Connectist: Istanbul University Journal of Communication Sciences

Television in the Global South 

Call for Papers: Special Issue of Connectist: Istanbul University Journal of Communication Sciences and Online Conference

Guest editors: Yesim Kaptan (Associate Professor, Kent State University, Ohio) & Ece Algan (Professor, California State University, San Bernadino)

Deadline for abstracts: September 1, 2023

Publication Date: December 2024

After the neoliberalization of television in the 1990s, the late 2000s proved to be the start of the next important transformative phase for world television marked by the widespread use of personal digital media devices and increased access to the internet. This contemporary phase has witnessed rapid technological developments in television, such as the digitalization and platformization of television services and the expansion of television consumption via social media. These developments have also transformed the ways in which content is created by national media industries, is distributed by both local and global media companies, and is consumed by audiences worldwide. As a result, the experience of television production, distribution, and consumption has been redefined not just for the countries of the affluent West, but also for those in the global South. This special issue aims to investigate the transformations in contemporary television in the global South including Turkey and the influence of non-western television production and consumption on the global media landscape.  

Today, audiences are exposed to a plethora of both global television content and local productions due to rapid transnational media flows in multidirectional ways across regions and countries. Moreover, social media affordances coupled with easier access to satellite and platforms offer an opportunity to view and discuss television content everywhere in the world including small towns and rural areas. In an era of increased permeability of television content, technologies, trends, and genres, we believe that any study of global television should take into consideration how the global television landscape affects the local, national and/or regional contexts of production and consumption and vice versa. This also necessitates a questioning of Western-centric theories and their applications to various local and national contexts. Therefore, one of the aims of this special issue is to globalize, dewesternize, and decolonize television studies.  

In this special issue, we invite submissions which critically examine television in the global South and/or in Turkey from various methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives. We encourage submissions from underrepresented regions as well as from scholars in the global North who study television in the global South. We look forward to submissions on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• The impact of digitalization and/or platformization on local, national and/or regional TV cultures and industries

• The rise of non-Western culture industries (e.g., Bollywood, Nollywood, Hallyu etc.) and the global popularity of their television exports 
• Political economy of television in local, national, regional, intra-regional, trans-regional, and global contexts
• Changing dynamics of network and platform television production, distribution and consumption
• The politics of TV remakes and formats 
• Television labor, precarity and the unionization of television workers
• TV representations, identities and audience reception 
• TV consumption and broadcasting via social media (e.g., news outlets on the internet and social media, fans sharing and viewing TV series on YouTube, short videos of TV content on TikTok)
• Content sharing as resistance to big television and neoliberalization  
• Nation-states’ influence on television production, distribution and exhibition (e.g., censorship, new laws and regulations, governmental control of TV outlets, platforms, TV outlets, platforms, and social media broadcasting channels)
• Permeability and exchanges of television trends, content, and genres  
• South-to-South comparisons of case studies on television
• Contemporary television advertising and promotional culture in trans-local, national, intra-regional, trans-regional, and global contexts

Please submit abstracts (400-500 words) and a short bio to: connectist@istanbul.edu.tr  

Scholars whose abstracts are accepted for the special issue of Connectist are expected to present their papers at the Television in the Global South Online Conference before they submit their manuscripts for publication. There will not be a registration fee to attend the online conference or APC fee to publish in the journal. 

Deadlines:

Abstract Submission: September 1, 2023

Notification of acceptance: September 22, 2023 

Online Conference: January 18-19, 2024 

Final Paper Submission: July 1, 2024