ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

June 17, 2026

Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, France

Deadline: January 28, 2026

In echo to Gayatri Spivak and her seminal essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1999), this Graduate Workshop would like to explore the question: Can the silenced be heard and made audible? More precisely, to what extent can cinema and audiovisual media be used to counter various processes of silencing that have led to the erasure of certain peoples and communities, notably to reconfigure what Jacques Rancière (2000) calls the “distribution of the sensible”, allowing another politics of aesthetics to emerge? Or, on the contrary, to redouble efforts to silence by claiming that it is the norm that is currently being silenced? This Graduate Workshop is an invitation to approach the question of silence and silencing in terms of both aesthetics (including the distribution and organization of sounds and the underlying hierarchy they imply) and politics (the distribution of speech, the processes of silencing, or the foregrounding of previously unheard, discarded voices), and their intricate ethical relationships. 

What cannot be heard is often what is silenced. How do cinema and audiovisual media in general work to reinforce or, on the contrary, to counter the inaudibility and invisibility of some people or topics? To what extent can the use of sounds and silences be reconfigured to create a space of emergence for the voices of those who are not heard or whom we refuse to hear? In short, who gets to occupy the auditive spaces? While silence can operate as an instrument of oppression, it can also be considered as a site of political resistance against rational speech and should not be equated  with the absence of sound. Can films, TV series and other audiovisual productions make the unspeakable and inaudible heard?

Find the full call for papers here: https://necs.org/conference/2026/university-of-montpellier-paul-valery.

Early-career researchers from cinema, visual and media studies are invited to submit proposals for contributions by 28 January 2026 to graduates@necs.org. The submission should include the name of the speaker, an email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short bio (max. 150 words). In addition to articles, scholarly film submissions are also welcome (max. length 15 minutes). Université de Montpellier 3 Paul-Valéry will not provide funding: participants are required to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. Travel information, as well as a list of affordable hotels and other accommodation, will be provided on the conference website and program. The Workshop attendance is free, but valid membership in the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) is required to participate.  

June 18-20, 2026

Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, France

Deadline: January 28, 2026

Cinema, in particular, and media, in general, have often been considered through their tensions and resolutions between the realms of visibility and of invisibility. This inherent duality – between appearance and disappearance, materiality and temporality, inner and outside world, ideality and imagination, human and non-human – has persisted, even as technologies and formats have evolved. The 2026 Conference of the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) – taking place from 18-20 June 2026 at Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, France – will explore how in/visibility has been traditionally linked to formal and technical aspects (their aesthetics, apparatus, and most current actualizations), to economical choices, to bio-politics, and to historiographical shifts that have rearticulated these partitions within their socio-cultural and political contexts. media historiography has substantially reassessed the influence of marginalized and silenced groups, rediscovering or acknowledging the major contributions of minorities, peripheries, women, and racialized communities to filmmaking and media productions. Recent academic research has shed new light on the feminization of the media industry and their persistent discriminations, inviting us to extend this analysis to other underrepresented social groups or cultural areas. To this end, the status of archives is particularly challenging: incomplete and fragmented archival traces (including lost versions, unachieved projects, abandoned scenarios) raise the question of an “absent presence” and the efforts to recover, acknowledge, and legitimize these traces for historiographical purposes. Furthermore, the shift from analogue to digital archives, in the context of digitization of old media and the expansion of new digital screen media, deeply transforms the constructing processes of representation and memory, calling us to renew our vision of the representativity of the archive itself. Therefore, the 2026 NECS Conference will tackle more generally the processes through which invisibilization occurs, from pre-cinematographic apparatuses to contemporary screen and media industries, and how these dynamics concretely affect today’s professional landscapes. It will also consider how resisting and alternative spaces continue to redefine what can be seen, by whom, under what conditions, and how the gradual inclusion of new media and the reinvention of old ones have expanded – or restricted – the horizons of visibility.

Please submit proposals for individual papers, panels or workshops by 28 January 2026, using the submission form available on the NECS website: https://necs.org/conference/ 

There is no conference fee. However, kindly note that the submission form is only accessible to NECS members with valid membership. Every author of paper, panel and workshop proposals is required to be NECS members. Being a part of NECS gives access to a vibrant, diverse and engaging community of scholars and workgroups. The yearly NECS Conference is a privileged moment for academics from all over the world, at different stages of their careers, to come together to share knowledge and experiences and exchange ideas about the latest research in the areas of film and media studies. The beautiful Montpellier serves as the background for the NECS 2026 Conference and provides plenty of opportunities for socialization, informal networking and sightseeing.

