VideoActivism - A Special Call for Submissions to Kairos PraxisWiki 

For this special issue we invite multimodal submissions composed in or analyzing video. Computers and composition and intersecting fields have long been committed to social justice aims. Feminist pedagogies (Blair & Takayoshi, 1999; Blair, Gajjala, & Tulley, 2009), racial inequalities (Arola, 2012; Banks, 2006; Nakamura, 2002), issues of access related to class (Grabill, 2003; Selfe & Selfe, 1994) and ability (Dunn & Dunn de Mers, 2002), and much, much more have been theorized and researched over the past several decades. These threads continue today, particularly with a contemporary focus on social media’s use in social justice movements (Goodling, 2015; Shapiro, 2015).
 

Simultaneously, computers and composition scholars have developed composing and research methods using video for pedagogical (Adams, 2014; Baepler & Reynolds, 2014; Briggs, 2014; Dubisar & Palmeri, 2010; VanKooten, 2016; VanKooten & Berkley, 2016) and methodological purposes (Gonzales, 2017; Halbritter & Lindquist, 2012; Shivers-McNair, 2017). Less research has been published in computers and composition on the use of video composition for activist, critical, or subversive purposes.
 

In this special issue, we aim to explore the rhetorical affordances and compositional possibilities of linking these two areas explicitly together.  We are thus interested in contributions utilizing remixes, mashups, DIY citizen footage, and other compositions that engage activist and protest theories, methodologies, methods, and/or practices that emphasize video production in some form. Submissions can emerge from a variety of disciplines, but should be relevant to digital writing scholars and practitioners. Submissions may consider the following questions:

• Does video composition enhance or challenge traditional activism theories?
• What is the role of a particular theory, such as affect theory, in facilitating videoactivism?  
• What research methods support video scholarship on activism?
• How are video composition and video research methods informed by recent theoretical developments in new materialism, affect/emotion, and embodiment?
• How might researchers address the ethical implications of conducting research with video?
• What are the limitations of using video to facilitate social justice movements?
• What types of DIY activism is enabled through the modality of video?
• How can mobile technologies enable, provide, and/or change opportunities for videoactivism?
• How does grassroots activism shape news cycles and/or other media ecologies?
• How have video-broadcasting interfaces such as Facebook Live impacted activist movements like #HandsUpDon’tShoot, #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, #TakeAKnee?

To submit a query or proposal for this special issue of Kairos PraxisWiki, please email mattavetter@gmail.com or kristimcduffie@gmail.com by Feb. 28, 2019.