Tag: open access books

Call for book proposals for the Critical Digital and Social Media Studies series now open
Featured Post

Call for book proposals for the Critical Digital and Social Media Studies series now open

Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is an established open access book series edited by Professor Christian Fuchs.

With funding from the Jisc Open Access Community Framework (OACF), which allows us to publish without author facing fees or book processing charges, we are now inviting submissions for book proposals that fall within the scope of the series and fit the criteria set out below. 

Books in the series are published open access online in ePUB, Mobi and PDF formats and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. They are published using a Creative Commons licence and copyright in the work is retained by the author. Books are hosted on open access book platforms including the UWP website, JSTOR and OAPEN.

The series has published 24 books since its launch in 2016, and titles in the series have won and been shortlisted for major academic book prizes, published in foreign language editions, been widely reviewed in leading journals, and are amongst the most downloaded titles published by the Press. 

CALL DETAILS

Submissions must be for projects between 35,000-90,000 words in length, with a preference for projects that can submit a full draft typescript within the next 6-12 months.  We favour single or co-authored monograph proposals but will also consider suggestions for edited collections.

Submissions should include a proposal form, which can be downloaded here, author/editor CVs and one sample chapter.

The submission deadline for proposals is 15 March 2023, 23:59 GMT.

Submissions will be shortlisted by the series editor and successful proposals will then be sent for external peer review. Shortlisted proposals will be peer reviewed in accordance with the Association of University Presses guidelines on peer review, and will be assessed by the series editor, external referees and the UWP Editorial Board.  Final decisions will be made by 31 May 2023.

Submissions should be made via email to Philippa Grand, Press Manager at University of Westminster Press, at p.grand@westminster.ac.uk. Please use this email address for any queries about the submission process or the Call in general.

PROPOSAL DETAILS

The proposal should include the following sections and information:
1) Book title and author/editor detais
2) Project overview (a synopsis of up to 500 words; three main features of the book that make it distinct; five keywords)
3) Table of Contents
4) Chapter abstracts
5) Author/editor biographies
6) Target audience
5) The five most important publications thus far by each author (in the case of collected volumes only refer to the editor(s))
6) Audience (For whom do you write this book? Who will read it?)
7) Competing publications
8) Typescript information
9) Timetable for the project
10) Sample chapter details

SERIES AIMS AND SCOPE

The Critical Digital and Social Media Studies series publishes books that critically study the role of the internet, digital and social media in society and make critical interventions. Books in the series analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology, domination and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theories, are profoundly theoretical and discuss the political relevance and implications of the topics under scrutiny.

The series is a critical theory forum for internet and social media research that makes critical interventions into contemporary political topics in the context of digital and social media.  It is interested in publishing work that, based on critical theory foundations, develops and applies critical social media research methods that challenge digital positivism, as well as digital media ethics that are grounded in critical social theories and critical philosophy. The series’ understanding of critical theory and critique is grounded in approaches such as critical political economy and Frankfurt School critical theory.

TOPICS

Topics that we are interested in receiving proposals on include but are not limited to:

  • Digital capitalism
  • Digital labour
  • The political economy of digital and social media
  • Digital and informational capitalism
  • Ideology critique in the age of social media
  • The political economy of fake news and post-truth on the internet
  • Digital fascism
  • Digital authoritarianism
  • Digital warfare
  • Digital socialism
  • Marxist theory in the digital age
  • The public service internet
  • The digital public sphere and digital democracy
  • New developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media
  • Critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online
  • Critical social media research methods
  • Critical digital and social media ethics
  • Working class struggles in the age of social media
  • The relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media
  • Critical analysis of the implications of Big Data
  • Cloud computing
  • Digital positivism
  • The Internet of Things
  • Predictive online analytics
  • The Sharing Economy
  • Location based data and mobile media
  • The role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media
  • Platform co-operatives
  • The Digital Commons
  • Critical studies of the internet economy
  • Online prosumption
  • Subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media
  • Digital art and culture in the context of critical theory
  • Environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture
  • Algorithmic discrimination
  • Critical studies of digital surveillance
  • State power in the digital age
  • Activism in the digital age
  • Digital (in)justice

