February 28, 2025

History of Media Studies Newsletter February 2025

History of Media Studies Newsletter February 2025

Welcome to the 47th edition of the History of Media Studies Newsletter. The monthly email, assembled by Dave Park, Jeff Pooley, and Pete Simonson, maintains a loose affiliation with the new History of Media Studies journal and the Working Group on the History of Media Studies. Please contact us with any questions, suggestions, or items.

1. Working Group on the History of Media Studies

Join us for the next remote session devoted to discussing working papers with authors. Hosted by the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Open to anyone interested in the history of the media studies fields. Instructions to join are here.

Wednesday, March 19

Wednesday, March 19, 14:00-15:00 UTC (10am-11am EDT)

Reading for discussion (with simultaneous English/Spanish interpretation):

• Florencia Soria, “El comunicador cristiano. La trayectoria intelectual de Mario Kaplún entre los años cincuenta y setenta” | “The Christian communicator. The intellectual trajectory of Mario Kaplún between the fifties and the seventies” (working paper)

For the Zoom link and the reading download, visit the Working Group page. Instructions for joining the group are here. Questions? Contact us

2. Conferences, Calls & Announcements

If you have a call or announcement relevant to the history of media studies, please contact us.

1. History of the Human Sciences Early Career Prize 2024–25

• History of the Human Sciences – the international journal of peer-reviewed research, which provides the leading forum for work in the social sciences, humanities, human psychology and biology that reflexively examines its own historical origins and interdisciplinary influences – is delighted to announce details of its annual prize for early career scholars. The intention of the annual award is to recognise a researcher whose work best represents the journal’s aim to critically examine traditional assumptions and preoccupations about human beings, their societies and their histories in light of developments that cut across disciplinary boundaries. In the pursuit of these goals, History of the Human Sciences publishes traditional humanistic studies as well work in the social sciences, including the fields of sociology, psychology, political science, the history and philosophy of science, anthropology, classical studies, and literary theory. Scholars working in any of these fields are encouraged to apply.
• Deadline: 28 March 2025
• More details

2. Call for Abstracts: European Communication Research: What, Whence, and Whither?

• In its 50th year, Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research invites to reconsider what European communication research is – and what it can be. From its start in 1975, the journal’s mission has been to serve as a forum for scholarship and academic debate in the field of communication science and research from a European perspective. But what is in fact a European perspective? The jubilee conference invites us to rethink what constitutes European communication research. The conference offers a moment to rethink what a European perspective could mean for scholarship and what kind of Europe is in fact evoked here. The conference is open to theoretical and empirical approaches. It invites emerging and junior scholars as well as senior faculty to contemplate the peculiar character of European communication research.
• Conference dates: 29–30 September 2025
• Deadline: 15 April 2025
• More details

3. 2025 Three Societies Meeting

• ESHHS (the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences), CHEIRON (the International Society for the History of the Social and Behavioral Sciences) & SHP (the Society for the History of Psychology) invite submissions for papers, posters and symposia for their first “Three Societies Meeting” to take place in Paris, France from July 1st–July 5th, 2025, hosted by the American University of Paris. This year’s featured theme will be Environments, Milieux and Places in the History of the Human, Behavioral and Social Sciences and we particularly encourage submissions related to any particular aspect of this theme.
• Conference dates: 1 July to 5 July 2025
• Deadline: 5 March 2025
• More details

4. Call for Abstracts: Media Literacy, Mis/Disinformation Research, and the Institute for Propaganda Analysis

• In 1937, a small group of scholars and philanthropists founded the Institute for Propaganda Analysis at the Columbia Teachers College, to combat what they saw as the grave threat to American democracy posed by propaganda. From 1937 to 1942, the IPA mounted a campaign to educate the American public (and students) on dishonest techniques used in rhetoric and became involved in the movement to develop anti-racist curricula for use in schools. The IPA’s trajectory provides a unique opportunity to examine historical parallels to these present-day developments and debates. We are particularly interested in exploring the history and political economy of media literacy efforts in different countries, comparative media perspectives on anti-racist education efforts, other examples of backlash against scholars and educators in these areas, and historical understandings of truth and manipulation in media and journalism.
• Deadline: 1 May 2025
• More details

