Announcements

Call for Papers | Everyday Life in Digital Landscape

Everyday life offers an endless array of subjects to ponder upon. The sheer importance of research and discussion on quotidian life does not escape our notice even under its obviousness (Jacobson, 2009). In short, doing things in everyday life should no longer be obscured, rather it is to be articulated based on theoretical questions (de Certeau, 1988). However, theoretical focus on happenings are scarce, therefore the quotidian concept calls for a critical analysis of their cultural sites and practices (Devadas & Prentice, 2008).

     Years before, Schuetz (1945) encapsulated the same idea of everyday life when he said, the world of everyday life is the scene and the object of people’s actions and interactions. Further, the emphasis on everyday in social sciences enhances the focus towards the secondary characters and thereby to the mass of the audience (de Certeau, 1988). On the other hand de Certeau (1988) also warns that everyday life flourishes itself by intruding on the property of others in countless ways.

     Previous scholarship in the concept of everyday life suggests that it has a lot to do with temporal, spatial and social dimensions. Lefebvre’s (1991) notion of everyday life treats it as a locus of social struggles and resistance. In the realm of communication studies, everyday life, according to Lefebvre (1991), seeks for an understanding in which power is studied as a mundane concept. From cultural studies to theories of domestication, everyday life took a large leap in focussing on the integration of media technologies at home. The concept has immense scope to be explored in this era of digital media (Ytre-Arne, 2023).

      Digital media has seeped into our everyday life and has catalysed the transformation of the world. We now have newer ways of socialization, economy, political movements and much more. Rapid diffusion of smartphones and uninterrupted connectivity aids this shift, offering room for a series of debates and discourses. Moreover, intertwined and enmeshed with the quotidian life of people and digital media, both people and things get shaped mutually. A series of unplanned/planned, small/big, expected/unexpected events stand as the potential causes that impact our media usage. The same can be exemplified when our mundane media use underwent a change during and after COVID – 19 pandemic (Ytre-Arne, 2023). Further, the restrictions and inequality being the undesirable practices in everyday circumstances create a divide in the usage of media.

     Furthermore, the incursion of algorithms into our lives has begun to pose many questions including how our everyday life is composed by these new technologies (Neyland, 2019). In a posthuman ontology, the everyday life of both people as well as things emerge as significant entities that have distributed agencies in a networked assemblage. Among other questions concerning algorithms, it is argued that opaque algorithms guide the routinized practices in the digital world and thus the notion of engaging with power in the everyday life of algorithms and users becomes important. Challenging algorithmic power that sidelines everyday life (Neyland, 2019) constitutes our everyday struggle against algorithmic bias and capitalism (Barassi, 2015). Capitalism has also introduced an imperial mode of living impacting our everyday life either reducing us to responding to the culture of speed (Berg & Seeber, 2016) or living a life of an indebted man enslaved to machines (Lazzarato, 2011).  

The current issue of Communication and Culture Review problematizes how media, space, capitalism, labour and digital landscape constitute the everyday life of digital technology users. We welcome submissions on (but are not limited to) the following topics:

  • Epistemological, methodological and theoretical perspectives for studying media in everyday context
  • Critical Approaches to the platformization of the everyday
  • Case studies of (local and global) transitions at the intersections of the digital and everyday
  • Interplays of power, power relations and digital divide
  • Ubiquitous relationships formed around our engagements with the digital
  • Building novel imaginaries and vocabularies for navigating the digital everyday
  • Discourses on digital citizenship, digital State and digital democracy
  • Digital media literacy, digital activism, digital privacy and rights
  • Critical inquiry into the role, nature and scope of the digital for social justice

References

Barassi, V. (2015). Activism on the web: Everyday struggles against digital capitalism. Routledge.

Berg, M. & Seeber, B. K. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. University of Toronto Press. 

de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life (S. Rendall, Trans.). University of California Press.

Jacobson, M.H. (2009). The everyday: An introduction to introduction. In M.H Jacobson (Ed.), Encountering the everyday: An introduction to the sociology of the unnoticed (pp. 1-41). Bloomsbury.

Lazzarato, M. (2011). The making of the indebted man: An essay on the neoliberal condition (J. D. Jordan, Trans). Semiotext(e). 

Lefebvre, H. (1991). Critique of everyday life: Foundations for a sociology of the everyday. Verso. 

Neyland, D. (2019). The everyday life of an algorithm. Palgrave Macmillan. 

Perintice, C & Devadas, V. (2008). Postcolonial studies and the cultural politics of everyday life. Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, 5(1), 1-19.

Schutz, A. (1945). On multiple realities. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 5(4), 533 -576.

Ytre-Arne, B. (2023). Media use in everyday life. Emerald Publishing.

Important dates

- Abstract submission: April 20, 2024 (Abstract length not more than 350 words)
- Intimation of selected abstracts: May 15, 2024
- Full Paper submission: August 26, 2024 (Full paper should not exceed 8000 words)
- Notification of selected papers for peer review: September 15, 2024
- Intimation of final acceptance/correction/rejection: November 20, 2024
- Publication of the issue: December 20, 2024

  • Disability and Media

    2026-09-28

    Disability and Media

    We invite original research and theoretical papers that address a broad range of topics related to disability,  crip design and infrastructures, disability rights and advocacy, inclusivity, assistive technologies, media representation, new materialist reading of disability and intersectionality. Our aim is to contribute to interdisciplinary dialogue and expand the understanding of disability through diverse and inclusive scholarly work. 

    Submission deadline (Abstract): February 5, 2027

    Full manuscripts due: April 30, 2027

     

    Read more about Disability and Media

  • Special Issue on Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2026: Algorithmic Publics and Psephological Ruptures

    2026-09-28

    Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2026: Reflections on Political Publics and Psephological Ruptures

    This special issue invites scholarly research works that deploy the empirical rigour of the Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2026 in which Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, a party established a couple of years ago by a Tamil film superstar, C Joseph Vijay has captured power. Further, the electoral event becomes a site for broader theoretical and methodological inquiry into the formation of algorithmic publics, thereby contributing across the three distinct registers of academic inquiry which include political communication, psephology and populism studies. 

    Submission deadline (Abstract): October 30, 2026

    Full manuscripts due: February 10 , 2027

     

    Read more about Special Issue on Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2026: Algorithmic Publics and Psephological Ruptures

  • Special Issue on Democracy in Motion: Electoral Practices Worldwide

    2026-09-28

    Special Issue on Democracy in Motion: Electoral Practices Worldwide

    This special issue of the Journal of Communication and Culture Review (CCR) invites scholarly contributions that critically examine the intersections of elections, communication practices, and cultural contexts across the world. We seek comparative, interdisciplinary, and global perspectives that explore how political communication is shaped by media systems, cultural identities, technological affordances, and historical legacies.

    Submission Deadline: 31 December 2026.

     

     

    Read more about Special Issue on Democracy in Motion: Electoral Practices Worldwide