PUBLISHED TITLES

Christian Fuchs, Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet

Mariano Zukerfeld, Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism WINNER OF THE AMILCAR HERRARA PRIZE 2018

Trevor Garrison Smith, Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy

Scott Timcke, Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare

Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano (eds) The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism

Annika Richterich, The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies

Kane X. Faucher, Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation

Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn (eds), The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness

Jeremiah Morelock (ed), Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis and Alex Pazaitis, Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto

Micky Lee, Bubbles and Machines: Gender, Information and Financial Crises

Vincent Rouzé (ed), Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization

Robert Hassan, The Condition of Digitality: A Post-Modern ­Marxism for the Practice of Digital Life

Benjamin J. Birkinbine, Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software

Paolo Bory, The Internet Myth: From the Internet Imaginary to Network Ideologies

Christian Fuchs, Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory

Mike Healy, Marx and Digital Machines: Alienation, Technology, Capitalism

Vangelis Papadimitropoulos, The Commons: Economic Alternatives in the Digital Age

Antonios Broumas, Intellectual Commons and the Law: A Normative Theory for Commons-Based Peer Production

Jamie Woodcock, The Fight Against Platform Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy

Pieter Verdegem (ed), AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives SHORTLISTED IN THE MeCCSA OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2022

Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita, The Society of the Selfie: Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy

Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake, Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button

Emiliana Armano, Marco Briziarelli and Elisabetta Risi (eds), Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities

EDITORIAL BOARD
Dr Thomas Allmer, Paderborn University, Germany
Prof Dr Mark Andrejevic, Pomona College, USA
Dr Miriyam Aouragh, University of Westminster, UK
Dr Charles Brown, University of Westminster, UK
Prof Melanie Dulong De Rosnay, CNRS, France
Dr Eran Fisher, The Open University of Israel
Prof Christian Fuchs, Paderborn University, Germany (Series Editor)
Dr Peter Goodwin, University of Westminster, UK
Prof Jonathan Hardy, University of the Arts London, UK
Prof Kylie Jarrett, Maynooth University, Ireland
Dr Anastasia Kavada, University of Westminster, UK
Dr Arwid Lund, Södertörn University, Sweden
Prof Maria Michalis, University of Westminster, UK
Prof Stefania Milan, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Prof Vincent Mosco, Queens University, Canada
Prof Safiya Noble, UCLA, USA
Prof Jack L Qiu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Dr Jernej Amon Prodnik, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Prof Sarah Roberts, UCLA, USA
Dr Marisol Sandoval, City University of London, UK
Dr Sebastian Sevignani, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Germany
Dr Pieter Verdegem, University of Westminster, UK
Dr Bingqing Xia, East China Normal University, China
Dr Mariano Zukerfeld, CONICET, Argentina

Call for Book Proposals for the Critical Digital and Social Media Studies Series Now Open
Featured Post

Call for Book Proposals for the Critical Digital and Social Media Studies Series Now Open

Critical Digital and Social Media Studies is an established open access book series edited by Professor Christian Fuchs.

With funding from the Jisc Open Access Community Framework (OACF), which allows us to publish without author facing fees or book processing charges, we are now inviting submissions for book proposals that fall within the scope of the series and fit the criteria set out below. 

Books in the series are published open access online in ePUB, Mobi and PDF formats and simultaneously as affordable paperbacks. They are published using a Creative Commons licence and copyright in the work is retained by the author. Books are hosted on open access book platforms including the UWP website, JSTOR and OAPEN.

The series has published 24 books since its launch in 2016, and titles in the series have won and been shortlisted for major academic book prizes, published in foreign language editions, been widely reviewed in leading journals, and are amongst the most downloaded titles published by the Press. 

CALL DETAILS

Submissions must be for projects between 35,000-90,000 words in length, with a preference for projects that can submit a full draft typescript within the next 6-12 months.  We favour single or co-authored monograph proposals but will also consider suggestions for edited collections.

Submissions should include a proposal form, which can be downloaded here, author/editor CVs and one sample chapter.

The submission deadline for proposals is 15 March 2023, 23:59 GMT.

