G'day ! Colleagues, for your information:

-----Original Message----- From: Axel Bruns [mailto:editor@media-culture.org.au] Sent: Monday, 21 December 2009 11:05 To: Axel Bruns Subject: [MCJ] M/C Journal 'disclose' Issue Now Available

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 21 Dec. 2009

M/C - Media and Culture is proud to present issue five in volume twelve of

M/C Journal http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

'disclose' - Edited by Bree Hadley and Rebecca Caines

'Disclosure' can be a risky business. The compulsion to 'open up' or 'share' of oneself is an integral part of interpersonal relationships. It is often seen to be the bedrock on which human beings build 'trust', a sense of connectedness or social capital. In the twenty-first century, shifts in social, legal, technological and medical systems have created new opportunities - and, indeed, new obligations - to disclose details of our beliefs, behaviours and bonds with others in a range of different contexts. New forums for disclosure, self-disclosure and self-exposure can bring rewards - social engagement, excitement, new forms of notoriety, and the opportunity for everyone to advocate on behalf of issues close to their heart. But to disclose also has its consequences. The exhilaration that comes with cathartic 'confessions' or 'confidences' can be short-lived. Disclosures seen by some as a welcome 'outing' of a once-concealed 'truth' can be seen by others as 'betrayal', a 'blabbing' about facts best kept hidden, which can lead to 'embarrassment', humiliation, bullying and punishment.

In this issue of M/C Journal we present contributions that consider the risks, pleasures, perils and ethical consequences of disclosure in public and/or private spheres. We ask what motivates people to disclose - or, by contrast, refuse or fail to disclose - details of their lives, be it in face-to-face interactions, online interactions, documentary, 'reality' drama, autobiographical art, community art or other arenas. We investigate the ways in which people, cultural practices and cultural authorities (wittingly or unwittingly) disclosure of themselves in speech, writing, gesture, social interactions or spatial interactions. Whilst disclosure has been linked in popular discourse with values such as authenticity, authority and 'truth', we challenge the contention that disclosure unlocks the door to truth, reading it instead in terms of power, pleasure, risk, responsibility, vulnerability and the performative construction of particular identities and realities. We are interested in the performativity of disclosure, and the tactics that underpin disclosure of secrets, scandals and lies. Disclosure can often go unquestioned and be validated above all else. Ironically, in some cases, closure may result from disclosure, as identity positions grow inflexible and oppressive under the weight of unexamined discourse. We thus also consider how disclosures can be contaminated, perforated, multiplied, re-performed in order to elide becoming a liability. We seek contributions that examine the performance of 'disclosure' - deliberate or accidental, altruistic or malicious, resistant or recuperative - across a range of contemporary cultural practices. What, we ask, are the personal, cultural, political and ethical consequences of disclosure for those who disclose, for those who are the subject of disclosures, and for those who witness disclosures by and/or about others?

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Further M/C Journal issues scheduled for 2010/11:

'cohesion': article deadline 22 Jan. 2010, release date 24 Mar. 2010 'ambient': article deadline 5 Mar. 2010, release date 5 May 2010 'deaf': article deadline 30 Apr. 2010, release date 30 June 2010 'waste': article deadline 25 June 2010, release date 25 Aug. 2010 'pig': article deadline 20 Aug. 2010, release date 20 Oct. 2010 'coalition': article deadline 15 Oct. 2010, release date 15 Dec. 2010 'doubt': article deadline 21 Jan. 2011, release date 23 Mar. 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- M/C Journal 12.5 is now online: <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/>. Previous issues of M/C Journal on various topics are also still available. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit all four M/C publications at <http://www.media-culture.org.au/>. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- All contributors are available for media contacts: mc@media-culture.org.au. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

M/C Journal Vol. 12, No. 5 (2009) - 'disclose' Table of Contents http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/issue/view/disclose

Editorial -------- Negotiating Selves: Exploring Cultures of Disclosure Bree Hadley, Rebecca Caines

Feature -------- “your darkness also/rich and beyond fear”: Community Performance, Somatic Poetics and the Vessels of Self and Other Petra Kuppers

Articles -------- "So what will you do on the plinth?”: A Personal Experience of Disclosure during Antony Gormley’s "One & Other" Project Jill Francesca Dowse

Food Confessions: Disclosing the Self through the Performance of Food Jenny Lawson

Participation Cartography: The Presentation of Self in Spatio-Temporal Terms Luis Carlos Sotelo-Castro

Disclosure in Biographically-Based Fiction: The Challenges of Writing Narratives Based on True Life Stories Donna Lee Brien

Closure through Mock-Disclosure in Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park Jennifer Anne Phillips

Disclosing the Ethnographic Self Christine Lohmeier

Celebrity Twitter: Strategies of Intrusion and Disclosure in the Age of Technoculture Nick Muntean, Anne Helen Petersen

“Just Emotional People”? Emo Culture and the Anxieties of Disclosure Michelle Phillipov

-- M/C Journal http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

-- Dr Axel Bruns http://snurb.info/ - http://produsage.org/ ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation http://cci.edu.au/ Associate Professor, Media & Communication a.bruns@qut.edu.au Creative Industries Faculty, Z1-515, CIP Twitter: @snurb_dot_info Queensland University of Technology +61 7 31385548 Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove, Qld. 4059, Australia CRICOS No.: 00213J