Calls for thematic dossiers for 2022 are now open

Radiofonias accepts submissions for free theme in continuous flow in Portuguese, Spanish and English, authored or co-authored with PhDs.

Guidelines for authors can be found at: https://periodicos.ufop.br/radiofonias/about/submissions

 

Issue 2022.1 – “Radio and gender”

Although they represent the majority of the Brazilian population, women are a minority in journalism. According to data from Workr, the corporate communication platform of the Comunique-se portal, 15,654 women were employed in media in 2019, equivalent to 36.98% of jobs in the national press market. In radio, however, female participation was even lower: only 2,284 women (20.5% of the total) worked in journalistic roles, such as reporter, presenter and editor-in-chief, against 11,182 men. This is a sample of the deep gender inequality that historically characterizes radio in Brazil, where the male voice prevails.

This scenario began to change in the 1970s, with pioneering initiatives such as Rádio Mulher (SP), and more recently with changes in the management of public and private broadcasters, increasingly attentive to discussions around gender equity. But even today, in most cases, productive routines marked by sexist and misogynist practices prevail, often with explicit situations of moral and sexual harassment. An environment permeated by toxic masculinity, in which the voice of women and people of non-binary sexuality is still barely heard, often reiterating stereotypes.

Understanding that the diversity of genres is key for a representative and plural radio, committed to equity, Radiofonias – Revista de Estudos em Mídia Sonora launches the dossier “Radio and gender”, in which it encourages submissions that propose theoretical reflections, case studies and/or arise from research projects involving issues such as:

• Representations of genres on the radio;
• Sexism, misogyny and homophobia in sound broadcasting;
• Who speaks on the radio: credibility and speech;
• Pathfinders: history and memory of pioneers who managed to make female or LGBTQIA+ voices heard on the radio;
• Public policies and management experiences in search of gender equity in radio.

Deadline for submissions: March 21, 2022

 

Issue 2022.2 – Dossier “Radiojournalism and electoral coverage”

Appointed in several researches as the most credible medium, radio has been facing difficulties to preserve its symbolic capital in a scenario of economic fragility and growing political radicalization. Traditional broadcasters articulate with local, regional and national party interests, compromising the balance of journalistic coverage in favor of some candidates, to the detriment of others. In a context of wide circulation of disinformation campaigns, which characterized the last elections in Brazil and internationally, the debate on major issues of society ends up being overshadowed, if not interdicted.

AM/FM radio also faces competition from new players in the informational audio market, with the rise of independent podcasts, with news and/or interviews, which vie for the audience's attention. Not to mention an entire ecosystem of absolutely opaque audio, which includes groups of instant messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, where both radio and hybrid content circulate, edited as part of campaign strategies – in general, a dirty war, in that lies are hurled at political opponents.

A few months before the beginning of the electoral period in Brazil, researchers are mobilizing around collective investigations, such as those developed by the Radiojournalism Research Network (RadioJor), linked to the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Journalism (SBPJor), to monitor electoral coverage offered by radio, understood as a public broadcasting service.

In this challenging context, Radiofonias – Revista de Estudos em Mídia Sonora announces the dossier “Radiojournalism and electoral coverage”, encouraging submissions that propose reflections, case studies and/or stem from research projects involving issues such as:

• Quality in radio journalism concept and measurements;
• Balance in radio coverage of politics;
• Disinformation as a business model;
• Radio, politics and editorial line – organizational constraints;
• The sources of information in radio journalism during the electoral period;
• New actors in audio journalism – the electoral role of podcasting, streaming and instant messaging apps in the circulation of news and political commentary;
• New listening habits – conditions for the appropriation of political news in sound media by the audience in the context of expanded and hypermedia radio.

 

Deadline for submissions: July 4, 2022