We invite abstract submissions for an edited book on the creation, dissemination, interpretation, and role of digital media for political purposes in the Balkans and the Middle East. The Balkan and Middle East contexts provide interesting case studies because of their overlapping patterns of national and regional identification combined with the tensions these create.

The overall goal of the edited volume will be to consider the relationship between a wide array of internet uses and forms of political deliberation, taking into consideration both the ways in which interactive media help to foster deliberation, discussion, and the coordination of collection action, and the ways in which they may thwart public sphere ideals of rational critical deliberation and public accountability. Our intent is to provide an overview of the spectrum of political uses of new media in these two regions.

Contributors may come from a range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives, attending to how political groups, practices, and communicative genres are underwritten and sustained via engagement with digital technology, as well as to how the political realm itself is transformed in the age of digital media.

Relevant topics include but are not limited to the following:

-  The political uses of digital media

-  The uses of digital media for purposes of organizing protest and dissent and for the construction of forums for political deliberation.

-  How activists and (political) groups have used the internet to hold state authorities accountable or challenge them, or to publish and circulate information.

-  The creation, dissemination and/or interpretation of digital media content by communities and individuals for political purposes

-  The kinds of politics that are created/expressed in the digital media environment

- How mediated expressions and spaces connect to politics ‘on the ground’

- The kinds of political challenges that arise from digital media use in the regions

- The shifting relationship between digital media and journalism

- How  population groups use the internet to connect with one another across national divisions (for example Serbs living in Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro; Palestinians living in Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria).

- Chapters may focus on different forms of digital media and spaces: internet cafes, social networking sites, bulletin boards, blogs, twitter, wikipedia, youTube, listservs, websites and other digital/social media.

- Chapters may focus on one national context or sub-context, or may be comparative in scope.

- For the purposes of this project, the relevant geographic range of the Balkans and the Middle East includes the following: Albania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen.

- We particularly welcome contributions from scholars from the relevant regions.

Please send a *short bio, a publication list,* and a *500 word abstract* detailing the topic of your article, the overall context, your material, methodology, and theoretical argument by *March 1, 2010*. Authors will be notified by the 25th of March 2010 of the outcome of their submissions. If accepted, full papers, of a maximum of 6,000 words, should be submitted by* September 1, 2010*. Papers will then be reviewed individually by the editors and in the standard blind review process of the publisher.

Submissions and inquiries about this volume should be sent to both

helga(at)nyu.edu

z.volcic(at)uq.edu.au

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Helga Tawil-Souri (Assistant Professor) Department of Media, Culture, and Communication - New York University

helga(at)nyu.edu

1-212-992-9437