Submissions will be shortlisted by the series editor and successful proposals will then be sent for external peer review. Shortlisted proposals will be peer reviewed in accordance with the Association of University Presses guidelines on peer review, and will be assessed by the series editor, external referees and the UWP Editorial Board.  Final decisions will be made by 31 May 2023.

Submissions should be made via email to Philippa Grand, Press Manager at University of Westminster Press, at p.grand@westminster.ac.uk. Please use this email address for any queries about the submission process or the Call in general.

PROPOSAL DETAILS

The proposal should include the following sections and information:
1) Book title and author/editor detais
2) Project overview (a synopsis of up to 500 words; three main features of the book that make it distinct; five keywords)
3) Table of Contents
4) Chapter abstracts
5) Author/editor biographies
6) Target audience
5) The five most important publications thus far by each author (in the case of collected volumes only refer to the editor(s))
6) Audience (For whom do you write this book? Who will read it?)
7) Competing publications
8) Typescript information
9) Timetable for the project
10) Sample chapter details

SERIES AIMS AND SCOPE

The Critical Digital and Social Media Studies series publishes books that critically study the role of the internet, digital and social media in society and make critical interventions. Books in the series analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology, domination and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theories, are profoundly theoretical and discuss the political relevance and implications of the topics under scrutiny.

The series is a critical theory forum for internet and social media research that makes critical interventions into contemporary political topics in the context of digital and social media.  It is interested in publishing work that, based on critical theory foundations, develops and applies critical social media research methods that challenge digital positivism, as well as digital media ethics that are grounded in critical social theories and critical philosophy. The series’ understanding of critical theory and critique is grounded in approaches such as critical political economy and Frankfurt School critical theory.

TOPICS

Topics that we are interested in receiving proposals on include but are not limited to:

  • Digital capitalism
  • Digital labour
  • The political economy of digital and social media
  • Digital and informational capitalism
  • Ideology critique in the age of social media
  • The political economy of fake news and post-truth on the internet
  • Digital fascism
  • Digital authoritarianism
  • Digital warfare
  • Digital socialism
  • Marxist theory in the digital age
  • The public service internet
  • The digital public sphere and digital democracy
  • New developments of critical theory in the age of digital and social media
  • Critical studies of advertising and consumer culture online
  • Critical social media research methods
  • Critical digital and social media ethics
  • Working class struggles in the age of social media
  • The relationship of class, gender and race in the context of digital and social media
  • Critical analysis of the implications of Big Data
  • Cloud computing
  • Digital positivism
  • The Internet of Things
  • Predictive online analytics
  • The Sharing Economy
  • Location based data and mobile media
  • The role of classical critical theories for studying digital and social media
  • Platform co-operatives
  • The Digital Commons
  • Critical studies of the internet economy
  • Online prosumption
  • Subjectivity, consciousness, affects, worldviews and moral values in the age of digital and social media
  • Digital art and culture in the context of critical theory
  • Environmental and ecological aspects of digital capitalism and digital consumer culture
  • Algorithmic discrimination
  • Critical studies of digital surveillance
  • State power in the digital age
  • Activism in the digital age
  • Digital (in)justice

PUBLISHED TITLES

Christian Fuchs, Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet

Mariano Zukerfeld, Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism WINNER OF THE AMILCAR HERRARA PRIZE 2018

Trevor Garrison Smith, Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy

Scott Timcke, Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare

Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano (eds) The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism

Annika Richterich, The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies

Kane X. Faucher, Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation

Joan Pedro-Carañana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn (eds), The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness

Jeremiah Morelock (ed), Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis and Alex Pazaitis, Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto

Micky Lee, Bubbles and Machines: Gender, Information and Financial Crises

Vincent Rouzé (ed), Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization

Robert Hassan, The Condition of Digitality: A Post-Modern ­Marxism for the Practice of Digital Life

Benjamin J. Birkinbine, Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software

Paolo Bory, The Internet Myth: From the Internet Imaginary to Network Ideologies

Christian Fuchs, Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory

Mike Healy, Marx and Digital Machines: Alienation, Technology, Capitalism

Vangelis Papadimitropoulos, The Commons: Economic Alternatives in the Digital Age