5. New Resource: Close Reading Archive

• This archive was compiled in conjunction with John Guillory’s book On Close Reading, and focused on the history of close reading. In aggregate, the archive corroborates that the phrase “close reading” has remained in contentious circulation for nearly a century. Constructed on the principle of quotation rather than narration, the archive recovers a tacit discourse that is happening in, below, and through all sorts of other arguments. Searching permits you to gather your own harvest—whether of one critic’s discussions of “close reading,” an anthology of poems, or even a painting. Perhaps those who survey the archive will assemble their own alternative accounts—so much the better.
• More details

6. Call for Papers: Harold Lasswell and the Return of Propaganda: The Centenary of Propaganda Technique in the World War**

• Among the important events related to propaganda research whose tradition re-emerged in these first three decades of the 20th century, one stands out as a turning point: the first doctoral thesis on the subject, defended by political scientist Harold Lasswell in 1926 at the University of Chicago, which also celebrates its centenary. Published the following year, Propaganda Technique in the World War became the pioneering landmark in academic studies on war propaganda and transformed its author into the most important American expert on the subject for many years. This Esferas dossier celebrates not only the centenary of Harold Lasswell's thesis but also the approaching centenary of propaganda studies, founded on the need to understand this product of the media and which, despite its multiple facets, continues to present itself as an urgent problem to be interpreted in contemporary times.
• Deadline: 15 December 2025
• More details

7. Call for Abstracts: History of the Humanities Focus Area at 2025 History of Knowledge Conference (Lund)

• The History of the Humanities is one of six focus areas in the newly published Call for Papers for the second international History of Knowledge Conference on 8–10 October, 2025, to be held at Lund University, Sweden. The conference is hosted by the Lund Centre for the History of Knowledge (LUCK). The History of Knowledge Conference aims to gather scholars from different backgrounds to continue to develop the field of history of knowledge and inspire international collaboration. Confirmed keynote speakers are Robert Darnton (Harvard) and Susanne Schmidt (Berlin).
• Conference dates: 8–10 October 2025
• Deadline: 1 May 2025
• More details

8. Call for Papers: Society for U.S. Intellectual History

• The 2025 S-USIH Annual Conference will be held in Detroit, Michigan, on November 6-8, 2025. This year’s theme invites papers about creativity and renewal; the crossing of borders—of race, gender, class, nationality, religion, and culture—and the hybridized forms that result; the ways in which art, music, and dance become vehicles for intellectual debate and resistance; the nexus of capital, labor, and technology in the modern era; the dreams and failures of mid-twentieth century liberalism and urban policy; and the intersection of religion and social justice. We invite submissions that respond to the conference theme, but also welcome proposals that deal with any other aspect of U.S. intellectual history, broadly defined.
• Conference dates: 6–8 November, 2025
• Deadline: 1 May 2025
• More details

9. New Resource: Todd Gitlin papers, 1960-2020, bulk 1980-2005

• Todd Gitlin (1943-2022) was an activist, author, poet, and scholar of mass media at Columbia University. Only about half of this collection has been processed. Though this processed part of the collection contains material from Gitlin's entire adult life, including FBI files and correspondence related to his anti-war activities in the 1960s, the bulk is related to his academic and popular writing in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, on topics including politics, foreign policy, left-wing activism, and the legacy of the 1960s. Contents include personal and business correspondence, published and unpublished writings (including articles, book reviews, lectures and talks, book manuscripts, poetry, and screenplays and teleplays), research materials (mainly academic scholarship and clippings from newspapers and magazines), and notes
• More details

3. The Journal

History of Media Studies encourages submissions (en español) on the history of research, education, and reflective knowledge about media and communication—as expressed through academic institutions; through commercial, governmental, and non-governmental organizations; and through “alter-traditions” of thought and practice often excluded from the academic mainstream.

4. New Publications

Works listed here are newly published, or new to the bibliography.

The History of Communication Research Bibliography is a project of the Annenberg School for Communication Library Archives (ASCLA) at the University of Pennsylvania.

1. Aparicio Cuervo, Juan Ricardo. "Latin American, Caribbean, and Colombian Cultural Studies Trajectories: Cartographies of the Relation between Culture and Power in the Region." Critical Studies in Media Communication 41, no. 5 (2024): 500--509. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2024.2415581.

