Since 2013, the traditional monographic section of each issue of Comunicazioni Sociali has been supplemented by a miscellaneous section. The call for papers for the miscellaneous section is always open. Contributions will undergo the same double-blind peer-reviewing process of the monographic section. Since its inception, CS has been contributing on key debates of studies on theatre, cinema, radio, television, journalism, advertising and digital media. The journal has promoted a rigorous reflection on theory, history and critical analysis of media, communications and performance arts. It continues to be a fundamental voice within the debate on the more recent and controversial questions of communication (from ethics to anthropological design) drawing on theoretical reflection and historical analysis, as well as from the proceedings of empirical research.

Using different starting and entry points (based, inter alia, on journalism studies, organizational communication, game studies, discourse theory, visual communication), the collection of articles included in this special issue sheds light on the logics of political struggle. In particular, this special issue allows reflecting on the distinction between struggles over and struggles through, very much in line with Plekhanov’s distinction between the means and aims of political struggle, and his argumentation for the alignment of both in socialist strategy.

With the aim of studying how this new technological context is changing current tendencies, this special issue will focus on the strategies and outcomes of European cinema distribution beyond national borders.

Many thought Brexit would not win and Donald Trump could not be elected. An entire media apparatus that was increasingly certain came to produce confusion instead. We are now said to be in a “post truth” time, one where debate over truth has been replaced by a chaos of facts. The more information grows, the more knowledge seems to retreat, and the thought vacuum is increasingly filled with hate speech, hoaxes, and so-called fake news. The aim of this issue is to introduce a critical perspective amidst this wave of anti-inclusionary and counter-informative forces, without falling in the equally undesirable opposites of cynical functionalism (truth is merely what works) or a new, patronizing positivism: truth as a matter of numbers, a sovereignty of data that ends up killing reality, by neutralizing its uncountable aspects.

This special issue will devote particular attention to Post-Millennials’ cinematic experiences within different media, social, and national landscapes, by valorizing new methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks.

The special issue addresses the development of the media system and creative industries in relation both to the major economic crises and to the role played by innovation in making the media – with respect to the crisis itself – assume a cyclical or anti-cyclical role.

The aim of this special issue is to explore this intersection and, consequently, the cross fertilization between fashion studies and media studies, with particular regard to audiovisual media, such as cinema, television, advertising and digital video.

Many thought Brexit would not come to pass, that Donald Trump could not be elected, experts, pollsters, and probability models told us so, down to the decimal point. An entire media apparatus that was increasingly certain came to produce instead confusion. The manufactured character of news becomes dramatically exposed, as well as the entertainment-driven nature of electoral politics that increasingly look like reality shows. The vacuum left behind is threatened to be filled with the rising tide of hate speech, hoaxes, and so-called fake news.

The goal of issue 3/2016 – which could hardly be more timely, due to the industrial, normative, and cultural challenges that await Italian cinema after the promulgation of the Law 220/2016 – is to define what constructs the idea of quality in contemporary Italian cinema, from 2000 up to the present.

In the contemporary anthropological scenario of dualism between body and mind, exasperated by the general exposure to the mimetic desire of a divine body and of a body that is plastic, manipulable, replaceable, interchangeable, the theatre and the performing arts have the double function of criticism and of proposal, in which the development and the care of the individual people, of the community and of the social body are pursued through work with the body and on the body, singular and plural. This issue of CS is devoted to the exposition of the body in the society of images, spectacle and social media, and is divided into two sections, critical and experiential.