CFP: Media Futures

The Velvet Light Trap, Issue 98 (to be published Fall 2026)

Special Issue Theme: Media have always been a tool for us to imagine our possible futures. Dystopias, utopias, robotic dominance or human climate catastrophe, media help humanity play out the hopes, dreams, or nightmares of what’s to come. Scholarship on media futures has often focused on representations of the future, but also on how cultural and technological changes have shaped and are shaping everything from media production, creative labor, distribution, and audience reception. Algorithmic engines that shape taste help to determine what individuals choose to watch, A.I. systems create lifelike simulations of actors --living or dead--and generative media provides new tantalizing bespoke replacements for mass blockbusters.

            This issue hopes to explore these futures, through industrial, formal, cultural, theoretical, and other approaches, examining the impacts of accelerating change. For this issue, we welcome submissions that examine images and ideas concerning the future across media (film, television, music, video games, social media, etc.), geographies, industries, and receptions. Topic areas can include, but are not limited to: how potential futures have been figured, represented, and explored in media; the effects of technology and development on media industries, cultural, economic, and political changes in uncertain futures; utopias and dystopias; and A.I. and algorithmic creation and destruction. What media futures are coming? What possible futures have been envisioned? How have the creative industries historically coped with continual change?

Potential Topics for Themed Submissions:

●      Visions of the future in science fiction, dystopias, utopias, etc.

●      Changing Hollywood production in the age of rising global populism

●      The future of distribution and the precarity of the streaming paradigm

●      AI and its impacts on all forms of media creation, distribution, and reception

●      Media production training and creation in an uncertain audience landscape

●      Media academic work in the age of AI and data science

●      Audiences and algorithms

●      Conglomeration and consolidation in media industries

●      Actors, creators, artists and copyright in the future

●      New systems of content creation and distribution

●      Media financing in the age of high interest and tight money

●      Taste creation and political bubbling through algorithmic decision making

●      The future of media labor and labor organizing

●      Climate Change and the Anthropocene

●      Political and global instabilities

Open Submissions: The Velvet Light Trap is pleased to announce that, in addition to accepting submissions that relate to the above theme, it has begun accepting general submissions broadly related to the journal’s focus on critical, theoretical, and historical approaches to film and media studies. We aim to create a new space for scholarship that enhances the journal’s overall mission and work that continues the research conversations to which our themed issues have contributed. We hope that scholars inspired by the work published in our themed issues, past and present, will especially consider submitting their work. Even as our themes will continue to change each issue, we want to sustain ongoing investment in and investigation of the questions each issue of The Velvet Light Trap poses. 

Submission Guidelines: Please be aware that our editorial process requires us to consider all submissions—themed and open-call—for publication in a specific issue. We do not have a rolling deadline; all submissions received by the deadline listed below will be reviewed for possible publication in Issue 98. Acceptance for publication will depend on successful peer-review as well as the capacity of the issue in question. We cannot, unfortunately, defer publication to future issues. 

All submissions should be between 6,000–7,500 words (approximately 20-25 pages double-spaced), formatted in Chicago style. Please submit an electronic copy of the paper, along with a one-page abstract (no more than 100 words), both saved as Microsoft Word files. While images are not required for submissions, if your submission includes images, please ensure that they are high resolution and included as an image file separate from your Word files. Remove any identifying information so that the submission is suitable for anonymous review. The journal’s Editorial Board will referee all submissions. Send electronic manuscripts and/or any questions to thevelvetlighttrap@gmail.com.

All submissions are due September 21, 2025.