   ABSTRACT: This article presents a particular trajectory of Latin American and Caribbean intellectual practices as a contribution to the effort of pluralizing the various genealogies of Cultural Studies conversations, projects, and research and political agendas from a global perspective. It departs from what could be thought as a strategic port encompassing both the analytic of the complex, dynamic, and intertwined relation between culture and power and the recognition of intellectual practices as key elements not only for the diagnosis of the present conjuncture; but also for imagining and enabling other futures. From this vantage point, different intellectual traditions interpellated or not with the cultural studies label are described to historize the Cultural Studies project as one produced from the peripheries of the World System. The article argues that this was the pool of intellectual practices that inspired the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in Colombia in the 1990s. Finally, it describes some of the most pressing and relevant research agendas in the present while arguing that today Cultural Studies in the country is not only an academic project inside universities.

2. Carr, Nicholas. "The Tyranny of Now." The New Atlantis, 2025. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-tyranny-of-now.

   ABSTRACT: [first paragraph, in lieu of abstract] On the evening of May 25, 1947, the fellows of the Royal Society of Canada -- the country's leading scientists, artists, and intellectuals -- gathered at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City for a much-anticipated event: an address by the society's president, Harold Adams Innis. Innis was at the time a renowned academic in Canada and one of the most prominent political economists in the world. Through a series of expansive, meticulously researched books and articles tracing the development of basic Canadian industries -- rail transport, fur trading, fishing, timber, paper -- he had shaped his country's understanding not only of its economy but of its history and culture. The assembled dignitaries were eager to hear where the great scholar would take his work next. But the talk, entitled "Minerva's Owl," fell flat. A tedious, convoluted disquisition on knowledge and communication, seemingly disconnected from Innis's earlier work, it left the audience baffled and disappointed. It wasn't until four years later, when the lecture was published as the opening chapter of Innis's book The Bias of Communication, that it began to attract interest. Although it remained a challenging and often frustrating work in its written form, "Minerva's Owl" was also, for patient readers, a revelatory one. It made clear that Innis was engaged in a far-reaching exploration of the role of communication systems in shaping societies and their destinies. Drawing on examples ranging across the ages, from the etching of cuneiform characters on clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia to the use of radio as a propaganda tool in the years leading up to the Second World War, he explained how the arrival of a new communication medium often triggers "cultural disturbances" that alter the course of history. Media are much more than channels of information. They're instruments of political influence and imperial power, sculptors of civilization.

3. Cristofari, Gianmarco. "Understanding the 'Platform' Keyword: An Inquiry on the Contested Use of Metaphors in Platform Studies." Platforms & Society 1 (November 1, 2024): 1--13. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624241285294.

   ABSTRACT: The emerging field of platform studies has sparked an ongoing debate regarding the meaning and utility of the term "platform" within the academic community. This paper explores the contested nature of the term "platform," which has been employed as a metaphor, a conceptual framework for interpretation, and a keyword in digital discourse. The initial section traces the origins of platform discourse and the evolution of platform thinking. The second section utilizes cultural semiotics to reconstruct the metaphor's utility as a pragmatic instrument of knowledge. The third section delves into the contested meanings of the "platform" by mapping twenty metaphors employed by scholars in diverse fields, including management, political economy, software studies, urbanism, and economic sociology. This section also organizes the metaphors in four conceptual categories related to the operations of the digital platform. The final part offers reflections on the "platform" as a novel organizational form and assesses the overall usefulness of the term in academic discourse.

4. Newitz, Annalee. "This 1920s Debate Explains Why so Many Americans Hate the News Media." Scientific American, June 24, 2024. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-1920s-debate-explains-why-so-many-americans-hate-the-news-media/.

   ABSTRACT: [first paragraph, in lieu of abstract] In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson was having trouble ginning up support for the U.S. entry into the Great War. He found it nearly impossible to reach Americans with his message, distracted as they were by the deluge of information coming from movies, radio, telegrams and newspapers. To cut through his era's information overload, Wilson authorized roughly 75,000 American volunteers to deliver passionate, four-minute speeches about the U.S. war effort. They were called the Four Minute Men. The moniker came from the length of time it took to change film reels in early movie theaters, where these speeches were delivered. They were the TikToks of their era, delivered live during those brief four minutes between reel changes.

5. Sang, Yoonmo, Na Yeon Lee, and Soyoung Park. "Looking Back at Journalism Ethics Research over the Past Decade: An Analysis of Research in Digital Journalism, Journalism, Journalism Practice, and Journalism Studies, 2013--2022." Journalism 26, no. 2 (2025): 365--86. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241244712.