If you experience any problem with registration or membership renewal, please write an e-mail to support@necs.org.

Communication and the Public (special issue)

Deadline: March 20, 2026

https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ctp

In recent decades, environmental challenges—ranging from climate change and air pollution to biodiversity loss and resource scarcity—have increasingly shaped not only policy agendas but also the very texture of public life globally. Responding to these crises, digital technologies—including sensor networks, big data analytics, algorithmic systems, and artificial intelligence—have become constitutive elements in how environmental issues are rendered visible, knowable, and actionable.

These technologies do more than document ecological change. They actively intervene in the communicative infrastructures through which publics emerge, take shape, and act. Systems of sensing, modeling, and prediction increasingly define what counts as “environmental risk,” thereby shaping understandings of responsibility, urgency, and agency. At the same time, these infrastructures operate unevenly: algorithmic filtering, platform governance, and unequal access to data intensify existing inequalities in visibility, participation, and recognition—particularly in contexts of rapid or uneven environmental degradation.

As a result, environmental publics are increasingly co-produced through the interaction of ecological conditions, technological systems, and communicative practices. Yet many existing theories of publicness and communication—largely premised on stable media environments and human-centered deliberation—struggle to account for publics constituted through algorithms, sensors, platforms, and predictive ecologies.

This special issue seeks to advance scholarly understanding of how technological systems reshape environmental communication and how ecological crises, in turn, reconfigure the communicative, institutional, and imaginative infrastructures of public life. By foregrounding the mutually constitutive relationship between technology, publics, and ecological transformation, the issue aims to deepen theoretical debates on public formation, algorithmic governance, mediated knowledge production, and collective action in an era of planetary uncertainty.

Scope and Themes

We welcome conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that examine how digital technologies mediate environmental governance, identity formation, activism, and the circulation of ecological knowledge. Contributions may engage with one or more of the following (non-exhaustive) themes:

• Algorithmic infrastructures and the formation of environmental publics
  
• Datafication, environmental knowledge, and public authority
  
• Public communication of climate models, predictive ecologies, and digital simulations
  
• Networked environmental activism and hybrid public mobilization
  
• Communicative agency among scientists, Indigenous communities, and climate advocates
  
• Surveillance ecologies, risk governance, and public trust
  
• Digital platforms, environmental legitimacy, and contestations of power
  
• Environmental media propaganda, misinformation, and AI-generated narratives

We especially encourage submissions from underrepresented regions (Asia, Africa, Latin America, Indigenous contexts) and interdisciplinary perspectives across communication studies, STS, environmental governance, and political ecology.

Submission Process and Key Dates

• Abstract submission deadline: March 20, 2026
  
• Notification of invitations to submit full papers: March 30, 2026
  
• (Please note that an invitation does not guarantee publication; all full manuscripts will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process.)
  
• Full paper submission deadline: July 31, 2026
  
• Planned publication: 2027
  

Abstract Submission Guidelines

Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words, in English, to all guest editors with the subject line: “CAP Special Issue Submission”

Guest Editors:

Dr. Dechun Zhang, University of Copenhagen (dezh@hum.ku.dk)

Dr. Weiai Xu, University of Massachusetts Amherst (weiaixu@umass.edu)

Dr. Han Lin, Soochow University (linhan741@gmail.com)

Full call for paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zAr6qNL5YtkC9YKQtj9VexGcPmZxelaq/view?usp=sharing

Deadline: January 31, 2026

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

Linda Steiner, lsteiner@umd.edu

We seek expressions of interest, in the form of short abstracts for an edited volume engaging with the aftermath of the MeToo movement across the globe, with a focus on the media/social media/journalism domain. Investigations about a major Hollywood sexual predator published in October 2017 reignited a movement exposing and challenging workplace sexual violence and sexual harassment. Within a few weeks, this movement was genuinely global: versions of the #meetoo hashtag appeared in at least 80 countries and seemingly across every work domain. What has happened in subsequent years?

We intend this volume to be international in scope and already have proposals from scholars in Africa and Europe, and in China, India, Brazil, and Egypt. We are particularly interested in proposals for internationally comparative studies and/or that deal with Russia and former SSRs, Mexico, Israel, and MENA nations.

