[Commlist] IAMCR Pre-Conference CFP: Women and Digital Political Communication in Non-Western Societies

Call For Papers: Women and Digital Political Communication in 
Non-Western Societies
IAMCR online pre-conference 10 July 2022

Pre-Conference Organizers: Sally Osei-Appiah (University of Leeds), 
Kristin Skare Orgeret (Oslo Met University), Bruce Mutsvairo (Utrecht 
University)

A selection of papers presented at the symposium will be published in a 
special issue of the
international journal Information, Communication & Society (iCS) .

This one-day virtual symposium focuses upon the specific non-Western 
context of digital political communication and women. While much 
research has been undertaken and published upon the use and impact of 
social media, largely by male politicians and policy makers in the West, 
there has been a paucity of similar investigations elsewhere in the 
world. Research has shown that political communication is shaped not 
only by cultural context (Shehata & Stromback, 2011) but also by gender 
(Osei-Appiah, 2021; Yarchi & Samuel-Azran, 2018). This symposium is 
predicated upon the contention that the study of digital political 
communications requires a recalibration of focus that produces both a 
more comprehensive international understanding, and one that is 
sensitive to gendered relations of power and inequality.
Politicians in non-Western countries do not grapple with the same 
contextual influences as those encountered by Western politicians. For 
one thing, while many Western countries are advanced democracies, a 
great number in the Global South are either authoritarian or fragile 
democracies. Access to digital infrastructures which, in Western 
countries, may be a given, remain underdeveloped, inaccessible or 
unreliable for many in various parts of the non-Western world, (Dwyer & 
Molony, 2019). Again, while recent research has documented politicians’ 
increasing use of digital technologies in campaigns (Kreiss et al., 
2018; Metz et al., 2020), those in Africa for example, still rely 
primarily on traditional forms of campaigning such as rallies (Paget, 
2019; Willems, 2016). Further, there are political cultures reflecting 
national or ethnic idiosyncrasies incomparable to those in the West. How 
do these and other contextual variations shape political communication 
differently from what is known in the West?
Besides context, gender also significantly shapes political 
communication as women politicians do not face the same challenges as 
their male counterparts. The masculinized nature of politics legitimizes 
male politicians as the norm while women politicians are positioned as 
outsiders who need to justify their presence in politics (Ette 2017; 
O’Neil et al, 2016). This historical gender distinction sets up women 
politicians, from the onset, to
encounter a different set of experiences relative to men. Media 
representations of politicians frame male politicians as agentive, 
competent actors whereas women politicians are delegitimized through 
portrayals that consistently render them invisible, incompetent or 
trivial (Kasomo, 2012; Wagner et al, 2017). It has also been argued that 
gendered representations of women politicians result in reduced 
sponsorship (Wagner et al, 2017) and voter share (Hopmann et al, 2010) 
while also shaping political discussions (Hooghe et al, 2015; Vos, 
2013), candidate evaluations (Boomgaarden et al, 2016) and uptake of 
communication technologies such as social media (Larsson and Kalsnes, 
2014; Ross & Burger, 2014). When contextual factors are thrown into the 
mix, women politicians in non-Western countries encounter additional set 
of barriers, which further shape their communication choices. Many women 
still face long-standing effects of colonization embedded in patriarchal 
structures that inhibit their access to and continuity in politics (Bawa 
and Sanyare, 2013).

Following calls to diversify theory and research in political 
communication (Lawrence & de Vreese, 2020; Moyo, 2020; Orgeret & 
Ronning, 2020), this symposium, and the subsequent iCS special issue, 
aims to gather research that investigates the relationship between 
gender and political communication in non-Western societies. We seek 
contributions and theoretical insights probing ways through which gender 
interacts with context to shape non-Western-based political 
communication trends.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:
1. What kind of theoretical or methodological contributions might best 
be deployed to
advance intersectional scholarship on women and political communication?
2. How do contextual factors like ethnicity, religion, socio-economic, 
post-colonialism
influence cultural norms that might shape women politicians’ 
communication with voters?
3. What is the impact of contextual factors on voter evaluations of 
women politicians?
4. How do women politicians utilize digital and other communication 
technologies in their
campaigning, political marketing or self-branding?
5. What is the impact of political structures and cultures on women 
politicians’ campaign
strategies?
6. Are there alternative channels of communication deployed by women 
politicians
compared to men politicians?

Submission and Key Dates:
We invite 400-word abstracts outlining empirical, theoretical or 
policy-orientated papers that
address these or related questions. Send abstracts, accompanied by a 
100-word biography of the presenter(s) and contact details, to s.osei- 
(apiah /at/ leeds.ac.uk)
Abstract submission deadline: 15 March 2022
Notification on submitted abstracts: 31 March 2022
Date of Preconference: 10 July 2022
Time: 9 am - 5 pm (London Time)
Full Article submission deadline (for papers selected for the special 
issue of Information, Communication & Society): 1 February 2023


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