[ATTW-L] CFP-Kairos special issue on Science Communication, proposals due Oct 30

[Karen Lunsford]

Hi folks, Just a reminder that the deadline is approaching for proposals for a
special issue of Kairos on Science Communication -- Oct 30.  Thanks! Karen

Call for Proposals
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, Pedagogy
https://kairos.technorhetoric.net
Fall 2025 Special Issue:
Science Communication: Multimodal Challenges and Opportunities

Guest Editors, Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara:
Karen Lunsford, PhD
Kara Mae Brown, MFA
Rebecca Chenoweth, PhD
Kenny Smith, PhD
Amanda Stansell, PhD

Kairos is a peer-reviewed, academic, open-access, online journal founded in
1996. Scholars represent their research using a mixture of written text,
audio files, video clips, or other technologies ("webtexts").

This special issue of Kairos aims to investigate how digital and multimodal
technologies have transformed science communication (broadly defined) over
the last decade. We have seen changes in how both researchers and the
public interact with scientific information–changes driven by scientific
concerns (e.g., the pandemic, climate change) and recent technological
developments (e.g., in social media, video games, transcription, artificial
intelligence, sound). We seek scholarship that both takes into account the
current state of science communication but also anticipates where the field
is headed in the future. We encourage pieces that guide and challenge our
colleagues as they and their students navigate the shifting science writing
landscape.

In particular, we encourage work that takes advantage of Kairos's
capacities as an Internet-based publication, using the affordances of
digital and multimodal rhetoric to go beyond what is possible in a print
text. Kairos’s publication platform can allow authors to present the
dynamic multimedia and multimodal content that now characterizes much of
science communication (see the examples mentioned below). We also seek
research that investigates how digital technologies are breaking down
barriers between disciplines and revealing the interconnection between
science and the humanities that has become central to discourse about
science in public spaces.

The following serve as suggestions for proposals; however, we are open to a
wide variety of topics.

● How have new media (podcasts, video games, social media platforms) and
new capacities of media (data visualization, AI art/writing) changed both
academic and public science communication?
● How are informal science learning spaces (e.g., museums, edutainment,
after-school programs) shaping science communication? What can Writing
Studies learn from / about these spaces?
● How have digital technologies or social media contributed to or addressed
fraud, data manipulation, and other lapses in science?
● How has the digital turn diversified the population of science
communicators (e.g., demographics in authorship and/or engagement;
supporting indigenous voices in science communication)?
● How has this turn facilitated community-building among minoritized
scientists (e.g., #BlackAFinSTEM)?
● How might digital spaces reformulate our understanding of some perennial
distinctions within our discipline, such as the division between “science”
and “technical” communication?
● How have storytelling (including memoirs and ‘day in the life’) and
visual art (including comics) been used to communicate with the public
about science in digital spaces?
● How might we best integrate, examine, and interrogate our approaches to
teaching SciComm in courses and programs?

Authors are encouraged to respond to these questions with dynamic
multimodal evidence, such as screen captures (e.g., of interactions on
citizen science projects), audio clips (e.g., of audio-based projects such
as databases of bird calls), video clips (e.g., of vlogs, popular science
videos, physical gestures), renditions of VR or AR experiences, and other
forms of multimodal representation.

We seek submissions for the following sections of the journal: Topoi,
Inventio, Praxis, Interviews, Reviews, and Disputatio. Please consult the
Kairos submission page for descriptions. Queries to the guest editors are
welcome.

Submission Deadline (Proposals): *October 30, 2023*
Contact the guest editors with a proposal via email. (Subject line:
“SciComm submission: YOUR-NAME”.) The proposal should include a 1-2
paragraph explanation of the webtext’s topic and argument; a 1-2 paragraph
description of the webtext’s structure and design (including a URL and/or
mockup images, if authors wish); a list of associated technologies that
will be incorporated (consult general Kairos guidelines re: which
technologies are supported); and a brief annotated bibliography. Authors
will receive confirmation of submission, via email, within 2-3 days.

Submission email: klunsford at writing.ucsb.edu

Proposed Publication Timeline:
Proposals due: October 30, 2023
Notification of acceptances of proposals: November 21, 2023
Full webtexts due: May 1, 2024
Revised webtexts due: October 15, 2024
Publication date: Fall 2025

General Guidelines:
• Please consult the general submission guidelines, particularly regarding
supported technologies.
• Kairos can accept most web-ready file formats. (Check with the guest
editors if you are unsure.) Please keep in mind that this excludes
word-processed documents, although you will be asked to provide transcripts
of materials as pdfs.
• We prefer URLs of webtexts for review purposes. If you do not have access
to open or password-protected webspace, please contact the guest editors in
advance of the submission deadline to arrange alternate means of delivery.

-- 
Karen Lunsford, PhD
Associate Professor of Writing
Director, Writing Program
3432 South Hall
University of California, Santa Barbara 93106-3010
klunsford at writing.ucsb.edu
Pronouns: she, her, hers
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://attw.org/pipermail/attw-l_attw.org/attachments/20231023/2a131c6e/attachment-0001.htm>