A highly incomplete list of potential topics would include coverage at different points of time (including “anniversary” coverage); analyses of changes in language such as with victim blaming/shaming; assessments of the short-, mid-, long-term impacts/consequences--including for people who were accused of harassment and/or who made accusations; and what happened with the initiatives proposed to address the problem in journalism and comm industries and classrooms? Ethical issues include how to assess and investigate accusations, and what journalists do or should do when they overplay a story. Of course, we seek consideration of the implications for race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identity, and class and especially intersections of these. Internationally comparative topics include analyses of how/when sources, politicians, and/or journalists mocked #MeToo as representing US prudery and/or feminist hysteria. We are welcome to other topics and themes: the above list is merely suggestive.

A scholarly press has already expressed interest in the volume. We hope the manuscript will be completed by late 2027, in time to appear in print in early 2028.

Please send your 80 – 120 words idea, with your name, email address, and affiliation, to Dinfin Mulupi (University of Colorado Boulder) Dinfin.Mulupi@colorado.edu and to Linda Steiner (University of Maryland College Park) at lsteiner@umd.edu by January 31, 2026. We will get back to you in early February. Feel free to contact us with your questions.

School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster, London 

The University of Westminster’s Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) is pleased to announce this year’s Quintin Hogg Trust (QHT) PhD Studentships for UK and International applicants to commence in the 2026/27 academic year.

Full information about the studentships, entry requirements and the application procedure can be found here: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-degrees/studentships/quintin-hogg-trust-qht-studentships-september-2026-entry

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, select the School of Media and Communication and choose the 'MPhil/PhD Media Studies' programme. Be sure to include the title of the studentship, The Quintin Hogg Trust Studentship, in your application. 

Applications must be submitted by 6 February 2026.

Interviews will take place in the week commencing on 9 March 2026.

ABOUT CAMRI

The Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) in the School of Media and Communication is a world-leading centre in the study of media and communication, renowned for its critical and international research, which has consistently been ranked highly according to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the QS World University Rankings. In REF 2021 83% of CAMRI's overall research was judged to be ‘world-leading’ and ‘internationally excellent’.

CAMRI welcomes applications which explore the political, economic, social and cultural significance of the media across the globe. CAMRI research is focused on four key themes: Communication, Technology and Society; Cultural Identities and Social Change; Global Media; and Policy and Political Economy. 

CONTACTS

To seek guidance and be connected with prospective supervisors, please contact Dr Alessandro D’Arma and Dr Ed Bracho-Polanco.

Emails:

A.Darma@westminster.ac.uk

E.Brachopolanco@westminster.ac.uk

Alternatively, you may approach a prospective supervisor directly. For more information, visit the CAMRI website to explore our core research themes and the expertise of our academic staff. 

Link: https://www.camri.ac.uk

Online Seminar Series – Every Wednesday, 5 pm CET

Zoom

After our winter break, we’re excited to announce the fifth meeting of our seminar series, “Entangled Histories: Borders and Cultural Encounters from the Medieval to the Contemporary Era”. This series, promoted by the Faculty of Communication and the Master’s Programme in Media and Cultural Studies at Üsküdar University, brings together academics, students, and curious minds to explore how borders — political, cultural, social, epistemic, disciplinary, and symbolic — shape our world, our communication, and our histories.

When: Every Wednesday at 5 pm (Central European Time)

Where: Online via Zoom

Zoom link for all meetings: https://tinyurl.com/aumv88jz

We’re back after the holidays and will continue weekly until 1 July! (Browse our programme at https://sites.google.com/view/entangledhistories/programme?authuser=0 )

Next Seminar: January 14, 2026

Speaker: Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández (University of Granada)

Title: Crossing Epistemological Borders: New Ways of Studying Alliteration in Old English Verse

About the talk: How can we study ancient poetry in new ways? In this seminar, Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández will show how his project bridges disciplinary and methodological borders by combining traditional philological analysis with digital, data-driven approaches. His new database covers over 40,000 lines of Old English verse, allowing researchers to explore patterns of alliteration and metre with both classic and modern tools. By crossing boundaries between close reading and statistical methods, this work opens up fresh perspectives on how we understand early medieval English poetry—and on how different disciplines can work together.

About the speaker

Rafael Juan Pascual Hernández is Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the University of Granada, where he leads a major research project on Continental Sources of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, funded by the Spanish State Research Agency. He specialises in medieval English language and literature, especially Old English poetry. He has published widely, including as co-editor of Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016) and contributor to The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014). His research has been recognised with several awards, including the Extraordinary Doctorate Award (2013–2014) and the “Excellence in Knowledge” Research Award of Grupo Caja Rural (2017).

