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Digital Resilience Within a Hypermediated Polycrisis

Academic Editors: Marc Esteve Del Valle (University of Groningen), Ansgard Heinrich (University of Groningen), and Anabel Quan-Haase (University of Western Ontario)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 May 2025
Submission of Full Papers: 15-30 September 2025
Publication of the Issue: January/June 2026

As the world faces a state of interwoven and overlapping crises—Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and ongoing wars with global scope—referred to as “polycrisis” (Morin & Kern, 1999, p. 74), the role of media, and in particular of online social networks (boyd & Ellison, 2007), in affecting people’s resilience to withstand these crises remains understudied (Craig et al., 2015). This is problematic, as people’s extensive engagement with online social networks intertwines resilience to these crises with their practices on these digital platforms (Esteve-del-Valle et al., 2022).

This thematic issue aims to discuss how digital resilience (Tomkova, 2020) can be (re)defined within a state of polycrisis that—thanks to increased global connectivity through digitization—can be characterized as “hypermediated” (Hepp, 2020). It aims to bring together theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions examining how digital resilience can help counter digital threats such as mis/disinformation, conspiracy theories, malicious bots, or deep fakes (among others). The editors welcome proposals that focus on both individual countries and comparative studies employing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches.

We welcome proposals that address (yet are not limited to) potential questions/themes such as:

How can digital resilience be (re)defined within the current hypermediated polycrisis?
How can digital resilience be conceptually integrated with digital literacy?
What strategies can be employed to enhance digital resilience in countering misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms?
How can digital resilience help mitigate current polarizing and radicalizing narratives in online social networks?
What measures can be taken to build digital resilience against polluted online environmental discussions?
What role can journalists play in increasing digital resilience against the so-called crisis of trust in media?

We particularly seek contributions that employ interdisciplinary approaches and strive for a balanced representation of gender and non-Western viewpoints.

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Media and Communication is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.

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