   ABSTRACT: This study aims to identify research trends and central concepts in the field of journalism ethics over the past decade. Focusing on four major journals-- Digital Journalism, Journalism, Journalism Practice, and Journalism Studies-- this article presents key findings from a topic modeling analysis of articles published between 2013 and 2022. An analysis of 1170 journalism ethics-related studies revealed the most salient topic to be closely related to "news making practices." This topic was followed by studies on social roles and values of journalism and ways to increase audiences' trust and credibility in news. This study also found differences in major topics across the four journals. The articles in Journalism tended to center on news producers' practices while approximately half of the articles in Digital Journalism focused on journalism practices in relation to technology and platforms. The second most studied topic in Journalism Practice were issues related to minority groups, such as women and children. Journalism Studies emphasized journalistic principles, such as transparency and credibility. While empirical assessments of the major trends in journalism ethics research have been lacking, this study helps fill this gap and establish a foundational understanding for future discussions on journalism ethics research, highlighting key recurring terms associated with journalism ethics.

6. Thomas, Linto, and V. Vijay Kumar. "From Analogue to Algorithm: The Metamorphosis of Music Production Techniques--an Integrated Literature Review." Journal of Creative Communications 20, no. 1 (2025): 73--95. https://doi.org/10.1177/09732586241281205.

   ABSTRACT: This research explores the transformation of music production (MP) from traditional to smart digital approaches. The background of the study is rooted in the rapid digital advancements in MP over the last few decades, leading to a more robust and compact MP progression. The research focuses on understanding the music industry's process and the impact of technology on MP, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). The research methodology employed is an Integrative Literature Review, based on both Scopus and Web of Science databases. After thoroughly examining titles and abstracts, 745 documents were identified as bibliographic data. From these, 40 selected articles were synthesised and analysed to identify patterns, influential authors, prominent journals and countries, dominant intellectual themes in MP, literature clustering and research gaps. The study classifies MP into four clusters: humanistic, technological, social and cultural and industrial perspectives. Each lens offers a unique vantage point to understand the intricate tapestry of the musical landscape. The findings reveal that AI has revolutionised MP, contributing to the creation of novel sounds, genres and music arrangements. It has also facilitated cross-cultural collaborations and reshaped the music business model. These findings imply that the intersection of technology and the music industry has transformed music creation, consumption and monetisation, presenting both challenges and opportunities for stakeholders. The study concludes that the future of MP is a captivating fusion of human creativity and technological prowess, where tradition and innovation coalesce to propel musical revolution to new heights.

7. Williams, Andrew. "The Herbert Schiller Papers and a Glimpse of Salvador Allende's Chile." Unique at Penn (blog), January 29, 2025. https://uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com/2025/01/29/the-herbert-schiller-papers-and-glimpses-of-salvador-allendes-chile/.

   ABSTRACT: [first paragraph, in lieu of abstract] In September 1970, Salvador Allende, a self-described Marxist and member of the Socialist Party of Chile, won the Chilean presidential election. Allende's administration set out to nationalize many of the country's industries and reorganize its economy, but the United States government and the Chilean right actively hindered the government's economic agenda and eroded national unity. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military staged a coup and took control of the country. After giving a farewell speech on live radio, Allende committed suicide as the military moved in to seize the Presidential Palace. Allende's government was replaced by a brutal military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet, which would rule the country until 1990. Allende's 1970 election was the first instance of a Marxist candidate winning a free election in the western hemisphere, and while his administration was feared by the United States government, scholars researching American imperialism and cultural dependency were eager to study Chile's socialist program.

8. Yue, Cen April, Alvin Zhou, Tyler G. Page, Jordan Morehouse, Luke W. Capizzo, and Elizabeth L. Toth. "The Past, Present, and Future of Internal Communication in Public Relations: A Computational Review of the Emerging Literature." Journal of Public Relations Research 37, no. 1--2 (2025): 4--30. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2024.2329543.

   ABSTRACT: Utilizing a full-text 15,926,460-word database of all peer-reviewed articles published in six public relations journals between 2012 and 2022 (N = 2,675), we employ a variety of computational methods to investigate the past, pre- sent, and future of internal communication in public relations. We first situate internal communication studies in the wider public relations literature, docu- ment its growth, identify a set of "internal-communication papers" (N = 407), and conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis. Next, we investigate the theoretical, empirical, and epistemological origins of internal communication by analyzing all identified internal communication papers' reference lists and providing core readings for the research community. Finally, we compare internal communication papers with non-internal-communication counter- parts, quantify literature gaps, and illuminate promising research directions to guide the future of internal communication studies.