Antonios Broumas, Intellectual Commons and the Law: A Normative Theory for Commons-Based Peer Production

Jamie Woodcock, The Fight Against Platform Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy

Pieter Verdegem (ed), AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives SHORTLISTED IN THE MeCCSA OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2022

Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita, The Society of the Selfie: Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy

Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake, Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button

Emiliana Armano, Marco Briziarelli and Elisabetta Risi (eds), Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities

EDITORIAL BOARD
Dr Thomas Allmer, Paderborn University, Germany
Prof Dr Mark Andrejevic, Pomona College, USA
Dr Miriyam Aouragh, University of Westminster, UK
Dr Charles Brown, University of Westminster, UK
Prof Melanie Dulong De Rosnay, CNRS, France
Dr Eran Fisher, The Open University of Israel
Prof Christian Fuchs, Paderborn University, Germany (Series Editor)
Dr Peter Goodwin, University of Westminster, UK
Prof Jonathan Hardy, University of the Arts London, UK
Prof Kylie Jarrett, Maynooth University, Ireland
Dr Anastasia Kavada, University of Westminster, UK
Dr Arwid Lund, Södertörn University, Sweden
Prof Maria Michalis, University of Westminster, UK
Prof Stefania Milan, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Prof Vincent Mosco, Queens University, Canada
Prof Safiya Noble, UCLA, USA
Prof Jack L Qiu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Dr Jernej Amon Prodnik, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Prof Sarah Roberts, UCLA, USA
Dr Marisol Sandoval, City University of London, UK
Dr Sebastian Sevignani, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Germany
Dr Pieter Verdegem, University of Westminster, UK
Dr Bingqing Xia, East China Normal University, China
Dr Mariano Zukerfeld, CONICET, Argentina

<strong>‘ORIGINAL AND TIMELY’ UWP TITLE SHORTLISTED FOR MAJOR ACADEMIC BOOK PRIZE</strong>
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‘ORIGINAL AND TIMELY’ UWP TITLE SHORTLISTED FOR MAJOR ACADEMIC BOOK PRIZE

University of Westminster scholar Pieter Verdegem’s edited book AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives has been shortlisted in the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association’s annual Outstanding Achievement Awards in the Edited Collection of the Year category. Judges noted that the book is ‘an original and timely collection that, in analysing discourses surrounding AI challenges notions of technological determinism and highlights the enduring importance of concepts of power within mass communication’. 

The book, published by University of Westminster Press, as part of the Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies  book series, edited by Christian Fuchs, is an open access publication with an international line-up of scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, setting out the need for critical perspectives on artificial intelligence in an era where AI is assumed to be inevitable and is seemingly ubiquitous.  Debate, the book argues, is urgently needed, especially regarding fundamental questions related to power.  Divided into three Parts, the book addresses critical perspectives on human-machine dualism, asks what makes for ‘desirable’ AI and what conditions makes this possible, and concludes by examining power and inequalities to explore how the implementation of AI creates important challenges that urgently need to be addressed. 

In short, the book offers a vital intervention on one of the most hyped concepts of our time. 

Available to download in digital versions here, here and here, it is also available to purchase in print here and at other online bookshops. 

The Awards will be announced during the MeCCSA annual conference held in Aberdeen from 7-9th September. 

Momentum at a New University Press: Revisiting the UWP Story
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Momentum at a New University Press: Revisiting the UWP Story

Reflecting on the merits of consistent publishing activity and its multiplier effects – some reflections on UWP’s growth on the Ubiquity Press blog from the University of Westminster Press: ‘Thanks a Million: Momentum at a New University Press‘

Interesting to compare with the view in September 2015 ‘Setting up a University Press in the Digital Age’ and again as recently as May 2019, ‘Setting up a University Press in the Digital Age Revisited‘ when a fuller UWP timeline was presented.

Still unconfirmed but possible we will be able to announce in July 1.25 million views and downloads to end June but we have to wait for the data which may or may not confirm that!

Andrew Lockett, Press Manager

200 authors contribute to UWP books and journals

200 authors contribute to UWP books and journals

Another landmark reached.

