[ecrea] Call for papers on soft power and public diplomacy

International Communication Association Annual Conference

San Diego, USA, 25-29 May 2017

Interventions: Communication Research and Practice


Call for papers for panel contributions:


  “Dynamic approaches to communicative resources of soft power: 
bridging disciplinary gaps, merging theory and practice”



The analysis of communicative resources of soft power such as public 
diplomacy is moving from static modelling to more dynamic approaches, 
accounting for change as a feature in statecraft.  Among communicative 
resources of soft power, public diplomacy has gained a central place in 
Anglo-American academic discourses. However, research reveals that in 
various national settings media technologies and new-entrants to local 
fields governing resources of soft power bring changes to communicative 
practices, which are yet to be accounted for in terms of theory-building 
or adapting new analytical avenues.

International politics scholars have explored changes to the 
international system, but communication scholars have not fully grasped 
change as a feature of soft power. Theoretical approaches to analysis of 
communicative practices argue for conceptual convergence, for example 
‘new public diplomacy’, ‘networked public diplomacy’ or 
‘relationship-building’ (derived from corporate public relations). Yet, 
the frameworks and methodologies for analysis of changes to the ways in 
which state and non-state actors contribute to our understanding of soft 
power governance and its resources remains under-developed. Because of 
that, scholarship runs a risk of leading to taxonomic and conceptual 
assumptions when confronted with empirical insights or epistemic 
descriptions, particularly if explored in non-Western national settings 
or approached from a comparative perspective.



The analysis of dynamics of change in statecraft, and ways in which 
communicative practices facilitate exercising influence in world 
politics, has been furthered complicated by the emergence of new media 
technologies. The changing media landscapes pushed the boundaries of the 
public diplomacy practice into digitalised forms of diplomacy such as 
‘cyber-diplomacy’ or ‘digital diplomacy’. Whilst the academic discourses 
on diplomacy and statecraft accounted for the role of international 
broadcast media in exercising soft power, the interplays between 
‘traditional’ and ‘new’ media technologies, their impact on foreign news 
media coverage of states and their nations, the ways in which media 
coverage translates into national reputations and the overlapping roles 
of journalists as public diplomats, indicates changing media landscapes 
in which soft power is exercised. To date, multidisciplinary approaches 
to analysis of communicative resources of soft power have yielded some 
evidence of qualitative and quantitative changes to the governance of 
its resources. This also includes research uncovering juxtaposition of 
Western soft power concepts and practices with non-Western national 
settings, which, we argue, requires particularly nuanced approaches to 
analysis of communicative practices, and theorising ways in which state 
and non-state actors adopt, adapt or resist changes in wielding soft power.



Therefore, this panel is looking for empirical contributions to address 
how change comes about in soft power statecraft and the governance of 
its communicative practices (e.g. ‘public diplomacy’, ‘cultural 
diplomacy’, ‘public relations’, ‘destination marketing’), and how 
changes to the communicative practices accompanying soft power can be 
theorised in various research designs, including comparative 
perspectives. In response to a growing requirement for the 
internationalisation of research on political communication, and for 
considering non-Western actors in diplomacy and statecraft, the panel is 
looking to address, and is seeking for contributions, on the following 
topics:



   *   Theory-building and ontologies for merging contemporary studies 
on soft power and its communicative practices – such as public 
diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, destination marketing, investment 
marketing and/or nation branding;
   *   Analytical approaches to capture ‘change’ in studies on 
statecraft and soft power;
   *   New ways of theorizing links between communicative practices and 
soft power;
   *   Changing roles of the state, political leaders, corporate 
actors, civic society organizations and celebrities in shaping the 
statecraft of soft power;
   *   Comparative frameworks for analysis of communicative resources 
of soft power;
   *   The interplay and convergence of international broadcast media 
and digital media in soft power, including public diplomacy and/or 
cultural diplomacy;
   *   Digital methodologies and digital data mining and tracing 
approaches.


Please, send your 350 words abstract to Pawel Surowiec at 
(psurowiec /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)<mailto:(psurowiec /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)> by 24th 
of October 2016. Selected participants will be contacted with further 
instructions.

Dr. Pawel Surowiec
Senior Lecturer in Propaganda Studies


---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------