[Commlist] Call for papers: Italian Association of Political Communication 2022 Annual Conference

Annual conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication 
- Bologna, Italy, from 30 June to 1 July 2022.

Main theme of the conference is "Political communication in (times of) 
crisis".

All information about the conference are available here: 
https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2022/


As early as the 1990s, leading figures in the discipline contended that 
political communication has entered a prolonged phase of crisis. Jay 
Blumler (1997) defined this crisis as the awareness that practices of 
political communication had to change radically in order to maintain the 
fundamental function of "communication for citizenship".
At the dawn of the new millennium, the increasing centrality of digital 
platforms in the "ecosystems of political communication" (Esser and 
Pfetsch 2020) gave further impetus to the perception of a mounting 
crisis hitting the field and discipline; and such crisis was understood 
in term of instability, heterogeneity, and "chaos" (McNair 2006). This 
idea can be found also in Andrew Chadwick's theory (2013) concerning 
"hybrid" reconfigurations of media systems. In fact, Chadwick, while 
highlighting some dysfunctionalities of the hybrid media system, 
rejected an exclusively negative understanding of the “permanent crisis” 
characterizing political communication.

The second half of the 2010s was instead characterized by a new phase of 
pessimism, which led researchers to search tools and frameworks to study 
political communication in "times of crisis" (Davis 2019). Indeed, these 
years saw a final collapse of trust in political and media elites, a new 
rise of nationalism and populism, mounting information overloads for 
citizens, and a multiplication in existing “regimes of truth” (Waisbord 
2018).

Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. The health crisis turned 
political, economic, and social, providing a new framework to the idea 
of crisis. The emergence of an unprecedented overlap between political 
and crisis communication produced a generalized shock that has directly 
affected our field of study. All actors in political and institutional 
communication had to face and directly manage the structural uncertainty 
characterizing the second modernity (Beck 1986).


Therefore, the global experience of the pandemic forces scholars and 
practitioners in political communication to deal with a renewed concept 
of crisis. In this historical moment it is even more important to resist 
the temptation to simply choose between optimism and pessimism. On the 
contrary, addressing responsibly the crisis of political communication 
means interpreting it as a challenge and trying to provide new 
theoretical lenses, to develop new methods for research, and to 
elaborate new and renovated knowledge. The pandemic has highlighted a 
widespread difficulty in elaborating solid theories and concepts based 
on empirical evidence. At the same time, it has shown the urgency of 
sound research contributing to our understanding of contemporary 
political and social phenomena without relying exclusively on the 
quantity of data collected, but also on their capacity to answer 
relevant questions.

Starting from these premises, we encourage the submission of papers that 
engage with the idea of crisis to address challenges faced by political 
communication research in the pandemic age. We are interested both in 
theoretical essays and empirical studies and we welcome different 
methodological approaches and research designs (quantitative, 
qualitative and mixed-methods). Issues of interest include (but are not 
limited to):

* the nature of attention economies and dynamics of agenda building in 
contemporary media ecosystems, with particular reference to the pandemic 
period;
* the organization of election campaigns in moments of exceptionality 
for democratic norms and practices (e.g. lockdowns, physical distancing);
* trends in communication and political leadership styles during the 
pandemic and their implications in the relationship with other actors in 
the public sphere;
* new forms of extra-institutional political communication related to 
protests, social movements, and civil society actors during the pandemic
* politicization of science, health and of their communication in the 
public sphere, with particular reference to the relationship between 
democracy, freedom of expression, collective interest and public health;
* transformations and degenerations of public debate in different media 
arenas with particular reference to incivility and polarization;
* the role of data, platforms, algorithms in processes of political 
communication and journalism by institutional and extra-institutional 
actors;
* transformations in political journalism, with particular attention to 
the boundaries between journalism and other forms of information;
* the impact of AI on the transformations of political communication and 
journalism;
* methodological and theoretical proposals dealing with the 
transformations of political communication emerged as a result of the 
pandemic experience, also in comparative perspective.


Although the conference focuses on the multiple interpretations of the 
"crisis" in political communication, papers addressing other aspects of 
the relationship between media and politics are also welcome. Papers by 
PhD students and young researchers are warmly encouraged.
Paper proposals should include name, affiliation and email address, a 
title, an extended abstract (600/800 words excluding references), and 
bibliographical references. Authors should also explicitly indicate 
whether they request the paper to be considered for publication (after 
the conference) in “Comunicazione Politica”, the flagship journal of the 
Italian Association of Political Communication. In the case of ex equo 
in the evaluations provided by referees, priority will be given to 
authors who have expressed interest for publication on Comunicazione 
Politica.

Deadlines:

- The deadline for submitting proposals is 13 March 2022.
- Notification of acceptances will take place by 1 May 2022.
- Contributions will be uploaded to the conference paper room by 13 June 
2022.
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