[oberlist] WEB# cfp: Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today

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Subject: Artinfo Digest, Vol 32, Issue 15
From:    artinfo-request at lists.c3.hu
Date:    Mon, August 29, 2011 4:29 pm
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:46:26 +0200
From: Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs at uti.at> (by way of Janos Sugar)
Subject: [artinfo] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist
	Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
To: artinfo at c3.hu


Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory
and Research for Critical Communication Studies
Today

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of tripleC -
Journal for a Global Sustainable Information
Society.

Edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco

http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/CfP_Marx_tripleC.pdf
For inquiries, please contact the two editors.

In light of the global capitalist crisis, there
is renewed interest in Karl Marx's works and in
concepts like class, exploitation and surplus
value. Slavoj ?i?ek argues that the antagonisms
of contemporary capitalism in the context of the
ecological crisis, the massive expansion of
intellectual property, biogenetics, new forms of
apartheid and growing world poverty show that we
still need the Marxian notion of class. He
concludes that there is an urgent need to renew
Marxism and to defend its lost causes in order to
render problematic capitalism as the only
alternative (?i?ek 2008, 6) and the new forms of
a soft capitalism that promise, and in its
rhetoric makes use of, ideals like participation,
self-organization, and co-operation, without
realizing them. ?i?ek (2010, chapter 3) argues
that the global capitalistcrisis clearly
demonstrates the need to return to the critique
of political economy. G?ran Therborn suggests
that the "new constellations of power and new
possibilities of resistance" in the 21st century
require retaining the "Marxian idea that human
emancipation from exploitation, oppression,
discrimination and the inevitable linkage between
privilege and misery can only come from struggle
by the exploited and disadvantaged themselves"
(Therborn 2008, 61). Eric Hobsbawm (2011, 12f)
insists that for understanding the global
dimension of contemporary capitalism, its
contradictions and crises, and the persistence of
socio-economic inequality, we "must ask Marx's
questions" (13).

This special issue will publish articles that
address the importance of Karl Marx's works for
Critical Media and Communication Studies, what it
means to ask Marx's questions in 21st century
informational capitalism, how Marxian theory can
be used for critically analyzing and transforming
media and communication today, and what the
implications of the revival of the interest in
Marx are for the field of Media and Communication
Studies.

Questions that can be explored in contributions
include, but are not limited to:

* What is Marxist Media and Communication
Studies? Why is it needed today? What are the
main assumptions, legacies, tasks, methods and
categories of Marxist Media and Communication
Studies and how do they relate to Karl Marx's
theory? What are the different types of Marxist
Media/Communication Studies, how do they differ,
what are their commonalities?

* What is the role of Karl Marx's theory in
different fields, subfields and approaches of
Media and Communication Studies? How have the
role, status, and importance of Marx's theory for
Media and Communication Studies evolved
historically, especially since the 1960s?
* In addition to his work as a theorist and
activist, Marx was a practicing journalist
throughout his career. What can we learn from his
journalism about the practice of journalism
today, about journalism theory, journalism
education and alternative media?
* What have been the structural conditions,
limits and problems for conducting
Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Research
and for carrying out university teaching in the
era of neoliberalism? What are actual or
potential effects of the new capitalist crisis on
these conditions?

* What is the relevance of Marxian thinking in an
age of capitalist crisis for analyzing the role
of media and communication in society?

* How can the Marxian notions of class, class
struggle, surplus value, exploitation,
commodity/commodification, alienation,
globalization, labour, capitalism, militarism and
war, ideology/ideology critique, fetishism, and
communism best be used for analyzing,
transforming and criticizing the role of media,
knowledge production and communication in
contemporary capitalism?

* How are media, communication, and information addressed in Marx's work?
* What are commonalities and differences between
contemporary approaches in the interpretation of
Marx's analyses of media, communication,
knowledge, knowledge labour and technology?

* What is the role of dialectical philosophy and
dialectical analysis as epistemological and
methodological tools for Marxian-inspired Media
and Communication Studies?

* What were central assumptions of Marx about
media, communication, information, knowledge
production, culture and how can these insights be
used today for the critical analysis of
capitalism?
* What is the relevance of Marx's work for an understanding of social media?

* Which of Marx's works can best be used today to
theorize media and communication? Why and how?

* Terry Eagleton (2011) demonstrates that the 10
most common held prejudices against Marx are
wrong. What prejudices against Marx can be found
in Media and Communication Studies today? What
have been the consequences of such prejudices?
How can they best be contested? Are there
continuities and/or discontinuities of prejudices
against Marx in light of the new capitalist
crisis?