Join us for lively discussions and new insights into how borders, of all kinds, shape our lives, our cultures, and our research!

Deadline: March 6, 2026

Call for Chapters

Editors: Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u & Lara Martin Lengel

Communication for development has evolved over the last seventy to eighty years with impactful contributions from leading scholars. The impact of their work has reverberated beyond academic circles, shaping policy and practice especially in the global south.

These groundbreaking contributions include the modernization theories of the 1950s and 1960s led by Daniel Lerner, Wilbur Schramm and Everett Rogers whose insights on the stages of modernization, the contribution of mass media to national development, and the diffusion of innovation became guiding principles for engaging with publics for decades.

The work of dependency and other critical theorists, especially in the 1970s, provided an alternative view in communication for development and by extension the international development trajectory. Thinkers like Andre Gunder Frank, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Samir Amin, Walter Rodney, Luis Ramiro Beltrán and Paulo Freire recalibrated the debates by bringing to the fore issues of inequality, internal failure dynamics and the need for communication to address power imbalances.

The 1980s and 1990s introduced a seismic shift in the communication for development discourse by focusing on participatory approaches to communication. The works of Paulo Freire, Paolo Mefalopulos, Jan Servaes, Thomas Tufte, Alfonso Gumucio Dagron,  and Srinivas Melkote among others reshaped the debate particularly on the need for community engagement and sustainable social change.

The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in the 2000s and the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 as well as the technological revolutions spurred by the internet and the sudden emergence of COVID-19 that rebooted how people communicated had profound impact on communication for development, leading to calls on the United Nations to reconsider the 17 SDGs by adding SDG18—Communications for All, to ensure that the role of communication does not take a back seat in the development process.

While this is going on, the phenomenon of artificial intelligence has emerged as a transformative force. Thisrevolutionary phenomenon is altering how development is implemented at individual, country and continental levels. Artificial intelligence is likely to define the development path in the 21st century with profound impact on all sectors, be it health, education, infrastructure, poverty alleviation, food security, energy access, and climate action. Artificial intelligence presents new promises, yet also presents challenges that may exacerbate inequality. The algorithmic governance of information flows, the concentration of AI capabilities in the global north, and the potential exclusion of marginalized voices from AI-mediated development discourse demand urgent scholarly attention.

This reality calls for rethinking of how communication for development will be implemented in the coming decades. The aim of this book, currently under consideration by the renowned publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, is to examinecommunications for development in light of the rise of artificial intelligence. It aims to revisit previous theories, models and approaches to communications for development and assess their potency or otherwise in the artificial intelligence century. Communication for Development 2.0 intends to be a major scholarly collection and reference work that will shape the communication for development discourse in the AI era. We seek contributions from established and emerging scholars to critically review and propose new approaches to communications for development in light of artificial intelligence and its implications for development practice.

Potential chapter topics comprise but are not limited to the following:

• Diffusion, innovation and artificial intelligence
  
• Participatory communication and artificial intelligence
  
• Communication for development, artificial intelligence and inequality
  
• Communicating national development in the age of artificial intelligence
  
• Development communication and artificial intelligence in the global south
  
• Development communication and artificial intelligence in the global north
  
• Communicating social change in the era of artificial intelligence
  
• Data colonialism, artificial intelligence and communications for development
  
• Artificial intelligence infrastructure and communication for development
  
• Communication for development, language and artificial intelligence
  
• Digital inequality, artificial intelligence and development communication
  
• AI divide and digital dependency
  
• Communicating Sustainable Development Goals in the AI era
  
• AI ethics and communication for development
  
• Algorithmic governance and development communication
  
• AI literacy and capacity building in development contexts
  
• Case studies of AI applications in development communication practice
  

Submission Requirements

Prospective authors should send their abstract submissions to Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u (mjyushau@gmail.com) by 6th March 2026. Abstracts should comprise the following:

• 250 words abstract
  
• Institutional affiliation
  
• Corresponding email address
  
• 200 words author bio
  

All submissions should be in Word document format. Authors whose abstracts have been accepted will be notified by 3rd April 2026. Final chapters should be between 5,000- and 6,000-words and will be due by 12thJune 2026. Co-authored chapters will be considered. Full papers will undergo a rigorous peer review process. Submitted work must be original and not under consideration elsewhere.

