Thematic Editors
Dr. Eloísa Nos Aldás, Universitat Jaume I of Castellón, Spain
Dr. Matt Baillie Smith, Northumbria University Newcastle, United Kingdom
Focus: The injustices and inequalities taking place worldwide have moved thousands of people to claim their rights through social movements. Especially since 2011, citizens protests have revived globally with the Arab Spring, the 15M in Spain, Occupy in the United States and other countries such as Greece, Turkey, Chile or Brazil, that have also seen several social movements unfolding. In this context, the present special issue addresses matters that intersect with communication, civil society and social change. The edition of this issue has been conceived from a perspective of empowerment and agency with the objective of exploring peaceful communicative proposals and alternatives that, from civil society, could contribute to transform social injustices and inequalities. We refer to good practices and communicative innovations that foster people’s political engagement. Therefore, the publication will delve into the study of the influence of communicative models of structured and non-structured civil society (social movements and NGOs of social justice) to identify and mobilize citizens for their causes. This includes the analysis of indicators for evaluation and criteria of success of grassroots communication. Civil society has increased its opportunities of resistance with the emergence of digital networks. From a communicative perspective, we face the loss of influence of a unidirectional model and the appearance of a digital and non-digital proactive citizenship that rely on tools 2.0 (spaces and applications such as YouTube, CALL FOR PAPERS, 47 Wikipedia, Flickr, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, TitanPad, Mumble, or Telegram, among others), that have democratized information and media, allowing interaction among diverse transmitters and receivers (interlocutors) at transnational level. This evolution towards a collective creation of knowledge is one of the features of the so called cyberculture (Levy, 2007), Self-Mass communication (Castells, 2009), Technopolitics (Toret, 2013), or Networked Fourth Power (Sampedro, 2014), where people can create their own information and communication systems, as well as influence political configuration and re-appropriate democracy. Following the above statements, this issue will analyze the influence that these processes of digital citizenship through the Web 2.0 have had on the visibility, deliberation, and organization of civil society, mainly in the recent social movements such as 15M and Occupy. It also seeks to cover the study of different expressions and proposals sprung from civil society which contemplate contents and discourses that confront logics of power and control. Especially, it sets as a goal to analyze the main factors of success in the communication for social change through the discussion of possible social indicators for its evaluation, or criteria for its systematization.
Descriptors
Cultural efficacy of the communication of social movements and NGOs of social justice Indicators of cultural efficacy of the communication of social movements and NGOs of social justice
From victims to indignant: discourses, representations and empowerment
Communication of social movements, emotions and nonviolence
Representation of protest and nonviolence Impact of networks and digital logics on the communication of civil society
Transmedia narratives, activism and social change Activism and protest NGOs, communication and social change
Citizen journalism and social change
Communicative practices of the 15M and other recent communicative movements
Guidelines and submission of proposals: www.grupocomunicar.com/index.php?contenido=normas&idioma=en
Proposals for the Special Issue through the OJS RECYT platform http://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/comunicar/login Important dates
Deadline for sending articles: September 30, 2015
Publication date of Comunicar Issue 47:
Preprint version: 2016 First trimester
Printed version: 2/2016: April 2016