Call for abstracts: Media and health in everyday life

Guest editors: Associate professor Anette Grønning, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark and Associate professor Helena Sandberg, Lund University, Sweden

Issue editor: Martina Skrubbeltrang Mahnke, Roskilde University, Denmark

 

Abstracts should contain a maximum of 500 words excluding references. It should include the research question(s) addressed, theoretical and methodological approaches. Abstracts should be submitted as Word-documents via our journal system at www.mediekultur.dk.

 

Deadline for abstract submission: May 1st, 2022

Acknowledgement of acceptance for full paper submission: May 15th, 2022

Deadline for full paper: September 1st, 2022

Deadline for revisions: December 15th, 2022

Expected publication: May 2023

 

 

Media and digital technologies are deeply embedded in our lives and activities across the globe. Thus, also influencing and transforming every day health practices by introducing new digital solutions and services, such as digital health communication, health websites and portals, fitness applications etc. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused further rapid changes to the healthcare system, wherein digital health solutions have become more relevant than ever. However, the digital and the analogue media still need to co-exist to safeguard inclusion and equal health for all. This special issue addresses the ways in which media technology contributes to reconfiguring health practices, health experiences, and the sense-making of health and illness, from an everyday perspective, a concept referring to the “(…) ordinary, often familiar, and taken for granted, the common-sensical (…) rarely theorized” (Bennett, 2005:1, see also Lefebvre, Rabinovitch & Wander, 2017).

 

We invite scholars to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of the digital transformation, the emotive and cognitive engagements, the interplay between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ practices, the conflicts, tensions and negotiations, as well as new and creative ways in which media and health practices are intertwined and played out in social, cultural, private, domestic, public and/or commercial domains. Concrete empirical analyses in the form of case studies, as well as methodological and theoretical discussions are welcome. We invite international contributions from all over the world and strive for diversity in terms of nationalities among the authors, as well as the perspectives and approaches within media and health studies, such as – to mention but a few – cultural studies, science and technology studies, actor network theory, phenomenology and existential media studies, multimodal and mediated discourse analysis, studies of (re)mediation and medium theory, comparative approaches, (digital) ethnography, and mixed method approaches.

 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Media use and media engagement in relation to content on health and illness (health journalism, health promotion/prevention campaigns, entertainment, reality drama, fiction, comedy and satire, autobiography etc) in news media, social media, and body media; in blogs/vlogs; pods; on platforms; in games; chat-groups and support groups; as well as apps
• Knowledge production on health and illness, identity construction and social mobilisation in relation to health and illness; narratives and experiences on health, diseases, suffering, death
• Analyses of individuals or groups of individuals’ (babies, children, teenagers, adults, parents/families, old persons, vulnerable groups, patients and/or their close ones), challenges and opportunities regarding specific mediated health practices in everyday life
• Critical and cultural perspectives: conflicts, tensions and negotiations of the digital transformation in relation to health and wellbeing, biological citizenship, medicalization
• New, playful, and creative ways in which media and health practices are intertwined and played out in social, cultural, private, domestic, public and or commercial domains