The Fan Studies Network

CFP:  Twitter, Celebrity and online public identity

Abstracts due: 28^th Feb 2014

Contact and submissions to: Sarah Thomas skt@aber.ac.uk

The ongoing adoption of Twitter as a tool for communication, broadcasting and interaction has meant that the social media platform has emerged as a significant site for re-thinking some of the key relationships between celebrity, performance and the presentation of the self. This CFP seeks short articles for Celebrity Studies Journal Forum section that explore Twitter and its usage beyond its status as a ‘new’ platform (that positions its singular significance through comparison with traditional representational media). We aim to consider the diversity of presentational modes that Twitter allows for through an examination of the different functions, usages, modes of address and performance that may operate across the site in its own right. In particular, we are interested in the way the platform has re-invigorated debates around the conception of authenticity as a way of understanding the online presentation of public personalities, and are especially interested in receiving submissions that explore the following topics:

• The presentation of self online
• Authenticity and interactivity
• Performance, authenticity and the digital self
• Interactive celebrity
• Digital labour and celebrity
• Online spaces of ‘public privacy’

The special issue of the journal will incorporate the style and ethos of Twitter in the submissions:

Abstracts should be 140 words.

The short articles should begin with reference to a specific Tweet that sparks the analysis within the rest of the article.

The final word count for the article will be between 750 and 1,500 words, depending on the number of accepted submissions.

Detailed schedule of production

Abstracts due: 28^th Feb

First drafts: 28^th March

Editors return: 25^th April

Final drafts: 23^rd May

Contact and submissions to: Sarah Thomas skt@aber.ac.uk

CFP: New Perspectives on Cinematic Spectatorship, Digital Culture & Space: Re-evaluating Exhibition, Participation and Interaction

Throughout the history of the moving image interrogations of film as text have arguably taken precedence over analysis of cinema as space. The film industry and film academia both assume, and thus assert, a dominant understanding of the environmental architecture of cinema based on a set dynamic between projector, screen and viewer. Ingrained over time from these spatial parameters is an almost taken-for-granted idealisation of the unique experience of film viewing: the ‘cinematic dispositif’. Despite the cultural hegemony of the traditional ‘cinematic dispositif’, in a 2008 article André Parente and Victa de Carvalho suggest that film history is littered with (often overlooked) variations and experimentations in cinema’s spatial parameters. Writing from the context of the binary between cinema and art they suggest that contemporary transformations “call for a reproblematisation of the dispositif and its conceptual, historical and conceptual aspects” (2008: 39). This issue of Networking Knowledge seeks to publish a range of articles that interrogate and problematise the ‘cinematic dispositif’ in light of the transformative effects of digital culture.

A raft of digital, technological advances is affecting viewing practices, which in turn, are challenging the ‘sacrosanct’ space of the cinema auditorium in myriad ways. In the early nineties Thomas Elsaesser postulated a revolutionary time for cinema referencing reactions to the influence of television and VCR and only touching on the future virtual spaces to come. Since then, a host of institutional, technological and cultural transformations has engendered a redefinition of the production, distribution and exhibition landscape. Further than this the spectrum of outcomes and possibilities of cinema metamorphosing as a spatial, experiential, interactive, phenomenological construct have only just begun to be realised. This issue seeks to contextualise and theorise the relationship between bodies, spaces, technologies and screens in the digital age, providing a philosophical interrogation of contemporary cinematic experience. We invite articles in subject areas, which may include but are not limited to:

New theorisations of cinematic spectatorship
New philosophies of bodies/spaces/screens
The effect of new modes of distribution in cinematic viewing
Influence of communications technologies and social media
Forms of interactivity and cinematic immersion
New filmmaking practices and tools
Trans-media effects
Issues for film criticism, journalism and writing
Debates around the future of Film Studies as a discipline
Analysis of practices designed to preserve a ‘traditional’ understanding of cinema.

We invite articles by postgraduate and early career researchers, which are 5,000 to 6,000 words long. Please send abstracts of up to 300 words along with a 50-word biography by April 1st 2014 to Dario Llinares (dario.llinares@falmouth.ac.uk) and Sam Ward (aaxsjw@nottingham.ac.uk). Articles will be due on 1st August 2014. Please contact the editors for any further information.

Dr Dario Llinares and Dr Sarah Arnold, Falmouth University
Guest Editors

Sam Ward
Journal Editor

Edited by Alice Nuttall, Oxford Brookes University

Vince Gilligan’s series Breaking Bad, running from 2008-2013, has enjoyed immense popularity, gathering a dedicated fanbase and spawning several well-known memes. Following the metamorphosis of mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White into vicious drug lord Heisenberg, the series explores themes such as family, crime, drugs, and the blurring of the lines between good and bad.

