- apologies for crossposting -

Interface – A Journal For and About Social Movements

Call for papers – vol. 2 issue 2:

*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 <http://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.