cfp: life with the ultimate conglomerate

international journal of
Media & Cultural Politics
(MCP)

LIFE WITH THE ULTIMATE CONGLOMERATE: a call for short essays on the
politics of contemporary media content, control and policy

We, the citizens, own the airwaves, yet we don't control them. The
corporations that control them feed us a steady diet of electronic junk
food and it is making our democracy sick.
(Ralph Nader)

The first half of the twentieth century produced pessimism about
ideological control and social and cultural harm as a consequence of media
expansion. By the end of the second half of the century, a variety of
theoretical positions had posited the media as a usurpation of reality
itself. Whatever the status of such claims, the media now claim a
centrality which has profoundly redefined culture.

To mark the launch of MCP, the Editors are inviting scholarly mini-essays
of over 1000 and not more than 1500 words on any theme exploring the
relationship between the contemporary media and the politics of
representation, or policy, or control, and commenting on recent waves of
pessimism about the media in culture (Virilio's concept of 'fin de siècle
infantilization', for example, or Nader's 'electronic junk food').
Contributors are invited to address print, broadcast or electronic media
as they choose, and likewise to adapt the theme to specific forms, genres,
theories, practices, demographics, localities, audiences, pedagogic and
research contexts, and topical issues.

All contributions should be submitted to Katharine Sarikakis ?
k.sarikakis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ? by email attachment, by 31 May 2004.

For details on style, please go to:
http://www.intellectbooks.com/journals/mcp/

Best wishes

The Editors
MCP


Please note that MCP is also now accepting full length submissions for the
inaugural volumes to be published in 2005, on general media and cultural
politics themes.

-- 
Dr Katharine Sarikakis
Communication, Media and Culture
Coventry University
Priory Street
Coventry CV1 5FB, UK
Tel:+44.24.76887474
Fax:+44.24.76887440
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http://www.coventry.ac.uk/cms/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=583&a=3243
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International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics
http://www.intellectbooks.com/journals/mcp/