Aims

Participations is interested in publishing good work from any of the main traditions of research into audiences and reception processes and practices. We welcome work addressing topics across the full range of kinds of media and culture. We especially want to encourage and enable dialogue across traditions and approaches.

We welcome many kinds of writing, including: reports of empirical research; critical and conceptual debates; republication of significant ‘lost’ pieces of work, and revaluations of old work felt to be still of value; state-or-the-art surveys, and critical reviews; and methodological discussions. We particularly welcome work which is:

  • Clearly and fully presented, in ways which make evidence and argument clear to readers;
  • Thoughtful about strengths, limitations and weaknesses, and about relations to previous and other traditions of work;
  • Well-contextualised work that is aware of critical debates surrounding the areas of its expertise;
  • Innovative in broaching new topics and areas, or presenting new ideas, methods, or evidence.

Because of our sense of the state of our field (see our History and Founding Principles statement), we are particularly interested in receiving work which shows awareness of the range of approaches which have been developed and are being used. We welcome and encourage dialogue between approaches, and thoughtful critical evaluation of work conducted under any and all of them.