Special Issue of Communication Theory:
“Succeeding Failure: openings in communication and media studies”

Succeeding Failure: openings in communication and media studies is the title of a special journal issue planned for Communication Theory. This issue will be guest edited by Briankle G. Chang and Garnet C. Butchart of the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

“Failure” typically implies a kind of breakdown, defeat, or impasse. However, “failure” may also be read as a productive concept, one that indicates an opening rather than a closure, a point of departure rather than a terminus. For example, whenever one thing is said but another is heard, it is the failure of, or discord within, such an exchange that enables one to question the possibility of communication to begin with. In this sense, failure succeeds. This special issue invites critical essays that interrogate the ways in which failure may open onto and succeed in generating innovative responses to pressing questions of theory, politics, and ethics as they relate to communication and media studies. Topics for critical reflection may include, but are not limited to:

• Aesthetics and arts
• Globalization and media
• Social interaction
• Identity and ethnicity
• Consciousness and language
• Subjectivity
• Freedom, privacy, and citizenship
• Hermeneutics
• Being and presence
• Alienation, recognition, and community
• Event, symptom, and truth
• Representation and ideology

Regardless of topic, submitted essays must offer a critical interrogation of the concept of failure as a productive entry point into the contemporary study of communication and media. Manuscripts must conform to the guidelines of Communication Theory and be received by May 15, 2006 to be considered for this issue.

The manuscript should include a title page with complete contact information (address, telephone, FAX, and email), as well as a brief biography (full name, highest earned academic degree, institution granting that degree, current academic title) for each author. Manuscripts must conform to the specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.), and authors should verify that the reference list is complete and in appropriate form.

Authors may submit inquires and manuscripts electronically to Briankle G. Chang at bchang@comm.umass.edu or to Garnet C. Butchart at garnet@comm.umass.edu.