For a special issue of the journal Media and Communication, themed “media history and democracy”, you can now submit abstracts. This thematic issue will be published in March 2018.

Democracy has long been a theme that media historians are concerned with. The emphasis on democracy in this thematic issue is intended to link up with media histories that take on the intersection of democracy and media as understood through any one of a number of lenses. By looking at democracy, this thematic issue will be in contact with various approaches to media history. Connections can be made between, for instance, democracy and history of technology, social history, cultural history, political history, the history of social networks, and intellectual history. Moreover, democracy itself does not need to be conceptualized as a formal political system for this thematic issue, but can rather be considered in various aspects and meanings.

Articles addressing the following topics would be a good match for the special issue on media history and democracy:

  • The history of democratic ideals in the development of media technology;
  • Considerations of democratic formations as they relate to journalism history and historical understandings of the role of journalism;
  • Histories of media as they relate to political activism;
  • The history of alternative and independent media outlets as they relate to democratic processes;
  • The history of public service broadcasting and its applications worldwide or transnationally;
  • Histories of media reform movements;
  • Treatments of the history of literacy and its political meanings;
  • Internet histories as they relate to citizenship or democracy;
  • The historical roles of interpersonal communication and social networks as they relate to democracy;
  • The history of media policies and regulation designed to arrange for (or thwart) democratic communication;
  • Historical themes concerning the relationship between capitalism and democracy.

Media and Communication is an international journal, particularly interested in programming a thematic issue that features historical scholarship from around the world, including manuscripts that address transnational communication flows. If you are interested in submitting a paper for this special issue on media history and democracy, you can consult the journal’s instructions for authors via the website. Abstracts (about 200–250 words, with a tentative title and reference to the thematic issue) can be sent to guest editor Dave Park on park@lakeforest.edu until 30 June 2017.