Issue 5(2) • December 2017

The Role of Computer-Mediated Communication
in Promoting Activism and Revolutionary Work
Around the World

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This special issue of connexions • international professional communication journal will discuss the potential role of social networking and Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) in promoting activism and revolutionary work. The special edition will include a collection of articles that record and examine the uses of CMC for community organizing in countries where revolutionary action and social and political activism remain hidden in underground cyber cells or remain confined in limited digital or real spaces. This special edition also welcomes articles that examine how CMC is used in the workplace or in civic activities (both sanctioned and unsanctioned) to inform, expose, and engage people in activism at the local, national, and international level. The collection will also look at how traditionally marginalized groups use CMC to bring awareness to the needs of their community. This special issue aims to probe, through the lens of theory and praxis, the multifarious mechanisms through which cyber space and CMC provide opportunities for the realization of and/or hinder revolutionary ground work in real communities or in classrooms as discursive and rhetorical settings. The collection’s aim is to explore means of subverting the limitations of the virtual domain and uncover opportunities for extending democracy and activism to the physical domain of people’s real communities, while being cognizant of the limitations imposed upon such democracy in the virtual and physical spaces activists, revolutionaries, and others occupy in electronic networked communication.

The collection encourages works that explore theorizations of the frameworks through which CMC (instant messaging, email, chat rooms, online forums, and social network services) can or does produce settled and fluid social spaces that can allow for opportunities for social transformation. The rewards for social transformation lie in the shifting of social spaces from “here” to “there” –from the present to the future spaces of transformation of which we dream (Robinson 2000, p. 286). The collection will further examine whether in rare “revolutionary times” substantial opportunities for shifts in power relations emerge (Cocks 1988) that enable the subversion of cultural and social norms. The interest in studying social transformation and social change arises from the need to understand the processes by which social change can be materialized within the spatiality of social life and to study how spaces of imagining and theorizing can/do shape or displace the future(s) of oppressive power relations and to erase the categories of oppressor and oppressed.

For this special issue we seek articles, commentaries, teaching cases, and reviews focusing on Computer Mediated Communication and activism. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

1. The intersections of globalization, social media, activism, and their associated challenges
2. The privacy and ethics of cyberspace activists
3. The creation of unique rhetorical constructions and deployments of digital ethos in activist social media
4. The relationship between CMC and traditional journalism outlets for reporting movement activities
5. Documenting agency and voice when creating and sustaining a movement via CMC
6. Pedagogy perspectives in teaching youth how to use CMC as tools for leadership and change
7. The use of CMC in domestic and international movements. Topics may include, but are NOT limited to:
   • The Black Lives Matter Movement
   • The Arab Spring Movement
   • The Nigerian Bring Our Girls Back Movement
   • Female Genital Mutilation Movement(s) from various regions of the world
   • The Push to Stop Child Marriages
   • Water Wars
   • Occupy Wall Street
   • The Syrian Refugee Crisis
   • The Flint, MI Water Crisis

References

Cocks, J. (1989). The oppositional imagination: Feminism, critique, and political theory. London and New York: Routledge.

Robinson, J. (2000). Feminism and the spaces of transformation. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 25, 285-301. doi:10.1111/j.0020-2754.2000. 00285.x

Schedule

• Submission deadline of manuscript abstracts: December 30, 2016
• Notification of acceptance of manuscript abstracts: January 30, 2017
• Submission deadline for full manuscript review: June 15, 2017
• Expected date of publication for accepted full manuscripts: Nov. 30, 2017

Submission procedures

• Submit 500-word abstracts for original research articles, review articles, and teaching cases; or 250-word abstracts for focused commentary and industry perspectives.
• Prepare a cover page for your abstract with 1.5 line spacing and Georgia, 12-point font.
• Save the cover page and abstract in doc, docx, or rtf format.
• Include in your cover page author(s) names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, and whether you are submitting a research article, a review article, a teaching case, a focused commentary, or an industry perspective.
• Submit your abstract via email to Kimberly Harper, Samaa Gamie, and Moe Folk at kharper@ncat.edu

Upon acceptance of your proposal, you will be invited to submit a full-length manuscript. All manuscripts that meet the journal’s standards and requirements will be, without exception, submitted to double-blind peer review.

