ZMJ Call For Papers: Mediatization of the Sport–Fashion Nexus: Trends, Convergences, and Transformations

2026-01-19

Mediatization is commonly understood as a meta-process (Krotz, 2007) through which media logics permeate social institutions and cultural practices, producing long-term transformations at micro-, meso-, and macro-social levels (Hepp, 2012). Operating alongside other meta-processes such as globalization and commercialization, mediatization assumes differentiated forms across socio-cultural contexts. In the field of sport (Frandsen, 2020; Tirino, 2025), it has significantly reshaped organizational structures, cultural meanings, and value systems, redefining the relationship between media, sport institutions, and audiences.

These dynamics have intensified through successive waves of “digital mediatization” (Couldry & Hepp, 2016), associated with mobile connectivity, social media platforms, immersive environments, and generative artificial intelligence. Contemporary elite sport has thus consolidated its role as a highly mediatized, commercialized (Horne, 2006), and globalized (Giulianotti & Numerato, 2018) cultural industry, exemplified by events and circuits such as the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, the NBA, Formula 1, and the ATP Tour. Within the so-called “media/sports complex” (Jhally, 1984), the convergence of interests among sports organizations, media industries, and multinational corporations generates new forms of participation, visibility, and consumption, extending beyond sport-specific merchandise to the broader circulation of sports symbols across multiple product sectors.

Within this framework, the relationship between fashion and sport represents a particularly significant area of investigation. Historically rooted in class-based distinctions and embodied in garments associated with specific sporting practices (e.g. tennis, golf, sailing), sport has long functioned as a vehicle for the production and dissemination of styles, lifestyles, and values, co-constructed by media representations. Recent transformations are characterized by the progressive erosion of traditional boundaries between sport and fashion, as sportswear increasingly permeates everyday wardrobe and even formal dress codes — a process institutionalized in cultural settings such as the Fashion V Sport exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (2009). At the same time, sport has partially reconfigured itself, acquiring renewed authority in technical, aesthetic, and symbolic terms, particularly evident during sports mega-events (Williams, 2025).

Further convergence has emerged through processes of hybridization and innovation. Collaborations between fashion designers and sportswear brands (e.g. Jil Sander and Puma) operate as experimental sites in which media visibility, design practices, and industrial strategies intersect, fostering innovation in materials, production technologies, and sustainability-oriented solutions (Bielefeldt Bruun & Langkjær, 2016). In this context, athletes and designers act as key mediators, mobilizing symbolic capital and professional identities within highly mediatized environments.

Social media platforms play a central role in these processes, enabling more direct, interactive, and partially disintermediated circulation of fashion- and sport-related value (Hou, 2025). They contribute to new forms of identification between brands, sports institutions, celebrities, and audiences (Loureiro et al., 2023), while the recurrence of mediatized representations supports the circulation of shared meanings and values within a framework combining personalization and commercialization (Driessens, 2013).

This special issue of Zone Moda Journal invites interdisciplinary contributions about the cultural, symbolic, and socio-economic dynamics emerging from the mediatization of the sport–fashion nexus.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • technical sportswear and fashion trends;
  • sports celebrities as fashion influencers, testimonials and trendsetters;
  • media narratives of sports-fashion connections;
  • sports fandom, social media, and fashion practices;
  • sport–fashion relations in digital and immersive environments;
  • digital fashion, e-sports, and video games;
  • sports mega-events and fashion;
  • fashion and forms of cultural resistance within the commodified media/sport complex.

 

Submissions

Abstracts of no more than 600 words, excluding bibliographical references (word*.docx format), written either in Italian or English, are required to illustrate the objectives of the paper, the research question(s) and the methodology adopted. They must be sent, together with a short biographical note, to: sicastellano@unisa.it; zmj@unibo.it (with object: Abstract submission for ZMJ – Mediatization of the Sport-Fashion Nexus).

Authors will be notified of proposal acceptance by April 17, 2026.

Abstract acceptance does not guarantee publication of the article, which will be submitted to a double-blind peer-review process. Submission of a paper will be taken to imply that it is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Key Deadlines:

  • Abstract submission: March 15, 2026.
  • Notification of acceptance/rejection: April 17, 2026 (notice of acceptance might include comments and requests for explanations).
  • Full-length paper (6000/7000 words) submission: June 19, 2026.
  • Comments of the reviewers will be conveyed together with the editor’s decision (approval with no changes, approval with major/minor changes and/or rejection): July 20, 2026.
  • Authors shall send the reviewed article to the editorial staff by August 24, 2026.

ZMJ Vol. 16 N.2 is scheduled to be published by December 2026.