Call for Papers – Special Issue
Academic Publishing in Media and Communication Studies in the Digital Age:
Overcoming Structural Barriers to Integrate Global South Scholarship
Submission Deadline: 01 August 2024
Anticipated Publication: Spring 2025
Editors of the special issue:
Thaiane Oliveira – Federal Fluminense University, Brazil – thaianeoliveira@id.uff.br
Francisco Paulo Jamil Marques – Federal University of Paraná, Brazil – marquesjamil@gmail.com
Manuel Goyanes – Carlos III University, Spain – manuel.goyanes@uc3m.es
Mohan Dutta – Massey University, New Zealand – M.J.Dutta@massey.ac.nz
The internationalization of research in the Media and Communication field holds immense potential, yet also faces numerous challenges when it comes to including scholars from the Global South. Against this background, emerging technologies and practices - such as digital media, online publishing, and non-profit open-access initiatives - are powerful tools for democratizing scholarly dissemination. Accordingly, such technologies offer the opportunity to overcome geographical barriers and connect with audiences worldwide, enabling scholars from peripheral and semi-peripheral countries to share their findings globally without being hindered by traditional gatekeepers that may favor Western-centric perspectives. Additionally, non-profit open access and open science initiatives promise to offer unrestricted access to research findings, breaking free from financial constraints that disproportionately affect scholars from resource-constrained regions.
However, despite successful non-commercial publishing models and the development of scholarship dissemination technologies, Global South researchers continue to face significant challenges in elevating their scholarship. Ideologically biased academic standards and procedures often disadvantage academics from regions beyond the United States and Western Europe, perpetuating a problematic hierarchy that sides with Northern perspectives. Moreover, most top-ranked journals marginalize non-English speaking scholars, limiting their visibility and impact in international settings. Furthermore, there is a concern about the potential exploitation of these initiatives by large technological and publishing oligopolies for commercial interests, creating new market niches and reinforcing researchers' dependence on these new technologies. Although these initiatives are innovative and, in some cases, successful, academic policies in countries of the Global South often tend to favor only publication circuits dominated by central countries or overlook global modes of knowledge circulation, sponsoring strictly domestic publication modes. While the field of Communication continues to expand and evolve, asymmetries, inequalities, and obstacles to the circulation of knowledge persist as significant challenges.
Innovative solutions are needed to address these challenges and foster diversity in research paradigms, as multilingual technologies and new publishing models, such as community-owned journals and collaborative platforms, offer alternative pathways for disseminating research outside the confines of traditional and commercial publishing frameworks. Despite institutional initiatives such as mentorship programs, funding opportunities, and more diversity in terms of membership and leadership structures in academic associations, many voices and perspectives from countries in the Global South remain underrepresented, resulting in an often-distorted view of the global reality of Communication. This gap jeopardizes our understanding of the complexities of Communication in non-mainstream environments and restricts the potential for making significant collaborations and reaching global solutions. These challenges raise pressing questions about how to overcome economic, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that limit the circulation of talent and knowledge.
In this context, it is critical not only to examine the asymmetries in knowledge production in Communication regarding research funding, infrastructure, and access to academic resources but also to discuss how to foster diversity of new research paradigms among Global South scholars while maintaining high academic rigor and integrity.
This special issue aims to expand our understanding of such phenomena and bring together contributions - especially cross-national comparison empirical studies - to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the internationalization of academic production and collaboration among countries in the South with or without partners from the Global North. We welcome manuscript submissions related (but not limited) to the following topics.
1. Disparities in knowledge production and research dissemination among countries of the Global South and the Global North when it comes to Communication and Media studies.
2. Inequities in access to academic resources, such as research funding, infrastructure, updated facilities, and technological resources, exploring their respective impact on research from the Global South.
3. Structural barriers to the global circulation of knowledge, namely challenges to the international dissemination of findings by researchers, students, and academic publications in Communication.
4. Challenges encountered by students and researchers from the Global South in pursuing academic mobility and establishing international collaboration opportunities.
5. Obstacles and opportunities in Communication Studies for fostering a more equitable and inclusive educational environment that recognizes diverse perspectives worldwide.
6. The roles of digital media/online publishing and non-profit open access in leveling the playing field of scholarship publishing for scholars from the Global South.
7. Case studies highlighting successful dissemination of Global South scholarship, as well as difficulties faced by non-Global North publication outlets and academic associations.
8. Critique of ideologically biased academic standards and procedures that disadvantage the Global South, unrelated to academic rigor and research integrity.
9. Discrepancies in publishing opportunities and impacts among English and non-English speaking countries.
10. Evaluation of policies and strategies aimed at reducing disparities in the internationalization of communication studies.
11. Investigation of the role of international academic networks and collaboration in promoting equitable internationalization and knowledge exchange in communication studies.
12. Exploration of intersectionality and power dynamics in internationalization efforts, influencing the participation and recognition of scholars from underrepresented backgrounds.
13. Innovative solutions to level the playing field for scholars in the Global South and non-English speaking countries.
14. Future directions of internationalization in communication studies, including potential shifts in paradigms, practices, and policies.
Full paper submissions are to be in English and no longer than 25 pages of text.
For paper format, please refer to the OMGC citation style with structured abstract at https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/omgc/html?lang=en#submit
Submit manuscript to: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/omgc
Special issue: Academic Publishing in Media and Communication Studies in the Digital Age
Inquiries: OMGC@shisu.edu.cn