The 6th Mapping the Magazine Conference will be held at Lusófona University in Lisbon, Portugal, on 2nd and 3rd July 2020. We are now inviting submissions on the theme (Trans)Forming Magazines.

The organizers seek proposals for individual papers on topics related to magazine research from many disciplines (Media and Communication, Journalism, Critical and Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology, Linguistics, English, History, Visual Communication, and others). The MtM 2020 conference seeks to explore questions including but not limited to:

• Conceptualizing the Magazine: What can be considered a magazine? What are the frontiers delimiting magazine types? Are new magazine types emerging? What ethical challenges do mixed types face?
• Magazine analysis: What epistemological trends dominate in magazine analysis today? How do scholars build knowledge around magazines? What are the main methodological tools and approaches used to better understand magazine change and (trans)formation? What emerging and innovative research methods are being developed to study this field?
• History of magazines: What can we learn from the past? What case studies inform our understanding of magazine media then and now?
• Discussing business models: The impact of transmedia storytelling. How can print magazines survive? What can contribute to the success of magazines? What case studies can help us understand the possibilities and conditions of successful magazine projects?
• Designing magazines: What is the relevance of graphical design in defining a magazine? Is there a distinctive role of design in the field of magazines when compared to other media? What is the role of photography and video in a magazine? Are popularity and emotion still associated primarily to images and to the magazine as a genre? Is the online circulation of material threatening the identity work of the magazines’ design?
• Magazines and journalism: Are journalism studies a dominant paradigm in this field? What are the intersections, the problems, the convergences and divergences? What role do professional journalists play in this field? How do magazines work with different professional profiles to create diverse forms of content? How can the study of magazines (journalistic or not) help us understand journalism?
• Magazines and organizational communication: What are the roles of hyper-focused magazine projects in the development of our understanding of magazines? What are the synergies between companies and media production? How the processes of internal communication impact on the way magazines are conceptualized?
• Magazines and publics: What role do magazines play in a reader’s life? Do magazines still create communities, and how? Are these communities becoming increasingly atomized? Do these communities have a political impact?

Papers dealing with other topics and themes are equally welcome, and Mapping the Magazine encourages a multidisciplinary approach, as well as theoretical and/or empirical perspectives.

“Mapping the Magazine” is a series of conferences established by Tim Holmes of Cardiff University. The sixth Conference is sponsored by CICANT, the research centre of the School of Communication, Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies of the Lusófona University.

The MtM conferences aim to serve as intimate and meaningful gatherings of magazine scholars from many disciplines who are interested in exploring the current state of magazine research and possibly developing collaborative research projects. MtM6, like all of the preceding conferences, is open to all scholars working in the broad field of magazine research.

Abstracts of 400 words for 20-minute papers are due by January 6th, 2020. Please submit abstracts here. For instructions or to confirm receipt of your abstract, contact mappingthemagazine6@gmail.com. Successful applicants will be contacted by February 10th, 2020, and full papers will be due to the conference organizers by May 11th, 2020. Completed papers should be double spaced and 5,000-8,000 words in length. Please use APA style.

As in the past, papers will be delivered sequentially over the two days, not concurrently in separate streams. Conference delegates are asked to commit to attending all papers.