[Commlist] CFP: ICA'26 Disability, Communication, and Media Preconference, Deadline 1 Feb 2026

The organisers are excited to launch the CFP for the Third Disability, 
Communication, and Media Preconference at ICA, held at the University of 
Cape Town and online on 4 June 2026.

We strongly encourage PhD and early-career researchers from across the 
globe, and especially from sub-Saharan Africa, to submit their work.

Please see below for more details and feel free to share widely!

You can also view the CFP at our website at the link here: 
https://www.icadisability.com/2026/cfp-preconference

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The Third Disability, Communication, and Media Preconference at ICA 2026:
Disability in/and Communication and Media Research: Invisible to Indivisible

Organizers:
Ngozi Marion Emmanuel, Bev Enion, Bimbo Fafowora, Ria Gualano, Karen 
Jeynes, Muya Koloko, Wenqi Tan, Kuansong Victor Zhuang
Meryl Alper, Lorenzo Dalvit, Elizabeth Ellcessor, Katie Ellis, Gerard 
Goggin, Beth Haller, Deanna Holroyd, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jenny 
Kennedy, Amanda Lagerkvist, Dyah Pitaloka, Samira Rajabi, Valquiria 
Ramos Obregón, Abdul Rohman, Filippo Trevisan, Zhouxiao Xie, M. Remi Yergeau

Hosted by the University of Cape Town
Supported by ICA Philosophy, Theory and Critique Division
Tuesday, 4 June 2026 | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (SAST)
University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Hybrid

Submission deadline: 1 Feb 2026 (Anywhere on Earth)
Submission link: https://forms.gle/gJKZTLJG9bamoUoR9

Please direct any queries at (icadisability /at/ gmail.com)

---

A key focus of this year’s preconference is to foster a supportive 
community of scholars and thinkers across disability, communication, and 
media research. We are building upon two consecutive preconferences held 
at ICA 2024 and 2025, which each had more than 40 attendees online and 
in-person, to provide a space for collaboration, conversation, and 
mentorship.
The disability, communication, and media preconference will be a hybrid 
event. It will consist of:
* Presentations by postgraduate and early career researchers
* Keynote address delivered by South African experts in disability, 
communication, and media studies
* Small group breakout sessions led by senior scholars in disability, 
communication, and media studies

Theme: Disability in/and Communication and Media Research: Invisible to 
Indivisible

In line with ICA 2026's call to look at communication and inequality, 
the field of disability, media, and communication research has emerged 
as a well-established site of critical inquiry (Alper 2023; Dokumaci 
2023; Ellis and Goggin 2015). Our preconference challenges scholars to 
engage with the theme Invisible to Indivisible, demanding that 
disability moves from a specialized, marginal focus to the indivisible 
core of communication theory and practice. Disability is inherently 
generative—a necessary critical lens for articulating how all 
communication phenomena relate to systemic power. This movement from 
periphery to center recognizes that disability is intrinsically linked 
to understanding intersecting forms of oppression and resistance 
(Goodley 2013). Thus, we investigate: what does it mean for disability 
studies to be established as an indivisible, foundational framework 
necessary for pursuing communication justice?

This year, the preconference invites postgraduate students and early 
career researchers* across disability, communication, and media research 
to present their in-progress work in a collaborative environment, 
receive mentorship, and learn from established scholars in the field. We 
are interested in a diversity of projects, including research ideas in 
their early stages of development (including theses and dissertations), 
open and critical questions to the field, and the sharing of research 
results.

Accepted presenters will present their work and receive feedback from a 
group of peers and experts in the field.

Submissions should focus on the application of disability studies in 
communication and media research, including, but not limited to the 
following topics:
* Research that deliberates on how disability can be moved from the 
periphery to the center in communication and media research
* Research that spotlights emergent, cutting edge, and exciting areas of 
disability communication and media research
* Research that brings together disability-led perspectives to engage 
communication and media studies
* Research that considers what it means to do disability-led research in 
the areas of communication, media, and technology
* Research that takes stock of disability, communication, and media 
research to-date
* Research that spotlights disability, communication, and media research 
away from Global North locations

and/or engages with the following questions:
* How can/should we represent invisible experiences of disability in media?
* How can disability research engage with and enrich communication and 
media studies and vice versa?
* What can all communication scholars learn from disability insights 
such as ‘crip time’ and ‘spoon theory’?
* What are the methodological contours of disability, communication, and 
media research?
* What are the gaps, problems, and areas of concern in disability, 
communication, and media research?
* What is the future of disability, communication, and media research?

