Submit a Manuscript to the Journal
Journalism Practice

For a Special Issue on
Sustainable Journalism in the Global South: Concepts, practices, and challenges

Call for papers:

Journalism is the foundation stone of democracy. A knowledgeable and well-informed society is a precondition for an effective operation of democratic systems. The role of journalism in any society becomes crucial as it allows the public to make informed decisions about the policies that affect their lives. Nevertheless, in today’s world, individuals and communities are affected by sustainability crises that affect their lives through multi-facet environmental, societal, and economic issues.

Sustainable Journalism is committed to achieving so as to contribute to building a sustainable future (Tallert, 2021). The centrality of information and communication to development is irrefutable. By addressing the sustainability crises of society and facilitating public awareness and media discourse related to climate change, democracy, poverty, inequality, and armed conflicts, journalism becomes a tool for open and inclusive sustainable development. However, it is essential to understand how journalism can promote progress to achieve sustainable development goals. This is particularly important in the Global South – where national governments witness difficulties in achieving sustainable development goals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably affected the lives of people across the globe (Ceron et al., 2021). There is certainly no distinction of any specific region where people have not faced the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, there are certain countries that were more vulnerable than others. The severity and magnitude of challenges are much higher in the regions of the Global South, such as Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East (Gautam & Hens, 2020; Nundy et al., 2021; Shrestha et al., 2020). Before the COVID19 pandemic, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals report (2022) has already suggested that the countries from the Global South are witnessing record economic crises and
environmental issues, including climate change, an overall environmental degradation, heightened digital, societal and gender inequalities, a lack of media and information illiteracy, and the abuse of human rights. Specifically, the attacks on the freedom of media, restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and access to information, commonly found in the Global South (Harlow et al., 2022; Higgins Joyce et al., 2022), and hence pose particular risks for the less advantaged ones. Consequently, journalists are not able to create public awareness about how sustainability crises in different aspects (i.e., economic, society, and environment) affect their lives. They are also unable to facilitate dialogue on crucial questions related to the pervasive
inequalities in these regions, sustainable development outcomes, and the possible initiatives that can be taken together for a better and livable future.

Moreover, sustainable development demands addressing the journalism crises, which is much related to the issues of declining revenues, a lack of financial sustainability, media capture, disinformation, and a lack of public trust, leading to the general incredibility of journalism as an institution. The sustainability crisis of journalism is understood as a result of changing modes of news consumption, a lack of a clear business model, the rise of mis- and disinformation, and the journalism’s trust problem (Tallert, 2021). However, as sustainable journalism is still evolving, much must be explored to unpack its various aspects. To date, journalism and media studies have generally studied the sustainability of news through a pair of lenses: sustainability crises of society and journalism. However, both are intertwined and threaten the world’s future. A sustainable society—economically, environmentally, and socially—necessitates news media outlets and journalists to report on sustainability challenges facing society and individuals, while addressing the sustainability of the journalistic institution from a broader perspective (Singh et al., 2015). Several journalistic concepts, such as solutions-oriented, constructive, gender- and conflict-sensitive, media and information literacy, digital literacy, global-local, entrepreneurial, and ethical, can be used when
turning sustainable journalism into practice (Berglez, Olausson, & Ots, 2017). This helps the public to understand the impacts of emerging economic, ecological, and social issues on our generation and future generations, and how these can be mitigated through effective processes and decisions. Sustainable journalism thus helps people for giving ideological and cultural meaning to the notion of sustainability within their specific contexts.

This special issue, ‘Sustainable Journalism in the Global South: Concepts, Practices, and Challenges,’ recognizes the evolving role of journalism in addressing the intertwined sustainability crises of society and journalism in its multiple shapes and forms. We encourage submissions from diverse disciplines, particularly from the Global South, where sustainability plays a prominent role. We invite contributions of theoretical, methodological, and empirical manuscripts, which may include (but are not limited to) the topics listed below:

• Concept of sustainable journalism in the Global South: Ideological and cultural
perspectives;
• The practice of sustainable journalism in diverse contexts: approaches and their viability;
• Sustainable development through media, information and digital literacy practices;
• News framing and media discourses on sustainability crises and sustainable development;
• Sustainability reporting as an evolving beat area;
• Journalists’ education and training for sustainable journalism;
• The corporate social responsibility of news organizations to mitigate the sustainability
crises of the society (i.e., economic, environmental, and social challenges) ;
• Sustainability and journalism’s issues: how media portrayed its own efforts in terms of
sustainability;
• Journalism sustainability in periods of declining revenue and viable business model;
• News sustainability through its quality and content diversity;
• The sustainability in places with issues of information access and freedom of expression,
disinformation, and lack of public trust

All abstracts should be submitted to the corresponding guest editor: Dr. Sadia Jamil ([email protected])

• Deadline for abstract submission: 10th January, 2023
• Notification of accepted abstracts: 15 February, 2023
• Deadline for full paper submission: 30 July, 2023 

• Select "special issue title” when submitting your paper to ScholarOne
• Your paper should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).
• Please include a word count for your paper. A typical paper for this journal should be between 6,000 and 9,000 words, inclusive of:
• There are no strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to evaluate a manuscript: abstract, author affiliation, figures, tables, funder information, and references. Further details may be requested upon acceptance.
• References can be in any style or format, so long as a consistent scholarly citation format is applied. Author name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title, year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate) and page numbers are essential. All bibliographic entries must contain a corresponding in-text citation. The addition of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers is recommended but not essential.
• The journal reference style will be applied to the paper post-acceptance by Taylor & Francis.
• For more submission details, access journal's website: Submit to Journalism Practice (tandfonline.com)

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