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Scope: An On-line Journal of Film Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue: Convergence and Divergence in the Media

With the advent of cable and satellite, digital television, the Internet and home cinema, claims by manufacturers and critics that new disparate media are integrating or converging are gathering momentum. However, recent scenes from reality television series The Osbournes, in which Ozzy Osbourne is shown pummelling his universal remote control in frustration, indicate that consumer relationships with these converging media are anything but straightforward. In fact, equal claims can be made for increasing levels of divergence among these media, with numbers of media and products attempting to create and delineate new markets for themselves. This special issue of Scope is intended to investigate the relationships between the media and their producers and consumers in order to better understand the points at which these media are undergoing processes of convergence and divergence.

Attempts to create such new markets for media and their hardware often centre on the presence of film. Film forms the basis for the premiere channels on satellite and cable television, it provides the locus for DVD and video and it has been central to the development of home cinema. Film as content therefore provides a link between the development of even the most disparate media technologies be they soft- or hardware in form. Equally these new media have the power to shift the meanings of film in popular culture. The Editors would like to encourage submissions that account for local, national, transnational and global approaches to these new media. We therefore also strongly encourage submissions from a wide range perspectives including political economy, cultural policy, marketing and mediation, reception and aesthetics.

Submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics are welcomed:

Digital television: changing the cultural meanings of TV
Interactivity in the new media
Marketing and retailing home cinema
"Lifestyle" cinema: the design of home cinema
Dolby and THX in the home and in cinemas
Consumers of home cinema and digital technologies
The digital TV revolution (?): Freeview and the BBC
TiVo and Sky et al: consumer freedom or spying on consumers?
Cable and satellite film channels
Film and/on the Internet
Film and the music video
New media and film piracy/regulation
Quality and the impact of home cinema technologies (including surround sound, flat screens, plasma screens etc.)
Film and/in DVD technologies
Competing spaces of exhibition: domestic and public
Going out/Staying in: audiences and the different cultural uses of film
Computers and entertainment: films, games and interactivity
Hierarchies of viewing: film across the media
The family and film
Nationality and film on satellite and cable TV

Due date for submissions: 1st September 2004

Editors: Mark Jancovich, Gianluca Sergi and Rayna Denison

Submissions to the Journal should contain a short 200 word abstract, be between 5,000 and 7,000 words in length, double-spaced and should follow the Scope Submission Guidelines (to be found at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/journal/submiss.htm). Any queries about submissions for the special issue are welcome. To submit a paper or query please contact Rayna Denison at arxrld@nottingham.ac.uk. The closing date for submissions is 1st September, 2004. In accordance with the Submission Guidelines 2 full copies of papers and a floppy disk can also be sent by post to:

Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies
C/o School of American and Canadian Studies
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD

Scope is an entirely free online journal of film studies edited by staff and students within the Institute of Film Studies at the University of Nottingham. As our title suggests, we provide a forum for discussion of all aspects of film history, theory and criticism. It is our belief that an electronic publication such as Scope can best serve its readers interests by promoting as wide a range of approaches and critical methodologies as possible.

As a fully refereed journal, Scope is dedicated to publishing material of the highest scholarly quality and interest, and to this end we have assembled a distinguished international advisory board of professional academics and critics. While we welcome contributions from established writers, we are also keen to act as a supportive environment within which those new to the field of film studies can publish their first work.

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Received on Sat Jan 10 2004 - 19:55:25 EST