[Air-L] CfP Special Issue of the Journal of Creative Communictation

[Piotr Siuda]

Dear members of the AOiR list

As an Associate Editor of the Journal of Creative Communication, I invite
you to submit for our upcoming Special Issue titled 'Algorithmic Media:
Shifting Agency, Content, and Everyday Uses.' I've attached the CFP below
for all the details.

The Special Issue will be co-edited by Professor Ruchi Tewari, Professor
Susanne Eichner, and Professor Franziska Thiele.
The deadline for papers is April 1, 2024.
Submit here: https://peerreview.sagepub.com/crc

The Journal of Creative Communication is published by SAGE Journals with
current IF: 1.5.

Here is the full CfP:

Special Issue Call for Papers: Algorithmic Media: Shifting Agency, Content
and Everyday Uses

Special Issue Co-Editors:
Susanne Eichner (s.eichner at filmuniversitaet.de) Film University Babelsberg,
Germany
Franziska Thiele (franziska.thiele at uni-rostock.de) University of Rostock,
Germany
Ruchi Tewari (ruchi.tewari at micamail.in) MICA-The School of Ideas, India

Communication, as a field of study, research and practice, has always been
strongly influenced by changes in communication technology. As a result,
 communication as  a field has become highly diversified, stratified and
nuanced. As communication is becoming more interlaced with or mediated by
technology, it appears to be egalitarian. Yet, as we scratch the surface,
we see the presence of hierarchical ownership structures, monetary and
political interests.

Every user of the internet and communication technology today is at the
same time a communicator who has the potential power to articulate and
share their views, ideas, and experiences. However, users do not have the
same agency to be seen or heard. We are witnessing how creative ideas and
contents are created in varied contexts that are articulated and
distributed in unique formats. With every user of communication technology
becoming a creator, communication agency and efficiency have been altered.
People use new technology to experiment with novel ways to garner
popularity and talk about new topics in the constant effort to reach a
larger number of audiences, as virality of messages is a goal that many
content creators chase.

The production of user-generated content has become even more complex and
sophisticated with the rise of free-for-all artificial intelligence (AI),
such as ChatGPT, which, by the end of 2022, had become an integral and
transformative part of our society and relationships. Algorithms have been
around even longer; they not only drive our media consumption but also
shape our reality and alter human reasoning, affections, and affiliations.
The process of decision-making is impacted by the choice of content,
product display, political and social information, media content or even
basic images that the algorithm-based media show. AI-supported algorithms
have a power- pushed manipulative effect. All of this influences how new
content is created, how it is communicated, and the responses and reactions
it generates from the audience.

Practices that once used to take place offline are becoming mediated or
completely transferred into the online world—a process that has been
especially accelerated in the wake of the pandemic. This cycle from content
creation to response generation is very rapid, iterative and appears to be
egalitarian, but it is implicitly  held  and  controlled  by technology
 and the different powers that further hold the reins of technology. It is
critical to recognise that while it appears that the agency of content  and
communication  production  lies with the user,  the production is in fact
mediated, stratified and controlled by intermediaries and platforms. This
dichotomy of communication as controlled by an invisible agency but
extensively employed by users of technology makes it an interesting and
important area of research for scholars. Given the complex and
multidisciplinary nature of the problem, interdisciplinary and cross-domain
studies will help to understand and unravel the issues.

The research on the issues addressed is highly varied, and we welcome all
kinds of methodological and theoretical approaches. The current Call for
Papers encourages academics, scholars and practitioners to submit research
papers that look at novel forms of content creation and technology, deal
with novel ideas of communication, or examine creative ways in which a
communicative product is articulated and shared in all spheres—public and
private. We are also highly interested in how intermediaries interact on
novel media, to what respect they share or allow the other to have agency,
as well as how far users are controlled by a platform’s invisible agency.
Another point of interest of the call is the integration of these new tools
of content creation into everyday use and whether and how originally
offline practices can become mediated.

