Sorry for cross-posting.

Below you can find the last call for paper of Interface (eng), about
alternative, autonomous, radical and indepdent media. I think this
would interest many people in the list.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to send (any types) of
contribution (from peer-review articles to research notes).

And, also, I kindly ask you to spread the call for paper.

Alice



Interface – A Journal For and About Social Movements
Call for papers – Issue 4:
Voices of Dissent. Activists Engagements in the Creation of
Alternative, Autonomous, Radical and Independent Media.

Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and
academics around the world in response to the development and
increased visibility of social movements in the last few years – and
the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process. This
knowledge is created across the globe, and in many contexts and a
variety of ways, and it constitutes an incredibly valuable resource
for the further development of social movements. Interface responds to
this need, as a tool to help our movements learn from each other’s
struggles, by developing analyses and knowledge that allow lessons to
be learned from specific movement processes and experiences and
translated into a form useful for other movements.

We welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who
are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to
include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements – in
terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form. We are
seeking work in a range of different formats, such as conventional
articles, review essays, facilitated discussions and interviews,
action notes, teaching notes, key documents and analysis, book reviews
– and beyond. Both activist and academic peers review research
contributions, and other material is sympathetically edited by peers.
The editorial process generally will be geared towards assisting
authors to find ways of expressing their understanding, so that we all
can be heard across geographical, social and political distances.

Our fourth issue, to be published in November  2010, will have space
for general articles on all aspects of understanding social movements,
as well as a special themed section on Voices of Dissent. Activists
Engagements in the Creation of Alternative, Autonomous, Radical and
Independent Media.

In the last decades, there has been a considerable amount of both
activist and academic publications on alternative, radical,
autonomous, and independent media. Keeping in mind the broad range of
alternative, radical, autonomous and independent sites of media
production and consumption, this issue of Interface intends to engage
critical knowledge about media practices developed in social movement
contexts all around the world. The primary goal of our journal is to
contribute to the development of knowledge "from and for" social
movements and encourage dialogue between movement participants and
outside researchers. Thus we ask for contributions which are able to
cross the separation between the movement and academic milieu when
addressing the topic of alternative media in contemporary societies,
underlining both theoretical and practical challenges that developing
alternative media pose nowadays. In particular, we encourage
contributions that explore some crucial questions which can further
develop activist and academic literature about alternative,
independent, radical and autonomous media.

A crucial topic is related, for instance, to the symbolic and material
places and sites of the media environment where alternative media
develop today: for instance, what is the nature of the interactions
between a profit-oriented online platform such as Facebook and the
alternative media messages which are sometime spread though it? This
and other similar questions in the field remain   unanswered. The
proliferation of cheap and easy-to-use technological devices make it
easy for everyone taking part in a demonstration to record and then
spread the demonstration itself. It would be interesting to explore
how these increasingly common practices impact the idea and the role
of ‘media-activism’. With the flourishing and spread of information
and communication technologies in particular many activist media
practitioners and progressive academics have focused on the use of
such new technologies in social movements. Alternative, radical,
autonomous and independent media messages, however, are still produced
and diffused using a variety of different technologies - from the
press to the internet to rudimentary broadcast stations. There are
community radios and radical magazines, street televisions and
alternative stickers. They often intertwine and produce hybrid spaces
of communication which are worth continuing to explore worldwide. In
short, some of the questions we would like to address are:

What are the places and sites in the media environment where
alternative media develop today?
Does it still make sense to speak about ‘media activists’ in a
technology-saturated environment? Who are today’s media activists and,
more broadly speaking, who are the alternative media practitioners and
how are they connected to different social movements?
How are traditional media (radio, magazines, television, print) used
as alternative means of communication nowadays? Are there instances of
media convergence in this respect? What effects does this have on the
communication practices of existing social movements?
What are the challenges, problems and issues that alternative media
have raised and still raise within the social movement milieu?
Do alternative media present a gender-neutral context? Or, are
alternative media practices embedded in the same patriarchal discourse
that envelops mainstream media?
Do technical criteria and the logics of media production necessarily
win out in the long run over questions of alternative production
processes and attempts to treat media as the voice of people in
struggle?

 We particularly encourage the submission of articles originated from
practical-critical activity and engagement with movement media. We
welcome especially "action notes", "teaching notes", activist
interviews and good practice pieces which can help media activists
learn from each other's struggles. This list of questions is not
exhaustive, but it is merely meant as a set of potential topics. Other
perspectives on alternative media are welcome and encouraged.

For more details on Interface, please see our website at
www.interfacejournal.net, particularly the "Guidelines for
contributors". The deadline for initial submissions to this issue
(vol. 2 no. 2, to be published Nov 1st 2010) is May 1st 2010."

--
Alice Mattoni, PhD
Department of Political and Social Sciences
European University Institute

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