[D66] Fwd: [Marxism] CFP: Marx is Back

[Antid Oto]

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
Žižek 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 (Žižek 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.
Žižek (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.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. In defense of lost causes. London: Verso.
Žižek, 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.

My Focus:

Iranian Cinema  Middle Eastern Modernity  Revolutionary Consciousness

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