[ecrea] ICA Preconference: Beyond the Brand

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INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION – POPULAR COMMUNICATION DIVISION
PRECONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
BEYOND THE BRAND
http://beyondthebrand2013.wordpress.com/
17 June 2013, 8AM – 4:30PM
London School of Economics

Organizers: Devon Powers, Drexel University and Melissa Aronczyk, 
Carleton University
Keynote Address: Don Slater, London School of Economics
Confirmed Senior Scholar Participants
Sarah Banet-Weiser, University of Southern California
Aeron Davis, Goldsmiths, University of London
Alison Hearn, University of Western Ontario
Matt McAllister, Pennsylvania State University
Liz Moor, Goldsmiths, University of London
Joe Turow, University of Pennsylvania

BEYOND THE BRAND
A vital shift in contemporary communication is related to the ways in 
which interpersonal and public communication have been (re)located and 
transformed in increasingly promotional contexts. One index of this 
transformation is the ubiquity, polyvalence, and assumptions of 
branding. The “work” of the brand is to act at once as representation 
and object, communication and control, market and media.

As concept, metaphor, technology and communicative logic, brands are 
part popular culture and part commerce, part personal and part 
collective, part rationality and part affect. They appear to be 
everywhere even as they effectively seek to hide their origins.

What resources do scholars have to get “beyond the brand”? How can we 
come up with more effective and trenchant definitions and analytical 
tools to overcome brands’ seeming ubiquity, and to defuse the apparent 
power of branding in language and in practice? The goal of this 
preconference is to develop resources and strategies in four thematic 
areas: brands and methods/critique; brands, knowledge, and surveillance; 
brands and communities of resistance (locally and transnationally); and 
brands and industrial/institutional change.


WORKING GROUPS
Participants in this one-day preconference should plan to take part in 
one of four working groups:

1. Brands and Scholarly Methods/Critique
2. Brands and Communities of Resistance, Locally and Transnationally
3. Brands, Knowledge and Surveillance
4. Industrial and Institutional Change in Brand Environments

For details about each of these working groups, see 
beyondthebrand2013.wordpress.com



HOW TO APPLY
Interested applicants should submit a 350-500 word abstract detailing 
the relationship to their work to one of the above working areas. Submit 
abstracts to (beyondthebrand2013 /at/ gmail.com) before 1 February 2013. 
Accepted participants will be notified by March 1, 2013.

We encourage applications from graduate students. Four graduate students 
will be selected to serve as editorial assistants, charged with the task 
of writing an analytic summary of the working group proceedings.

The preconference fee for participants is £47/$75. A limited number of 
fee waivers are available for scholars from low-income countries and 
graduate students.

Please direct queries and requests for information to 
(beyondthebrand2013 /at/ gmail.com)




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