All contributions shall genuinely deal with Karl
Marx's original works and discuss their relevance
for contemporary Critical Media/Communication
Studies.

Eagleton Terry. 2011. Why Marx was right. London: Yale University Press.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 2011. How to change the world.
Marx and Marxism 1840-2011. London: Little, Brown.
Therborn, G?ran. 2008. From Marxism to post-Marxism? London: Verso.
?i?ek, Slavoj. 2008. In defense of lost causes. London: Verso.
?i?ek, Slavoj. 2010. Living in the end times. London: Verso.

Editors

Christian Fuchs is chair professor for Media and
Communication Studies at Uppsala University's
Department of Informatics and Media. He is editor
of the journal tripleC - Journal for a Global
Sustainable Information Society. His areas of
interest are: Critical Theory, Social Theory,
Media & Society, Critical Political Economy of
Media/Communication, Critical Information Society
Studies, Critical Internet Studies. He is author
of the books "Foundations of Critical Media and
Information Studies" (Routledge 2011) and
"Internet and Society: Social Theory in the
Information Age" (Routledge 2008, paperback
2011). He is co-editor of the collected volume
"The Internet and Surveillance. The Challenges of
Web 2.0 and Social Media" (Routledge 2011,
together with Kees Boersma, Anders Albrechtslund,
Marisol Sandoval). He is currently writing a book
presenting a critical theory of social media.
http://fuchs.uti.at

Vincent Mosco is professor emeritus of sociology
at Queen's University and formerly Canada
Research Chair in Communication and Society. Dr.
Mosco is the author of numerous books on
communication, technology, and society. His most
recent include Getting the Message:
Communications Workers and Global Value Chains
(co-edited with Catherine McKercher and Ursula
Huws, Merlin, 2010), The Political Economy of
Communication, second edition (Sage, 2009), The
Laboring of Communication: Will Knowledge Workers
of the World Unite (co-authored with Catherine
McKercher, Lexington Books, 2008), Knowledge
Workers in the Information Society (co-edited
with Catherine McKercher, Lexington Books, 2007),
and The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and
Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004). He is currently
writing a book on the relevance of Karl Marx for
communication research today.

Publication Schedule and Submission

Structured Abstracts for potential contributions
shall be submitted to both editors
(christian.fuchs at im.uu.se, moscov at mac.com) per
e-mail until September 30th, 2011 (submission
deadline). The authors of accepted abstracts will
be invited to write full papers that are due five
months after the feedback from the editors. Full
papers must then be submitted to tripleC. Please
do not instantly submit full papers, but only
structured abstracts to the editors.
The abstracts should have a maximum of 1 200
words and should be structured by dealing
separately with each of the following five
dimensions:

1) Purpose and main questions of the paper

2) Description of the way taken for answering the posed questions

3) Relevance of the topic in relation to the CfP

4) Main expected outcomes and new insights of the paper

5) Contribution to the engagement with Marx's
works and to Marxian-inspired Media and
Communication Studies

Journal

tripleC (cognition, communication, co-operation):
Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable
Information Society, http://www.triple-c.se

Focus and Scope:

Critical Media-/Information-/
Communication-/Internet-/Information
Society-Studies

tripleC provides a forum to discuss the challenges humanity is facing today.
It publishes contributions that focus on critical
studies of media, information, communication,
culture, digital media, social media and the
Internet in the information society. The
journal's focus is especially on critical studies
and it asks contributors to reflect about
normative, political, ethical and critical
implications of their research.

Indexing:
Scopus, EBSCOHost Communication and Mass Media
Complete, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Open Access:
tripleC is an open access journal that publishes
articles online and does not charge authors or
readers. It uses a Creative Commons license
(Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License) that
allows reproduction of published articles for
non-commercial purposes (without changes of the
content and only with naming the author).
Creative Commons publishing poses a viable
alternative to commercial academic publishing
that is dominated by big corporate publishing
houses.

--
Prof. Christian Fuchs
Chair in Media and Communication Studies
Department of Informatics and Media
Uppsala University
Kyrkog?rdsgatan 10
Box 513
751 20 Uppsala
Sweden
christian.fuchs at im.uu.se
Tel +46 (0) 18 471 1019
http://fuchs.uti.at
http://www.im.uu.se
NetPolitics Blog: http://fuchs.uti.at/blog
Editor of tripleC: http://www.triple-c.se
Book "Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies" (Routledge 2011)
Book "Internet and Society" (Paperback, Routledge 2010)



End of Artinfo Digest, Vol 32, Issue 15
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