*CFP "POLITICAL IDEOLOGY IN EVERYDAY SOCIAL MEDIA USE", SPECIAL EDITION, SOCIAL SEMIOTICS JOURNAL

Scholars have looked extensively at social media in terms of its potential to reinvigorate democratic participation and/or bring new political voices into our civic sphere (Coffey and Woolworth 2004; Denisova 2019; Merrin 2019). But everyday social media use is less about voicing political views and more about engaging in the mundane, where in the matter of a few minutes we laugh along to memes and mash ups that ridicule the powerful, comment on shared music videos, read a food recipe and watch someone unbox a new pair of trainers. From the perspective of Critical Discourse Studies, social media brings the opportunity to look at the political and ideological in a different way. 

Here, we can critically consider how ideologies infuse the everyday and mundane forms of communication across and between platforms where we engage with and communicate about entertainment, family issues, celebrity and political gossip, transport, health, food, sport and leisure. In this special edition, we start from the perspective that this type of engagement is ideological, deeply inscribed with values and ideas. It is in everyday use where discourses are articulated, parodied, altered and/ or taken for granted. And it is this area our special issue critically explores.

Scholars have previously shown the need to look for the political and ideological in popular culture (Adorno 1991, Williams 1963). In Critical Discourse Studies, some recent special issues make the same case (Machin & Van Leeuwen 2016; Way 2019) based on the idea that it is in popular culture and the everyday where we most experience politics “as fun, as style, and simply as part of the taken for granted everyday world…. [though these] are infused by and shaped by, power relations and ideologies” (Machin 2013: 347). Our special issue differs from this previous work, looking specifically at social media. We consider how ideologies like neoliberalism, sexism, racism and populism (to name a few) are embedded in our everyday engagement with social media.

Papers are welcome which critically look at any social media platform and topic. Suggestions for critical reflection include:

• Retail reviews 
• Food and restaurants 
• Film and television 
• Music videos 
• Diet and fitness 
• Sports 
• Travel destinations and tourism 
• Mash ups, memes, viral media about the powerful

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words in length, plus a short author biography to Dr Lyndon Way, Liverpool University at Lyndon.way@liverpool.ac.uk and Professor Gwen Bouvier, Zhejiang University at gwen.bouvier@gmail.com by 1 March 2020. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 31 March 2020.

Dates to remember:

1 March deadline for submitting abstract and biography

1 August deadline for submitting full-length paper for blind review

1 November submit final revised paper

January 2021 papers published

Please note than acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee publication. All submissions will undergo double blind peer review once completed articles are submitted.

To be published in Social Semiotics, Taylor & Francis journal