October 15, 2025

History of Media Studies Newsletter October 2025

History of Media Studies Newsletter October 2025

Welcome to the 53rd 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 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, November 19

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

In our next session, we will be discussing Mariano Zarowsky’s draft paper on draft paper on Seth Siegelaub, his International Mass Media Research Center, and collaborations with Armand Mattelart.

For the Zoom link and the reading download (not yet uploaded), 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. Armand Mattelart’s Intellectual Journey: A Free Online Discussion, 23 October

• Please join us for a free online discussion of Mariano Zarowsky’s From the Chilean Laboratory to World-Communication: Armand Mattelart’s Intellectual Journey, newly translated from its original Spanish and published as an open access book. The session, sponsored by mediastudies.press, will include simultaneous English-Spanish interpretation | Invitamos a una conversación por Zoom sobre la obra de Mariano Zarowsky, From the Chilean Laboratory to World-Communication: Armand Mattelart’s Intellectual Journey, recientemente traducida al inglés y publicada como libro de acceso libre. Habrá interpretación simultánea inglés-español.
• More details: English | Español

2. 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

3. CFP: Special Issue “Celebrating 60 Years of ELIZA? Critical Pasts and Futures of AI”

• The Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society calls for papers for a special issue marking the 60th anniversary of ELIZA, one of the first chatbots developed by Joseph Weizenbaum. Co-edited by Christian Strippel (Weizenbaum Institute) and Magnus Rust (University of Basel), the special issue invites interdisciplinary contributions exploring ELIZA’s legacy and its relevance to current debates on AI, including topics such as the anthropomorphization, commercialization, gendering, and mythologization of AI technologies. The deadline for abstract submission is November, 17, 2025. The Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society (WJDS) is an interdisciplinary, free open access journal that investigates processes of digitalization in society from the perspectives of different research areas.
• Deadline: 17 November 2025
• More details

4. CFP: Philosophy of Technology in Rhetoric & Writing Studies

• This collection invites interdisciplinary work that stages a conversation between rhetoric and the philosophy of technology, asking how frameworks from the philosophy of technology can deepen our understanding of (contemporary) technologies and the cultures they shape in Rhetoric & Writing Studies. While the collection foregrounds frameworks drawn from within the established canon of philosophy of technology—those figures formally recognized as philosophers of technology—any sustained analysis of technologies within RWS that operates as a kind of philosophy of technology in its own right is equally welcome.
• Deadline: 10 November 2025
• More details

3. The Journal

Newly published in History of Media Studies:

• Mariana de los Ángeles Ortega, “Perspectivas en torno a la configuración histórica de los estudios sobre medios indígenas en Argentina” | “Perspectives on the Historical Configuration of Indigenous Media Studies in Argentina” [research article]

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. Averbeck-Lietz, Stefanie, Leen d'Haenens, and Viviane Harkort. "Reclaiming the Past, Rethinking the Future: Marking 50 Years in Media and Communication Scholarship." Communications 50, no. 3 (2025): 587--89. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2025-0087.

   ABSTRACT: [first paragraph, in lieu of abstract] With this issue, Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research proudly commemorates its fiftieth anniversary. Founded in 1975 by the communication sociologist Alphons Silbermann, the journal has served as a vital platform for advancing European perspectives on media and communication research. This jubilee issue is both a tribute to the journal’s rich intellectual legacy and an invitation to re-engage with foundational texts through the lens of contemporary scholarship. This special issue adopts an experimental format designed to bridge past and present. We invited today’s leading scholars to revisit landmark articles published in Communications over the past five decades that once helped define the contours of the field and that continue to provoke, inspire, or challenge. Contributors were tasked not only with re-reading these texts, but with re-assessing them in light of current theories, methods, and societal transformations. Their reflections concern questions about what we can still learn from these earlier contributions, and what we must now reconsider in an era marked by digital media, datafication, algorithmic governance, and new forms of civic engagement and populism.

2. Averbeck-Lietz, Stefanie. "Alphons Silbermann (1909--2000) and the Founding of Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research." Communications 50, no. 3 (2025): 647--64. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2024-0196.

   ABSTRACT: This article contributes to the Jubilee issue of Communications on the occasion of the journal’s 50th birthday. Based on archive material and the publications of Alphons Silbermann in the journal (his editorials, book reviews, essays and articles) the role of the founding editor in establishing a European field of communication research is reflected. This role cannot be underestimated – at least not regarding the German context of the founding of the journal confronting Silbermann with a lot of hostilty from within the field – he answered in both terms, scientifically but also with his typical sarcasm visible in his book reviews.

