Communication, Culture & Critique
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ccc-journal.bsky.social
Communication, Culture & Critique
@ccc-journal.bsky.social
110 followers 26 following 21 posts
An International Communication Association journal publishing critical/cultural research and commentary on media, culture and technology. https://linktr.ee/cccjournalica
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ccc-journal.bsky.social
Critical journalism studies folks!

We're looking for contributors to a new special issue: "Journalism in Ruins: Interrogating norms of ‘independent’ journalism." Editors: Natalie Fenton and Srirupa Roy.

Abstracts due Dec. 15, 2025.
Call for Papers Journalism in Ruins: Interrogating norms of ‘independent’ journalism Thematic Issue for Communication, Culture & Critique (2026/27) Abstract Deadline (500 words): December 15, 2025 Complete Manuscript Deadline (7,000-8,000 words): June 15, 2026 Co-editors: Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths, University of London), Srirupa Roy (University of Göttingen) Rationale This thematic issue critically interrogates the normative ideal of an independent journalism that drives contemporary laments for a “journalism in ruins.” Normative liberal understandings of news have often declared independent news production as the holy grail of media freedom. A free media is in turn associated with a healthy democracy. Independence of news organizations from government pressure or interference in news production is considered vital to democracy’s well-being. Independence of journalism from wealthy sponsors or corporate pressures is seen as key to its integrity. In turn, independent news media are hailed as the ultimate democratic horizon (Fenton, 2025). An entrenched belief of Anglo/Western liberal media systems, the norm of ‘independent journalism’ also exerts a powerful influence across much of the postcolonial South (Mustvairo et al., 2021). Yet, the mythology of a ‘free’ news media sustaining ‘liberal’ democracy has long since been exposed as exhausted at best, and as absolving of truths at worst. Corruption and compromise have come to the fore as political and commercial interests merge and expand. It is now beyond doubt that a media and tech system that may have many platforms and points of distribution but is dominated by a few, powerful voices and a news media increasingly run to secure financial reward or political influence is highly unlikely to foster greater democratic participation in political culture (Pickard, 2019). Indeed, journalism is arguably now more often subject to fear and favor than without it despite claims to the contrary. As liberal democracy flounders, as legal frameworks fail to deliver journalistic protections, as free expression becomes the preserve of the powerful, as good governance gives way to commercialism at all costs and mechanisms of accountability seek to preserve privilege rather than uphold standards, then the ideal of independent journalism flails too. So why do many scholars and journalist… These concerns are even more pertinent as mainstream news organizations around the world face multiple challenges from both state and commercial forces, resulting in their closure and constriction and as attacks on journalists increase. As calls of fake news, mis/disinformation abound, so public trust in journalism has plummeted in many places. Yet in the face of such existential challenges, the mainstream journalistic vanguard reaches once more for a return to ‘core values’ aligned with liberalism’s promises to expose the truth with little regard for the systemic forces (of commercialism, marketisation, elite capture, and political entanglement) that have evaded such truth-making claims from being realized. As journalism retreats to its safe default space of hegemonic values and claimed conformity of standards such as ‘objectivity’, ‘impartiality’ and ‘independence’ so it fails to acknowledge the structures and practices that ensure these spaces are too often distorted by money, power and privilege and hence are also heavily classed, gendered and racialized. How has this ‘high modernism’ (Hallin, 2006) of journalism managed to prevail and largely ignore critiques of power relations and geopolitical context and what does it mean for a journalism in ruins? This Thematic Issue seeks to interrogate these concerns: Crucially, it asks, what if the pilgrimage for journalistic independence is treading the wrong path, directing us away from interrogating power relations that exist and blinkering our visions of what journalism could become? If news and journalism are always situated in relation to and interact with other organizations, institutions, professions and people, would we be better placed to interrogate the relations of power therein and establish the levels of interdependence that exist in order to determine how these interdependencies can be recognized, better understood and managed? How can journalism studies move beyond liberal conceptions of the public sphere…
August 28, 2025 at 1:50 PM
ccc-journal.bsky.social
Check out @chaficnajem.bsky.social's latest on smuggled digital technologies used by incarcerated people in Lebanon, now available from @ccc-journal.bsky.social!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...
Prison media mobilization: smuggled technologies and media practices in Lebanese carceral spaces by Chafic Tony Najem in Communication, Culture and Critique, published 15 May, 2025 This article explores the use of smuggled digital technologies by prisoners in Lebanese carceral spaces. Since 2012, prisoners have smuggled cellphones to document and share their experiences and protests, despite efforts by authorities to restrict this access. The study adopts Martín-Barbero’s mediaciones and Mattoni’s activist media practices, to propose “prison media mobilization”—the strategic and illicit reconfiguration of digital technologies by prisoners to subvert constraints and amplify dissent. The analysis focuses on four approaches: representation, production, circulation, and material practices. By examining recordings and contextual information from significant events in Lebanese prisons, the research shows how contraband digital technologies catalyze mobilizations. These technologies document, incite, propagate, and aid prisoners perform acts of defiance against prison conditions. The study highlights the complexity and innovation in prisoners' media practices, calling for a comprehensive framework to understand media mobilizations in carceral spaces.
May 23, 2025 at 2:36 PM
ccc-journal.bsky.social
The CCC Editorial Collective is excited to highlight our new and selective “Book Review” section, which features what we see as necessary and critical scholarship that we should all be reading.
The urgency of producing Palestine, Ather Zia's review of "Producing Palestine: The Creative Production of Palestine Through Contemporary Media" edited by Dina Mater and Helga Tawil Souri (Bloomsbury Press, 2024), published in Communication, Culture and Critique Johan Farkas' review of "Talking back to the West: How Turkey uses counter-hegemony to reshape the global communication order" (University of Illinois Press, 2024) by Bilge Yesil, published in Communication, Culture and Critique
April 23, 2025 at 3:17 PM
ccc-journal.bsky.social
🚨 JUNE ISSUE PREVIEW 🚨