We welcome submissions across methodological approaches and mediums. 
Submissions should also build on the core tenets of disability studies, 
which demands a critical rethinking of disability in normative 
societies. We encourage scholars from across the globe, and especially 
from sub-Saharan Africa, to submit their work.

If interested, please submit a 300-word abstract of your research and a 
short statement of interest/biography on what you hope to get out of the 
preconference (maximum 200-words) by 1 February 2026 at this form: 
https://forms.gle/gJKZTLJG9bamoUoR9

* Please indicate if you will be participating in-person/remotely and 
any access needs**
* Please direct any queries at (icadisability /at/ gmail.com)
* If the form above, or some aspects of it, is inaccessible, please 
email us at (icadisability /at/ gmail.com)
* We will notify accepted abstracts by the end of February

* Please note that early career researchers should be no more than 5 
years from award of their PhD; preference will be given to postgraduate 
students and early career researchers not already in tenure-track positions.
** This preconference will be hybrid, so both physical and remote 
participation will be possible.
*** Fees, if any, to be announced.

---

References
Alper, Meryl. 2017. Giving voice: Mobile communication, disability, and 
inequality. Boston: MIT Press.
---. 2023. Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital 
Age. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Dokumaci, Arseli. 2023. Activist Affordances: How Disabled People 
Improvise More Habitable Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke UP.
Ellcessor, Elizabeth, and Bill Kirkpatrick. 2017. Disability media 
studies. New York: NYU Press.
Ellis, Katie. 2016. Disability media work: Opportunities and obstacles. 
London: Palgrave.
Ellis, Katie, and Gerard Goggin. 2015. Disability and the Media. 
Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Ellis, Katie, Gerard Goggin, Beth Haller, and Rosemary Curtis. 2019. The 
Routledge Companion to Disability and Media. London: Routledge.
---. 2020. The Routledge companion to disability and media. London: 
Routledge.
Ellis, Katie, and Mike Kent. 2011. Disability and new media. London: 
Routledge.
---. 2016. Disability and social media: Global perspectives. New York, 
NY: Routledge.
Goggin, Gerard. 2021. Apps: From mobile phones to digital lives. John 
Wiley & Sons.
Goggin, Gerard, and Christopher Newell. 2003. Digital disability: The 
social construction of disability in new media. Lanham, MD: Rowman & 
Littlefield.
Goodley, Dan. 2013. "Dis/Entangling Critical Disability Studies." 
Disability & Society 28 (5): 631-644. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.717884
Hadley, Bree, and Donna McDonald. 2018. The Routledge handbook of 
disability arts, culture, and media. Routledge.
Haller, Beth. 2010. Representing disability in an ableist world: Essays 
on mass media. Louisville, KY: Advocado Press.
---. 2023. Disabled People Transforming Media Culture for a More 
Inclusive World. New York: Routledge.
Jeffress, Michael, Jim Ferris, Joy M Cypher, and Julie-Ann 
 Scott-Pollock, eds. 2023. The Palgrave Handbook of Disability and 
Communication. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Meekosha, H. (2011). Decolonising disability: Thinking and acting 
globally. Disability & Society, 26(6), 667–682. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2011.602860
Ned, L. Y. (2022). African Renaissance as a Premise for Reimagined 
Disability Studies in Africa. Journal of Black Studies, 53(5), 485–504. 
https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347221074391
Ned, L. Y., Dube, K., & Swartz, L. (2022). Challenges and opportunities 
of centring the African voice in disability research. African Journal of 
Disability, 11. https://doi.org/10.4102/ajod.v11i0.1089
Nyangweso, M. (2021). Disability in Africa: A cultural/religious 
perspective. In T. Falola & N. Hamel (Eds.), Disability in Africa: 
Inclusion, Care, and the Ethics of Humanity (pp. 115–136). University of 
Rochester Press.
Riley, Charles A. 2005. Disability and the media: Prescriptions for 
change. Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England.
Rugoho, T. (Ed.). (2024). Disability and Media—An African Perspective. 
Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40885-4
Sterne, Jonathan. 2021. Diminished faculties: A political phenomenology 
of impairment. Duke University Press.
Tkaczyk, Viktoria, Mara Mills, and Alexandra Hui. 2020. Testing hearing: 
The making of modern aurality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


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