October 14-17, 2026

Mexico City, Mexico

Deadline: March 1, 2026

Regeneration(s) opens us up to exploring deeper processes of technological, cultural, political, artistic, and infrastructural renewal. Online cultures are born, mature, decay, and are reborn in slightly different forms; generations of internet researchers train and mentor each other; new ideas and approaches emerge. Regeneration here is not simply understood as technological repair or sustainability, but as a relational and ethical process grounded in ongoing responsibilities to land, peoples, data, and communities; Regeneration is cyclical and inseparable from complex histories of resistance as a counterweight to the logics of optimization and maximization that characterize the tech industry.

Generation and generativity as productive capacities are also contested processes and capacities as AI companies try to frame generativity as automation, reproduction, and passivity at scale. The challenge then is to generate technical, political, and communal imagination and maps that allow us to articulate embodied, alternative, and active generative futures around collective technological use. This also offers an opportunity to think seriously about how our scholarly networks themselves are generated, regenerated, and maintained.

This year’s conference is co-hosted by scholars and institutions in both Mexico City/CDMX, MX, and Los Angeles, CA, two cities with complex and entangled histories. Although they are often thought of as distinct worlds - one, the historic capital of México, and the other, a paradigmatic U.S. metropolis molded by migration, sprawl, and imagination. Both historically and now, they are inextricably tied; from colonial and imperial trade routes to cross-border familial legacies, to twentieth century labor markets and migration. Turning colonial historical narratives on their heads, Chicano activists of the 1960s and 70s reminded the world with an insistent rallying cry, “the border crossed us.”

In recent years, both have seen unprecedented investment from tech companies expanding infrastructure and the transformation of core industries and craft by the increasing encroachment of AI, even as both cities struggle with severe drought and other environmental and economic consequences hastened by legacies of resource extraction. Mexico City/CDMX has also experienced challenges posed by a significant influx of so-called “digital nomads,” particularly from the North. Worsening gentrification and an ever-growing population of non-Spanish speakers have sparked a backlash, pushing back against displacement and economic stratification. Los Angeles, too, has been subject to the crisis of housing affordability and gentrification, a perennial issue exacerbated by the tech hubs like Silicon Beach. It is against these backdrops and complex, intertwined but distinct histories and cultures that we invite the AoIR global community of internet scholars to participate in this conference.

Call for Participation

AoIR 2026 solicits work exploring the theme of regeneration(s) in all of its manifold usages.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Regenerative technologies: Regeneration and Indigenous feminist theories of relationality and care; Technologies that add to rather than extract, lab cultures, autonomous infrastructure.
  
• Platform genealogies: The evolution and reconfiguration of social media, online communities, and digital economies.
  
• Generative media and AI: Challenging and deepening engagement with the realities and rhetorics of “generativity.”
  
• Activism and continuity: Intergenerational organizing and learning in digital social movements, creation and care.
  
• Reflection: Legacies of scholarship, reflecting on generations of AoIR and Internet Studies scholarship, mentorship, and intergenerational collaboration.
  
• Multispecies ethics: Biological, ecological, digital systems.
  
• Identity and community: Engagements with the theme through dimensions of identity, including race, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, language, citizenship, and culture.
  
• Digital age and life course: Generational identities online; intergenerational communication and conflict; youth, aging, and digital
  
• inclusion.
  
• Technological generations: Successive waves of internet platforms, infrastructures, and protocols; how technologies inherit, disrupt, or forget previous generations.
  
• Cultural memory and legacy: Internet nostalgia, digital preservation, and the archiving of online histories.
  
• Digital caretaking: Skill shares and makerspaces, familial tech maintenance, community pedagogy.
  
• Technoptimism/pessimism: Imaginaries of regeneration, resilience, and refusal.
  

We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the internet beyond the conference theme.

The committee extends a special invitation to students, researchers, and practitioners who have previously not participated in an AoIR event to submit proposals, and to scholars from the Global South, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color globally, LGBTQIA+ peoples, scholars living with disabilities, and people outside or adjacent to the academy. With this in mind, AoIR renews its commitment to travel scholarships, as well as other initiatives, to support conference participants. We will also follow the lead of last year’s committee and continue to experiment with forms of multi/bilingualism to further our mission of diversity and inclusivity within internet research. The conference committee will accept applications, in English,  for participation in Spanish at the conference.

Please make these selections within ConfTool.

This year’s conference will offer opportunities for hybrid participation for keynote and plenary viewing only in order to focus on multilingual access at the conference itself.

