Call for Papers – Post Arab-Spring: Structural Changes and New Directions in Media and Societ

CFP: Post Arab-Spring: Structural Changes and New Directions in Media and Society.

by danjackson – 13 August, 2012

The focus of this special issue of the Global Media Journal-American Edition is:

Post Arab-Spring: Structural Changes and New Directions in Media and Society.

Deadline for Submission: September 15, 2012

Communication technology and media services are advancing more rapidly than ever before. Throughout the entire world, average citizens have the ability to receive — and transmit — more and more unfiltered content to larger and larger audiences. The results can range from public empowerment to unabated chaos. Governments and regulators of every philosophy are struggling to keep up with the changes.

“Arab Spring,” now well into its second year, is but one example of societal change based — in part — on technological advancements. In just two short years throughout the “Arab World” some governments have cracked down with an iron fist while in other countries regimes have changed. Some revolutions have been violent, other transitions orderly. Other nations, at least on the surface, have felt no effect of the systemic changes to technology and society.

As a special issue of the American edition of Global Media Journal, the editors encourage submissions that focus on personal, mass, and computer-mediated communication within and to and from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in this new and still changing environment. Broad topic areas include, but are not limited to matters such as:

● Changes in how governments communicate with their populace and how the people communicate with government.

● Evolution in sociopolitical communication in the region.

● Western adaption to the new communication publics in the MENA region.

● Media representation of the various groups and factions involved in MENA change.

● The roles played by new media in recent changes in the MENA region.

● The relationships between traditional and new media in the pre and post Arab Spring events/

● Theoretical frameworks explaining the triangle relationships among governments, media and publics.

● Spill-over effects of Arab Spring on other nations and regions.

Graduate Student Research: In keeping with the mission of the journal to provide opportunities for graduate student publication, this special issue of Global Media Journal will have a graduate research section.

…more