Mediascape

Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

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Submissions

UCLA's film, television, and digital media e-journal, Mediascape, is now accepting submissions for its next issue. This journal, a place for articles pertaining to visual culture, is peer-reviewed and published on an annual table. The deadline for the next issue is the 15th of February 2008.

Features:

The features section is seeking articles that consider themes and variations of comedy within all areas of media studies.

The comedic text, often touted as universal, but frequently catering to individual tastes, thrives in highbrow culture and lowbrow entertainment alike. Functioning as a release or act of enlightenment, the belly laugh, the titter, the yowl, the boffo will find its way to the surface. From the silent mime to the viral video, in what way does the comic of the past reflect on the wit of the future? How has technology, the present day means of production and distribution, and the changing venues of exhibition, affected humorous content? With an expanding multi-platform marketplace, what impact does culture have on comedy and what does the subject offer in return? From the carnival, to the multiplex, to the iPod, what keeps us laughing?

Topics may include, but are not limited to:  

Feature submissions should offer a unique perspective on film, television, and digital media and are encouraged to address more than one area of moving image culture. Please direct feature section questions, proposals, and submissions to msmukler@ucla.edu

Features Philosophy:

Taking into account the increasingly blurry line between the many different components of the modern media landscape, the features section takes an inter-disciplinary and inter-media approach to scholarly discourse on the three main facets of contemporary visual culture: film, television and digital media. As such, the section seeks contributions from all areas within media studies, from film theory to moving image archiving, and welcomes contributions from other academic fields, such as history, literature, music, economics, political science, etc., as well as from media practitioners outside of academia altogether.

To submit a feature article, please email a short bio and a copy of your manuscript in Word format to Maya Smukler at msmukler@ucla.edu. For the purposes of confidentiality during the double blind peer review, please include both your bio and your personal contact information in the accompanying email only, rather than in the word document. Feature submissions should range from between 15 to 25 manuscript pages. Though articles should be of a high level of scholarly rigor, the journal will not be read exclusively by media scholars. Writing should therefore be readable enough to be enjoyed by those outside of the field of media studies and indeed outside of the academy altogether.

Reviews:

The reviews section is seeking reviews of comedy in any mediated form.  The object of review can be a film, a TV program, a website, a toy, an advertisement, a piece of hardware, a movie review, an academic conference—anything.  The comedy can be intentional or otherwise.  Questions that may arise include: 

Please direct reviews section questions, proposals, and submissions to brianhu@ucla.edu.
Reviews should be a minimum of 2,500 words, although exceptions may be granted. There is no maximum word limit, provided work is readable, structured, and visually appealing in the online format.

Reviews philosophy:

Mainstream film, television and digital media reviewing tends to be constrained by an industry model that requires writers to gain access to the objects of their review through publicity agents, press kits and press screenings, leading to a homogeneity of perspectives, and limiting reviews to objects that are newly available for purchase—in effect reducing these reviews to simple announcements of the latest releases. This model also limits reviews to the film/TV/digital media text, which essentially gives industrial and business factors a free pass. For these reasons, Mediascape's reviews section calls for reviews written outside of the industry model described above. This means examining not only film, television and digital media texts, but also the institutions and apparatuses that shape the way we as consumers, fans, and academics make meaning of them -- institutions such as festivals, books, award shows, restorations, fan magazines, conferences, DVDs, press kits, movie theaters, peer-to-peer technologies, soundtracks, televisions, advertising, reviews, websites, retailers, or any combination of the above.

Columns:

Machinima has quickly become one of the most interesting new forms of filmmaking in the last decade (or two). In the process it has challenged conventional production practices and has destabilized many of the key terms and theories in film studies. This issue of the columns section is seeking short papers (800-1500 words) and machinima examples that can elucidate the importance of machinima for film studies.

Topics may or may not address:

Please submit columns and inquiries to beatnikd@ucla.edu by January 1, 2008.

Meta:

Research, publication, and presentation are all integral parts of academic scholarship, and yet there are very few opportunities for scholars to explicitly discuss the challenges, rewards, and methods of those practices. MediascapeMETA hopes to provide a forum in which cinema and media students and scholars can discuss all facets of academic and professional cinema and media scholarship.

In our continued commitment to widening discussion of the value, limitations, and future of scholarly pursuit within the academy, MediascapeMETA also seeks to open a space where non-traditional forms of academic publication and research can be widely disseminated and discussed. We believe that today’s oddities may yet prove tomorrow’s exemplars.

For that reason, MediascapeMETA not only seeks papers discussing academic and professional scholarship, but also examples of scholarly work that defies traditional categories of research and publication. We welcome submission of podcasts, online tools, hypertext or flash experiments, and we also seek new approaches to more conventional forms such as the academic article, essay, and book. Our intention is that these works provide concrete examples of new and intriguing scholarly methods in research and publication, regardless of format, and, as such, will inspire further discussion of the forms and functions of scholarly work.

Please submit your paper or project to Bill McClain at WMcClain@ucla.edu by January 1, 2008. If your finished project cannot be easily transmitted to MediascapeMETA, please contact our editor as soon as possible to discuss the technical requirements for their project’s publication on our website.

General Guidelines:

All submissions should follow MLA Style guidelines and should employ the parenthetical, in-text method of source citation and comply with the following formatting requirements:

  1. No cover page, with title instead centered at the top of the first page of the articl
  2. Language of document set to English
  3. Double spaced paragraphs in 12 point font
  4. Margins: top - 1" left - 1" right 1" bottom 1.25" to accommodate footer
  5. Endnotes rather than footnotes
  6. Images correctly sized outside of word (sizing them in word slows web editing process) and then placed within the word document's layout where they should appear at publication

Because of the peer review and editorial processes of the journal's different sections, it may take as long as eight weeks for decisions on submissions to reach the writers.
General email inquiries can also be sent to Jennifer Porst at jenporst@mac.com.

Mediascape Copyright Policy:

Articles appearing in Mediascape are accepted on the basis that the material is the original, uncopied work of the author or authors. The ownership of manuscripts for publication in Mediascape shall reside with the author(s), though Mediascape reserves exclusive first rights of publication. This means that Mediascape alone may publish the article for the first time, and the author(s) may not publish the piece elsewhere for a period of 6 months following initial publication.

Following the 6 month first-rights period, the author will retain full rights and ownership to the material, and will be free to re-publish the manuscript elsewhere, provided that full and appropriate credit for first publication be given to Mediascape. In exchange for retaining author ownership rights post-publication, Mediascape requires that authors not submit their manuscripts simultaneously to other journals/publishers while under consideration for publication in Medisascape.

Note on images: Mediascape uses images by permission of the original creator(s), or under the parameters and protections afforded non-profit, educational use by the principles of Fair Use.