I am posting this Call on behalf of the editors. Pls contact them directly if you are interested in contributing an article.
SPECIAL ISSUE CALL FOR PAPERS
Publisher: Journal of Alternative and Community Media
Guest Editors:
Alicia Ferrández Ferrer, University of Alicante, Spain (aliciaff@hotmail.com) Jessica Retis,
California State University, USA (jessica.retis@gmail.com)
Ethnic Minority Media: Between Hegemony and Resistance
The emergence of minority media addressed to ethnic and migrant minorities can now be considered a
worldwide phenomenon. Like many other minorities, migrants’ voices have been “out of the
mainstream” (Gross, 2001) for a long time, but new technologies and media practices have given rise
to a plethora of specific media, both digital and traditional, addressed to this mobile public.
Migrant and ethnic minority media are here considered agents which have an important participation
in the public sphere, where social and political issues are articulated and negotiated (Habermas,
2001), and struggles over hegemonic meanings take place.
In opposition to the biased discourse on immigration present in the mainstream media, migrant and
ethnic minority media offer a different representation of migrant minorities, who become active in
the creation of the multiethnic public sphere (Husband, 2000). The potential of minority media as
platforms for the expression, discussion and exchange of generally marginalised collectives must be
recognized. Minority media can have an empowering effect for minorities. As Echevarría et al (2015:
99) state, “such media discourses bring about changes in the way in which the public sphere is
understood and in the role that migrants play in it. They contribute to its enlargement, amplifying
the issues that can be debated, negotiated and struggled for, […] beyond the possibilities offered
by the mainstream media”.
However, a more thorough analysis of minority media compels us to be prudent. Their contents, modes
of production, working routines, and discourses on topics such as gender and identity must be
analysed in depth (Retis, 2008). Studies have shown that modes of production and working routines
in the media can limit their democratising potential, due to a lack of journalists and a routine
that limits their capacity to research and contrast reliable sources (Ferrández Ferrer, 2012;
Saitta, 2015). Funding can also limit their potential, especially in a time when an economic and
financial crisis has made them even more dependent on private funding. A tendency to publish soft
information and to avoid tough topics, together with self-censorship, have appeared in order to
satisfy private backers and to maintain advertising (Ferrández Ferrer, 2014).
When analysing minority media discourses, we must depart from uncritical celebrations of minority
media as being ‘alternative’. Georgiou has asked: “Do alternative and community media challenge
hegemonic discourses of ethnic and gender stratification?” (2012: 792). This encourages us to
analyse the discourses and images present in these media without assuming that entering the media
sphere entails an immediate counterhegemonic nature. Echevarría et al (2015) show that, although
migrant minority media include alternative discourses on topics such as citizenship rights and
political participation by immigrants, other issues, such as gender hegemonic representations
remain unchallenged.
A critical perspective on ethnic and migrant minority media would show the complexity of media
production in the transnational field and reject simplistic approaches that assume that the
production of minority media automatically means a challenge to hegemonic discourses and practices
(Retis, 2014). This complexity is consistent with the idea of the media as active agents in the
negotiations and struggles that take place in the public sphere; multiple, contradictory,
overlapping and changing interests are always part of such negotiations.
We invite articles with practical, theoretical, national or international perspectives that
critically examine how ethnic and minority media counteract or not hegemony, including, but not
limited to issues such as:
• Media consumption: how ethnic and migrant minorities use specific minority media to counteract
hegemonic discourses.
• Production of ethnic and minority media: funding and economics, soft information, censorship and
the reinforcement of hegemonic discourses.
• Journalists and media professionals: the role of migrant and ethnic journalists in challenging
hegemonic discourses and structures in the host countries
• Content and discourse analysis:
– Hegemonic discourses on migration, ethnic minorities, refugees, etc. and how they are challenged
by ethnic and minority media.
– Hegemonic and alternative discourses about gender, identity and citizenship, in the ethnic and
minority media.
– Politics of representation of minorities within ethnic and migrant minorities (indigenous
groups, LGBTQ, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, etc.)
• Journalistic field: elements that might limit the democratising potential of ethnic and minority
media.
• Public space: ethnic and migrant minority media as spaces for construction of multiethnic
public spaces.
Abstracts due: 15 November 2017
Notification of acceptance: 1 December 2017
Publication: final quarter of 2018
Submission Guidelines:
Authors should send abstracts by 15 November to both Guest Editors, including:
• Article title and abstract of 500 words (including justification, methodology, and main
results)
• Authors’ affiliation and contact information
• Short biography (100 words)
Full articles (6,000 to 8,000 words including notes and references) will be required to meet
authors’ guidelines published on the Journal of Alternative and Community Media website at
https://joacm.org/index.php/JOACM/pages/view/authors.
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