[Commlist] CFP ICA 2025 Pre-conference - Disrupting and Consolidating Public Relations Research

Title: Disrupting and Consolidating Public Relations Research: Turns in 
Critical Research of the Field

Date: June 12, 2025

Location: College of Media, Communication and Information at the 
University of Colorado Boulder

The Public relations discipline has come a long way since its first 
academic developments in the 1980s. Its evolution has resulted in 
contrasting and conflicting theoretical approaches – critical, 
socio-cultural, interpretive, and functionalist positions – all which 
have fostered debate and extended the range of scholarship in and around 
public relations. At the same time, the need for change in how we 
conceptualize and understand public relations has drawn and benefited 
from work outside the discipline such as critical race theory, queer 
theory, and radical feminism. There have also been tensions inherent to 
new developments and thinking within the discipline which have 
themselves provided conditions for evolution. For example, the dialogic 
turn’s simultaneous desire to reject and accommodate functionalism, 
while at the same time creating the conditions for an additional trend 
towards post-structural approaches such as agonistic democracy theory.

In this pre-conference, we take as our starting point the assumption 
that change in a scholarly discipline is productive, driving innovation 
and engaging academics in new landscapes for their research as the world 
outside academia evolves. However, how change happens is rarely 
interrogated; as a result, opportunities for both disruption and 
consolidation may be missed. This pre-conference creates a space for 
researchers to explore how change has emerged in the public relations 
discipline, what the critical moments and tipping points have been in 
fostering change, and how productive it has been in producing disruption 
of complacent thought, consolidating hegemonic thinking, and/or driving 
theoretical and empirical innovation.

At the same time, participants will reflect on future directions for 
change, drawing on insights from fields across strategic communication, 
including colleagues with an interest in promotional cultures, influence 
industries, and communication for social change. This is an opportunity 
to zoom out and consider the bigger picture and trends, as well as an 
invitation to present new work. As such this event will be structured to 
encourage networking and discussion about both our shared, and varying, 
interests and starting points to these questions.

Publication Opportunity

We welcome papers on the above topics and the pre-conference will be the 
springboard for a special issue of Public Relations Review and 
eventually the second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Critical 
Public Relations.

Costs

The conference fee is 40 USD and includes a light breakfast on arrival, 
lunch, and refreshments during session breaks. A fee waiver and travel 
stipend of 500 USD will be available for up to two participants from 
Tier B or C countries, following the UN model. The pre-conference is 
generously sponsored by the College of Media, Communication and 
Information at the University of Colorado Boulder and the WU, Vienna 
University of Economics and Business. The pre-conference is supported by 
the Public Relations Division of the ICA.

Abstract Submission

The deadline for submissions is February 14, 2025.

Abstracts of up to 800 words are invited; pls. send your abstract to: 
(prresearch25 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(prresearch25 /at/ gmail.com)>

Submissions will undergo blind peer review, so please make sure to 
submit a suitably anonymized text.

Acceptance notifications will be sent out by mid March, 2025. It is 
understood that by submitting a paper for the pre-conference, you also 
consent to serve as a reviewer.

Organizers

C. Kay Weaver, University of Colorado Boulder

Franzisca Weder, Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Scott Davidson, University of Leicester

Lee Edwards, London School of Economics

Øyvind Ihlen, University of Oslo

Link to the CFP page the ICA web site:

https://www.icahdq.org/mpage/preconf-2025-disrupting-pr



---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------