The Velvet Light Trap
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University of Texas Press
Description:
SEMIANNUAL · 8 1/2 x 11 · 112 PAGES/ISSUE · ISSN 0149-1830 · E-ISSN 1542-4251
VLT is collectively edited by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and The University of Texas at Austin, with the support of media scholars at those institutions and throughout the country. Each issue provokes debate about critical, theoretical, and historical topics relating to a particular theme.
Recent Issues
Volume 89, Spring 2022
Volume 88, Fall 2021
Volume 87, Spring 2021
#86, Fall 2020
#85, Spring 2020
#84, Fall 2019
#83, Spring 2019
#82, Fall 2018
#81, Spring 2018
#80, Fall 2017
#79, Spring 2017
#78, Fall 2016
#77, Spring 2016
Other past issues include:
#76, Fall 2015
#75, Spring 2015
#74, Fall 2014
#73, Spring 2014
#72, Fall 2013
#71, Spring 2013
#70, Fall 2012
#69, Spring 2012
#68, Fall 2011
#67, Spring 2011
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#49, Spring 2002
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#46, Fall 2000
#45, Spring 2000
#44, Fall 1999
#43, Spring 1999
#42, Fall 1998
#41, Spring 1998
#40, Fall 1997
#39, Spring 1997
#38, Fall 1996
#37, Spring 1996
#36, Fall 1995
#35, Spring 1995
#34, Fall 1994
#33, Spring 1994
- "There Would Be No Kerry Washington without Diahann Carroll": Shout-Out Culture, Sisterhood, and the Discourse of Black Womanhood
- Ashley S. Young
- Awarding Chinese-Language Cinemas: Imaginary Transnational Identities of the Golden Horse Awards
- Carol Chih-Ju Lin
- Golden Gays: Awards Legitimation from the Globes to GLAAD
- Ben Kruger-Robbins
- Industrializing Nationalist Dissent: Music Censorship, 2 Live Crew, and the Politics ...
Volume 88, Fall 2021
- Toward a Theory of Disability Documentary: Alison O'Daniel's The Tuba Thieves (2013–Present)
- Emma Ben Ayoun
- Netflix Originals: The Evolution of True Crime Television
- Elizabeth Walters
- Color Correction and the Look of Festival Documentary
- Chris Cagle
- Indian Food Television: Tracing the Transformation of Hindi and English Food Shows (2010–2018)
- Dattatreya Ghosh
- (Re)Writing Music History:...
Volume 87, Spring 2021
- Experiments in the Cine-Olympic Cycle: Camera Technology and Operation in The Grand Olympics (1961) and White Rock (1977)
- Adam Herbert
- Beyond Basketball: NBA Entertainment and the Sports League as Global Media Empire, 1982–1990
- Steven Secular
- Running the Wrong Pattern: TVTV Goes to the Super Bowl
- Brett Kashmere
- From the Tribune to the Tube: The Development of Sports Punditry on Cable Televis...
#86, Fall 2020
- Absence, Disappearance, and Obfuscation: Contouring the US Anime Market through the Nonpresences in Crunchyroll's Yaoi Catalog
- K.T. Wong
- Nelson Sullivan's Video Memories: YouTube Nostalgia and the Queer Archive Effect
- Joseph Deleon
- The Queer Public and Its Problem with Representation
- Tyler Quick
- Toward a Filipinx Method: Queer of Color Critique and QTGNC Mobilization in Mark Aguhar's Poetics
- M.T. Val...
#85, Spring 2020
- The Reparative Bite of the Zombie Mouth
- Kyle Christensen
- You Already Know: Professionalizing Corrections through Instructional Film, 1976–1981
- Catherine Harrington
- Breaking the Mirror: Hausu and Bad Love Objects
- Erin Nunoda
- El Santo vs. Mystery Science Theater 3000: Lucha Libre's Transnational Journey into American Popular Culture
- Emily Rauber Rodriguez
- Remixing Vulgarity: Reint...
