Communication History List

Archive

CfP for Special Issue of Early Popular Visual Culture: Early Cinema in the British Empire

CfP for Special Issue of Early Popular Visual Culture: Early Cinema in the British Empire

Guest edited by James M. Burns and Mario Slugan

The dominant approach to early cinema (c.1893-1918) has been to treat it as an emblem of modernity ushering in the new age of urbanization and leisure on par with technological inventions such as the railroad. This is a direct consequence of a prevalent focus of early cinema historians on the North American and European context even when discussing cinema as a part of the colonial project. More recent work has started to break away from this trend. Scholars have produced work on early cinema in Africa (Convents 1986), Southeast Asia (Tofighian 2013), Japan (Gerow 2010), Latin America (López 2000; Navitski 2017), Brazil (Conde 2018), China (Zhang 2005), and in German (Fuhrmann 2015), Dutch (Ruppin 2016), and British colonies (Burns 2013). Similarly, historians with the knowledge of local languages have started to integrate colonial early cinema histories into histories of national cinemas, mostly Asian ones (Deocampo 2017a), with the most extensive contributions focusing on China (Zhang 2005, Yeh 2018), India (Chatterjee 2011; Mahadevan 2015; Dass 2016), and the Philippines (Deocampo 2017b, c). Yet, a large-scale study of early cinema in the British colonies is still missing.

This absence is particularly striking because the period up to 1918 under investigation saw crucial developments in the history of the Empire and cinema alike. In the former case, the British Empire undertook some of the largest colonial expansion in its history, bridging Africa from Cairo to Cape, acquiring substantial territories in West Africa, and peaking in territory with the 1919 Versailles Treaty (Ferguson 2004). In the latter, the period saw the worldwide institutionalisation of cinema as a set of material practices including production, promotion, distribution, exhibition, and reception which would by the end of World War I come to be dominated by Hollywood. Cinema, moreover, was widely available to the peoples in the Empire and, unlike newspapers, was not constrained by (any) language literacy. At the same time, this was also the period when cinema was radically different from the form that the present-day audiences are accustomed to.

#232
November 29, 2023
Read more

FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Seminar 2023: Rethinking Broadcast Archives

FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Seminar 2023 /Rethinking Broadcast Archives Dig, Deconstruct, Display/

December 8th, London, BFI Southbank

The FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission invites you to join the international seminar /Rethinking Broadcast Archives: Dig, Deconstruct, Display/ hosted at BFI Southbank in London on December 8th.

The seminar brings together researchers and media professionals in a dialogue about present-day archival opportunities and challenges and how these inform new understandings of the archives and new ways of engaging with the past.

#231
November 28, 2023
Read more

IAMHIST Master Class on Media and History 2024 Call for Papers

The International Association for Media and History

University College Cork

and
The Irish Film Institute

IAMHIST Master Class on Media and History

#230
November 24, 2023
Read more

CFP: “Revisiting a Golden Era: Canadian Cinema of the 1980s and 90s”

CFP: “Revisiting a Golden Era: Canadian Cinema of the 1980s and 90s”

Call for essay proposals for an edited volume about Canadian films, filmmakers, and film culture (for submission to McGill-Queens University Press)

*Edited by Lee Carruthers and Charles Tepperman *

This volume proposes a reconsideration of the aesthetic, cultural, and industrial development of motion pictures in Canada between (approximately) the years 1980 and 2000. This period has often been described as a ‘golden era’ of Canadian cinema, seeing the rise to prominence of a new generation of Canadian filmmakers and the emergence of new institutions to support them. Piers Handling has characterized this phenomenon as the emergence of a distinctive Canadian cinema that is “esoteric, diverse, and multifaceted.” As he writes, Canadian cinema was newly mobilized in this phase through festivals, finding an equal standing with literature: “Cronenberg, Arcand, Egoyan and Maddin stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Atwood, Ondaatje, Martel and Richards.” Significantly, this emergence also coincided with the maturation of academic Film Studies in Canada, a parallel development that resulted in robust critical and scholarly responses. While the films and film contexts of this period were much discussed in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, they demand a new assessment.

#229
November 20, 2023
Read more

CFP: Entrenched Narratives, Hidden Figures: Reappraising Representations of War Across German Screen Media

Call for Papers

Entrenched Narratives, Hidden Figures: Reappraising Representations of War Across German Screen Media

In February 2022, German chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the German parliament in response to and denunciation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Describing the moment as a ‘turning point’, Scholz referred to Putin’s act of aggression as a watershed moment that altered geopolitical reality and announced a volte-face in Germany’s defence and energy policies. This conference adopts the contemporary moment, which also sees the reality and spectre of armed conflict across many parts of the Global South, as an inflection point for reconsidering representations of war across a range of screen media: from narrative cinema to moving image installation; streaming to VR.

