CfP: Critical Minerals and Media Technologies
Concept and Scope: Critical minerals have become a flashpoint in contemporary geopolitics, shaping international relations in ways that directly impact media and technology industries. Since its emergence as a military-industrial term in the early twentieth century, the meaning of critical minerals has expanded to include materials deemed essential to not only military preparedness or national security, but also green energy, digital infrastructure, and more. The strategic importance of critical minerals has drawn increasing scrutiny amid global competition for resources that underpin everything from electric vehicles to missile guidance systems to enabling media technologies to become smaller, faster, and brighter. At the same time, critical mineral supply chains are often complex and opaque between mine and product, with significant implications for frontline communities and environments. Recent maneuverings by the United States further illustrate how critical minerals can intersect with economic and political power on a global scale: potash, used in fertilizers, has been a key bargaining chip in trade negotiations with Canada. President Donald Trump’s discussions with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy led to the establishment of the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, which secured U.S. access to Ukraine’s critical mineral reserves—including lithium, titanium, and rare earth elements—in exchange for military support. Similarly, the United States is pursuing security-for-minerals agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s largest cobalt supplier—essential for lithium-ion batteries.
This special issue invites scholars to explore the entanglements between critical minerals and media technologies and infrastructures. Critical minerals are typically studied through the lenses of geology, economics, environments, and geopolitics, with particular attention to their roles in military systems and energy infrastructure. However, their entanglements with media technologies—such as televisions, smartphones, computers, data centers, and display screens—remain underexplored. This special issue builds on the material turn in media studies and scholarship in extractive media to foreground the physical substrates and extractive processes that enable digital culture. Its focus on the intersection of critical minerals and media technologies further highlights the geopolitical and political economic dimensions underpinning resource extraction and supply chains. We invite contributors to ask: what role have critical minerals played in contemporary media technologies? How have media representations of critical minerals and criticality shaped geopolitics and struggles for environmental justice?
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- The labor embedded in the mineral supply chains of media technologies
- The impact of colonial extraction economies in shaping contemporary media supply chains
- The dual-use of minerals in military and media infrastructures
- The role that physical and optical properties of specific minerals play in shaping media aesthetics
- The environmental and social afterlives of mining and media hardware
- The epistemic work of the designation “critical”: how countries have variously defined criticality; how its usage shapes perceptions of mineral necessity, scarcity, and justifications for extraction
We especially encourage historically grounded, interdisciplinary work that connects media studies with fields such as science and technology studies, geography, environmental history, and art history.
Contribution Guidelines:
We invite article contributions between 5,000 – 7,500 words, although both shorter and longer pieces are permissible. To propose an article to the stream, please send a 250-350 word abstract, provisional title, and short author bio to Gustave Lester or Siobhan Angus by the deadline of 15 November 2025.
For detailed guidelines, please refer to the journal guidance for authors. As per Media+Environment submission and review process: articles will undergo double-blind peer-review with the final decision made by the journal editors. In keeping with the journal’s dual emphasis on media studies and environmental justice, both the reviewers and the editors will assess legibility to media scholars and genuine attention to environmental impacts.