A special issue of Feminist Media Studies

Co-edited by Jilly Boyce Kay (School of Media, Communication and Sociology, University of Leicester, UK) & Justine Lloyd (Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, Australia)

Forthcoming June 2021 (see full info on all dates below)

As Michele Hilmes has recently argued, broadcasting, while being heavily controlled by nation-states from its inception in the early twentieth century, had an unprecedented cultural capacity to transgress and defy national borders. In this aspect, the legacy of broadcasting is a transnational cultural economy that continues into the present (Hilmes 2012: 2). As Hilmes goes onto describe, the role of gender in these transnational media circuits is potentially politically disruptive. Contestations over gender have not only added to growing pressures on elite cultures and established power dynamics, but have intersected with other important struggles, to the extent that popular media have become “a means of acknowledging and addressing [inequalities] while uniting the citizenry not only within national boundaries but across them” (Hilmes 2012: 84).

This special issue therefore extends from Hilmes’ historical focus on transnationalism’s role within the broadcasting cultures of the UK and USA. It builds on recent scholarship on transnational gendered media cultures (Sreberny 2001; Kim 2010, Mankekar 2015, Hegde 2014) and visibilities (Hegde 2011), including within Feminist Media Studies (for example, Imre et al. 2009), to bring together recent scholarship that works against the grain of national histories.

This special issue of Feminist Media Studies will profile work on media from scholars inside and outside the academy. We are particularly interested in papers which consider how mediated practices intersect with political contexts and afford diverse kinds of interventions in issues of social justice. We welcome abstracts engaging with transnational media and gender including in the following contexts:

  • Social media and transnational feminism

  • Gendered cultural forms within transnational activist networks

  • Transnational film cultures and feminist praxis

  • Decolonisation and gender as explored in media

  • Circulation of gendered images and affects within and outside national polities

  • Translations of gender and genre across regional media markets

  • Indigenous and first nations media and questions of gender

  • Critiques of contemporary forms of orientalism within global media cultures from a gendered perspective

As well as engaging with the special issue’s theme all articles must (a) comply with the general submission requirements, (b) address the central concerns of the journal, which is to bring together scholars, professionals and activists from around the world to engage with feminist issues and debates in media and communication, and (c) be of relevance to a wide international and multidisciplinary readership (see below for the Journal’s aims and scope).

Key dates:

  • November 30 2019: deadline for abstracts (350 words) and biographical note (200 words)

  • mid-December 2019: authors notified of outcome of abstracts and some invited to submit full articles. NB: All full articles will go through peer review, so acceptance of an abstract is not a guarantee of publication

  • March 15 2020: deadline for full articles of 7000 words (including references)

  • End of March 2020: all full articles sent for peer review

  • mid-June 2020: deadline for return of peer reviews to editors

  • end of July 2020: articles returned to authors for revision; authors of rejected articles notified

  • end of September 2020: articles returned to editors for final acceptance

  • end of November 2020: accepted articles forwarded for copyediting

  • end of April 2021: accepted articles begin appearing as “articles in press,” if authors respond in a timely manner to copyediting queries

  • June 2021, special issue published as Feminist Media Studies, Vol 21, Issue 4.

Submission instructions:

Please submit 350-word abstracts here by the closing date of 30 November:

https://www.dropbox.com/request/2AbJqu19QTGexAKJLPII

Please save your 350-word abstract and 200-word biographical note both within one word document named in the following format:

Authorlastname_Papertitle_FMSSI.doc

For example, if the author was Justine Lloyd and the paper was titled “International Public Broadcasting and Women,” the word document would be named thus:

Lloyd_Internationalpublicbroadcastingandwomen_FMSSI.doc

Queries about the special issue can be directed to Justine Lloyd .