[ecrea] 'Distribution Matters // Media Circulation in Civic Life and Popular Culture' ICA Pre-conference

Distribution Matters // Media Circulation in Civic Life and Popular Culture

ICA PRECONFERENCE CALL
International Communication Associaiton
May 25, 2017 in San Diego

[This call is on the web at https://distributionmatters.wordpress.com]

This preconference aims to examine how and why media distribution 
matters to civic life and media culture and the ways in which it 
underpins issues that are more traditionally examined in terms of media 
production or textual analysis. After all, many of the biggest 
challenges and opportunities facing the media industries today revolve 
around the capacity to circulate media and information instantaneously 
and more cheaply than ever before via the internet—what Michael Curtin, 
Jennifer Holt, and Kevin Sanson (2014) have referred to as the 
"distribution revolution."

At the same time, grappling with the signal importance of media 
distribution in industry and public life also means understanding that 
this importance is older than, and reaches beyond, today's commercial 
internet. Scholars from across the field of media industry research—and 
in other areas including media law and regulation, communication 
history, journalism studies, and cultural theory—have used a variety of 
analytical vocabularies to theorize the distribution process. Historian 
and social theorist Michael Warner (2002), for instance, offers examples 
from the 17th century press when he argues that distribution is the 
central concern in the construction of democratic publics. "Not texts 
themselves create publics, but the concatenation of texts through time," 
he writes. "Only when a previously existing discourse can be supposed, 
and when a responding discourse can be postulated, can a text address a 
public" (p. 90). In other words, reliable distribution networks make 
possible the individual and collective conceit that when we publish a 
text we are speaking to the same assembled group over time.

Media distribution, then, can be read as the infrastructural heart of 
"imagined communities" in the style of Benedict Anderson (2006). If, as 
Charles Acland (2003) argues, "the organization of how, when, and under 
what conditions people congregate is a fundamental dimension of social 
life," it is through distribution practices and infrastructures that 
much of this organization takes place (Tryon, 2013), both historically 
and in today's media environment.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

We aim to bring together the growing group of scholars who focus on
distribution as its own topic of study, as well as other work that 
intersects with distribution, but has not typically been framed in that 
way—topics such as internet governance, trending algorithms, digital 
rights management, media infrastructures, and others.

Participants should submit an extended abstract of one to two pages. 
Accepted abstracts will be developed into papers to be distributed to 
panelists and other attendees in advance of the event. Abstracts may 
take the form of brief case studies, position papers, conceptual 
interventions, or other formats likely to lead to engaged discussion. 
Rather than lengthy research presentations, participants will present 
briefly (5 minutes) on their work before participating in a roundtable 
discussion.

Submissions dealing with both contemporary and historical themes and 
subjects are welcomed, as are submissions from a wide variety of 
disciplinary approaches. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

* Distribution and Imagined Community. How do contemporary, legacy, and 
historical distribution infrastructures, practices, and policies affect 
the construction of publics and our sense of community? Whether it's a 
nation's postal network, the broadcast radius of the local television 
station, the circulation footprint of the local newspaper, the far-flung 
reach of satellite television channels, or the "calculated publics" 
(e.g., Gillespie, 2014) produced by algorithms on contemporary online 
media platforms, we welcome explorations of the ways in which 
distribution brings together—or divides—publics and public discourses.

* Distribution and Media Work. Can a focus on distribution broaden
traditionally production-focused accounts of labor in the media 
industries, whether by considering distribution as an important form of 
labor unto itself or by exploring the impact of distribution on 
production work? We welcome accounts that examine what it takes to get 
content in front of audiences, and the various kinds of labour 
involved—from PR and marketing work to warehousing, shelf-stacking and 
transportation.

* Distribution and Public Discourse. Much has been said—and 
debated—about the manner in which digital technologies have allowed 
ordinary people to distribute their own content, as well as the manner 
in which a few large online intermediaries have come to dominate 
revenues and the market for audiences' attention. Digital distribution 
platforms (and some of their historical predecessors) also present us 
with a high-choice media environment characterized by filter bubbles and 
fragmentation. Where do these debates about disintermediation and 
fragmentation stand today? And what does it mean to examine them in 
terms of distribution?

* Distribution, Public Visibility, and Surveillance. The infrastructures of
distribution—the presence of papers on news racks or channels on the 
dial—have long served to make the audiences for particular media visible 
to a broader public, as well as to interpellate prospective members of 
those audiences/publics. At the same time, distribution infrastructures 
also offer tremendous affordances for surveillance—rifling the mail, 
intercepting telegraph signals, tapping phones, placing digital cookies, 
deep packet inspection. We welcome contributions that examine 
distribution as a tool of visibility and/or consider its role in the 
business and politics of seeing and being seen.