While the First and Second World Wars have long formed tropes in German cinema and representations of the nation’s history abroad, recent years have seen leading artists such as William Kentridge and John Akomfrah offer alternative, counter-historical accounts of these otherwise familiar chapters of history. There is also a tradition of moving image practitioners – from Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann to Harun Farocki and Hito Steyerl – who have voiced opposition to conflicts from Vietnam to the so-called ‘War on Terror’, while often interrogating the connection of the cinematic medium (and its histories) to the waging of war. Within the German national context, cinematic explorations of domestic terrorism and its legacies have placed a particular emphasis on the Rote Armee Faktion and their actions in the 1970s, including Uli Edel, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, and Christian Petzold. Most recently, Edward Berger’s German-language remake of All Quiet On the Western Front, a co-production distributed for streaming globally by Netflix, attracted both critical acclaim and ire, prompting fresh questions surrounding the status of German (military) history as a cultural export for cinematic distribution and streaming worldwide.

#228
November 14, 2023
Read more

Call for Editor - Journalism History

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication invites applications for editor of Journalism History.

Adopted as the official journal of the History Division in 2018, Journalism History is well respected as the oldest peer-reviewed journal of mass media history in the United States. Continuously published since 1974, this scholarly journal is a quarterly publication that features excellent scholarship on media history. 

The division seeks an editor to start in March 2024 as an apprentice to the current editor until the new editor's three-year term begins in August 2024 and ends in August 2027. The term is renewable. The annual salary is $5,000 with discretionary funds negotiable. The editor must be a member of the History Division or be willing to join.

Duties of the editor of Journalism History include but are not limited to:

#227
November 13, 2023
Read more

New Issue of Historiography Is Available Now

We are pleased to announce publication of the newest issue of the online journal Historiography in Mass Communication.

You can access the issue at jmc-history.com. You may either read it online or download a pdf. It does not require a subscription — it is free!

Here’s list of the contents:

  • From the Editor: Wm. David Sloan and James D. Startt, “The Personal Element”
  • Erin K. Coyle, “Weaving a Broader Tapestry”
  • Roundtable: “How Faith Informs the Work of a Journalism and Mass Communication Historian” — Bruce Evensen, John Ferré, Christina Littlefield, and Julie Williams
  • Historian Interview: Brooke Kroeger
  • Book Award Interview: Jonathan Marshall, Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis
  • How Media History Matters: Wm. David Sloan, “The Media and Public Opinion“
  • News & Notes
#226
November 9, 2023
Read more

CfP for Special Issue of _Early Popular Visual Culture

CfP for Special Issue of Early Popular Visual Culture

Early Cinema in the British Empire

Guest edited by James M. Burns and Mario Slugan

The dominant approach to early cinema (c.1893-1918) has been to treat it as an emblem of modernity ushering in the new age of urbanization and leisure on par with technological inventions such as the railroad. This is a direct consequence of a prevalent focus of early cinema historians on the North American and European context even when discussing cinema as a part of the colonial project. More recent work has started to break away from this trend. Scholars have produced work on early cinema in Africa (Convents 1986), Southeast Asia (Tofighian 2013), Japan (Gerow 2010), Latin America (López 2000; Navitski 2017), Brazil (Conde 2018), China (Zhang 2005), and in German (Fuhrmann 2015), Dutch (Ruppin 2016), and British colonies (Burns 2013). Similarly, historians with the knowledge of local languages have started to integrate colonial early cinema histories into histories of national cinemas, mostly Asian ones (Deocampo 2017a), with the most extensive contributions focusing on China (Zhang 2005, Yeh 2018), India (Chatterjee 2011; Mahadevan 2015; Dass 2016), and the Philippines (Deocampo 2017b, c). Yet, a large-scale study of early cinema in the British colonies is still missing.

#225
November 7, 2023
Read more

CFP: Ninth Annual Conference on the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS) 

CFP: Ninth Annual Conference on the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS)

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

31 May & 1 June 2024

This two-day conference of the Society for the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS), at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, will bring together researchers working on the history of post-World War II social science. It will provide a forum for the latest research on the cross-disciplinary history of the post-war social sciences, including but not limited to anthropology, economics, psychology, political science, and sociology as well as related fields like area studies, communication studies, design, history, international relations, law, linguistics, and urban studies. The conference aims to build upon the recent emergence of work and conversation on cross-disciplinary themes in the postwar history of the social sciences.

#224
November 1, 2023
Read more

CFP: ICA Preconference: Going Global before Satellite and Internet

Going Global before Satellite and Internet

Electronic Media Production, Distribution, and Consumption, 1920s-1980s

Preconference sponsored by the Communication History and Global Communication and Social Change Divisions of the International Communication Association

Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology, Sydney Tuesday, 18 June 2024 8:00-17:00

#223
October 18, 2023
Read more

New Open Access Book: Franklin Ford Collection

mediastudies.press is a scholar-led, nonprofit, diamond open access publisher in the media, film, and communication studies fields. We are excited to announce the publication of Franklin Ford Collection, edited by Dominique Trudel and Juliette De Maeyer.