Abstracts To Be Developed Into

• Original research articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words
• Review articles of 3,000 to 5,000 words
• Teaching cases of 3,000 to 5,000 words
• Focused commentary and industry perspectives articles of 500 to 3,000 words

Contact information

PDF of CFP:
https://connexionsj.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/connexions_cfp_4-2_rev3.pdf

(review schedule updated on Mar. 16, 2016)

In the last thirty years, two trends have transformed the world of professional communication. On one hand, a global economy has increasingly placed professional communicators in multilingual and multicultural work environments. In such environments, disciplinary borders are blurred, markets are integrated, and ideas are shared across individuals and organizations. On the other hand, advances in technology have revolutionized the ways communication products are designed, shared, and assessed. Professional communicators must thus reach and serve a diverse population of stakeholders.

They do so with multimodal forms of communication that integrate both text, visuals, and audience interactions. Design no longer means “a picture is worth a thousand words.” It is now impacted by a holistic methodology often known as “design thinking.” Design thinking encompasses the entire process of creating professional communication products and services, including websites, social media campaigns, technical documentation, and information-driven user interfaces. Neumeier (2009) wrote that design “has been waiting patiently in the wings for nearly a century, having been relegated to supporting roles and stand-in parts” (p.18). Design thinking is now important to such disparate activities as branding, innovation, and cultivating optimal user experiences. As Vogel (2009) pointed out: “Only one company in a market can be the cheapest; the rest need design” (p.8).

In this way, the practice of designing across cultures has been brought to the forefront of professional communication in order to engage stakeholders in a globalized, multicultural marketplace. From a business perspective, communicators use design thinking to discover user goals, strategize content, structure teams, and create and evaluate prototypes. Design helps distinguish brands and increase value for enterprises. Design can also help bridge linguistic and breaks language and cultural barriers, however. It can create beneficial solutions for users from minoritized, underrepresented, and marginalized populations. Good design is thus culturally-sensitive as it must adapt to and respect cultural groups being served.

This special issue of connexions: international professional communication journal seeks to understand, articulate, and evaluate the role of design in professional communication across cultures. It aims to bring together scholars and practitioners who engage in design activities in a cross-cultural or multi-cultural context. Here culture is broadly defined. We seek articles related to nationality, race, ethnicity, age, gender, disability/accessibility, sexual orientation, as well as any other cultural/professional identities.

Suggested topic areas include, but are not limited to:

• Design thinking in professional communication projects
• Challenges in designing for multi-national and multi-cultural audiences
• Affordances for specific genres of information products within specific cultures
• The design, writing, and strategy of documentation
• New approaches to particular sets of audiences and markets
• Design pedagogy, curricula, training, and organizational development
• Design project management and team work
• Design in internationally-distributed work environments
• Information design and its relationship to culture
• The relationship between design, users, and professional communication

References

Neumeier, M. (2009). The designful company. In T. Lockwood (Ed.), Design thinking: Integrating innovation, customer experience, and brand value (pp. 15-22). New York, NY: Allworth.

Vogel, C. M. (2009). Notes on the evolution of design thinking: A work in progress. In T. Lockwood (Ed.), Design thinking: Integrating innovation, customer experience, and brand value (pp. 3-14). New York, NY: Allworth.

Schedule

• Submission deadline for manuscript abstracts: Mar. 31, 2016
• Notification of initial acceptance: Apr. 30, 2016
• Submission deadline for full-manuscript review: Sept. 30, 2016
• Expected date of publication: Dec. 30, 2016

  (review schedule updated on Mar. 16, 2016)

Submission Procedures

• Submit 500-word abstracts for original research articles, review articles, and teaching cases; or 250-word abstracts for focused commentary and industry perspectives.
• Prepare a cover page for your abstract with 1.5 line spacing and Georgia, 12-point font.
• Save the cover page and abstract in doc, docx, or rtf format.
• Include in your cover page author(s) names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, and whether you are submitting a research article, a review article, a teaching case, a focused commentary, or an industry perspective.
• Submit your abstract via email to Quan Zhou and Guiseppe Getto at quan.zhou@metrostate.edu.

Upon acceptance of your proposal, you will be invited to submit a full-length manuscript. All manuscripts that meet the journal’s standards and requirements will be, without exception, submitted to double-blind peer review.

Abstracts To Be Developed Into

• Original research articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words
• Review articles of 3,000 to 5,000 words
• Teaching cases of 3,000 to 5,000 words
• Focused commentary and industry perspectives articles of 500 to 3,000 words

Contact information

Quan Zhou
Metropolitan State University, 1380 Energy Lane, Suite 205-I, St. Paul, MN.
quan.zhou@metrostate.edu

Guiseppe Getto
East Carolina University, 2108 Bate, Mail Stop #555, Greenville, NC, 27858-4353.
gettog@ecu.edu

(review schedule updated on Mar. 16, 2016)