Location and Venue

We could not be more delighted to be coming together in Mexico City/CDMX, an ideal host city and venue for our community of researchers. The conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency in the Polanco neighborhood. A block of rooms has been reserved at a conference rate for participants. The reservations for the Hyatt block will be made available at a later date; please watch the AoIR Listserv for announcements. The Hyatt has been newly renovated and offers accessible rooms, air conditioning, a gym, onsite dining, an indoor pool, and spectacular views of Chapultepec Park. Those wishing to make alternative lodging should feel free to do so at their leisure. Mexico City/CDMX has a great network of public transportation and affordable private transport options (e.g., taxis).

Polanco is known for its historical architecture, public green spaces, and several of the city’s most visited museums and collections, including the Soumaya and Jumex Museums, in addition to the National Museum of Anthropology. The neighborhood is walkable and proximate to public transportation to connect to the rest of the city. Mexico City/CDMX is one of the great culinary and cultural capitals while also standing as a focal point for contemporary research and activism around the digital, including labor organizing among app-based and gig-economy workers, public campaigns over the environmental and social impacts of data centers, and national debates over data protection, platform governance, and digital sovereignty.

Hosts

The 2026 Conference Host Committee is an international, cross-border collective made up of scholars and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pomona College, and the Platform Observatory.

To Apply

We will once again use the ConfTool submissions management software system to manage the CFP process. To submit, please use this link.

Please note: all applicants will need to recreate a ConfTool account for the 2026 instance, even if you have submitted in the past.

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For more information on how to submission guidelines, please visit our website: http://aoir.org/aoir2026.

Sincerely,

AoIR2026 Program Chair

AoIR2026: Regenerations, http://aoir.org/aoir2026

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698)

Deadline for manuscript submissions: September 30, 2026

Special Issue Editors:

 Dr. Daniel Cardoso

• Guest editor
• e-mail, website
• CICANT, Lusophone University, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal
  
• Interests: consensual non-monogamies; kink/BDSM; social movements; genders and sexualities; contemporary intimacies
• Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

 Dr. Sara De Vuyst

• Guest Editor
• e-mail, Website 
• Department of Literature and Arts, Maastricht University, 6211 Maastricht, The Netherlands
• Interests: feminist and queer media studies; ageing studies; digital platforms and platformisation; (queer) ageing in media and art; gender issues in media; journalism and technology

 Dr. Inês Amaral

• Guest Editor 
  
• e-mail, Website 
  
• Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, 3000-370 Coimbra, Portugal
  
• Interests: participation and social media; feminist media studies; gender and media; media and digital literacy; audiences; disinformation
• Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Contemporary societies are deeply mediatized, a process that encompasses even those who do not, or cannot, access media technologies—this is particularly evident when considering how digital media, with its supposed ability to transcode any other form of representation or communication, operates. While some theorists from the late 20th century saw networked digital media as a way to overcome, or trouble, the norms often associated with the gendering of bodies, or viewed technology as a means of creating a globalized experience of commonality and empathy, recent years have provided ample evidence to the contrary. Neofascist movements, purported “men’s rights activists”, anti-trans mobilizations, right-wing populism, reinforced border controls, hyperbolic discourses about generative language and image models, and much more are all phenomena partly fueled by the technical and social affordances of widespread digital media; that is, digital media are co-constitutive of these dynamics, not merely modes of expressing or representing them. Under platform capitalism, these processes are further entangled with profit-driven logics of extraction and engagement, as platforms commodify attention, amplify antagonism, and algorithmically shape new contours by which oppression and discrimination are enacted.

Building on this dynamic, tech fascism arises through aesthetic and emotional cues that subtly reinforce gender hierarchies. Digital platforms create spaces where feelings of intimacy, nostalgia, and hyper-feminine visual styles reframe traditional gender norms as sources of comfort and stability, while hyper-masculine styles sell the promise of strength and dominion (over one’s own body, first and foremost). What seems like harmless lifestyle imagery serves as a data-driven mechanism that upholds patriarchal expectations, optimized for visibility and engagement. Thus, gendered performances are not just personal expressions, they are algorithmically curated artefacts that replicate power relations while appearing individualized, apolitical, and visually appealing.

In all these contexts, though sometimes in less obvious ways, gender/sex and sexualities have been instrumental in shaping the surrounding political dynamics. Right-wing populists decry ‘the gay agenda’; legislators define ex cathedra, which sexes are biologically ‘real’ or not; social media platforms and generative systems collect, analyze and (re)produce certain perspectives or experiences of genders and sexualities; and queer and Global South activists push back against epistemicide, articulate strategies of survival, and continue to reinvent non-hegemonic projects of contemporary intimacies.