The American journalist Franklin Ford (1849–1918) is remembered for his ambitious (and stillborn) Thought News periodical, hatched with philosopher John Dewey. The Franklin Ford Collection, curated and introduced by Trudel and De Maeyer, takes in the full shambolic spread of Ford's thought, across news, politics, education, finance, and society at large. The collection includes nineteen documents—letters, leaflets, editorials, and treatises—with critical annotations from Trudel and De Maeyer. The works, many unpublished or rarely circulated, illustrate the core themes that animated Ford's career, including his sweeping program of press reform and his thoughts on the interconnected flows of money, transportation, and communication.

The book is available online, and as a free download in PDF and ePub. A paperback version is also available. 

Franklin Ford Collection appears in the Public Domain Series. Scholars interested in proposing volumes in this or other series are encouraged to reach out with a query. You can learn more about mediastudies.press, including our operations and OA principles, on our site. The press is a member of the Open Book Collective and the ScholarLed consortium, and also publishes the History of Media Studies journal. Please contact us at press@mediastudies.press.

#222
October 9, 2023
Read more

Reminder: Internet Histories Early Career Researcher Award

CFP for the ‘Internet Histories Early Career Researcher Award 2024’

Are you an early career researcher whose research focuses on the history of the Internet and/or the Web, and histories of digital cultures?

We invite any interested early career researchers (masters students, doctoral students, and post-doctoral researchers) to send us an original article, between 6,000 and 8,000 words, by 1 November 2023. If the scholar has a PhD degree this must not have been awarded more than three years prior to the time of submission, exclusive of any leaves (parental, medial, etc.). Co-authored submissions will be accepted if all authors are early career researchers. In this case, the award will be evenly split between all authors.

Read more on previous awards at

#221
September 28, 2023
Read more

New Resource: The Archival Internet Video Index

New Resource: The Archival Internet Video Index

All,

(Apologies for cross-posting!)

I just wanted to share a new resource I've been working on that might be of interest to folks for research or teaching: The Archival Internet Video Index. While the name is a bit of a misnomer, the AIVI indexes archival footage of early digital communications and information services in use, ranging from videotex to the early years of the web. I’ve focused on video in particular because it allows folks, especially students, to see these technologies in use. They’re also great for illustrating public understandings of technology at the time as well as contemporaneous corporate rhetoric (the CompuServe/Mickey Mouse Club theme mashup might be my favorite find so far).

#220
September 19, 2023
Read more

Call for Contributions: Sex and Popular Romance from the 1950s to the Present Day

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Bonkbuster!

Sex and Popular Romance from the 1950s to the Present Day

Edited by Dr Jo Parsons (Falmouth University)

#219
September 18, 2023
Read more

New Issue of Historiography Is Available Now

We are pleased to announce publication of the newest issue of the online journal Historiography in Mass Communication. 

You can access the issue at http://jmc-history.com. You may either read it online or download a pdf. It does not require a subscription — it is free!

Here’s list of the contents:

From the Editor: “The Enthrallment of Theory”

#218
September 12, 2023
Read more

cfp: The BBC Legacy in African Media, Changes and Continuities

Call for Book Chapter Abstracts

The BBC Legacy in African Media, Changes and Continuities

Deadline for the submission of abstracts: 30 September 2023

Book Editors:

#217
September 4, 2023
Read more

Internet Histories, Volume 7, Issue 3 (2023) is now available online

To whom it may concern

The editors of Internet Histories are pleased to announce that Internet Histories, Volume 7, Issue 3, December 2023 is complete, and available online.

Two articles are open access.

Internet Histories, Volume 7, Issue 3, December 2023

#216
September 3, 2023
Read more

New Book: The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet

All,

Since it’s now officially out, I wanted to share the announcement for my new book, The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet, which might be of interest to folks on this list: https://nyupress.org/9781479818310/the-two-revolutions/. If you order it through the publisher, NYU Press, they have a 30% off discount code (NYUAU30).

Blurb: The Two Revolutions explores how the rise of the internet shaped transgender identity and activism from the 1980s to the present. Through extensive archival research and media archeology, Avery Dame-Griff reconstructs the manifold digital networks of transgender activists, cross-dressing computer hobbyists, and others interested in gender nonconformity who incited the second revolution of the title: the ascendance of “transgender” as an umbrella identity in the mid-1990s.

