Call for Contributions to the 'Chat' issue of M/C - A Journal of Media and
Culture
Edited by Felicity Meakins and Sean Rintel
M/C (Media/Culture) is an electronic journal of media and culture published
by the Department of English Media and Cultural Studies Centre at the
University of Queensland in Australia. Established in 1998, M/C has
successfully grown in international standing among serious internet
journals. Please visit the site (http://english.uq.edu.au/mc/cover.html) to
read through the latest issue and for more information.
Each issue of M/C is themed. For the issue released on the 23rd of August,
the theme is 'Chat'. The M/C 'Chat' issue is intended to be as broad a
survey of the mechanics, media, contexts and analysis of chat as possible.
Robert Hopper once described argued chat as technology - "humanmade
instrumentality that partially restructures the world." Hopper's notion is
an excellent starting point for the 'Chat' issue of M/C, devoted to the
exploration of this most pervasive of discursive modes, and, indeed, to the
reflexive exploration of how researchers analyse chat.
How does the technology of talk work, and what happens when talk is itself
mediated by other technologies? In what sense is chat "humanmade"? What
parts of the world can be restructured by chat, and how is this
accomplished? In M/C 'Chat' , any chat artefacts - semantic, syntactic,
phatic, contextual - may be put under the microscope.
The artefacts and underpinnings of the analysis of chat, as themselves
partially restructuring of the world, may also be highlighted in this issue.
Methodology and ideology of analysis certainly shape the understandings of
chat, particularly if those understandings are argued to be of practical
significance. What results might inductive, deductive or adductive
approaches to chat analysis provide, and how might they be compared and
contrasted? Similar questions could be asked of qualitative and quantitative
analysis. Are combinatory approaches viable?
Of course the next question becomes, not how chat restructures the world,
but what world it restructures. The world exists as a fractured entity, both
in the way we understand it, and in the way it breaks down along cultural,
social and relational lines. How do two people chat when their perceptions
of the world are inherently different? How much of this represented
information is mutual? In what ways does chat create ethnic groups,
perpetuate racism, sexism and ageism or generally signify the other? How is
it that we can swear at close friends and not at our superiors? Chat, in
these situations becomes a point of mediation between the world and self - a
highly constructed moment. But what happens when chat itself is mediated?
What happens to the world as we know it?
And to turn Hopper's statement on its head, we can ask how does the world
structure our chat? Why does a person who has been living in a foreign
country for 40 years still have an accent? When does "You saw that gas can
explode" become a declaration about gas exploding or a can exploding. Who
does "you" refer to. It seems obvious, but "you" in isolation is
meaningless. It seems that meaning sought from the world also enriches our
chat.
Articles are due by the 24th of July 2000. M/C 'Chat' will be released on
the 23rd of August 2000. Contributors are directed to previous issues of M/C
(http://english.uq.edu.au/mc/cover.html) for article length and style
guidelines.
Please direct submissions to Sean Rintel (s.rintel@mailbox.uq.edu.au) or
Felicity Meakins s331564@student.uq.edu.au).
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Felicity Meakins
UQ English Department
Brisbane 4072
ph 3365 4748
'Queen Victoria was like a great paperweight
that for half a century sat upon men's minds
and when she was removed their ideas began
to blow all over the place haphazardly.'
- H.G. Wells
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