[ecrea] ICA preconference; Communications and the State: Toward a New International History

PLEASE NOTE:

PRECONFERENCE DATE CHANGED TO THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2015



Communications and the State: Toward a New International History

International Communication Association Preconference

San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 21, 2015

Sponsor: ICA Communication History Division

Organizers: Gene Allen and Michael Stamm



In 2004, Paul Starr remarked that “Technology and economics cannot alone 
explain the system of communications we have inherited or the one we are 
creating. The communications media have so direct a bearing on the 
exercise of power that their development is impossible to understand 
without taking politics into account, not simply in the use of media, 
but in the making of constitutive choices about them.” Alongside Starr, 
historians have produced a vibrant new literature detailing the 
constitutive role of the state in the making of communications and the 
constitutive role of communications in the making and unmaking of states 
and empires. Indeed, communications – and the industries, 
infrastructures, and cultures that take shape around it – has been 
integral to state-related projects ranging from empire building to 
liberation movements and “great leaps forward.”



Though the range of state activities affecting and structuring 
communications is vast, it is possible to identify four broad themes in 
the literature: the state as communicator, the state as a regulator of 
communication, the state as a creator and/or subsidizer of structures of 
communication, and the state as an object of critique by citizens and 
subjects.



On the first theme, in the earliest days of print, state-building 
monarchs used the medium to celebrate their victories, minimize their 
defeats, and administer increasingly complex relationships with their 
subjects. Today, communications remains a key strategic function of all 
governments, whether democratic or authoritarian. How have these 
functions evolved over time?  How have they been used by different kinds 
of states and regimes at different times? The communication practices 
and requirements of, for example, the modern welfare state are very 
different than those of the pre-Revolutionary French monarchy.  The 
state in a democratic society communicates with its citizens differently 
than a colonial regime does with its subjects.



Along with attempts to shape public opinion, the state also restricts 
and regulates communication.  In democracies, this leads us to histories 
of licensing, censorship and other forms of repression and to histories 
of radical or revolutionary communication in opposition to the state. It 
also directs us to histories of regulatory institutions, legislation, 
court decisions and the myriad other ways that communication 
organizations have negotiated with states over access to public 
resources. Many of these issues have arisen in nondemocratic and 
colonial societies as well, though they often involve different 
strategies, tactics, and outcomes, and sometimes direct and violent 
repression.



Third, scholars have been broadening our understanding of the state’s 
role in creating communications networks and institutions. For example, 
Armand Mattelart has emphasized the importance of physical 
infrastructure, beginning with the systems of roads and canals 
constructed by the mercantilist state in the 17th and 18th centuries, in 
organizing communicative space. Richard John’s work on the US Post 
Office has been similarly influential in generating work on the state 
subsidy of information networks in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some 
scholars have taken a global and comparative approach to this theme, for 
example Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini, who recently extended their 
influential work on comparative media systems to include nonwestern 
societies. Others have interrogated how communication has been 
structured through the actions of supranational entities such as 
empires, international copyright or telecommunications conventions or 
agencies like UNESCO.



And finally, many scholars have examined how audience members, ordinary 
citizens, or colonial subjects have understood, interacted with, and 
responded to the state’s presence in their lives as it pertains to 
communication. Recent historical studies have examined such subjects as 
pirate radio, alternative journalism, media reform movements, public 
protests, court cases aimed at expanding or protecting the right to free 
expression, and forms of everyday resistance such as graffiti and public 
art. To many people in democratic societies, state power has not been 
seen as coincidental with justice or legitimacy. Opposition to colonial 
rule has often (justifiably) been more directly confrontational, though 
in postcolonial societies the idea of a new state can be seen as a path 
to emancipation. We seek to understand the various critiques and 
activist projects that have been generated as people communicate 
alongside or against the state.



Ultimately, the aim of this preconference is to bring together scholars 
studying diverse time periods and geographic areas with the goal of 
drawing conclusions about the state as an active element in the making 
of communications in general, rather than in one particular nation or 
another. We are also interested in what happens when communication 
systems reach across state boundaries and in historical formations that 
have important commonalities with states, such as alliances, kingdoms, 
juntas, and more.



Abstracts of 300 words (maximum) should be submitted no later than 15 
November 2014. Proposals for full panels are also welcome: these should 
include a 250-word abstract for each individual presentation, and a 
200-word rationale for the panel. Send abstracts to: Gene Allen 
((gene.allen /at/ ryerson.ca)). Authors will be informed regarding 
acceptance/rejection for the preconference no later than December 15, 
2014. In an effort to facilitate informed discussion of papers, the 
organizers will have the papers for this preconference posted online. 
For this reason, full papers will need to be submitted no later than 
April 15, 2015.



Gene Allen

Michael Stamm


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