Dame-Griff argues that digital communications sparked significant momentum within what would become the transgender movement, but also further cemented existing power structures. Covering both a historical period that is largely neglected within the history of computing, and the poorly understood role of technology in queer and trans social movements, The Two Revolutions offers a new understanding of both revolutions—the internet’s early development and the structures of communication that would take us to today’s tipping point of trans visibility politics. Through a history of how trans people online exploited different digital infrastructures in the early days of the internet to build a community, The Two Revolutions tells a crucial part of trans history itself.

#215
August 30, 2023
Read more

CfP: Rethinking Broadcast Archives: Dig, Deconstruct, Display

Call for Papers

Rethinking Broadcast Archives: Dig, Deconstruct, Display

Event: FIAT/IFTA Media Studies International Seminar
Date: 8 December 2023
Venue: BFI Southbank, London

The Media Studies Commission of the International Federation of Television Archives FIAT/IFTA is organising a one-day international seminar at the British Film Institute in London on 8 December 2023. Please join us in a dialogue about broadcast archives, present-day archival transformations and how these inform new understandings of the archive and new ways of engaging with the past.

#214
August 29, 2023
Read more

“A Century of Sound: Technology, Culture and Performance”: 8th Global Reggae Conference

“A Century of Sound: Technology, Culture and Performance”: 8th Global Reggae Conference

It is Sonjah N. Stanley Niaah's pleasure to share with you that the 8th Global Reggae Conference will be staged at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus on February 14-17, 2024. Please see the call for paper,  film and other proposals below.

+ Sound System Outernational #10

+ UWI 75th Anniversary

#213
August 17, 2023
Read more

Internet Histories Early Career Researcher Award 2024

CFP for the ‘Internet Histories Early Career Researcher Award 2024’

Please do circulate widely.

Are you an early career researcher whose research focuses on the history of the Internet and/or the Web, and histories of digital cultures?

We invite any interested early career researchers (masters students, doctoral students, and post-doctoral researchers) to send us an original article, between 6,000 and 8,000 words, by 1 November 2023. If the scholar has a PhD degree this must not have been awarded more than three years prior to the time of submission, exclusive of any leaves (parental, medial, etc.). Co-authored submissions will be accepted if all authors are early career researchers. In this case, the award will be evenly split between all authors.

#212
August 7, 2023
Read more

CFP: Hollywood Before the Code (1921-1934)

CFP International Conference: Hollywood Before the Code (1921-1934)

Université Paris Nanterre & Sorbonne University, June 27-29th, 2024

The implementation of the Production Code in 1934 established a pre- and post-classic Hollywood era. From 1934 onward, the studios submitted their productions to some internal control to ensure the conformity of contents and guarantee their commercial viability at a time when ideological and religious elites were actively trying to enforce the respect of moral principles. After focusing on the studio “system” in the 1980s, Hollywood studies rediscovered the power and freedom of early talkies in the 1990s. This movement was initiated by cinephiles at a retrospective that Bruce Goldstein entitled “Pre-Code Hollywood” at the New York Film Forum in 1988. American scholars in this movement circumscribed the periodization of the Code's implementation to the talking years alone and focused on the idea of “Forbidden Hollywood” (Vieira, 1999, 2019; Black, 1994) taken up by the Majors on the occasion of the re-release of the catalogues of the Warner Archive Collection, Sony, Universal and Fox. The Warner retrospective and the Lumière Festival in 2019 at the Paris cinema Le Louxor entitled “Forbidden Hollywood”, or the release of the DVD box set Universal Pre-Code Hollywood Collection (2009) with the evocative subtitle “6 Shocking Films From the Era Before Rules!”, and a second one in 2020, have contributed to fixing in the collective imagination the existence of an era during which everything would have been allowed in Hollywood between the advent of talking pictures in 1927 and the rigorous enforcement of the Production Code (the “Hays Code”) in July 1934. In the Spring of 2022, the Criterion channel proposed a cycle dedicated to the “Pre-Code Paramount” by applying the same definition. A collective representation started emerging according to which the implementation of the Code took place in two periods: one transgressive and provocative from 1929 to 1934 (“Pre-Code Hollywood”), the other conservative and strictly regulated from this pivotal year on.

This international conference aims at re-examining the notion of “Pre-Code Hollywood” and its periodization as they are now commonly adopted by scholars, critics, and film enthusiasts. Indeed, the establishment of the Code did not occur abruptly with the publication of a first text in 1930, followed by the application of a reworked version in 1934, but developed over the years from the adoption of the Thirteen Points in 1921. Recent historiography (L. Leff and Simmons; F. Bordat) has thus demonstrated that, far from wishing for censorship, Will Hays sought above all to avoid federal censorship and to protect the vertical integration of the studios. Hollywood met with several attempts to prevent federal censorship as well as untimely cuts by local censorship boards (Studio Relations Committee in 1922, “The Formula” in 1924, the “Don'ts and Be Carefuls” of 1927, the first version of the Code in 1930 and the “final” version of the Code in 1934). These steps confirm that Will Hays' action was part of a logic of permanent negotiation between producers, religious lobbies, the federal government, local censorship boards and women's clubs (General Federation of Women's Clubs, Woman's Christian Temperance Union...).

