[Commlist] call for papers for an IAMCR panel on "Participation, Knowledge and Communication"

Call for papers for a panel on "Participation, Knowledge and 
Communication: An Intersection of Transformative Forces" at the IAMCR 
2026 Galway conference

Panel Convenor: Nico Carpentier, CULCORC, Charles University, Prague, 
Czech Republic.
Submission deadline for panel paper abstracts: 15 January 2026, 5pm UTC.
Submission to be sent to: (nico.carpentier /at/ fsv.cuni.cz)

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Dear all,

I plan to submit a panel proposal for the IAMCR 2026 conference, which 
will take place in Galway (Ireland), from 28 June - 2 July 2026. The 
theme of this year's conference is "Peripheries and Connections: Media, 
Communication and Transformation", with panel and paper submission 
deadline of 3 February 2026. More about the conference can be found at 
https://iamcr.org/galway2026.

This panel proposal, which originates from my work in MeDeMAP (a 
European research project), will be entitled “Participation, Knowledge 
and Communication: An Intersection of Transformative Forces”; the 
abstract is below.

With this call for papers (for this panel) I want to invite interested 
scholars, activists and artists, from a diversity of locations and 
affiliations, to join me in this panel proposal. In order to allow time 
for the panel selection process, proposals should reach me, at 
(nico.carpentier /at/ fsv.cuni.cz), on or before 15 January 2026, 5pm UTC.

Proposals need to include (1) an abstract between 500 and 800 words, (2) 
a title, (3) an author list with names, affiliations and email 
addresses, and (4) a note confirming that at least one author will be 
present in person at the IAMCR conference (if the panel is accepted).

The panel “Participation, Knowledge and Communication: An Intersection 
of Transformative Forces” incorporates theoretical and empirical 
research papers which scrutinise the intersection of three key concepts 
and the multitude of practices they cover. First, participation, defined 
here as the rebalancing of power imbalances (see, e.g., Pateman, 1970), 
or, as the sharing of power, with its promises of empowerment, is 
central to our understanding of political processes in a variety of 
societal fields (also moving beyond politics). Participation has the 
capacity to validate ordinary people and the decentralisation of 
decision-making processes. Knowledge, in its very Foucauldian meaning, 
is seen the assemblage of the discourses that are constructed as 
truthful renderings of social reality. To use McCarthy (1996: 2) 
definition: “knowledge refers to any and every set of ideas accepted by 
one or another social group or society of people, ideas pertaining to 
what they accept as real.” Finally, communication is approached here as 
the interpreting and sharing of meaning, through the exchange of 
signifying practices, structured through discourses and ideologies. Also 
knowledge and communication, are deeply political practices, structured 
through power relations, and part of discursive-material construction 
processes, always located in particular geographies.

This panel is particular interested in how these three notions 
theoretically and empirically intersect, and how these intersections 
allow us to (re)think societal transformations, in a diversity of 
centres and peripheries. For instance, this panel aims to open up 
discussions about situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988), and its capacity 
to feed into participatory processes, but also how participatory 
processes can bring out a diversity of voices which otherwise would be 
silenced by hegemonic knowledge and communication practices. Similarly, 
the panel is interested in collaborative-participatory knowledge 
production and communication processes, which disrupt the traditional 
centres and hierarchies of knowledge production. Equally important are 
alternative-participatory communication practices, which allow for the 
generation of new knowledges, or for the re-articulation of existing 
hegemonic knowledge frameworks. Through an articulation of different 
critical perspectives, this panel aims to deepen our reflections on how 
these three notions intersect, and how they can support (or disrupt) 
social change processes and societal transformations.

--
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Nico Carpentier
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Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
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Book:
Democracy and Media in Europe: A Discursive-Material Approach
by Nico Carpentier & Jeffrey Wimmer
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003485438
----------------------------
Film essay:
AGON: Constructions of Democracy
by Ali Minanto, Nico Carpentier & Jhon Sany Purwanto
http://www.constructionsofdemocracy.eu/
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Recent articles:
* Discursive constructions of the home after homelessness: A case study 
of the Turkish YouTube channel Kadir's Eye, with Muhammet Ali Dokumacı, 
Housing Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2025.2557284
* The Grounds of the European Democracy- Media Nexus: Four Conditions of 
Possibility, with Vaia Doudaki and Kirill Filimonov, Media Watch, 
https://doi.org/10.1177/09760911251374242
* The Construction of Palestinian Identity in Bashar Alhroub's Video 
Art: Moving Beyond the Hegemonic Palestinian Identity Discourse, with 
Kristýna Kop ivová, Critical Arts, 
https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2025.2540531
* Articulations of the institutional and the popular in the construction 
of Europe: A discourse-theoretical analysis of Czech social media 
content, with Vaia Doudaki, Miloš Hroch, Klára Odstrčilová and Sandra 
Abdulhaková, Studies in Communication Sciences, 
https://www.hope.uzh.ch/scoms/article/view/5786
* Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom: Toward a Recalibration of 
Human -Technology Relations, Emerging Media, 
https://doi.org/10.1177/27523543251365161
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Culture and Communication Research Centre (CULCORC)
Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism
Charles University
Smetanovo nábřeží 6, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic
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Tallinn University
Baltic Film, Media and Arts School
https://www.tlu.ee/en/bfm
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SQRIDGE ngo
An intersection of academia and arts
http://www.sqridge.org/
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The Commlist
http://commlist.org/
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International Association for Media and Communication Research
http://iamcr.org/
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Culture and Communication Research Centre (CULCORC)
https://culcorc.fsv.cuni.cz/
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Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
E-mail (CharlesU): (nico.carpentier /at/ fsv.cuni.cz)
Bluesky: @nicocarpentier.bsky.social‬
Mastodon: @nicocarpentier@sciences.social
FB: nico.carpentier.3
Room (CharlesU): Hollar building Room 016a
Phone (CharlesU): +420 222 112 231
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