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CFP – Resistance and Mediation in the US: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Debates

Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot and Sébastien Mort

Because they seek to challenge hegemonic structures and discourses, processes of resistance are closely intertwined with issues pertaining to media coverage and exposure (Syvertsen 2017). Insofar as information technologies and practices are instrumental in gaining and keeping power—whether it is political, economic, or cultural—mediation processes reflect and inform the tensions that run across the public sphere (Chadwick 2017). These processes are both the locus and the condition for the emergence of consensus and the expression of dissensus. As such, they are situated at the heart of significant tensions that need to be examined. The First Amendment, which protects freedom of the press and enshrines it as one of the founding principles of American democracy, assigns the news media a key role in structuring power relationships. While the control of legacy media (print, radio, television) is often associated with dominant classes (in part due to entry costs in the industry), digital media have upended the balance of power and opened the way to new forms of media resistance (Crossley, 2016). This special issue of InMedia-The French Journal of Media Studies invites articles in English that employ a historical and/or sociological lens to interrogate the media as instruments and places of resistance (Couldry et Curran, 2003) in the context of the US, but also to examine resistance to the media.

To resist the dominant order, individuals need to create their own channels to produce and disseminate information, which means that the history of social movements is often inseparable from the history of their own press (Ostertag 2006). Although resistance is often associated with a degree of clandestinity, issues of self-affirmation and visibility in the public debate are elemental to many social, reform, and social justice movements, from William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator to Furies—a monthly magazine published by the eponymous 1970s lesbian collective—suffragist newspapers, the use of the press by the Civil Rights movement and, more recently, “hashtag activism,” namely the use of social networks by movements such as #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo (Jackson et al. 2020).

Among possible topics, articles could examine how different groups at different times have used the media, both mainstream and alternative, to articulate repertoires of contentions. While the media are crucial in winning the battle of public opinion, they can also be used internally to build a network, form counterpublic spheres and—particularly in the case of movements without identified leaders—unite supporters of a cause, whether progressive or conservative. Conservative forces resisting change also have a specific relationship with and use of the media (Berry et Soberaj 2014, Peck 2019). Possible contributions could also focus on censorship and attempts to intimidate and silence political opponents.

This special issue also invites articles taking an approach rooted in media sociology and information and communication sciences to analyze the media as places of resistance and interrogate the capacity of journalistic practices to resist political manipulation, disinformation, and authoritarianism through fact-checking or the development of innovative formats that help to resist the constraints inherent in the commercial logics of the US media model (long reads, deep dives, etc.). In a context of constant economic and technological pressures and transformations, analyzing the permanence and resistance of certain norms and formats (evening newscasts, talk shows, documentaries, late-night comedy shows, etc.) is also paramount. In the face of accelerating technological innovation and changing media regimes, (how) are the news media reinventing themselves to survive? Lending attention to the weight of production structures, possible contributions could explore the potential for resistance within the very organizations that produce and disseminate information: how do media players resist—individually and collectively—the threats to editorial independence?

Finally, this special issue focuses on resistance to the processes of media coverage themselves. Central to the US context is the collective resistance to the commercial nature of the media model through initiatives to reform the system by groups supporting the creation of public media in the first half of the 20th century (Shepperd, 2023) or opposing the monopoly of big tech companies through open-source software today. Resistance to the media can also be individual through the boycott of certain media (institutional or otherwise), news avoidance, or practices such as “digital detox.” Often perceived in a negative light—as a panic reaction, the consequence of technophobia, or the factor of social marginalization—this type of resistance to the media is not new. This special issue welcomes articles exploring the various forms it has taken through the ages and the discourses (moral, social, political, etc.) that have upheld it.

Bibliography

Berry, Jeffrey M. and Sarah Soberaj, The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.

Chadwick, Andrew, The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power, Oxford University Press, 2017.

Couldry, Nick and James Curran, Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003.

Crossley, Nick, Social Networks and Social Movements: Contentious Connections, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2016.

Jackson, Sarah, Moya Bailey and Brooke Foucault Welles, Hashtag Activism: Networks of Race and Network Justice, The MIT Press, 2020.

Ostertag, Bob, People’s Movements, People’s Press : The Journalism of Social Justice Movements, Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 2006.

Peck, Reece, Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Shepperd, Josh, Shadow of the New Deal : The Victory of Public Broadcasting, Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2023.

Syvertsen, Trine, Media Resistance: Protest, Dislike, Abstention, Palgrave Pivot, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Publication schedule

  • 500-word submission deadline of abstracts and short bio: January 19th, 2026

  • Final manuscript due: March 2nd, 2026

  • Transmission of reviews: May 18th, 2026

  • Revisions and resubmissions: May-June 2026

  • Publication date: November 2026

The Journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition, “notes and bibliography” system: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

Abstracts, articles, and all correspondence should be addressed to Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot (anais.lefevre[at]univ-rennes2.fr) et Sébastien Mort (s.mort[at]parisnanterre.fr)

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