[ecrea] Call for Submissions: ICA Young Scholars Preconference on Interventions in the Practice of Visual Communication Research (Deadline: January 1 2017)

*Call for Papers***

ICA Young Scholars Preconference on Interventions in the Practice of 
Visual Communication Research


University of California at San Diego(San Diego, California) Thursday 
May 25, 2017


*Organizers*

Samantha Close (University of Southern California, USA), Ayellet Pelled 
(University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) David L. Morris II (University of 
Oregon, USA), Giorgia Aiello (University of Leeds, UK)


    Rationale

Intervention comes in different forms. Research questions aim to 
intervene in societal and philosophical problems, scholarly conferences 
and initiatives intervene within the halls of academia and the practice 
of contemporary research, and publication intervenes in both scholarly 
and public debate.

As society becomes increasingly mediatized through both digital 
technologies and nostalgic returns to traditional folk arts, it is 
essential to analyze the specifically visual aspects of communicatingin 
the social world. And yet, because of this same cultural and 
technological upsurge in visual communication, scholars who focus on the 
visual are often spread across ICA divisions based on the non-visual 
content of their work, from health communication to popular 
communication torhetoric 
totechnologyandbeyond.Scholarshipisalsoincreasinglypresentedusingvisualimages,tobothpublic 
and academic audiences. This raises challenges in communication and 
publication, particularly for young scholars.

We aim to bring together a critical mass of emerging and senior scholars 
to discuss, reflect, and challenge each other on our interventions into 
the visual. In this way, the preconference is also an intervention into 
scholarly careers in the still-growing field of visual communication 
studies.


    Aims

This one-day preconference will bring together young scholars (current 
Ph.D. students and early career postdoctoral researchers) engaged in 
promising research on visual communication.We aim to 1) theorize key 
challenges in visual communication research and publication; 2) provide 
strategies for addressing and overcoming these challenges; 3) provide a 
forum for cross-divisionaland transnational networking between young and 
senior scholars; and 4) provide feedback on young scholars’ research 
projects and publication plans.


    Format

This event follows two very successful ICA Young Scholars Visual 
Communication Studies preconferences in San Juan 2015 and Fukuoka 2016, 
which featured presentation and workshop sessions with young and senior 
scholars from ten countries. This year’s preconference will follow a 
similar format but focus on a new, complementary set of issues and 
questions.

First, an opening keynote will give an overview of key interventions 
into visual communication research happening now and those needed to 
advance the discipline.

Second, in poster, non-traditional, and brief oral presentation 
sessions, young scholars will have the opportunity to present their 
research projects, discuss their challenges in conceptualizing and 
communicating their projects with other participants, network with 
peers, and receive substantial feedback on their projects from 
experienced senior scholars. All young and senior scholars will 
participate in the presentation sessions, a format that provides a 
practice-oriented overview of a range of approaches to visual 
communication studies and common challenges.

Third, young scholars and senior experts will split into smaller 
breakout groups for focused discussionon a specific aspect of visual 
communication studies research.

Finally, in a closing plenary, we will summarize key insights 
originating from discussions in the breakout groups and, together with 
all participants, we will discuss ideas and plans for future networking 
and research events.


    Submissions

We invite young scholars from all ICA divisions and interest groups to 
submit extended abstracts on both completed and ongoing projects. We 
welcome submissions on all aspects of the visual communication process 
(production context, media context, reception context) and on all 
visualmethods, as well as on a broad range of topics, such as visual 
political communication, visual science and health communication, visual 
popular communication, etc.

This year, ICA has for the first time explicitly called for scholarly 
projects in non-traditional formats through the “Making and Doing” 
exhibition to follow the opening plenary. Non-traditional publication 
and visual communication research are closely allied, as many 
alternative publication formats take advantage of the unique affordances 
of the visual or themselves interrogate visual communication. We 
particularly invite submissions of in-progress work in these 
non-traditional formats, or which use “making and doing” methods, by 
young scholars.

Extended abstracts should briefly summarize the project, including 
theory, methods, results (where applicable), and its relevance to the 
study of the visual. Please specifically discuss challenges in 
conceptualizing and communicating the visual aspects of the project, as 
well as in which areas senior scholar feedback would be most useful.

Extended abstracts should be limited to a maximum of 1,000 words 
(double-spaced; illustrations, tables and references do not count 
against this total of words). Please remove all identifying information 
from the document and include a separate title page indicating the 
name(s) of the author(s), the affiliation(s) of the author(s), the title 
of the project, and the status of the project (e.g. completed project, 
work in progress). Please also note your preference for presentation 
format (e.g. poster, brief talk, non-traditional, or no preference).

Please send your submissions via e-mail to (sclose /at/ usc.edu) 
<mailto:(sclose /at/ usc.edu)>no later than 1 January 2017. Decisions will be 
made by 31 January 2017. The preconference will be open to a maximum of 
40 young scholars. Participants will be selected based on the quality of 
their extended abstracts. In the review process, we will also consider 
that a reasonable range of topics will be covered by the poster 
presentations and that participants can be grouped in breakout sessions 
focused on similar concerns.


    Venue

The preconference will be hosted on the campus of the University of 
California at San Diego in San Diego, CA. Transportation from the main 
conference hotel to the university campus and vice versa will be 
provided for all participants with a chartered bus (about 15-30 minutes 
each way).


    Fee

There will be a US $106 fee for preconference participants to cover 
transportation, room rental, and catering costs. Depending on the 
availability of additional funding for the preconference, we may also be 
able to offer a discounted fee at the time of registration.


    Website

Please also visit the accompanying website 
www.visualcommunicationstudies.net 
<http://www.visualcommunicationstudies.net/>for any updates on the 
preconference.


    Contacts

Please do not hesitate to contact us in case you should have any 
questions regarding the preconference.

Samantha Close, University of Southern California (sclose /at/ usc.edu) 
<mailto:(sclose /at/ usc.edu)>

Ayellet Pelled, University of Wisconsin-Madison (pelled /at/ wisc.edu) 
<mailto:(pelled /at/ wisc.edu)>

David L. Morris II, University of Oregon (dmorris3 /at/ uoregon.edu) 
<mailto:(dmorris3 /at/ uoregon.edu)>


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