3. Candidatu, Laura, and Koen Leurs. "Reclaiming the Radical: Feminist Legacies and the Transformative Power of Media Ethnography." Communications 50, no. 3 (2025): 596--606. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2024-0198.

   ABSTRACT: In this commentary, we respond to Kirsten Drotner’s foundational article “Media Ethnography: An Other Story?” published in Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research in 1999. Drotner’s text innovatively wove together the scholarly, intellectual, and social conditions that helped establish media ethnography as a key approach to studying everyday media use. Drotner issued a call to action, namely, to develop media ethnography by pursuing dialogue with feminist epistemologies and to attend to unheard voices and silenced experiences. This call has gained new relevance in the contemporary moment. Positivist logics and quantitative methodologies dominate research agendas and thereby risk to undermine interpretive qualitative media research. Continuing paths set out in Drotner’s original essay, this commentary traces the connections between media studies, cultural studies, anthropology, and feminist epistemologies that provided the groundwork for the ethnographic turn in media studies. Second, we discuss the transformations media ethnography has undergone in response to the digital turn over the course of the last three decades, reflecting on the challenges and opportunities presented by digitization and datafication. Continuing the dialogue with feminist epistemologies, we offer a critical reflection on digital ethnography, exploring how digital technologies reshape the epistemological concerns and research practices of media ethnographers.

4. Fanari, Alice, Mélodine Sommier, and Diyako Rahmani. "(Re)Defining Intercultural Communication Theorizing: Mapping the Current Landscape of the Field." Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 54, no. 5 (2025): 287--97. https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2025.2553612.

   ABSTRACT: This two-part special issue of the Journal of Intercultural Communication Research addresses the state of past, present, and future theorizing in intercultural communication scholarship. Articles in this issue touch on one or more of the following themes: engaging in theorizing, not theory; acknowledging identities and voices at the margins; questioning and resisting colonial legacies; prioritizing praxis and social engagement; and humanizing intercultural communication. The empirical and reflexive essays in this issue are guided by diverse theoretical perspectives and each provides a snapshot of the past, present, and future state of intercultural communication theorizing.

5. Hogan, Bernie. "To Construct or to Reveal? Network Analysis as Formalising Communication." Communications 50, no. 3 (2025): 623--32. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2025-0071.

   ABSTRACT: Social network analysis was forged from a need for bottom-up analysis that looked to the specific interactions between individuals rather than a top-down focus on larger abstract social systems. It started via graph theory, progressed through communication and sociology, and now infuses the very platforms we use for modern communication systems. While networks represent a powerful tool, they also have power in their own right as systematising devices. It is not only academics who have learned from networks, but also platform maintainers; Facebook, X, and LinkedIn are all networks of data representing people after all. With advances in modelling and visualisation, we should ask not only what the networks can tell us, but also whether the networks constrain us and our communication. By reviewing Rolf Wigand’s 1977 piece “Some Recent Developments in Organizational Communication: Network Analysis – A Systemic Representation of Communication Relationships,” we can reflect both on the advances in networks in the last 50 years but also the consequences of these advances for political polarisation, misinformation, and governance.

6. Kyriakidou, Maria. "Stereotyping the Foreigner: Revisiting Gumpert & Cathcart's Seminal Contribution." Communications 50, no. 3 (2025): 633--39. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2024-0183.

   ABSTRACT: Media stereotypes have been a persistent concern in media and communication studies, especially in the context of mediated images of cultural and national others. This paper discusses Gumpert and Cathart’s seminal 1983 contribution on the topic. Influenced by the field of social psychology, the authors emphasised the embeddedness of media stereotypes in social interaction and interpersonal communication. They also highlighted how the media perpetuate stereotypes by emphasising cultural differences. Evaluating Gumpert and Cathart’s analytical framework more than forty years later, this paper argues that little has changed in terms of media stereotypes, despite advances in technology and diversity in representations.

7. Ortega, Mariana de los Ángeles. "Perspectivas En Torno a La Configuración Histórica de Los Estudios Sobre Medios Indígenas En Argentina." History of Media Studies 5 (September 2025): 1--31. https://doi.org/10.32376/d895a0ea.19043481.

   ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to analyze the historical course of Indigenous communication studies in Argentina within the broader context of Latin America. To this end, it explores the concepts, institutions and biographies of the actors involved in the process of emergence and incipient institutionalization of an analytical field of its own from the early 2000s to the present day. It seeks to characterize the analytical dimensions and to highlight the incidence of the socio-political context in the birth of interest in researching this phenomenon. Finally, it points out the interdisciplinary, emergent and liminal character of this incipient body of studies. The text is based on the survey and analysis of the bibliographical production generated and consultation with pioneering researchers. | El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el curso histórico de los estudios sobre comunicación indígena en Argentina dentro del contexto amplio de Latinoamérica. Para ello, indaga en los conceptos, instituciones y biografías de los actores involucrados en el proceso de emergencia e incipiente institucionalización de un campo analítico propio desde principios de los 2000 hasta la actualidad. Busca caracterizar las dimensiones analíticas y destacar la incidencia del contexto socio-político en el nacimiento del interés por investigar este fenómeno. Por último, señala el carácter interdisciplinario, emergente y liminal de esta arena epistémica. El texto se apoya en el relevamiento y análisis de la producción bibliográfica generada y en la consulta a investigadores pioneros.*

8. Roe, Keith. "Making Progress in a Trackless, Weightless and Intangible Space." Communications 50, no. 3 (2025): 640--46. https://doi.org/10.1515/commun-2024-0185.

   ABSTRACT: In 2001 Denis McQuail published an article in Communications in which he reflected on conceptual problems in media “gratifications” research and proposed some ways in which “media use” research could go forward. Two years later (McQuail, 2003), in a response to a debate article by me (Roe, 2003), he wrote an article bearing the same title as the one above in which he broadened the discussion to the overall identity and state of the discipline of communication science at that time. The purpose of this article is to do the same with respect to the current state of the discipline and suggest some possible future directions.

9. Simonson, Peter. "Foreword to the English Translation." In From the Chilean Laboratory to World-Communication: Armand Mattelart's Intellectual Journey, by Mariano Zarowsky. Mediastudies.press, 2025. https://doi.org/10.64629/3f8575cb.2e7c5a9a.

   ABSTRACT: [first paragraph, in lieu of abstract] Armand Mattelart has produced one of the most important bodies of work on communication over the last half century. Yet, somehow, he is poorly known in the English-speaking world and only selectively read beyond it. How that gap came to be is itself a worthy question, but my main aim here is to introduce this translation of Mariano Zarowsky’s outstanding study of Mattelart for Anglophone readers. The book not only illuminates the intellectual trajectory of a remarkable global figure, but it also gives us the resources to belatedly incorporate him into our current thinking and practice.

10. Vekua, Konstantin. "Toronto School of Communication Theory." New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communications 5, no. 1 (2025). https://doi.org/10.7202/1119827ar.

    ABSTRACT: Toronto School of Communication Theory is not only a success story but also avision and practice of creating and building the country's intellectual future. For decades,scholars at Canada's leading university have contributed to their homeland's originaldevelopment, choosing the paradigm of orientation between economy and history, differentfrom the development paths of the United States and Europe. Finding one's niche in the worldof ideas and innovations is a result of the need to overcome the challenges faced by society.For this purpose, collective intellect is one of the efficient tools that the illustriousrepresentatives of the School of Communication Theory in Toronto offer. Multidisciplinarity, asa working method, has profoundly influenced the evolution of the concept of communication inthe university environment, which contributed to the growth of contemporary political thought(and not only) in Canada and abroad.

11. Zarowsky, Mariano. From the Chilean Laboratory to World-Communication: Armand Mattelart's Intellectual Journey. Mediastudies.press, 2025. https://doi.org/10.64629/3f8575cb.08e7ds72.

    ABSTRACT: From the Chilean Laboratory to World-Communication follows Armand Mattelart’s intellectual trajectory through Cold War geopolitics and the rise of critical communication studies in Latin America and Europe. First published in Spanish, Mariano Zarowsky’s study traces Mattelart’s path from his early work in demography and law, through his political engagement in Salvador Allende’s Chile, to his later role in shaping debates in France and globally on media, cultural politics, and transnational communication. The book offers a rich account of Mattelart’s life and work, and the shifting political, institutional, and epistemological contexts that shaped his thinking and progressive activism. Along the way, it illuminates his distinctive style of research in relation to Anglophone political economy and other strands of critical research. In doing so, Zarowsky positions Mattelart as a theorist whose work emerged from—and continues to speak to—global struggles over culture, knowledge, and power and relations between the Global North and South. As the first English edition of Zarowsky’s landmark study, From the Chilean Laboratory to World-Communication, will appeal to scholars of critical communication studies, Latin American and transnational cultural theory, and those working on the history of the social sciences across global contexts.