Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to share a call for abstracts for a proposed special issue on "Iran Amid Crises: War, Media, Repression, and the Future of Democratic Movements," to be submitted for consideration by Media, War & Conflict.
The special issue examines the recent protests, war, and repression in Iran as a critical case for understanding authoritarian power under conditions of extreme coercion, communicative disruption, international conflict, and political uncertainty. The 2025–26 uprising and subsequent war have intensified long-standing questions about state violence, digital authoritarianism, propaganda, information warfare, journalism under restriction, diaspora witnessing, AI-generated disinformation, and the political economy of repression.
We are particularly interested in submissions that move beyond description and offer analytically strong, empirically grounded, and conceptually ambitious contributions. Papers may focus specifically on Iran or place the Iranian case in comparative dialogue with other authoritarian and conflict-affected contexts, including Belarus, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and beyond.
Possible themes include, but are not limited to, state violence and securitization; internet shutdowns and infrastructural repression; propaganda and disinformation; AI-generated content and synthetic media; journalism and fact-checking under blackout; diaspora activism; cultural politics and defiance; trauma and witnessing; political economy; and comparative studies of authoritarian resilience and democratic mobilization.
Abstracts should be sent to Pardis Yarahmadi at pardis.yarahmadi@hdr.qut.edu.au no later than 31 August 2026. The email subject line should be: Abstract Submission for "Iran Amid Crises" Special Issue.
Abstracts should be submitted as a .docx file and include: title, author name(s), institutional affiliation(s), email address(es), abstract, keywords, and short biographical note(s).
Please see the link below for further details. I would be grateful if you could circulate this call among colleagues, networks, and researchers who may be interested.
Best wishes,
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Hossein Kermani
Postdoctoral researcher
University of Vienna, Department of Communication
Wien
Austria
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