A special issue of TMG - Journal for Media History will focus on transnational journalism history.

Transnational journalism history acknowledges that cultural forms are produced and exchanged across borders. It focuses on the interactions between agents, ideas, innovations, norms and social and cultural practices beyond national boundaries, as well as the way these interactions affect the incorporation and adaption of new ideas, concepts, and practices into national frameworks. By moving back and forth between the national and transnational level, the connective and dialectic nature of these movements is emphasized. It thus treats the nation as only one level or context among a range of others, instead of being the primary frame for analysis.

This special issue aims to critically interrogate and go beyond the national frameworks within which historical developments of journalism are generally studied. Due to its institutional organization and topical focus, journalism historiography has traditionally been confined to national boundaries. This holds true for studies restricted to the development of journalism in one country, like most press histories, as well as studies that take nations as units for comparative research. Differences and, to a lesser extent, similarities in professional practices and news coverage are usually discussed as autonomous developments and ascribed to national peculiarities. The special issue intends to bring together papers that open new venues for research that move beyond this national boundary. Articles are invited that relate to transnational journalism that (particularly, but not exclusively) focus on one of these areas:

• Theoretical and methodological reflections on transnational journalism.
• Transnational journalistic networks.
• Journalists or publishers who were influential “transfer agents."
• Transnational impact on journalistic genres.
• Adaptation of foreign examples in a national context.
• Case studies of transnational reporting.
• Case studies that rely on digital humanities methods (for example, text mining or network analysis).

Guidelines

Those interested should submit an abstract of maximum 350 words that clearly outlines a research question, relevance of the topic, a theoretical/historical framework, justification of research material and approach, and main argument.

Send proposals to the editors: Frank Harbers (f.harbers@rug.nl) and Marcel Broersma (m.j.broersma@rug.nl). The deadline is Jan. 15, 2020. Authors will be notified of acceptance by the end of January 2020.

Tentative timeline

The authors of the accepted abstracts will be invited to contribute a full article (maximum 8,000 words, excluding references and bibliography). The deadline for the full papers is May 29, 2020. It is also possible to contribute a non-peer reviewed piece (between 4,000-6,000 words).

TMG - Journal for Media History is an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal, published in the Netherlands. Its aim is to promote and publish research in media history. It offers a platform for original research and for contributions that reflect theory formation and methods within media history. For more information and author guidelines, see: https://www.tmgonline.nl/.