Call for articles on “Mediatization: Empirical perspectives

CALL FOR ARTICLES ON "MEDIATIZATION: EMPIRICAL PERSPECTIVES"
Special issue of Communications. The European Journal of Communication Research

Special issue editors: Stig Hjarvard, Andreas Hepp, Knut Lundby

Mediatization has become a key concept in media and communication research (see for example Hjarvard 2008, Livingstone 2009 and the discussion collected in Lundby 2009).

In general, the concept of mediatization tries to capture long-term processes of the interrelation between media change on the one hand and social and cultural change on the other. As institutionalized and technological means of communication media have become integral to very different contexts of human life, the media themselves are not just neutral instances of mediation. Media like television, radio, newspaper, the web or the mobile phone are in themselves mediators of social and cultural change. This cannot be understood through a single ‘media logic’ but has to be researched in a highly contextualized way: The mediatization of sports, politics or religion may be highly different to the mediatization of education, while the same media are involved.

The aim of the special issue on "Mediatization: Empirical perspectives" of Communications. The European Journal of Communication Research is to present up-to-date empirical investigations of mediatization. Within this overall frame, all forms of empirical media and communication research are welcome, whether qualitative or quantitative, orientated towards theory development or testing, critical or descriptive, contemporary or historical. The contributions should offer empirically based critical answers on the dynamics of media change within the concept of mediatization.

The deadlines for submission are as follows:

- November 15, 2009: Digital submission of two-page abstracts to one of the special issue editors
- January 15, 2010: Digital submission of the final article to one of the special issue editors (proofed American English)
- August/September 2010: Publication of accepted articles

All submitted articles are double blind reviewed. For style sheet and further information see the Communications web page: http://www.degruyter.de/journals/communic/detailEn.cfm

Contact details:

Stig Hjarvard: University of Copenhagen, e-mail stig@hum.ku.dk
Andreas Hepp: University of Bremen, e-mail Andreas.Hepp@uni-bremen.de
Knut Lundby: University of Oslo, e-mail knut.lundby@media.uio.no


References:

Hjarvard, S (2008) “The Mediatization of Society. A Theory of the Media as Agents of Social and Cultural Change”, Nordicom Review, 29(2): 105-134
Livingstone, S. M. (2009). On the Mediation of Everything. Journal of Communication, 59(1), 1-18.
Lundby, K. (Ed.). (2009). Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences. New York: Peter Lang.