[ecrea] ICA pre-con: Global Perspectives on Populism and the Media

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

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*_Global Perspectives on Populism and the Media_*

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ICA Pre-Conference at Central European University, Budapest

May 22-23, 2018

The study of populism has never been more important than today in light 
of recent social, political and economic tumult, and developments in 
transnational media cultures. Across the world there have been numerous 
populist backlashes against elected governments and their policies. The 
emergent concerns of citizens about, for example, immigration and 
economic austerity have been exploited by a range of political 
opportunists, many with access to media resources. A proliferation of 
digital and social media is in some countries providing new cultural 
spaces for these actors to disseminate their messages and gain 
mainstream media attention. In addition, established political 
communicators are not immune to the populist impulse. Some mainstream 
political parties and politicians, for example, have adopted populist 
rhetoric in order to ensure electoral support, and some mainstream media 
organizations, facing increasing commercial competition, have pandered 
to populist political agendas. While populist politics is a 
well-documented feature of modern political culture, and sometimes meets 
not only with critique but with praise for challenging ossified 
practices and values of pragmatic democratic politics, the communicative 
aspects of populism have been underexplored or ignored. Moreover, 
populist movements are often analyzed with a particular focus on 
European and American right-wing movements. But populist movements and 
upheavals have appeared from the Philippines to India to Turkey to 
Russia. At the same time, variations of populism have arisen on both the 
right and the left (and in-between) and have surfaced in a variety of 
political systems and traditions.


This pre-conference aims to introduce global perspectives on the study 
of media, communication and populism, welcoming conceptually innovative 
submissions that examine populist communication and culture from all 
around the world. Recognizing the location of the pre-conference, the 
Hungarian capital of Budapest, the conference will also dedicate an 
open-to-the public panel to the rise of populism in East-Central Europe. 
The venue of the conference, Central European University, is rich in 
symbolism, as this university has recently been attacked by the populist 
government of Hungary. This symbolism will hopefully add to the 
liveliness of the discussions, which we expect to be relevant to 
academics in a diverse set of disciplines and fields (communication 
studies, sociology, political science, cultural studies, history, among 
others) and to non-academics as well.


The pre-conference also aims to be inclusive in perspectives and 
methodologies. As John B. Judis, author of /The Populist Explosion/, 
recently argued, political scientists often make the mistake of focusing 
on a restrictive definition of populism. In contrast, our aim is to 
analyze populism’s manifestations and connections to media and 
communication in the broadest possible sense.


Relevant communicative processes of populism may include studies of 
populist symbols, music, time and memory, political advertising 
campaigns, social media groups, protest cultures, the narration of 
political myths, mass media attitudes, the relation of populism to media 
ownership patterns, among others. We particularly welcome unorthodox 
approaches, ambitious social theories, and debunking of popular myths in 
relations to populism and communication.

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*Confirmed Keynote Speakers*

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Professor Michael Ignatieff, President and Rector, Central European 
University


Professor Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen


Professor Michael Schudson, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia 
University

*Submission Process*

*We invite scholars to**submit abstracts (maximum 500 words) of 
theoretical and empirical research papers.***

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The submissions should be emailed to the pre-conference organizers at 
(GMSNConference /at/ lboro.ac.uk) <mailto:(GMSNConference /at/ lboro.ac.uk)>no later 
than 15^th December 2017.

Authors will be informed of acceptance/rejection decisions no later than 
30^th January 2018.

Accepted abstracts will be posted to the pre-conference website in 
advance of the event.

Please direct questions on submissions or any aspect of the 
pre-conference to (GMSNConference /at/ lboro.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(GMSNConference /at/ lboro.ac.uk)>

*Registration*

All speakers and attendees must register and pay the pre-conference fee. 
Participation fee (including coffee breaks and lunch buffet) is €50 for 
presenters and non-presenters. Information on local hotels in Budapest 
and travel information will be available at 
http://www.gmsnetwork.netshortly.

To register for this pre-conference, participants need to go to 
www.icahdq.org <http://www.icahdq.org/> and register online as part of 
their main ICA conference registration, or as a stand-alone registration.**

*Organizers: *Julia Sonnevend (The New School for Social Research, USA), 
Emily Keightley, James Stanyer, Vaclav Stetka (Loughborough University, 
UK), Aswin Punathambekar (University of Michigan, USA), Marius Dragomir, 
Eva Bognar (Central European University, Hungary). The pre-conference is 
co-sponsored by the Political Communication, Journalism Studies and 
Philosophy, Theory & Critique divisions of the International 
Communication Association and by /Media, Culture & Society/.

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