**apologies for crosspostings** international journal of Media & Cultural Politics (MCP) LIFE WITH THE ULTIMATE CONGLOMERATE: a call for short essays on the politics of contemporary media content, control and policy We, the citizens, own the airwaves, yet we don't control them. The corporations that control them feed us a steady diet of electronic junk food and it is making our democracy sick. (Ralph Nader) The first half of the twentieth century produced pessimism about ideological control and social and cultural harm as a consequence of media expansion. By the end of the second half of the century, a variety of theoretical positions had posited the media as a usurpation of reality itself. Whatever the status of such claims, the media now claim a centrality which has profoundly redefined culture. To mark the launch of MCP, the Editors are inviting scholarly mini-essays of over 1000 and not more than 1500 words on any theme exploring the relationship between the contemporary media and the politics of representation, or policy, or control, and commenting on recent waves of pessimism about the media in culture (Virilio's concept of 'fin de siècle infantilization', for example, or Nader's 'electronic junk food'). Contributors are invited to address print, broadcast or electronic media as they choose, and likewise to adapt the theme to specific forms, genres, theories, practices, demographics, localities, audiences, pedagogic and research contexts, and topical issues. All contributions should be submitted to Katharine Sarikakis k.sarikakis@coventry.ac.uk by email attachment, by 31 May 2004. For details on style, please go to: http://www.intellectbooks.com/journals/mcp/ Best wishes The Editors MCP Please note that MCP is also now accepting full length submissions for the inaugural volumes to be published in 2005, on general media and cultural politics themes. -- Dr Katharine Sarikakis Communication, Media and Culture Coventry University Priory Street Coventry CV1 5FB, UK Tel:+44.24.76887474 Fax:+44.24.76887440 ******************** http://www.coventry.ac.uk/cms/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=583&a=3243 ******************** International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics http://www.intellectbooks.com/journals/mcp/