AHC professor edits special issue of Media, War & Conflict to mark its 15-year anniversary
The special issue of Media, War & Conflict began life as a pre-conference at the International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference in Toronto, Canada, in May 2023
School of Media and Communication Professor and co-editor of the Media, War & Conflict journal, Katy Parry, has published a special issue celebrating the journal’s first fifteen years of research (2008-2022).
The special issue of Media, War & Conflict began life as a pre-conference at the International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference in Toronto, Canada, in May 2023, titled ‘Reimagining the Field of Media, War and Conflict in the Age of Information Disorder’, supported by the ICA Visual Communication division.
Professor Katy Parry, who edited the special issue, said:
“As editors of the Sage journal Media, War & Conflict, we wanted to reflect on how new actors, technologies, and global power struggles have challenged the relationship between media and conflict in the 15 years since our first issue was published in April 2008. We are delighted that early career researchers, and especially women researchers from a variety of global regions, are well represented in our selection of articles.
“In the editorial introduction, which is freely accessible to read, I briefly outline the key areas of research published in the first 15 years of Media, War & Conflict, drawing on journal data about the patterns of authorship, themes and conceptual frameworks.”
The special issue includes six articles. The Russian war in Ukraine features prominently, with the first four articles providing analysis that covers a range of communicative practices and media platforms, from western news coverage of Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to politicians, activists and influencers on Twitter/X and TikTok.
The fifth article continues a focus on TikTok digital activism, tracing the varying viral success of feminist campaigns in response to the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran, and the #HandsOffMyHijab movement following the niqab and hijab ban in France.
The final article explores the experiences of exiled Burundian journalists in Rwanda who are required to adapt their practice in the face of myriad challenges, including a lack of funding and issues with verifying reports from across the border.
Together, the articles in this special issue show how sensemaking about war and conflict manifests across a variety of media spaces and genres, which therefore require a range of suitable analytical approaches.
