few works of dedicated history have attended to these publishing ventures. The special section will provide a forum for new accounts, in conversation with these fields’ intellectual and institutional histories.

Proposals of around 1000 words, including references, should be sent to hms@mediastudies.press, with the subject line: Histories of Publishing. The deadline for submitting proposals is September 15, 2026. Please reach out if you have any questions or ideas.

Proposals may be submitted in English or Spanish, the two languages that History of Media Studies publishes.

We expect most contributions to be research articles (generally 14,000 words or fewer), but we will also consider other formats, including research notes, commentaries, interviews/oral histories, overlay re-publications, and contextualized archival materials; please see our Author Guidelines for more details: https://hms.mediastudies.press/author-guidelines

Suggested approaches include, but are not limited to:

• case studies of media-related publishing houses
  
• accounts of small and independent presses, as incubators of heterodox media scholarship
  
• treatments of significant commercial publishers (e.g., Routledge)
  
• studies of influential book series, including translation series
  
• accounts of institutional publishing (e.g., UNESCO or CIESPAL)
  
• histories of the publishing initiatives of scholarly associations, including association-affiliated journals
  
• self-publishing and informal circulation in activist media scholarship
  
• the role of translation and translated editions
  
• treatments of the relationship between books and journal portfolios within presses
  
• historical accounts of the political economy of publishing and its effects on the field
  
• reflections on the role of editors and editing as mostly invisible intellectual labor
  
• accounts of publishing initiatives beyond the Anglophone world, including in Latin America
  
• female-run initiatives, editors, and publishers
  

Please reach out to hms@mediastudies.press with any questions.

History of Media Studies is a peer-reviewed, scholar-run, diamond OA journal dedicated to scholarship on the history of research, education, and reflective knowledge about media and communication—as expressed through academic institutions; through commercial, governmental, and non-governmental organizations; and through “alter-traditions” of thought and practice often excluded from the academic mainstream. The journal publishes high-quality, original articles, reviews, and commentary on the history of this inter- and extra-disciplinary area as it has intersected with other fields in the social sciences and humanities—and with social practices beyond the academy.