This critical collection will explore the themes and narrative trends present in the series, as well as its impact on viewers. Potential topics for chapters may include, but are not limited to:

• Masculinity and femininity
• The family
• The law and morality
• Life and death
• Fandom and intertextual influences
• Science and medicine
• Class
• Race
• Drugs and addiction

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a short biography toreadingbad@gmail.com by 28th February 2014. Completed chapters of 5000-7000 words will be due by 30th June 2014.

 Possible topics could include, but are not limited to:

• Historical perspectives on British stardom (film, television, celebrity)
• Genre and film stardom
• Celebrity and British stardom
• Audiences and fandom
• Race, gender, class and ethnicity and British stardom
• The international appeal of British stars
• Transitions between media for British stars (film, theatre, television, music)
• British stars abroad
• Stardom and regional identity
• Fashion and costume and British stardom
• Auteurs and British film stars
• Stardom and industrial contexts

The editors, Andrew Spicer and Melanie Williams, will require submissions by April 2014.

For details about the Journal:
http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/jbctv

For submission guidelines:
http://www.euppublishing.com/page/jbctv/submissions

please address all enquiries about this to Andrew and Melanie:

Andrew Spicer Andrew2.Spicer@uwe.ac.uk>

Melanie.Williams@uea.ac.uk

Edited By Anne Kustritz and Emma England

CFP: Special issue of Prism journal on ‘Fandom, Brands and Public Relations’
Amber Hutchins, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Kennesaw  State University and Natalie T. J. Tindall, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Georgia State University

Traditional public relations methods of communicating with target publics have changed. The idea of engaged publics or audiences has arisen in multiple fields, including audience studies, media studies, sport culture, participatory culture, marketing, cultural studies, and public relations. The conceptions of the public in previous models are no longer valid across all campaigns.

With the advent of social media, content producers and audiences can be one and the same. Fans have more ownership on a global scale, without the limitations of physical proximity, yet our current conceptions of public do not delineate between active and super-active publics, let alone discuss engagement with information beyond processing and seeking it or dealing with publics virtually who are highly motivated to communicate with organizations and brands. Also, in public relations, there is a huge shift to community managers. Yet, there is not a lot of knowledge about the publics who are interacting within the community; this is a place where this special issue can provide significant insight.

Fandom and participatory culture have been identified, discussed, and lamented over in these areas and in various global contexts, and these conversations are synonymous and parallel with the ideas outlined in the segmentation strategies and the robust research on the situational theory of publics.

However, little conversation between those areas has occurred. For example,  online community management of fans and critics is a relatively new method practitioners use to engage stakeholders and public. Although there has been some work on offline community management (or brand communities), primarily in fields outside of public relations, there is not much available for online communities. The work that has been done has been focused on marketing or cultural studies. If you look at our leading public relations and strategic communication journals, research on fans is rare, and the attempt to connect fandom research to segmentation and other public relations theory is nonexistent.

The goal of this project is to bring scholarly attention to the disciplines’ interaction, engagement, and interaction with fans who are publics. The purpose of this special issue is to integrate stakeholder and publics theories with those of participatory cultures and media studies/fan perspectives; to add new, fresh insight into the public relations discipline’s concepts of publics and segmentation; and to apply new research and understandings of publics.

·         Submission deadline: 1st February 2014

·         Anticipated publication date:  During the 2014 calendar year

Submissions for review should be sent to Amber Hutchins and Natalie T.J. Tindall, prfandom@gmail.com

http://www.prismjournal.org/cfpfandom.html

Special issue of Celebrity Studies

Audiences for Celebrity

Edited by Martin Barker, Su Holmes and Sarah Ralph

The study of audiences for celebrities and stars has developed spasmodically.  Apart from important early studies by Stacey (1994) and Kuhn (2002), and from a different angle Gamson (1994) Barbas (2001) and Allen and Mendick (2012), and a variety of marketing-derived studies, there has been only a scatter of works concretely addressing how distinct audiences engage with celebrities, and how those engagements become meaningful within their broader lives.  For this Special Issue we hope to gather essays embodying a range of kinds of research in both audience and reception studies traditions.  We invite proposals for papers to appear in a special issue of Celebrity Studies exploring how audiences engage (positively or negatively) with celebrity figures and culture. Proposals may address (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Studies of audiences for particular stars/ celebrities (from a range of different media forms, including film, TV, popular music, literature, sport, internet, social media, theatre, opera etc…)
• Studies of online fan cultures, or users of a particular media form
• Historical/ archival studies of audience engagements with celebrities/ stars
• Discussions of methodological issues in the study of celebrity/ star audiences
• Studies of celebrity/ star controversies or spectacular moments and audience responses

Please submit an extended abstract of 500 words (outlining the topic, methods, audience or reception materials used, and contribution to Celebrity Studies and Audience Studies) to susan.holmes@uea.ac.uk, by Friday 1^st November. Please also include a brief biographical note of 4-5 lines.  We plan to complete evaluation of abstracts by the end of November.  Those accepted will be asked to submit completed essays, to a maximum of 8,000 words, by the end of June 2014.