In Europe, in particular, celebrations of LGB(TQ+) rights sit side by side with unscientific probing and testing of professional athletes, high-tech surveillance systems intended to keep (some) migrants out, reports of ‘medical anal inspections’ for refugees seeking asylum from sexual orientation-related persecution, and profits of millions in sales of weaponry to genocidal nations. Again, we find here the promise of data (understood as objectivity and truth)—made possible at scale by digitalization—as a central political strategy and praxis.

As digital infrastructures increasingly mediate the most intimate dimensions of life—touch, desire, care, and identity—our bodies become entangled with the logics of data extraction, surveillance, and algorithmic governance. Such processes are not governed by the logics of the technologies alone, but also (or perhaps mostly) by the political economies underpinning them, and their profit-maximizing imperatives. As economic trends start to emerge in relation to those technologies, so do questions about whether we find ourselves in a state of (post-industrial) capitalism, in post-capitalism, or in technofeudalism.

This Special Issue invites contributions that examine how intimacies, bodies, and desires are shaped, commodified, and disciplined by technological systems and the global political economy that sustains them. This includes contributions that do not foreclose or minimize the role that individualized agency or feelings thereof play in the uptake and deployment of such disciplinary systems, and how homo oeconomicus might be seen as both a consequence and a cause of the current sociopolitical and technical changes. We seek critical work that interrogates how affect, embodiment, and relationality are reconfigured in an age of platforms, biometrics, and digital capital. We are particularly interested in contributions that approach these questions through intersectional frameworks, attending to how categories such as gender, race, social class, sexuality, and (dis)ability shape and are shaped by digital infrastructures.

Aim of the Special Issue and how the subject relates to the scope of the journal

This Special Issue aligns closely with the scope of Societies, which is dedicated to interdisciplinary research on contemporary social transformations, and the journal’s focus on the intersections of technology, identity, and social structures provides an ideal framework for examining how digital infrastructures mediate intimate life and sustain intersectional forms of oppression. By exploring how platform capitalism structures visibility, affect, and relationality, the Special Issue will addresses Societies’ interest in the social implications of science and technology, constructions of identity, and the dynamics of inclusion, justice, and power. By bringing together perspectives from sociology, feminist theory, transgender studies, queer studies, critical race studies, queer ecologies, intersectional theory, media studies, and critical political economy, this Special Issue contributes to the journal’s mission to illuminate emerging societal questions and foster critical, interdisciplinary dialogue on how digital systems reconfigure the most personal dimensions of social life.

Suggest themes

Contributions to this Special Issue should follow one of the three following categories of papers: 1) article, 2) conceptual paper, or 3) review. In addition to following the guidelines and thematic focus of the journal, contributions should also address the topics that are the in focus of the Special Issue.

As a suggestion for the topics that can potentially be covered (though by no means intended as an exhaustive list) please see the following:

• The technological production of gender and sexualities;
  
• Intersectionally framed appropriations and deployments of technology within the context of gender and in connection with other systems of structural power asymmetry (e.g., race, class, sexuality, disability, species, age, etc.);
  
• The political economy of the platforming of gendering, and the gendering of platforms;
  
• The role of platform logics play in academic work related to gender and sexualities;
  
• Theoretical innovation in conceptualizing gender and sexualities, and techno-facilitated cisnormativity;
  
• The struggles around the visibility, ownership, and deployment of signifiers around gender and sexualities (e.g., “gender ideology”, “queer”/”cuír”, and “identity politics”) within contemporary digital manifestations of culture;
  
• The situatedness of epistemic frameworks on gender and sexualities, and their shaping in and through platformed economics and politics;
  
• The materiality of gendered (digital) media systems as part of the Earth system;
  
• The role of non-hegemonic and counter-hegemonic epistemologies and praxeologies in challenging and maintaining gendered platform logics;
  
• The mediatic becoming-salient of certain fields (e.g., professional sports) as material and symbolic battlegrounds;
  
• Digitally manifested expressions of gender “diversity” and “empowerment” as techniques of political economy occlusion;
  
• The resurgence of ‘the real’, ‘the authentic’, or ‘the truth’ in (digital) populist and popular narratives around gender and sexualities;
  
• The deep mediatization of Global North models of gender and sexualities in the context of neocolonialism;
  
• The affordances and perils of digitalized understandings of analogue embodiments;
  
• The tensions and continuities between individualized and collectivistic forms of (digital) organizing and mobilizing within and/or against platforms;
  
• The politics of (automated and algorithmic) recognition, and their social and economic implications;
  
• The gendered politics of algorithmic fascism;
  
• The aesthetic infrastructures of digital patriarchy.
  

