CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS UCLA’s film, television, and digital media e-journal, Mediascape, is now accepting submissions for the Features, Reviews, Columns and Meta sections of 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 1st of January, 2007. Features: 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. The guiding principle uniting these contributions will be the perspectives, however disparate, that they offer on the mediascape that is common to all of us as media scholars, practitioners and consumers. Submissions for the features section need not address the larger issues described above, so long as they offer a unique perspective on film, television, digital media, or any other aspect of moving image culture, preferably encompassing more than one. 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. To submit a feature article, please email a short bio and a copy of your manuscript in Word format to [log in to unmask] 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. Rarely, exceptions will be made with regard to length in either direction; however, it is strongly recommended that the author stay within the 15-25 page range. Reviews: 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, and 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, 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. The reviews section also seeks to become a forum for the international exchange of ideas and perspectives, in order to break from the local or national centrism of conventional review journalism. However, there is no pretension of possessing a “global” viewpoint. Instead, contributors should bring to the forum their own cultural locatedness in hopes of contributing to a larger, international exchange of ideas. In pursuit of a more complete comprehension of global film circulation and reception, Mediascape’s review section is also interested in publishing foreign language reviews in English and vice versa. Please direct reviews section questions, proposals, and submissions to [log in to unmask] 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. Columns: This issue’s columns section is seeking short papers (800-1500 words) on the dividing and converging nature of the hardware/software split. This can be on anything from the relationship between Microsoft and Intel, to the solid state memory of the Rosetta Stone, to the DVR and the iTV, to the tower of Babel, to the emergence of cloudware. All perspectives are welcome, as long as they are current, timeless, and exuberant. Non-traditional New Media-esque "essays" are also welcome and will be greatly appreciated. Please submit columns and inquiries to ([log in to unmask]) by January 1, 2007. Meta: Recent scholarship in media studies acknowledges a change in the objects of our study with the digital revolution: a convergence of media at both the formal and industrial organizational levels. As films are more often screened on television sets—whether through cable television, VHS, DVD, or On Demand services—than exhibited in theaters, and as both films and television shows are increasingly viewed streaming through computer monitors or mobile accessories of varying sizes and capacities, how do the theoretical tools and terms of media studies apply or simply fail to apply to these new exhibition venues and the industrial strategies developed to cater to them? While our contemporary object of study may have arguably converged, the theoretical bodies and borders within our discipline do not yet seem as porous. Is it necessary to conceive of the study of digital media forms, despite technologically-specific concerns, as a trajectory continuing and morphing, rather than breaking, from the media scholarship that has come before it? How do we integrate, rather than antagonize, the insights various schools of thought within cinema, television, and digital media studies individually bring to the media studies table? Rather than reiterate the call for new terms and concepts specific to digital media, this edition of the meta section seeks to challenge scholars to rethink and refurbish important terms and concepts from “media studies past” to put today’s mediascape in perspective. Hopefully this will challenge us to think beyond a model of scholarship built solely on notions of “progress” (‘that was then, this is now’), and perhaps inspire us to further converge theories to suit a converged object of study. Please write a brief position paper (2000-3500 words) responding to the questions posed above and engaging in the following experiment: Re-appropriate one term or concept from media studies scholarship produced prior to 1990. Determine how and if this term or concept is viable or useful when used to describe digital media. Feel free to suggest how a rearticulation or retrofitting of the term or concept would be necessary. Please submit Meta papers to Candace Moore ([log in to unmask]) by January 1, 2007. 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 article 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 [log in to unmask] Thank you all! Jonathan Cohn [log in to unmask] ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]