#84, Fall 2019
#83, Spring 2019
#82, Fall 2018
#81, Spring 2018
#80, Fall 2017
#79, Spring 2017
#78, Fall 2016
#77, Spring 2016
Other past issues include:
#76, Fall 2015
#75, Spring 2015
#74, Fall 2014
#73, Spring 2014
#72, Fall 2013
#71, Spring 2013
#70, Fall 2012
#69, Spring 2012
#68, Fall 2011
#67, Spring 2011
#66, Fall 2010
#65, Spring 2010
#64, Fall 2009
#63, Spring 2009
#62, Fall 2008
#61, Spring 2008
#60, Fall 2007
#59, Spring 2007
#58, Fall 2006
#57, Spring 2006
#56, Fall 2005
#55, Spring 2005
#54, Fall 2004
#53, Spring 2004
#52, Fall 2003
#51, Spring 2003
#50, Fall 2002
#49, Spring 2002
#48, Fall 2001
#47, Spring 2001
#46, Fall 2000
#45, Spring 2000
#44, Fall 1999
#43, Spring 1999
#42, Fall 1998
#41, Spring 1998
#40, Fall 1997
#39, Spring 1997
#38, Fall 1996
#37, Spring 1996
#36, Fall 1995
#35, Spring 1995
#34, Fall 1994
#33, Spring 1994
Submissions:
The Velvet Light Trap #91 | Call for Papers
Digital Storytelling
Digital environments have quickly become major catalysts in our shifting conversations about the ways narratives and stories are told across the media ecology. While scholarship on legacy media storytelling has traditionally been shaped by frameworks of text, audience, and industry, discourses of digital media storytelling show signs of growth and expansion as production and distribution of digital stories continue to rise in the 2020s. Notably, technology companies such as Facebook and Apple as well as those satellite corporate stakeholders which have investments in the digital technologies and storytelling strategies employed within the new media ecology have become significantly powerful players within this digital revolution. As technology companies blend and converge with the media industries, distinctions between story and medium have become harder to identify. Additionally, the evolving nature of storytelling throughout the new media ecology has and continues to influence the ways audiences engage with digital content.
Although topics related to digital storytelling have pushed many scholars to discuss streaming media technologies and culture, The Velvet Light Trap attempts to map out a broader and more comprehensive snapshot of digital storytelling. This issue welcomes submissions that connect concerns within the technology industries to the texts produced and distributed within the parameters of digital storytelling in the 21st century. The integration of technology and text can open up new discussions of contemporary storytelling while also recontextualizing older bifurcated studies with a more comprehensive lens. Traditional forms of media storytelling have been largely controlled by institutionalized major media companies who own the means to produce and distribute media. In television’s case, linear transmission, scheduling, and the advertising model have led to formulaic storytelling models that have shaped the ways various genres and forms of television storytelling are produced with audiences in mind. However, the digital era has seen these types of institutional barriers broken down, expanding the ways in which stories can be told and diversifying who tells them. While certain limitations within the developments of technology and digital media have received scholarly criticism, this issue wishes to explore the expanding field of digital storytelling as an articulation of the democratizing effect of the digital revolution as well as a site for critical engagement in issues focused on algorithms, surveillance, platform capitalism, and other digitally-forward concerns.