Check out the latest from @sydneyforde.bsky.social and @desfreedman.bsky.social, on public service media's coverage of Gaza!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...
Arm’s length or joined at the hip? Public service media’s coverage of Gaza, by Sydney L. Forde and Des Freedman. Abstract: Critiquing normative articulations of a public versus commercial media binary, we explore the contradictory juxtaposition of democratic expectations assigned to public service media (PSM) broadly, alongside actual PSM reporting. We examine US and UK PSM coverage of two major events related to the bombardment of Gaza and subsequent humanitarian crisis in the months following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Contextualized within the UK, US and Israel’s historical and ongoing colonial violence within Palestine over the past 75 years, we assess coverage that stands in contradiction to the often fetishized notion of PSM’s role in serving a broadly conceived and normatively accepted “public,” and challenge the independence afforded to existing PSM structures via a critique of the notion that PSM organizations operate at “arm’s length” from government. Throughout our analysis, we find evidence of systematic failures and highlight PSM’s use as an instrument perpetuating state power and control.
April 16, 2025 at 3:38 PM
ccc-journal.bsky.social
Check out the latest from @hoornazkeshava.bsky.social and @nicolestewart.bsky.social, "Make Iran Great Again: Apolitical Influencers and the Revival of a Romantic Patriarchal Nationalism"!

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...
"Make Iran Great Again: Apolitical Influencers and the Revival of a Romantic Patriarchal Nationalism." By Hoornaz Keshavarzian and Nicole K. Stewart, Communication, Culture and Critique, March 2025 Abstract: The Woman Life Freedom (WLF) Movement in Iran represents a longstanding struggle for social justice, gender equity, and civil rights. Our study details how this grassroots feminist uprising faced an attempted co-optation by a monarchist Coalition’s rhetoric of unity for regime change. Through an analysis on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram, we illustrate how apolitical influencers center Man, Homeland, Prosperity (MHP), a far-right mantra alongside WLF to perpetuate a patriarchal Persian nationalism. Given that language and hegemonic politics are closely intertwined, we argue that MHP is WLF’s ontological and epistemic opposite as it violates and oppresses the progressive ethos of a feminist movement. By invoking a sense of nostalgia for a glorious and imperial past (God, King, Homeland), Reza Pahlavi and his Coalition reproduce discourses of a populist, romantic, and patriarchal nationalism around the Persian identity. While WLF is committed to a pluralistic “solidarity,” MHP revolves around a monolithic “unity.”
April 8, 2025 at 4:42 PM
ccc-journal.bsky.social
We are deeply saddened by the loss of CCC Editorial Collective member Jonathan Sterne.

A major figure in media history, sound studies, disability studies, and the critical study of technology and culture, he will also be sorely missed for his kindness and generosity.

www.legacy.com/us/obituarie...
Photo of Jonathan Sterne, arms crossed, smiling, wearing a red shirt
April 3, 2025 at 1:57 PM
ccc-journal.bsky.social
Communication, Culture & Critique is now under the direction of a new editor and editorial collective!

Check our first issue to learn more:

academic.oup.com/ccc/issue/18/1
Cover of Communication, Culture & Critique, Vol. 18, Issue 1, March 2025 — the first under the leadership of a new editorial collective. Editor Paula Chakravartty, New York University Editorial Collective A.J. Bauer, University of Alabama Miriyam Aouragh, University of Westminster Deborah Cowen, University of Toronto Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román’, Columbia University Gil Hochberg, Columbia University Karma R. Chávez, University of Texas, Austin Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths, University of London Verónica Gago, University of Buenos Aires and the National University of San Martín Rachel Kuo, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dina Matar, SOAS Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, Cornell University Fernanda Pinto de Almeida, University of the Western Cape Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen Jonathan Sterne, McGill University
April 2, 2025 at 1:51 PM