#211
July 22, 2023
Read more

cfp:%20When%20was%20the%20%E2%80%9CSmart%20Border%E2%80%9D?%C2%A0Tracing%20Critical%20Histories%20of%20Media%20Technological%20Border%20and%20Migration%20Control

CFP: When was the “Smart Border”? Tracing Critical Histories of Media Technological Border and Migration Control

Location: TU Dresden, Germany, hosted by the Chair of Digital Cultures

Date: 15–17 November 2023 

Format: in-person presentations

#210
July 3, 2023
Read more

CFP: History of Media Studies

(Versión en español está más abajo)

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.

We encourage submissions in any one of our formats, in either Spanish or English:

https://hms.mediastudies.press/author-guidelines
#209
June 14, 2023
Read more

mediastudies.press submission window for book manuscripts open 1 June-30 July, 2023

We at mediastudies.press are happy to announce the opening of our annual proposal window from 1 June to 30 July, 2023. During this date window, authors are encouraged to submit a proposal for review.

mediastudies.press welcomes submissions from scholars across media, communication, and film studies. We currently publish in four series:

Media Manifold series — monographs and other book-length works of contemporary media scholarship

Public Domain series — reprints of neglected classics, in new critical editions anchored by framing introductions

#208
June 6, 2023
Read more

New book (with discount): The Significance of the Media in American History

James D. Startt and W. David Sloan’s new book, The Significance of the Media in American History, has a limited-time special.

By special  arrangement with Amazon and Vision Press, for a short time Historiography in Mass Communication is able to make available to readers the landmark book The Significance of the Media in American History for only $5.08. (The regular price is $24.95.)

For information about the book on Amazon, or to purchase a copy, click on this link: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1885219830

#207
May 31, 2023
Read more

Internet Histories, Volume 7, Issue 2 (2023) 2022 is now available online

To whom it may concern,

The Editorial Staff of Internet Histories is pleased to announce that;

Internet Histories, Volume 7, Issue 2 (2023) is now available online.

One article (When Wikipedia met Tor) is open access.

#206
May 23, 2023
Read more

CFP: 31st Annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression

31st Annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression

November 2-4, 2023 • Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia

Submission Deadline: Aug. 21, 2023

The Society of Nineteenth Century Historians, in partnership with the Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Augusta University, presents the 31st annual Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression. The Society invites submissions dealing with any aspect of the US mass media of the 19th century, including the Civil War in fiction and history, freedom of expression in the 19th century, presidents and the 19th century press, the African American and immigrant press, sensationalism and crime in 19th century newspapers, and coverage of 19th century spiritualism and ghost stories.

#205
May 19, 2023
Read more

ICA Preconference “History of Digital Metaphors”, May 25th, 2023, Centre for Culture and Technology (Coach House)

We are happy to announce the final program of the ICA Preconference “History of Digital Metaphors”. The conference is held at the Centre for Culture and Technology (Coach House), on May 25th, 2023. 

You can find the program below and if you plan to attend it, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/ica-preconference-history-of-digital-metaphors-tickets-631933288477. For more info: https://digitalmetaphors.wordpress.com/

PROGRAM 

9.00-9.15 AM: Registration and Coffee 

#204
May 17, 2023
Read more

PhD Position in Media History (with a focus on maintenance and communication) at USI Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano

PhD Position in Media History (with a focus on maintenance and communication) at USI Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano

The Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at USI (Università della Svizzera italiana) invites applications for 1 fully-funded PhD position (4 years), supervised by Prof. Gabriele Balbi. Applications received before 5 June 2023 will be given priority. However, applications will be received until the position is filled. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an online interview in June/July 2023.

The PhD

PhD candidate will be expected to design and carry out research in the field of media and communication history, with a specific focus on maintenance of communication infrastructures and maintenance of media in diachronic perspective. Maintenance can be declined in different perspectives: politics of maintenance and the relation to power, economics and business of maintenance for private companies, the social construction of “maintenance cultures”, the persistence and _longue durée _of communication technologies because of maintenance, the lack of maintenance and the abandonment of communication infrastructures, and others. The candidates should advance their theoretical framework, timeframes, methodological angles, and case studies. They will be discussed during the interview and later can be refined and changed during the research.

#203
May 11, 2023
Read more

Jobs in Communication, Media and Cultural Studies at Loughborough University, UK

Dear Communication History List members,

We are currently advertising for several new positions in Communication, Media and Cultural Studies at Loughborough University, UK.