* Distribution, Popular Culture, and Personalization. Digital media is
characterized by the contrasting dynamics of increased sociability 
(through apps, social media and 'sharing') and increased 
individualization (through mobile viewing, miniature screens, and 
personalized recommendations). By some accounts, media use has shifted 
from being a communal, in-person experience in theaters and living rooms 
to a rather more individual and personalized one, enjoyed by each user 
on her own personal device. We welcome contributions that examine the 
changing scale of media experiences through various distribution 
technologies.

* Distribution and Intellectual Property. The one-click model of 
friction-free digital distribution is still a work in progress. Content 
providers, streaming services, and digital storefronts jockey for 
position in ways that have resulted in fragmentation, incompatible 
standards, and copy protection schemes that alter consumers' 
relationships with their media and devices. Unsurprisingly then, 
unauthorized distribution (i.e., piracy) remains a constant feature of 
everyday media consumption in all countries. We welcome contributions 
examining the relationship between distribution, IP, and consumption.

* Affordances of Distribution, Past and Present. Digital distribution
infrastructures include a tremendous number of high-tech affordances for 
selectively placing content in front of audiences—filters, recommender 
systems, geolocation/geoblocking, and metadata-based categorization to 
name just a few. What role do these affordances (and their associated 
constraints) play in contemporary media distribution and its social 
impacts? And what historical precedents exist for what we typically 
think of as uniquely digital phenomena?

FORMAT

Panelists whose abstracts are accepted will develop them into papers 
that will be distributed in May to preconference attendees in advance of 
the event. Participants will introduce, then discuss their papers with 
other scholars in a series of thematically organized roundtables, with 
the conversation moderated by a panel chair who participates in the 
conversation.

Roundtables will be held in front of the full audience of preconference 
attendees; after the initial moderated discussion the floor will be 
opened to audience questions. The final panel of the preconference will 
be a reflection by senior scholars on the work and themes of the day.

The organizers hope to work with participants following the event to 
develop a selection of the conference abstracts into papers for a 
special issue or edited volume.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Please email submissions to <(distribution.matters.preconf /at/ gmail.com)> by 
November 20, 2016. Authors will be informed of acceptance/rejection 
decisions no later than December 20, 2016. Accepted abstracts will be 
posted to the preconference website in advance of the event.

If you have questions about submissions or any aspect of the 
preconference, you may direct them to 
<(distribution.matters.preconf /at/ gmail.com)> or  contact any of the 
individual organizers—Joshua Braun <(jabraun /at/ umass.edu)>, Ramon Lobato 
<(ramonlobato /at/ gmail.com)>, or Amanda Lotz <(lotz /at/ umich.edu)>.

LOCATION AND REGISTRATION

The preconference will be held at San Diego State University's Conrad 
Prebys Aztec Student Union (6075 Aztec Cir Dr.), which is located 
directly on the San Diego trolley system's Green Line, making it 
reachable from the conference hotel for just $5 round-trip. For faster 
door-to-door service, participants can split cab fares to and from the 
event. More details on transport to and from the event will be provided 
at a later date.

Registration will be limited to 60 persons via a registration code to be
issued by the organizers. After accepted presenters have registered,
registration will be open to any ICA attendee who requests a code until 
the cap of 60 is reached or administrative deadlines force us to 
finalize event attendance. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we 
do not anticipate a registration fee.

CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS

Sandra Ball-Rokeach, ICA Fellow, Professor in the Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California,
director of the USC Communication Technology and Community Program

Sandra Braman, ICA Fellow, John Paul Abbott Professor of Liberal Arts 
and Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University.

Stuart Cunningham, Distinguished Professor of Media and Communications, 
Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology

Greg Downey, Evjue-Bascom Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass 
Communication and the School of Library and Information Studies at the 
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Sharon Strover, Philip G. Warner Regents Professor in Communication, 
director of the Technology and Information Policy Institute at UT Austin

SPECIAL THANKS
This preconference is possible thanks to the ICA Media Industry Studies 
Interest Group and the ICA Journalism Studies and Popular Communication 
Divisions.

We are especially grateful for financial support from the Media Industry
Studies Interest Group; the University of Michigan Department of 
Communication Studies; the University of Massachusetts Amherst 
Journalism Department and College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; and 
the Culture Digitally scholarship collective. It is thanks to their 
generous support that we have been able to make this event free to 
participants.


---------------
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
---------------