The Velvet Light Trap #91 seeks a variety of topics and approaches which include but are not limited to media industries, production culture, participatory culture, textual analysis, paratextual analysis, authorship studies, transmedia storytelling, media convergences, and contextual culture in analyzing storytelling within its respective digital environment. We welcome submissions that explore the shifting or newly emerging trends in storytelling in the broader media ecology, especially those that push the boundaries of formulaic legacy media storytelling and contextualize the changing modes of narratives within the new media environment, as well as any submissions that explore any of the following themes:
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Histories of digital storytelling, particularly on precedents of today’s digital media ecology and practices
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Algorithm-based storytelling
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Binge-watching and its effects on episodic structures, seasonal structures, and seriality
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Storytelling in social media spaces such as Facebook and Instagram or in digital content spaces such as YouTube and TikTok
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Shifts and evolutions in transmedia storytelling
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Convergent gaming spaces, such as Fortnite
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Cyberspace, virtual reality, metaverse, and other emergent forms of digital storytelling
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Regulation in relation to digital storytelling, including digital copyright, creative commons, and intellectual property law
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Advancement in production technology, particularly in mobile media production, including GoPro, camera drones, and iPhones
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Analysis of short form and newer/alternative genres within the digital media environment
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Textual or genre analysis of particular programming or content within the digital media environment
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Industry strategies in relation to audience enticement and retention, including subscriptions to streaming content platforms, such as HBO Max, and specialty content services, such as OnlyFans
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Digital and social media marketing, including branded content in social media spaces
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Influences of participatory culture in online spaces on new modes of storytelling as well as its reverse effect on legacy media
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Influences of media convergence in legacy media and social media spaces on cultural storytelling
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Shifts in financing in relation to production shifts, particularly from legacy media to streaming and technology-based platforms
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Audience and fan studies in relation to the convergence of theater, television, gaming, and other cultural and media forms
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Changes and/or continuities in relation to computer graphics, animation, virtual effects, and other digital effects and the advancement of realistic or aesthetic expression
Submission Guidelines
Submissions should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words, formatted in Chicago Style. Please submit an electronic copy of the paper, along with a separate one-page abstract, both saved as Microsoft Word files. Remove any identifying information so that the submission is suitable for anonymous review. Quotations not in English should be accompanied by translations. Send electronic manuscripts and/or any questions to vltcfp@gmail.com by February 28, 2022.
About the Journal
TVLT is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal of film, television, and new media. The journal draws on a variety of theoretical and historiographical approaches from the humanities and social sciences and welcomes any effort that will help foster the ongoing processes of evaluation and negotiation in media history and criticism. While TVLT maintains its traditional commitment to the study of American film, it also expands its scope to television and other media, to adjacent institutions, and to other nations' media. The journal encourages both approaches and objects of study that have been neglected or excluded in past scholarship.
Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Texas at Austin coordinate issues in alternation, and each issue is devoted to a particular theme. TVLT's Editorial Advisory Board includes such notable scholars as Lauren S. Berliner, Dolores Inés Casillas, Aymar Jean Christian, Lisa Dombrowski, Raquel Gates, Daniel Herbert, Aniko Imre, Deborah Jaramillo, Lori Morimoto, Meenasarani (Linde) Murugan, Safiya Noble, Debra Ramsey, Bob Rehak, Bonnie “Bo” Ruberg, Avi Santo, Samantha Noelle Sheppard, Dan Streible, Neil Verma, and Alyx Vesey. TVLT's graduate student editors are assisted by their local faculty advisors: Mary Beltrán, Ben Brewster, Jonathan Gray, Lea Jacobs, Derek Johnson, Shanti Kumar, Charles Ramírez Berg, Thomas Schatz (emeritus), and Janet Staiger (emeritus).
Editorial Office:
Wisconsin Editorial Office
Dept. of Communication Arts
Vilas Hall – Sixth Floor
The University of Wisconsin – Madison
Madison, WI 53706
Vilas Hall – Sixth Floor
The University of Wisconsin – Madison
Madison, WI 53706
Austin Editorial Office
Dept. of Radio-Television-Film
2504 Whitis Ave., STOP A0800
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1067
Dept. of Radio-Television-Film
2504 Whitis Ave., STOP A0800
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1067
Indexers:
The Velvet Light Trap is indexed in Academic Search Premier, America: History and Life, Communication Abstracts, Contemporary Culture Index, Film Literature Index, Historical Abstracts, Humanities International Complete, IBR (International Bibliography of Book Reviews), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature), International Index to Film Periodicals, and Sociological Abstracts.
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