We are looking to appoint two positions who will contribute to our excellent research culture and make a committed, innovative, and collegial contribution to teaching on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. We are a broad-based subject area with particular research and teaching strengths in media, memory and history, political communication, language and social interaction, and cultural analysis. We encourage applications from any relevant specialism. For further details about our research and teaching please see https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/crcc/ and https://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/media-and-communication-bsc/

For informal enquiries please contact Professor David Deacon, Head of Division for Communication and Media: d.n.deacon@lboro.ac.uk, or Professor Sabina Mihelj, Director of Research and Innovation s.mihelj@lboro.ac.uk.

#202
May 10, 2023
Read more

CFP: American Journalism Historians Association

AMERICAN JOURNALISM HISTORIANS ASSOCIATION

2023 CALL FOR PAPERS, PANELS, AND RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

The American Journalism Historians Association invites paper entries, panel proposals, and abstracts of research in progress on any facet of media history for its 42nd annual convention to be held in Columbus, Ohio, September 28-30, 2023.

GENERAL RULES

#201
May 9, 2023
Read more

Summer School: Arts & Media Archaeology

Summer School: Arts & Media Archaeology

Performing Science, Mediating Knowledge

Summer School | 4-8 September 2023

Step into the world of the history of spectacular science and the various forms of (un)conventional knowledge that circulated in the nineteenth century through performance and entertainment. Learn about the relation between performance, science, knowledge and its objects and media. Explore how various props such as the magic lantern, panoramas or human exhibitions shaped the public’s perception of science, and how eager audiences became acquainted with the ways in which venues and self-staging tactics were used to frame and communicate knowledge and scientific insights. Discover how art and performance can be analysed as major indicators of shifting ideas, new insights or changing discourses in the realm of science, and how they reflect the impact of new scientific knowledge, observations, and discoveries in cultural history.

#200
May 9, 2023
Read more

CFP: Communication and Power in Early America

CFP: Communication and Power in Early America

The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS) at Iona University invites submissions for a hybrid online and in-person symposium on the topic of Communication and Power in Early America. This symposium aims to explore how communication shaped, reflected, and challenged power relations in North America from 1750-1850. The organizers have ambitions of extending this conversation through a scholarly anthology and/or a journal special edition. Participants are encouraged to consider this symposium as a potential first step toward publication and will be expected to present their work as well as read and comment on the work of other participants.

The symposium will take place October 6-7, 2023, with both in-person and online opportunities for presentation. The in-person component will take place at the ITPS at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York.

We welcome submissions from scholars of all disciplines, including but not limited to history, literary studies, communication, media studies, religious studies, ethnic studies, and area studies. Possible topics for submission might include (but are not limited to):

#199
May 2, 2023
Read more

New book: "Mr. Associated Press"

New book: "Mr. Associated Press"

I'm delighted to say that my new book, Mr. Associated Press: Kent Cooper and the 20th-Century World of News, is now in print. It can be ordered from your local bookstore or directly from University of Illinois Press (with a 30 per cent discount — use code S23UIP).

Here’s the book description:

Between 1925 and 1951, Kent Cooper transformed the Associated Press, making it the world’s dominant news agency while changing the kind of journalism that millions of readers in the United States and other countries relied on. Gene Allen’s biography is a globe-spanning account of how Cooper led and reshaped the most important institution in American--and eventually international--journalism in the mid-twentieth century.

#198
May 1, 2023
Read more

A Rosetta Stone for Erving Goffman: A Free Online Discussion, 5 May

Please join us for a free online discussion of Erving Goffman’s 1953 dissertation, “Communication Conduct in an Island Community”—newly published as an open access book.

  • A Rosetta Stone for Erving Goffman: An Online Discussion on Goffman’s Newly Published Dissertation (1953)

  • 5 May 2023, 15:00 UTC (11am EDT/4pm BST/5pm CET) [45 minutes]

  • Register here

  • More info

  • Open access book

Discussants:

  • Yves Winkin, University of Liège

  • Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, University of Wisconsin-Parkside

  • Peter Lunt, University of Leicester

  • Greg Smith, University of Salford

  • Filipa Subtil, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa

#197
April 24, 2023
Read more

CFP: Communication and Power in Early America

CFP: Communication and Power in Early America

The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies (ITPS) at Iona University invites submissions for a hybrid online and in-person symposium on the topic of Communication and Power in Early America. This symposium aims to explore how communication shaped, reflected, and challenged power relations in North America from 1750-1850. The organizers have ambitions of extending this conversation through a scholarly anthology and/or a journal special edition. Participants are encouraged to consider this symposium as a potential first step toward publication and will be expected to present their work as well as read and comment on the work of other participants.

The symposium will take place October 6-7, 2023, with both in-person and online opportunities for presentation. The in-person component will take place at the ITPS at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York.

