[ICTs-and-Society] Submission Reminder CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today

[Christian Fuchs]

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. Göran 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, Göran. 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
Kyrkogårdsgatan 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)