Over 200 unique authors or editors have contributed to UWP books and journals from over 30 countries.

The top 10 countries in order of author numbers are: UK, USA, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Germany with China, China (Hong Kong), Ireland, Netherlands and Russia in joint 10th place.

From the University of Westminster 21 authors or editors have contributed to our publications more than once, with 16 authors from other universities or locations also contributing multiply.

Our travel-loving Press Manager has visited all but 7 of the countries but would like to have to add more to his bucket list which UWP has reached that currently includes Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Japan and South Africa.

Does this top 10 geographical profile match our open access audiences? Not quite but not far off either. We’d have more authors from Turkey and a few more from Greece, Mexico, Indonesia and South Korea perhaps but overall it would be hard not to say that there was a strong correspondence.

From our main website we can see readers have popped up (though not too frequently) in Yemen, South Sudan, Niger, San Marino and in the US commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Northern Pacific. With our WPCC journal ( a separate site) this week there have been strong showings from Zimbabwe, Australia, Singapore and Nigeria.

Open access offers quite a lot of insights to distract the publisher but demonstrates the ability of a small publisher to extend a reach and have a greater ability than a purely print publisher to understand a little more of where there readership is hailing from.

Setting up a University Press in the Digital Age Revisited

Setting up a University Press in the Digital Age Revisited

One of the questions we have been asked about establishing a new university press is ‘how long does it take’? So we have recently reviewed on our history and experience detailing the University of Westminster Press timeline below. Here was the view in September 2015, four months after UWP’s website launch about what might be involved, which seems a lifetime away now that our second and rather substantial 2019 catalogue has recently been released in April 2019.

Some tentative conclusions to the question are presented below – based also on anecdotal evidence from our peers – as well as UWP’s experience. They suggest some pointers for others considering setting up a comparable operation and one overall conclusion: early stages take a long time (and the wheels can grind a bit here) but then momentum grows.

  1. The early stages of a new UP tend to take a long time. We’d hazard a guess that 18-21 months+ would not be unusual.
  2. Governance and internal procedures may need to be reconsidered at an early stage and then clarified again in the light of actual experience.
  3. There should be alignment between budgets and academics’/stakeholder expectations and that relevant linkages between the two (ideally) should be clearly made at operational and strategic levels, not just one of those.
  4. It is useful to have publisher and librarian experience to tap into but harder to ensure in practice that both are available in one person or across a team.
  5. Universities (like all operations) frequently restructure and this can affect (2) or be really crucial in moving things forward (in our case) or holding them back.
  6. Once out of first gear where considerable push may be needed, progress can be rapid.
  7. Never underestimate the importance of tangible products (aka books) in manifesting a presence that colleagues and external parties see. Not even a gleaming and functional website can do this.
  8. Plans need to be revised on a regular basis. And even six months is currently proving to be a long time in the world of scholarly communications and digital-first open access publishing.

7 May 2014. University agrees basic arrangements to establish a new open access digital press.

10 September 2014 A University Steering Group approves the governance structure and principles for operation of the University of Westminster Press including peer review protocols and the composition and remit of its Editorial Board. UWP is founded as a department within the University.

23 February 2015 UWP’s first and only employee starts.

12 May 2015 UWP’s website goes live for the first time.

15 September 2015 First journal issue from UWP published, Vol 10.1 of Westminster Papers in Communication.

10 October 2016 UWP publishes first book title: Critical Theory of Communication. 

14 November 2016 UWP becomes part of a new Research and Scholarly Communications team; on 1 August 2018 this with UWP becomes part of Library and Archive Services, within the Student and Academic Services directorate in the university’s new structure.

17 November 2017 UWP issues first catalogue. 

14 December 2017 Revised terms of reference for the UWP board and governance of UWP are tabled and shortly after formally approved.

8 October 2018: 250,000 views and downloads of books, chapters and journal articles reached.

8 April 2019 UWP issues 2019 catalogue with 19 books and 11 journal issues published and with 15 new titles forthcoming previously unannounced . By this time over 350,000 views and downloads had been achieved.