Dear members of the AOiR list As an Associate Editor of the Journal of Creative Communication, I invite you to submit for our upcoming Special Issue titled 'Algorithmic Media: Shifting Agency, Content, and Everyday Uses.' I've attached the CFP below for all the details. The Special Issue will be co-edited by Professor Ruchi Tewari, Professor Susanne Eichner, and Professor Franziska Thiele. The deadline for papers is April 1, 2024. Submit here: https://peerreview.sagepub.com/crc The Journal of Creative Communication is published by SAGE Journals with current IF: 1.5. Here is the full CfP: Special Issue Call for Papers: Algorithmic Media: Shifting Agency, Content and Everyday Uses Special Issue Co-Editors: Susanne Eichner (s.eichner@filmuniversitaet.de) Film University Babelsberg, Germany Franziska Thiele (franziska.thiele@uni-rostock.de) University of Rostock, Germany Ruchi Tewari (ruchi.tewari@micamail.in) MICA-The School of Ideas, India Communication, as a field of study, research and practice, has always been strongly influenced by changes in communication technology. As a result, communication as a field has become highly diversified, stratified and nuanced. As communication is becoming more interlaced with or mediated by technology, it appears to be egalitarian. Yet, as we scratch the surface, we see the presence of hierarchical ownership structures, monetary and political interests. Every user of the internet and communication technology today is at the same time a communicator who has the potential power to articulate and share their views, ideas, and experiences. However, users do not have the same agency to be seen or heard. We are witnessing how creative ideas and contents are created in varied contexts that are articulated and distributed in unique formats. With every user of communication technology becoming a creator, communication agency and efficiency have been altered. People use new technology to experiment with novel ways to garner popularity and talk about new topics in the constant effort to reach a larger number of audiences, as virality of messages is a goal that many content creators chase. The production of user-generated content has become even more complex and sophisticated with the rise of free-for-all artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, which, by the end of 2022, had become an integral and transformative part of our society and relationships. Algorithms have been around even longer; they not only drive our media consumption but also shape our reality and alter human reasoning, affections, and affiliations. The process of decision-making is impacted by the choice of content, product display, political and social information, media content or even basic images that the algorithm-based media show. AI-supported algorithms have a power- pushed manipulative effect. All of this influences how new content is created, how it is communicated, and the responses and reactions it generates from the audience. Practices that once used to take place offline are becoming mediated or completely transferred into the online world—a process that has been especially accelerated in the wake of the pandemic. This cycle from content creation to response generation is very rapid, iterative and appears to be egalitarian, but it is implicitly held and controlled by technology and the different powers that further hold the reins of technology. It is critical to recognise that while it appears that the agency of content and communication production lies with the user, the production is in fact mediated, stratified and controlled by intermediaries and platforms. This dichotomy of communication as controlled by an invisible agency but extensively employed by users of technology makes it an interesting and important area of research for scholars. Given the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the problem, interdisciplinary and cross-domain studies will help to understand and unravel the issues. The research on the issues addressed is highly varied, and we welcome all kinds of methodological and theoretical approaches. The current Call for Papers encourages academics, scholars and practitioners to submit research papers that look at novel forms of content creation and technology, deal with novel ideas of communication, or examine creative ways in which a communicative product is articulated and shared in all spheres—public and private. We are also highly interested in how intermediaries interact on novel media, to what respect they share or allow the other to have agency, as well as how far users are controlled by a platform’s invisible agency. Another point of interest of the call is the integration of these new tools of content creation into everyday use and whether and how originally offline practices can become mediated. Possible topics for papers are (but are not limited to): New forms of content creation and technology One area of focus of this call for papers lies in the different forms and processes of content creation. Here, we are especially interested in how these forms are changed and altered by new media, algorithms, platforms and artificial intelligence. In the area of content creation, we are interested in how messages are drafted by users and perceived by other producers. Today, people in creative fields like art, public relations or graphic design feel that their work is being devalued by the existence of artificial intelligence and that their income and jobs are at risk. Studies directed at understanding and studying the actions and impacts of new forms of technology, power structures and content creation are welcome. Effects of everyday use, well-being and rituals Most technologies that have been integrated into users’ everyday lives are applied for special tasks. In this part, we are interested in how media technology has been integrated into people’s everyday practices and rituals, as well as how and why everyday practices, or rituals have been mediated. For example, what kind of media do people use for what, and is that the way it was intended by its creators? How is the telephone used in the bedroom, or what technology is usually used in the living room? What kind of mourning practices can we find in the online world? Do we become immortal by uploading our creations online? The integration of media technology into our everyday lives can have positive effects and support us in our goals, such as tracking tools that help us measure, maintain and improve our fitness. At the same time, overuse of these tools might also result in negative consequences for our health and well-being. Therefore, we are interested in the factors or combination of factors that shape physiological, cultural, emotional and social well-being when communication is mediated. Agency and algorithmic intermediaries Due to new communication technologies, users produce content on platforms that are subject to the pervasive influence of algorithms, the particular interests of tech-conglomerates, and political or lobbyist interests. The untransparent nature of algorithmic programming often leaves users in the dark as to what these platforms (might) use their content for, who controls these platforms, and whose interests are met. The concrete dynamics of these algorithmic intermediaries act as a black box for users, which can be navigated but never completely controlled. It creates a “tension” where the agentic powers of many different actors are moving fluidly in a network instead of forming a stable hierarchy. Accordingly, agency in digital media is increasingly being described as a “hybrid agency” since individual agency only develops in connection with a specific platform affordance and its algorithm. Papers dealing with these topics could address how individual and institutional agency and relationships, such as with the platforms, are impacted by the algorithms. On the one hand, the platforms have an apparent egalitarian potential as communicative products, as they are potentially accessible to every individual equipped to share their views and ideas on public platforms. On the other hand, users are obscurely controlled by platform algorithms. Submission Deadlines: Last date of manuscripts submission: April 1, 2024 Expected date of publication: March 1, 2025 Submission Guidelines: • Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://journals.sagepub.com/ author-instructions/CRC Other relevant information: • Journal & Submission Website: https://peerreview.sagepub.com/crc • JOCC’s Previous Issues: https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/CRC • JOCC’s Aims and Scope: https://journals.sagepub.com/aims-scope/CRC Submission Types: We welcome research articles, case studies, research in brief, practitioner essays, and commentaries. Research articles should be of approximately 6,000–8,000 words in length, including references, tables, and figures. They should be written as a continuous expository narrative in a chapter or article style - not as lists of points. Shorter articles of 3,000–4,000 words (all included) can be published as commentaries/ brief research/ case studies/ essays, etc. Submission of manuscripts should be made electronically only. Please visit https://peerreview. sagepub.com/crc to create account/log in to upload your manuscript through the following steps: Step 1: Create an author account Step 2: Select submission under “Special Issue: Algorithmic Media: Shifting Agency, Content and Everyday Uses” -- *Piotr Siuda* (PhD, Professor of Media Studies) piotrsiuda.com Faculty of Cultural Studies Department of Game Studies and Digital Culture Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland Associate Editor; *Journal of Creative Communication <https://journals.sagepub.com/home/crc> *(SAGE Journals) *Recent papers:* -- *Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic*, *Bloomsbury Academic Press*, https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/gaming-and-gamers-in-times-of-pandemic-9798765... *-- The Next Level of Horror Entertainment: Facing Fear in Cooperative Interactive Drama Survival Horror Games*, *Proceedings of the 57th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences* *-- The Problematic nature of evaluating esports' "genuineness" using traditional sports' criteria: In-depth interviews with traditional sports and electronic sports journalists,* *Leisure Studies*, https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2023.2215471