We welcome submissions from scholars of all disciplines, including but not limited to history, literary studies, communication, media studies, religious studies, ethnic studies, and area studies. Possible topics for submission might include (but are not limited to):

#196
April 24, 2023
Read more

"James Carey & Media Studies" Colloquium--University of Illinois, April 27-28

Please see the publicity below about an upcoming event that could be of interest to this list-serve:

James Carey & Media Studies--The Past in the Present 

James Carey has had a profound impact on Communication & Media Studies, and in shaping the direction of Communication & Media Studies at the University of Illinois--as a professor, mentor, Dean of the College of Communication (now the College of Media), and Director of the Institute of Communications Research (ICR). He was, and remains, globally recognized for his wide-ranging contributions and interventions, including as an advocate for interdisciplinary studies of media and communications, as a historian of media, through his perspectives about Communication, Information, & Media Studies and their history, through his interests in the relation between Communication Studies, Media Studies, and Cultural Studies, through his attention to the technologies of communication and information, through his engagement with theories and histories of journalism, and as a contributor to theories and histories about the role of media in democratic forms of citizenship.   

To revisit and reconsider Carey’s impact on the field of Communication & Media Studies, and to highlight the recent launch of the James Carey Faculty Fellowship at the University of Illinois, the Institute of Communications Research is sponsoring a two-day colloquium on April 27 & 28.   

#195
April 24, 2023
Read more

IAMHIST seeks candidates for the council

IAMHIST seeks candidates for the council

IAMHIST is managed by the Council, as duly elected representatives of the membership. The council consists of the IAMHIST president and 11 council members and meets once or twice a year (online or in person) to plan and administer upcoming conferences, events and initiatives. Every two years, an online election of council members is organised among the members. The results are announced at the IAMHIST General Assembly Meeting.

We are currently seeking candidates for the 2023 election. There will be six vacancies on the council. We invite applications from individuals who meet the following criteria:

Your profile

#194
April 20, 2023
Read more

Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force Conference. April 27-30, 2023.

I'm delighted to circulate the next Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force conference, April 27, 28, 29, and 30th. The event features 340 participants across public, archival, historical, and curatorial sectors, who will discuss best practices in media history, digital and audio preservation, sound research, and copyright policy. Smithsonian Libraries and Archives and Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Heritage are holding a special "listening party" event at the Baird Auditorium on the last day of the conference. 


Registration is free for the entire conference! We hope to see you there, whenever you can make it, be it for one day, one session, or just at the Baird on Sunday. 

https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/registration-form/?formId=1a59b1b0-357c-4fd8-972a-f8a15a507732&envId=p-3AhSeeWCMU6Kt1UTuhImug

Besides our featured Smithsonian event - we have plenaries scheduled with Jad Abumrad of Radiolab with field recording legend Jim Mentzer, the Black Women in Radio preservation project, NPR's Kitchen Sisters, and Rick Prelinger, who will reflect on his decorated career as well as his current consultation work with the Internet Archive. A block schedule is posted at www.radiopreservation.org, and the full narrative schedule will be released at the same page this Friday. 

#193
April 7, 2023
Read more

CFP 4/10 : Media - History - Social Inequalities (IAMCR pre-conference)

Media – History – Social Inequalities: An IAMCR pre-conference

Deadline in two days (April 10) — see the call for papers

Description

The pre-conference “Media – History – Social Inequalities” aims to discuss historical and contemporary connections between media and social inequality. The pre-conference will focus on the conditions, causes, and characteristics of the relationship between media and social inequality and its consequences for the present and future. Research interests and analytical perspectives will be collected and explored. The scholarly contextualization of history, media, and inequality offers the opportunity to interweave different approaches and dimensions of analysis to trace time-related mechanisms of differentiation and distinction in the context of modern public formation.

#192
April 7, 2023
Read more

New Open Access Book: Larry Gross’s Creativity: Process and Personality

mediastudies.press is a scholar-led, nonprofit, no-fee open access publisher in the media, film, and communication studies fields. We are excited to announce the publication of Larry Gross’s undergraduate thesis: Creativity: Process and Personality.

Before arriving in the field of communication, Larry Gross was a psychology student at Brandeis University; Creativity: Process and Personality was Gross’s undergraduate thesis at Brandeis, completed in 1964. This mediastudies.press edition is the initial publication of that undergraduate thesis, with a new preface by Gross himself. Creativity: Process and Personality finds Gross exploring the nature of creativity by interviewing some of the era’s most noteworthy experts in psychology, including Herbert Simon, Milton Rokeach, Abraham Maslow, David McClelland, Jerome Bruner, and B. F. Skinner. The result of Gross’s interviews is a nuanced and multi-perspectival set of interlocking chapters, each of which probes the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of creativity. Creativity: Process and Personality remains a provocative consideration of how creativity takes form, while also operating as a revealing snapshot of mid-twentieth century psychological thought.

