[ecrea] Call for papers "Communication and Conflict: Iraq and Syria"

*/Conference and Special Issue /*

*/Call for Papers  /*

*/Title: Communication and Conflict: Syria and Iraq/*

*/Organized by: Centre for Media Studies, SOAS /*

*/Â /*

*/Conference Venue: Khalili Lecture Room, SOAS/*

*/Date: 7 May 2016/*

*Â *

One of the most popular topics in public discourse and research today is
the role of media in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, driven by concerns
about the self-proclaimed Islamic State and its social media recruitment
efforts and propaganda, threats of radicalisation in Western countries,
political and sexual violence, hate speech and racism. Much of the
research, however, is often carried out as a knee-jerk response to moral
panics (or crises) over real events – such as the reaction to the
growing refugee numbers and the related phenomenon of racism, terrorist
acts outside the zones of conflict, mediated spectacles of violence as
well as dominant perceptions of the role of new media in political
violence and extremism. What remains missing are empirically-grounded
analyses of the different ways in which key local, regional and
international state and non-state actors - the US, the UK, France Syria,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah and ‘IS’ – 
appropriate
and selectively use existing ‘cultures of communication’ to
construct, mediate and narrate discourses through different processes,
such as public diplomacy, information warfare and complex practices of
production and consumption.  What is also absent are critical analyses
of why some mediated events are made visible and others are not and
whose voices are heard while others are excluded.

Cultures of communication, which broadly refer to the symbiotic
relationship between language and culture, underpin human dynamics and
relations in every society and therefore are not only important
resources through which conflict is communicated and new identities
imagined, but can also be /constitutive /of conflict, helping shape it
and the social and political power relations around it.  As such,
addressing how cultures of communication are constitutive of conflict
requires an interrogation of the dynamics of narrative (discourse) and
power and the dynamics of narrative and resistance in the context of the
conflicts in Syria and Iraq while not losing sight of political and
military developments. Furthermore, such an interrogation would broaden
the analysis beyond the narrow optic of social media.

This call invites scholars and experts in the fields of media, political
communication, politics, diplomacy and international relations, social
movement and cultural studies to address how the long-term conflicts in
Syria and Iraq are constructed in local and regional contests over power
and narrative. While the literature has shown that narratives can shape
subjects and politics, the relationship is complex and dynamic and
cannot be addressed without considering the military and political
contexts within which narratives are produced, circulated and
reproduced. As such, this call is particularly interested in
historically-grounded empirically-supported papers addressing the
innovative ways in which the conflicts are narrated and discussed; the
relationship between language and culture and between aesthetics and
image as well as the diverse practices of production, consumption and
circulation of particular discourses and how these relate to the
changing material contexts within which they exist. Specifically, the
call seeks papers focusing on local, regional and international state
and non-state actors’ selective appropriation of existing cultures of
communications and of digital archiving as strategic tools in the
ongoing battle over ideologies and identities. Along with the broad
themes and aims of the conference and the special issue, we invite
papers addressing some of the broad themes below through using
empirically-grounded analyses of specific case studies:

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1.     Representation. Who is represented, who is ignored and 
which
constituents are addressed?

2.     Narrative, Image and language

3.     Aesthetics and Affect.

4.     Communication and policy

5.     Islamophobia, migration and other moral panics

6.     Geography, space and place. does it matter?

7.     Propaganda, global diplomacy and conflict

8.     Strategic communication

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*Deadline for submission of abstracts: 10 February 2016*

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words and should provide a short
explanation of your contribution to this special issue, provide a clear
description of the proposed approach, the theoretical framework and
empirical data.

*Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 25 February 2016*

*For the journal issue:*

*Deadline for submission of complete manuscripts:Â  15 July 2016 *

Articles should be between 6000- 7000 words long and include an abstract
of 150 words, the author’s affiliation and email address and at least
five keywords

Please send a paper proposal along with a short bio by 31 January 2016 to

*Dina Matar at *

*(dm27 /at/ soas.ac.uk) <mailto:(dm27 /at/ soas.ac.uk)>***

MEJCC is a peer-reviewed journal published by Brill three times a year
(http://www.brill.com/middle-east-journal-culture-and-communication

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