Dr. Daniel Cardoso

Dr. Sara De Vuyst

Dr. Inês Amaral

Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

• intersectionality
  
• deep mediatization
  
• affect
  
• embodiment
  
• platformization
  
• gender
  
• sexualities
  
• neocolonialism
  
• technofascism
  

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.

Culture Unbound (Special Issue)

Deadline: January 31, 2026

Editors: Johanna Dahlin and Hossam Sultan

In many countries, research ethics in qualitative and ethnographic research—including digital and online ethnographies—are increasingly subject to formalized governance. A growing tendency toward bureaucratization introduces standardized procedures that often reflect criteria and expectations from clinical or laboratory settings. While these frameworks aim to ensure accountability, they can clash with the relational, adaptive, and context sensitive nature of ethnographic practice. Requirements such as detailed pre-study protocols, rigid consent forms, and extensive documentation can in some cases,—such as recordings, the management of sensitive data, or consent forms requested by ethics approval authorities—pose risks to participants and lead to over-bureaucratization for researchers. In other contexts, such as participant observation in large groups, it may be practically impossible to obtain informed consent from everyone involved. These developments raise fundamental questions about how ethical review systems can accommodate the complexity and unpredictability inherent in ethnographic research, without reducing ethics to formal procedures and the ticking of boxes.

The governance of research ethics is not a neutral or purely technical matter—it shapes what kinds of knowledge can be produced, whose voices are heard, and which methods are considered legitimate. As ethical review systems become increasingly standardized and bureaucratized, there is a risk that flexible, context-sensitive approaches such as ethnography are marginalized or forced into compliance frameworks that do not fit their epistemological foundations. These developments have implications not only for researchers but also for participants, communities, and the broader public.

By critically examining these transformations, this special issue aims to advance scholarly debate on how ethical governance can protect participants and uphold integrity without undermining methodological diversity and innovation. We invite academic contributions that analyze tensions, unintended consequences, and creative responses to current systems, as well as conceptual and empirical work proposing alternative approaches that better align with the relational and processual nature of ethnographic practice. The purpose is to generate knowledge and critical perspectives that can inform future discussions and scholarly agendas for ethical governance—agendas that respect both accountability and the complexity of qualitative research.

Types of Contributions

This special issue invites contributions in the form of full papers (8000 words) or short commentaries (3000-4000 words) that reflect upon current transformations in the regulation of ethics in ethnographic research with focus tensions, emergent questions, work arounds and future agendas that they see needed to be put in place. We welcome:

• Empirical studies, including shorter vignettes, examining how ethical review systems shape research practices in different contexts.
  
• Theoretical and conceptual analyses of ethics as practice, situated ethics, and reflexivity in relation to governance.
  
• Methodological reflections on alternative consent models (oral, processual, participatory) and their recognition within formal systems.
  

Contributors can reflect upon questions such as, but not limited to, the following:

• How can ethics be understood as relational and processual rather than fixed and standardized?
  
• What risks arise when journals and institutions impose “one-size-fits-all” requirements on diverse research practices?
  
• How might digital, online and hybrid ethnographies challenge existing assumptions about consent, privacy, and data security?
  
• In what ways can critical and postcolonial perspectives inform the design of ethical review systems?
  
• What strategies can researchers and institutions adopt to balance accountability with methodological flexibility?
  

Contributions are welcome from scholars working in a variety of fields and disciplines that engage in ethnographic research. The special issue will be published in the international open-access journal Culture Unbound. All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.

Timeline:

• 31 January 2026: Deadline for Abstract submission. Please send a 500-word extended abstract to johanna.dahlin@liu.se and hossam.sultan@liu.se. Please indicate whether the intended manuscript is going to be a full article (up to 8000 words) or a short commentary (up to 4000 words).
  
• 15 February 2026: Notification of acceptance of proposal for paper.
  
• 15 August 2026: Submission of full papers
  
• 30 October 2026: Reviews in
  
• 31 December 2026: Revised manuscripts due
  
• Spring 2027: Publication in Culture Unbound
  

Submit your proposals and any queries to johanna.dahlin@liu.se and hossam.sultan@liu.se