Mosco’s book The Political Economy of Communication, first published in 1996, with a second edition in 2009, was a strong shaping force in this emerging field and hence on the international interdisciplinary network of contributors that was growing up around the journal. 

It is therefore fitting that, twenty years later, the final issue of Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation will be dedicated to Mosco’s legacy. It is not our aim to chronicle his intellectual journey (something he himself did in his posthumously published Critical Communications: A Memoir, published in 2024). Nor is it our intention to add to the growing literature that celebrates his considerable scholarly achievements (see for example Fuchs, 2024).  Rather, our goal is to apply Mosco’s conceptual frameworks, concepts and critical insights to the new political, social and economic conjuncture we now find ourselves in. Looking to the future, what can we learn from Mosco’s legacy? 

The world has changed a great deal since Mosco’s Democratic Communications in the Information Age was published in 1979, just as neoliberalism burst upon the scene. The new global division of labour and the form of globalisation that was enabled by the spread of digitalisation and the breakdown of the Cold War, which peaked between the early 1990s and the financial crisis of 2008, have now begun to fracture in the face of tariff wars and escalating military conflicts. Meanwhile, the deepening spread of digital technologies into all aspects of life, along with new technological developments such as generative artificial intelligence (AI), have placed ever more monopoly power in the oligarchic hands of a few global corporations, operating beyond the ability of individual nation states to control them. Mosco was prescient in anticipating many of the questions that now confront us. For example, he was among the first to grasp the importance of the cloud, and its implications for the future of the planet (Mosco, 2014) and to focus on smart cities in the global context (Mosco, 2019). Nevertheless, there have been many moments since his death that Mosco’s former students and academic followers have wondered, ‘What would he make of this?’.

The call

In a departure from our usual practice, we are inviting contributions of two kinds to this special issue of Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation.

First, we seek focused reflections in the form of short essays of around 3,000 words from scholars who have been inspired by Mosco’s work, exploring how his ideas might be applied in the context of the emerging new world order. This could take the form of theoretical engagement, applying a critical concept, interrogating and engaging a definition, or extending his insights into new terrain. Second, we invite contributors to present articles of around 6,000 words that present recent research (theoretical or empirical) or work in progress that draws on his ideas.  

We will consider articles on a range of topics. We are particularly interested in contributions that address one or more of the following issues:

• Global value chains in communications and creative work and how these are impacted by the new geopolitics;
• The changing relationship between communications corporations and the state;
• The turn of digital corporations to rentierism and what this means for communications workers;
• Democracy, fact-checking, and the future of independent journalism;
• The political economy of the cloud, artificial intelligence or other developing technologies
• Digitalisation, war, and the military industrial complex;
• The impacts of AI on creative work and how creative workers are struggling to resist and organise;
• The environmental implications of AI;
• Data annotation and labour;
• AI governance or the political economy of communications policy;
• Intersectional dimensions of AI;
• Communication activism, labour organisation and praxis.

We welcome articles from a range of different disciplinary perspectives including (but not limited to) cultural and communications studies, labour sociology, political economy, economic geography, industrial relations, urban planning, policy analysis and gender studies. Articles may draw on the authors’ original quantitative, qualitative or theoretical research but must demonstrate a clear contribution to knowledge and go beyond mere literature reviews.


Editors

This special issue will be edited by:

Nicole Cohen, Associate Professor, University of Toronto,

Leslie Regan Shade, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto,

Catherine McKercher, Professor Emerita, Carleton University and

Ursula Huws, Editor, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation.


The deadline

The deadline for submissions is December 31st, 2025.

Article should be no longer than 6,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography).

Articles should be submitted in two forms: an anonymised version in which all references to the authors’ institution and publications are omitted; and a full version including the authors’ titles and institutional affiliations. All submitted articles are subjected to double-blind peer review.

Articles should be sent to the editor: ursulahuws@analyticapublications.co.uk