2025 Open Calls

1. From mass media to platformization: transformations in the media ecosystem

Editors: Adriana Barsotti (UFF), Ana Paula Goulart de Andrade (UFRRJ) and Iluska Coutinho (UFJF).

Deadline for submission: February 24, 2025
Publication: May 2025

Call for papers:
Almost 100 years ago, in 1925 to be precise, journalism was experiencing important milestones, including the founding of the newspaper O Globo, which gave rise to the media conglomerate that would become the largest in Brazil and the 17th in the world (Rosa, 2015). From the printed newspaper, the future empire of communication extended to radio in 1944; for television in 1965 and for digital in 1996. Over the course of one hundred years, the group has influenced the country's political and cultural spheres through journalism and entertainment. Among its most criticized editorial decisions are its support for the 1964 coup, its silence regarding the Diretas Já campaign and its favoritism towards then presidential candidate Fernando Collor de Mello in the edition of the last debate of the 1989 presidential campaign, the first by direct vote after the coup. And, despite declaring its regret in the “mistakes” section of the Memória Globo website, the group has once again invested in new attempts to influence Brazilian political life. Among its most recent episodes is its support for Operation Lava-Jato, led by former judge Sérgio Moro.

However, if in the past the electronic coronelismo (Aires; dos Santos, 2023) of the great national communication empires (Wu, 2012) was almost unrestricted, in contemporary times the power of these groups is threatened by big techs (Morozov, 2018) and the fragmentation of audiences. In Brazil, 79% of the population accesses news via social media and only 43% trust the media (Carro, 2024). This rivalry between big techs and media organizations was highlighted by the Fake News Bill: in an editorial (Aprovação, 2023), Grupo Globo, averse to the issue of media regulation while it led the market, supported the bill, which provides for the regulation of platforms and the remuneration of journalistic organizations for content, in addition to holding big techs accountable for disinformation and hate speech. It is no surprise, since on social media, the visibility of news increasingly depends on algorithms programmed by big techs, limiting the power of editors to propose a common agenda of debates for society.

In this context, in which agenda-setting (McCombs, 2009) has been losing strength to the inverted agenda (Saperas, 2020), to which both legacy media and citizens compete, through digital platforms, it is necessary to attract and maintain the attention of audiences (Zelizer, Boczkowski and Anderson, 2021), demanding adaptations from media groups both in relation to new formats and business models that can guarantee the sustainability of the media, as well as their public impact.

This dossier welcomes research on the aforementioned issues, from a critical perspective, which may revolve around the following thematic axes (but not exclusive):

-  The transformations in journalism and its supports, in the transition from analog to digital: print journalism, radio journalism, television journalism and digital journalism
- Journalism and democracy
- Journalism and credibility
- Journalism, hate speech and disinformation
- Journalism, platforms and influence in the public sphere
-  Journalism and public impact
- Regulation of platforms and media companies
- The consequences of platformization for journalism, organizations and audiences
- Transformations in the business models and management of journalistic companies

References:
AIRES, J.; DOS SANTOS, S. Coronelismo eletrônico não é uma metáfora: categorização da radiodifusão brasileira. E-Compós, v. 26, 2022.
APROVAÇÃO do PL das Fake News será avanço civilizatório. O Globo, 2 mai. 2023.
CARRO, R. Digital News Report 2024. Brazil. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2024.
MC COMBS, M. A Teoria da Agenda: a mídia e a opinião pública. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2009
MOROZOV, E. Big techs: A ascensão dos dados e a morte da política. São Paulo: Ubu editora, 2018.
SAPERAS, E. Novas direções na investigação sobre o agendamento – os processos de agendamento na era digital. In: CAMPONEZ, C; FERREIRA, G.B.; RODRIGUEZ-DIAZ, R. (Orgs.) Estudos do agendamento: teoria, desenvolvimentos e desafios - 50 anos depois. Covilhã: LabCom Books, 2020, p.171-208.
WU, Tim. Impérios da comunicação: do telefone à internet, da AT&T ao Google. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2012.
Zelizer, B.; Boczkowski, P.; Anderson, C.W. The Journalism Manifesto (The Manifesto Series). Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2021.

 

2. Communication and Memory: theoretical perspectives and materialities

Editors: Ana Paula Goulart Ribeiro (UFRJ), Izamara Bastos Machado (Fiocruz), Rachel Bertol (UFF)

Submission deadline: May 26, 2025
Publication date: September 2025

Call for papers:
Contemporary forms of memory are largely shaped by the everyday uses of the media. Attentive to these connections, studies on communication and memory have become a fertile field of research in recent decades. The debate on the topic unfolds in multiple approaches, both in terms of the theoretical perspectives adopted and the themes and issues researched. In this sense, this dossier is open to works that explore the diversity of research possibilities. We welcome texts that, from different perspectives on the relationship between memory and communication, address issues related to the following topics (not restricted to these):

- Political uses of the past, trauma and testimony
- Temporalities and historicities in communication processes
- Journalistic, photographic and audiovisual practices
- Digital media and social networks
- Silences, denialism, forgetfulness and reparation
- Collective activism, body and performances
- Forms of nostalgia and melancholy
- Communication and health
- Archives and counter-archives