[Infowarrior] - CFP: Surveillance and Communications

[Richard Forno]

Special Issue of The Communication Review: Surveillance and Communications

Guest Editors: Kelly Gates and Shoshana Magnet


We invite submissions for a special issue of The Communication Review on the
contribution of communications research to the study of surveillance.

The age of informatics has resulted in the proliferation of new technologies
of surveillance.  Surveillance remains one of the key means by which modern
institutions interact with and govern their constituencies.  This special
issue of The Communication Review will examine the multiple connections
between communications and surveillance.  We hope to foster dialogue on the
interconnections between communications theory and surveillance studies.
Has communications theory helped to expand the study of surveillance through
attention to the socio-cultural ramifications of surveillance practices? Can
communications theory broaden the study of surveillance through its
attention to the importance of surveillance technologies as information and
communication technologies, as well as visual media and sound reproduction
systems?

The special issue will address such questions as:  How do communicative
practices, media technologies, and surveillance practices intersect?  What
insights does communications theory and research bring to the study of
surveillance as a modern institutional practice?

We are particularly interested in connections between surveillance studies
and critical race and feminist theories, as well as theoretical
investigations of the ways in which surveillance techniques are used to mark
and classify bodies based on social
inequalities.  How are forms of discrimination coded into and perpetuated by
surveillance strategies?

We are also interested in the intensification of surveillance in the
neo-liberal economy. How is the expansion of new surveillance technologies
informed by the logic of privatization?  How has "informationalized
capitalism" encouraged the development of new practices and technologies of
surveillance?  How do particular surveillance strategies contribute to the
conflation of consumption and citizenship?

Topics might include, but are not limited to:
 The relationships between surveillance and communication theory
 The differential application of surveillance strategies based on
social inequalities
 Surveillance technologies as markers of identity
 Surveillance and media interactivity
 Surveillance and the digitization of visual media
 Surveillance and copyright enforcement
 Market research surveillance and consumer citizenship
 Surveillance and reality television
 Surveillance forms and cinematic "practices of looking"

Papers should be between 7500 and 8000 words long and must be received by
May 1st, 2007.  Please email them to: Andrea Press and Bruce Williams,
Editors, The Communication Review, c/o Tanya Omeltchenko, Managing Editor,
at to3y at virginia.edu