CFP: Re/Presenting Europe and Europeans in Twentieth Century Media – A critical examination

Guest Editorial Collective: Dr. Rachel Gillett, Dr. Gijs van Campenhout, Dr. Jacco van Sterkenburg, Isabella Hall Allen, Dastan Abdali, Jan Bant, Lis Camelia,

This special issue of TMG – Journal for Media History examines how historical practices of racialisation structure representations of Europe, Europeanness and belonging in the domain of popular culture. Mainstream media, by which we mean state-sponsored and dominant commercial and publicly accessible radio and television, and widespread print media genres such as newspapers and magazines, have produced and circulated dominant representations of who is European and has a rightful place in Europe. Although the domain of popular culture promises egalitarian and democratic representation, in practice, mainstream coverage of major sporting fixtures and popular music has historically offered simplistic or stereotyping portrayals of the complex and differentiated “othered” groups that contribute to European culture. We, therefore, invite submissions that re-examine media representations of popular culture through a critical lens.

Our point of departure is that media is a dominant site of representation but can also host counter-narratives and perspectives. Because sports media, popular music, and popular culture are sites of powerful representational impact they are, thus, vital scholarly sites of engagement (van Sterkenburg 2013; Elling 2005.) While European popular culture has received ample academic attention since the late 1970s, our editorial collective invites contributors to examine how it structures racialised representations of Europe and Europeans. Contributions to this special issue will collectively address and redress how twentieth-century media has represented individuals and communities in ways that have undergirded societal structures of racialisation and exclusion. We suggest contributors identify how representational practices (rhetoric, image, narrative, selective visibility, association with perceived virtues and vices or innate characteristics) have historically worked in processes of othering, conclusion and belonging. This may involve investigating how ‘belonging’ has been represented as only available to certain groups and how racialised communities have responded or created counter-narratives and representational practices.

We therefore invite contributions that analyze how media documentation of popular culture – principally television, radio, and print journalism/cultural reportage – feed into exclusionary representation of Europe. We also invite contributions investigating how such media representations of European popular culture have been disrupted and challenged in mainstream media or, conversely, through the production of subversive media content and formats. We encourage submissions of work that uses approaches from media history, Black European Studies, sports history, and the history of popular culture, representation, and belonging.

We welcome submissions that consider (but are not limited to) the following themes.

• Case studies examining resistance to and/or subversion of a default ‘white’ European-ness within mainstream media;
• Practices of stereotyping and racialisation in media production and the circulation of racial stereotypes and assumed norms in media production, with a focus on the twentieth-century
• The remediation of narratives and representation across different media sites; the contestation of dominant representations through vernacular and community-created intergenerational transmission of alternate representations, narratives, and counter-narratives
• Resistant reading of mainstream representations of popular culture, following the work of Stuart Hall (2002) on audience and reception. How is this relevant to a continental European context?;
• Democratising practices of (self)representation – how have ‘Zines, podcasts, content-driven social media, born digital and self-funded representative media worked to subvert dominant representations of European-ness in popular culture?;
• How communities of Black and othered peoples have generated media representations of liberatory joy that perpetually disrupt the work of ‘race’, racism, and racialisation (Fields & Fields, 2012; Gilroy, 1993; Hall, 2017; Moten & Harney, 2013; Rodney, 1969).

On the basis of a 300-word abstract to be submitted by 30 April 2024, selected authors shall be invited to submit an article of 6,000-8,000 words (including notes) by 15 September 2024. Revised drafts are expected by 15 October 2024. The issue will be published in Spring 2025. Please send an abstract and a short bio to Isabella Hall Allen at Utrecht University: i.w.a.hallallen@uu.nl.

Deviations of the 6,000-8,000 words (including notes) are possible, subject to the agreement of the editors. Authors are to submit original papers that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. No payment from the authors will be required.

Final acceptance depends on a double-blind peer review process of the manuscripts. The expected publishing date of this special issue of TMG—Journal for Media History is in Spring 2025

Contributions that receive positive reviews but are not accepted for the special issue may be considered for publication in another issue of TMG—Journal for Media History.

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