CFP: Studying Politics across Platforms

A very interesting call:

*Call for papers*

*Symposium in Political Communication*

*Studying Politics Across Media*

Guest editors:

Leticia Bode (Georgetown University)

Emily K Vraga (George Mason University)

The work in political communication with an emphasis on digital technologies, new media, and social media is growing rapidly. However, the majority of this research is narrowly construed, typically focusing on a single medium or platform at a time. Though this tendency has been criticised, it shows little sign of disappearing. With this special issue, we hope to jumpstart the field of Political Communication to focus on the broader media environment and interactions between the use of multiple media platforms.
Theoretically, such an effort addresses important questions in political communication. What are differences in the framing and effects of political events across platforms? Do news and political stories spread the same way, to the same people, in different places? What role do the audience and the affordance of a medium play in this process? In short – how does political communication happen in the complicated modern media environment?

We see this manifesting in myriad ways. Scholars could approach this theoretically, adapting a theory from one medium or platform to test its utility across other media spaces, or comparing multiple platforms in terms of audiences, structure, affordances, uses, or other attributes. Empirical work could consider the influence of individuals’ use of several media spaces on outcomes such as knowledge, information seeking, or participation, or on candidates’ or campaigns’ use of diverse platforms to target and persuade mass audiences. Work with an international focus is strongly encouraged.

This topic is of utmost importance, given the growing role that digital,mobile, and social media platforms are playing in political communication,and the parallel growing scholarly attention to this area

*Timeline*

May, 2016: Call for papers published

October 1, 2016: Deadline for full paper submissions. Use the online

submission system and follow the journal’s submission guidelines (

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=upcp20&page=instructions#.VxoqRFK9iFI)