[Commlist] CFP: Media War & Conflict ICA Pre-conference: Challenges to Contemporary Conflict Reporting

A reminder that the deadline (31 Jan) is approaching for this ICA 
preconference.

Please find below a Call for Abstracts for the Media, War & Conflict 
journal’s ICA (International Communication Assoc) preconference in Cape 
Town, South Africa, taking place on 3 June 2026: *Challenges to 
Contemporary Conflict Reporting.*

Abstracts, indicating which type of participation is requested (paper or 
poster), can be submitted at *https://bit.ly/mwcpreconference 
<https://bit.ly/mwcpreconference> * and any questions can be emailed to 
the organisers at: (r.j.stupart /at/ liverpool.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(r.j.stupart /at/ liverpool.ac.uk)> . The deadline for receipt of 
abstracts is *31 January 2026*. Accepted participants will be notified 
by 28 February 2026.

*Challenges to Contemporary Conflict Reporting *

*ICA 2026 Media, War and Conflict Preconference *

*3 June 2026 *

The journalism of war and conflict is facing extraordinary threats. 
Israel's ongoing assault in Gaza has killed a historically unprecedented 
number of journalists at a time when the norms protecting the press in 
armed conflict appear to be crumbling. Elsewhere, violence against 
journalists covering protest and conflict below the level of warfare is 
on the increase, with state violence and intimidation of the press now 
an increasingly normal part of the landscape even in countries like the 
US, that were - at least rhetorically - committed to the rights and 
freedoms of conflict journalists. In already-authoritarian contexts, the 
crumbling of international humanitarian law has weakened what outside 
support journalists in these countries might previously have depended 
on. Cross-border and exile journalism have grown significantly in the 
21st century, reflecting trends in transnational cooperation but also 
the intimidation that drives journalists out of their own country.

To the extent that the world is entering a new legal and political order 
as regards acceptable conduct in war and political violence more 
generally, how will the work of witnessing, archiving and reporting be done?

This preconference invites contributions that offer ways of thinking 
about the structures of violence facing those engaged in the mediation 
of armed conflict, the possibilities of continuing these media 
practices, the ethical dilemmas, and potential future forms of 
witnessing war. While we welcome contributions from scholars of 
journalism studies and war - an obvious home for these concerns - we 
also encourage submissions from those considering practices of mediating 
conflict beyond the boundaries of professional journalism.

The Media, War and Conflict journal has a thriving community of 
contributors, many of whom participated in a 5th anniversary conference 
in London, a 10th anniversary conference in Florence, and 15th 
anniversary ICA pre-conference in Toronto. We would use this 
pre-conference in Cape Town to expand this community by bringing in new 
and early career scholars. ICA 2026 will be a milestone in this 
continuing journey.

**

*Potential subjects for papers could include: *

• Work on the contemporary hazards of war, conflict and disaster journalism

• The practices of contemporary conflict reporting

• Theoretical approaches to understanding the shifts in such journalism 
that are presently underway

• Inequalities across and within war and media research, including power 
imbalances in knowledge production within the field (in line with the 
ICA 2026 theme)

• Ethical challenges: for those reporting on war and/or for researchers

• Explorations of specific cases of journalism in conflicts/disasters

• The visual economy of war, photojournalism, and emergent digital 
visual cultures

• Mediated forensics (Smith and Watson 2022), open-source intelligence 
(OSINT), surveillant technologies, and crowdsourcing in the 
visualization of war

• Grassroots and alternative media challenges to official narratives of 
war and peace

• The gendered and/or ethnocentric nature of war reporting

• Disinformation, ‘fake news’ or falsified imagery in war and conflict 
situations

• Creative narrative and visual methods in war and peace research, 
reflections on researching journalism in conflict

• Artistic, film, performance and practice projects

• Decolonizing the field of war and media

• Witnessing, ethics and spectatorship

• Memory, commemoration and archives

• Media coverage of political violence, uprisings, riots and terrorism

• Reporting of military scandals, abuse, and war crimes

We intend this pre-conference to be a welcoming space to forge new 
interdisciplinary collaborations across visual communication, journalism 
studies, digital culture, international studies, and beyond. We are keen 
to hear about artistic, film, performance and practice projects in 
addition to news and social media studies, and encourage research on 
conflicts and political violence from regions that traditionally receive 
less scholarly and media attention.

*Two types of in-person participation are invited *

• *Paper or practice presentations: *We are interested in scholarly and 
practitioner contributions that speak to the above themes. Prospective 
presenters should submit an abstract of up to 300 words. Submissions 
will be selected by the conference committee on the basis of originality 
and relevance to the conference theme, and to ensure a diversity of 
viewpoints and geographic origins. Presentation submissions are open to 
people at any stage of career. Due to time constraints, practice-based 
submissions should primarily be spoken presentations about the practice 
(with possible clips or images). We hope to further promote practice 
work through our associated preconference website.

• *Poster presentations: *PhD researchers and early career scholars are 
also invited to submit an abstract of up to 300 words for a poster 
presentation addressing the preconference themes. This can be ‘work in 
progress’. The poster session will allow for feedback from an assigned 
mentor and other pre-conference participants and organisers.

We will be prioritizing in-person participation but are presently 
investigating remote options. We also intend to offer bursaries to 
assist accepted scholars to attend the event, so would encourage you to 
submit an abstract even where you may not yet be sure about your 
financial ability to travel to South Africa for the event.

Abstracts, indicating which type of participation is requested (paper or 
poster), can be submitted at *https://bit.ly/mwcpreconference 
<https://bit.ly/mwcpreconference> * and any questions can be emailed to 
the organisers at: (r.j.stupart /at/ liverpool.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(r.j.stupart /at/ liverpool.ac.uk)> . The deadline for receipt of 
abstracts is 31 January, 2026. Accepted participants will be notified by 
28 February 2026.


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