The book is available online and as a free download in PDF and ePub. A paperback version is also available.

Creativity: Process and Personality appears in the Public Domain series. Scholars interested in proposing volumes in this or other series are encouraged to reach out with a query.

#191
March 13, 2023
Read more

Award Call: Covert Award in Mass Communication History for Articles, Essays, or Book Chapters Published in 2022

Award Call: Covert Award in Mass Communication History for Articles, Essays, or Book Chapters Published in 2022

AEJMC’S History Division announces the annual competition for the Covert Award in Mass Communication History for entries published in 2022.

The Covert Award recognizes the author of the best mass communication history article or essay published in the previous year. Book chapters in edited collections published in the previous year are also eligible. The AEJMC History Division has presented the award annually since 1985.

The $400 award memorializes the esteemed Dr. Catherine L. Covert, professor of journalism at Syracuse University (d.1983). Cathy Covert was the first woman professor in Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Journalism and the first woman to head the History Division, in 1975. Prof. Covert received the AEJMC Outstanding Contribution to Journalism Education Award in 1983.

#190
March 12, 2023
Read more

ICA Pre-conference: The Legacies of Elihu Katz. Schedule is available and registration is open.

It is our great pleasure to share with you an ICA pre-conference dedicated to the consideration and discussion of Elihu Katz’s ideas.

Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, registration for this pre-conference is free. To register for the pre-conference, please navigate to the registration page

Questions about the pre-conference should be directed to any one of the pre-conference organizers listed below.

The Legacies of Elihu Katz

#189
March 6, 2023
Read more

CFP: XVIII Congress of AsHisCom: Debate History, Communication and Memory

XVIII Congress of AsHisCom: Debate History, Communication and Memory

September 14-15, 2023

Almada Negreiros College - ICNOVA Lisbon

Deadline: February 28, 2023

#188
February 14, 2023
Read more

Call for submissions: Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History

Jinx C. Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History

This award is presented to the winners of the division’s teaching competition. Members may submit an innovative teaching strategy to the contest, which is judged by a committee each spring. 

Teaching ideas should be original, tested, and transformative pedagogies that have been used by the author in teaching media and journalism history and could be used by other instructors or institutions. Teaching ideas should help professors address one or more of these pedagogies: diversity, collaboration, community, or justice. The competition welcomes a variety of teaching ideas, including those taught across a quarter/semester or taught as a module within an individual course. The 2022 deadline for submissions is February 15.

The applications should be submitted as one document saved in a PDF format to aejmchistory@gmail.com using the subject line “Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History” and should include:

#187
January 31, 2023
Read more

Reminder CFP: Eighth Annual Conference on the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS) (10 February deadline)

Reminder CFP: Eighth Annual Conference on the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS) (10 February deadline)

CFP: Eighth Annual Conference on the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS)

Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University

9–10 June 2023

#186
January 25, 2023
Read more

CFP: Periodicals and Belonging

Periodicals and Belonging: CfP: European Society for Periodical Research conference

27-29 June 2023, Leeds School of Arts, Leeds Beckett University, UK

Deadline 31 January 2023

Dear colleagues, 

#185
January 22, 2023
Read more

CFP: Information and Culture

Call for Papers

Information & Culture is an academic journal printed three times a year by the University of Texas Press. It publishes original, high-quality, peer-reviewed articles examining the social and cultural influences and impact of information and its associated technologies, broadly construed, on all areas of human endeavor. In keeping with the spirit of information studies, we seek papers emphasizing a human-centered focus that address the role and reciprocal relationship of information and culture, regardless of time and place.

The journal welcomes submissions from an array of relevant theoretical and methodological approaches, including but not limited to historical, sociological, psychological, political and educational research that address the interaction of information and culture.

Articles published with Information & Culture will go through a rigorous peer review process conducted by subject experts and members of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board, will be included in online and hard copy versions of the journal, and will bepromoted on social media and relevant listservs to diverse audiences.

#184
January 21, 2023
Read more

Call for Proposals: 2023 Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: 2023 JOINT JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION HISTORY CONFERENCE

The Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, co-sponsored by the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, is now accepting submissions for its 2023 conference, to be held virtually via Zoom.

This free, one-day, interdisciplinary conference welcomes faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars researching the history of journalism and mass communication. Topics from all geographic areas and time periods are welcome, as are all methodological approaches. This conference offers a welcoming environment in which participants can explore new ideas, garner feedback on their work, and meet colleagues from around the world interested in journalism and mass communication history.

When: Saturday, April 15, 2023, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern (U.S.) time

#183
January 17, 2023
Read more
 
Older archives
Brought to you by Buttondown, the easiest way to start and grow your newsletter.