In Media We Trust
Concerns about trust in media are not new. Scholars have long examined how trust in news and media institutions intersects with democracy, public knowledge, political identity, credibility, and social cohesion. Yet the current technological environment demands renewed attention. The rapid development of “smart” and ubiquitous technologies, the platforming of everyday life, and the growing presence of AI across media systems have intensified questions about what, whom, and how we trust.
This special issue of Platform explores how individuals, institutions, and communities navigate contemporary information environments and digital systems. Drawing on the language of faith, In Media We Trust asks how new media networks organise belief, authority, repetition, allegiance, and doubt, and how questions of media literacy, contested sources, myths and rumours, factual accuracy, and unequal access to information shape our attachments to media, truth, and technology.
Media is created, circulated, consumed, and conversed at unprecedented rates across regulated and unregulated platforms, where accessible content creation tools have complex reciprocity between creator and consumer. As digital media users become creators, curators, data producers, audiences, brand advocates, and critics, trust is shaped through participation, repetition, monetisation, and allegiance. From brand marketing and influencer economies to fan cultures, platform personalisation, and community management, media attachments can become difficult to break, raising questions about when distrust is productive and when it becomes cynical, exclusionary, conspiratorial, or politically dangerous.
We invite research that explores all forms of media across global communities, particularly media that are atypical, contested, alternative, independent, community-based, or institutionally marginalised. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives that engage with contemporary media practices, information ecosystems, platform infrastructures, AI-generated content, and the societal implications of trust in this complex landscape.
Areas of interest for this special issue include, but are not limited to:
- Media trust, credibility, scepticism, and distrust
- Media literacy, digital literacy, news literacy, information literacy, and AI literacy
- Rumours, conspiracies, misinformation, disinformation, and contested knowledge
- AI-generated media, including written, image, audio, video, and synthetic content
- Independent, alternative, activist, and community-based media
- Social media, creator cultures, influencer economies, and boots-on-the-ground journalism
- Platform governance, algorithmic visibility, and unregulated media environments
- Decolonial, Indigenous, and Global South perspectives on media trust
- Resistance, resilience, refusal, and repair in media communities
- Attention, affect, immersion, and media saturation
- Game media, fan cultures, participatory media, and community allegiance
- Trust in media institutions, brands, platforms, technologies, and publics
Abstract submissions due: 23:59 (AEST), Tuesday, 15 September, 2026
Full paper submissions due: 23:59 (AEDT), Monday, 1 February 2027
All abstracts should be submitted via email to platformjmc@gmail.com.
Abstracts should not exceed 350 words and must be accompanied by a brief biographical note for each author. Abstracts are to be submitted no later than 15 September 2026. Selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper, which will be due 1 February 2027. Please be aware that acceptance of abstracts does not guarantee publication. All submissions should be from early career researchers (defined as being within five years of completing their PhD) or current graduate students undertaking their Masters, PhD, or international equivalent. Please send all further questions to platformjmc@gmail.com. All eligible submissions will be sent for double-blind peer-review. Early submission is highly encouraged as the review process will commence on submission.
Note: Please read the submission guidelines and style guide before submission. Final submissions received not in house style will not be accepted and authors will be asked to resubmit their work with the correct formatting before it is sent for review.
Platform: Journal of Media and Communication 