Possible topics for papers are (but are not limited to):

New forms of content creation and technology

One area of focus of this call for papers lies in the different forms and
processes of content creation. Here, we are especially interested in how
these forms are changed and altered by new media, algorithms, platforms and
artificial intelligence. In the area  of content creation,  we are
interested in how messages are drafted by users and perceived by other
producers. Today, people in creative fields like art, public relations or
graphic design feel that their work is being devalued by the existence of
artificial intelligence and that their income and jobs are at risk. Studies
directed at understanding and studying the actions and impacts of new forms
of technology, power structures and content creation are welcome.

Effects of everyday use, well-being and rituals

Most technologies that have been integrated into users’ everyday lives are
applied for special tasks. In this part, we are interested in how media
technology has been integrated into people’s everyday practices and
rituals, as well as how and why everyday practices, or rituals have been
mediated. For example, what kind of media do people use for what, and is
that the way it was intended by its creators? How is the telephone used in
the bedroom, or what technology is usually used in the living room? What
kind of mourning practices can we find in the online world? Do we become
immortal by uploading our creations online?

The integration of media technology into our everyday lives can have
positive effects and support us in our goals, such as tracking tools that
help us measure, maintain and improve our fitness. At the same time,
overuse of these tools might also result in negative consequences for our
health and well-being. Therefore, we are interested in the factors or
combination of factors that shape physiological, cultural, emotional and
social well-being when communication is mediated.

Agency and algorithmic intermediaries

Due to new communication technologies, users produce content on platforms
that are subject to the pervasive influence of algorithms, the particular
interests of tech-conglomerates, and political or lobbyist interests. The
untransparent nature of algorithmic programming often leaves users in the
dark as to what these platforms (might) use their content for, who controls
these platforms, and whose interests are met. The concrete dynamics of
these algorithmic intermediaries act as a black box for users, which can be
navigated but never completely controlled. It creates a “tension” where the
agentic powers of many different actors are moving fluidly in a network
instead of forming a stable hierarchy. Accordingly,  agency in digital
media is increasingly being described  as a “hybrid agency” since
individual agency only develops in connection with a specific platform
affordance and its algorithm. Papers dealing with these topics could
address how individual and institutional agency and relationships, such as
with the platforms, are impacted by the algorithms. On the one hand, the
platforms have an apparent egalitarian potential as communicative products,
as they are potentially accessible to every individual equipped to share
their views and ideas on public platforms. On the other hand, users are
obscurely controlled by platform algorithms.

Submission Deadlines:

Last date of manuscripts submission: April 1, 2024 Expected date of
publication: March 1, 2025

Submission Guidelines:

• Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see:
https://journals.sagepub.com/ author-instructions/CRC

Other relevant information:
• Journal & Submission Website: https://peerreview.sagepub.com/crc
• JOCC’s Previous Issues: https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/CRC
• JOCC’s Aims and Scope: https://journals.sagepub.com/aims-scope/CRC

Submission Types: We welcome research articles, case studies, research in
brief, practitioner essays, and commentaries. Research articles should be
of approximately 6,000–8,000 words in length, including references, tables,
and figures. They should be written as a continuous expository narrative in
a chapter or article style - not as lists of points. Shorter articles of
3,000–4,000 words (all included) can be published as commentaries/ brief
research/ case studies/ essays, etc.

Submission of manuscripts should be made electronically only. Please visit
https://peerreview. sagepub.com/crc to create account/log in to upload your
manuscript through the following steps:

Step 1: Create an author account
Step 2: Select submission under “Special Issue: Algorithmic Media: Shifting
Agency, Content and Everyday Uses”

--

*Piotr Siuda* (PhD, Professor of Media Studies)

piotrsiuda.com

Faculty of Cultural Studies

Department of Game Studies and Digital Culture

Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland


Associate Editor; *Journal of Creative Communication
<https://journals.sagepub.com/home/crc> *(SAGE Journals)


*Recent papers:*

-- *Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic*, *Bloomsbury Academic Press*,
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/gaming-and-gamers-in-times-of-pandemic-9798765110232/

*-- The Next Level of Horror Entertainment: Facing Fear in Cooperative
Interactive Drama Survival Horror Games*, *Proceedings of the 57th Annual
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences*

*-- The Problematic nature of evaluating esports' "genuineness" using
traditional sports' criteria: In-depth interviews with traditional sports
and electronic sports journalists,* *Leisure Studies*,
https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2023.2215471