Call for Papers: ‘zoom’, MC Journal
M/C – Media and Culture
is calling for contributors to the ‘zoom’ issue of
M/C Journal
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/
M/C Journal is inviting new contributors. Founded in 1998, M/C is a crossover journal between the popular and the academic, and a blind- and peer-reviewed journal. Our Website at http://journal.media-culture.org.au/ provides open access to all past issues.
To find out how and in what format to contribute your work, visit https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/about/submissions.
Call for Papers: ‘zoom’
Edited by Mark Nunes and Cassandra Ozog
On 9 March 2020, just two days before the World Health Organisation would name the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, Italy declared a nation-wide lockdown. Over the following weeks, cities, states, and nations around the world would do the same, dramatically changing the social landscape for millions of individuals. Overnight, it seemed, Zoom became the default modality for remote engagement, rapidly morphing from brand name to eponymous generic—a verb and a place and mode of being all at once. In an era of COVID-19, our relationships and experiences are deeply intertwined with our ability to “zoom.”
This nearly worldwide and ubiquitous shift to remote work and remote play was both unprecedented and entirely anticipated. While teleworking, digital commerce, online learning, and social networking were common fare by 2020, in March of that year telepresence shifted from option to mandate, and Zooming became a daily practice for tens of millions of individuals worldwide. This shift has resulted in new forms of artistic innovations, new modes of pedagogy, and new ways of social organising, but it has also created new forms (and exacerbated existing forms) of exploitation, inequity, social isolation and precarity.
This issue of M/C Journal will explore the impacts and implications of Zoom and other teleconferencing platforms one year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We seek a wide range of submissions that will explore how a simple, four letter word has come to encapsulate a distinct moment in human history. How do we Zoom, and why?
We invite contributions that explore the experiences of our new cultural reality of Zoom through a variety of disciplines and areas of investigation, including (but not limited to):
- teleworking and hypercapitalism
- trolling in the age of Zoom-bombing
- Zoom and the permeability of online/offline spaces
- accessibility and barriers to virtual learning and living
- ambient intimacy in isolation
- Zoom-outs and other backlash movements
- relationships and familial relations
- “Zoom waves” and other forms of (para)social interaction
- surveillance: public acts on private platforms—and vice versa
- art and adaptations to creation and performance
- Zoom, isolation and mental health
- virtual spaces for marginalised population
Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors. Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument. Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography). All articles will be double-blind refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).
Please send any enquiries to zoom@journal.media-culture.org.au. All articles must be submitted through the M/C Journal site.
Article deadline: 16 Apr. 2021
Release date: 16 June 2021
M/C Journal was founded (as “M/C – A Journal of Media and Culture”) in 1998 as a place of public intellectualism analysing and critiquing the meeting of media and culture. Contributors are directed to past issues of M/C Journal for examples of style and content, and to the submissions page for comprehensive article submission guidelines. M/C Journal articles are double-blind peer-reviewed.