[ecrea] cfp: COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY

Call for Papers

COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY
2012 Conference of the International Communication Association
24-28 May 2012
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Submission:http://www.icahdq.org/cfp

ICA Conference: Call for Papers

The 21st century has witnessed unparalleled efforts at community building
and resilience. This period has also experienced significant community
devastation, decline, and dissolution. Notions of community are complex,
multidimensional, and in flux. Through personal relationships, messages,
institutions, and artifacts, communication may inspire inclusion and/or
exclusion, support and/or discourage interaction, enhance and/or
constrain civil and uncivil discourse, and promote and/or devalue
individual and collective rights. As boundaries become more permeable
and connectivity ever more possible, the meanings of community are being
contested. Conceptualizations and configurations of our personal,
social, organizational, professional and political communities are
undergoing enormous change.

The ICA 2012 Conference Theme, Communication and Community, addresses the
challenges, opportunities, and implications of these changes.
Communication scholars across ICA divisions and interest groups are
theoretically, substantively, and methodologically well-positioned to
articulate the multi-level dynamics of community. The study of
communication and community can span diverse contexts ranging from
political partisanship to terrorist-cell organization, health campaigns
to natural disasters, civic activism to corporate social responsibility,
identity conflicts to intergroup collaboration, and secret societies to
familial, friendship, and work networks. Communication researchers
examine, for example, how groups battle for legitimacy in the media; how
parent-child and doctor-patient boundaries change with the advent of
technology; how messages shape our understanding of local diaspora and
foreign cultures; and how individuals' perceptions of their community
influence how they engage with those around them. Clearly the problems
that inform communication scholarship are drawn from numerous concerns
connected to issues of community.

Ultimately, and regardless of the context of study, central questions of
community address:

* The role that communication plays in the constitution, development,
maintenance, and dissolution of community

How have our conceptions of community evolved over time? Similarly, how
have our communicative practices driven or changed in response to these
evolving conceptions of community?

* The normative and ethical issues grounded in emerging notions of
community

What are the current theoretical, methodological, political, and
practical debates surrounding communication scholars' engagement in our
local and global communities? Under what conditions is a community
ideal? What role do interpersonal, environmental, economic,
organizational, political, technological, cultural and ethical factors
play in defining this utopian community?

* Identifying communicative opportunities and challenges that arise as
communities are transformed

How can we better understand the relationship between the globalization
of communities and the contemporary information environment? How is
change communicated? How do communities address the inherent tensions,
contradictions, and dualities of change such as convergence/divergence
and fragmentation/integration?

The ICA annual conference is a primary vehicle for connecting and
sustaining an international community of scholars. Our conference in
Phoenix, Arizona, provides an exciting venue to situate intellectual
debates and dialogue regarding the multiple issues surrounding
communication and community both within and outside the discipline.
Scholars are encouraged to consider the ways in which their own research
addresses the theme and participate in the critical conversations that
help shape the parameters of our community.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM CHAIR:
Cynthia Stohl
University of California, Santa Barbara
Phone: 805-893-7918
Email:(cstohl /at/ comm.ucsb.edu)<mailto:(cstohl /at/ comm.ucsb.edu)>

CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT:
Michael L. Haley
Executive Director
International Communication Association
Phone: 202-955-1444
Email:(mhaley /at/ icahdq.org)<mailto:(mhaley /at/ icahdq.org)>

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