[ecrea] 2010 ICA conference

Call for Papers
2010 Conference of the
International Communication Association
June 22-26, 2010
Singapore
2010 Singapore ICA Conference: Call for Papers

Matters of Communication:
Political, Cultural & Technological Challenges

The Conference Theme for ICA 2010 in Singapore

Politics, culture, and technology are matters of communication. But if
communication matters for all these questions, isn?t it, paradoxically,
because it also doesn?t matter? Indeed, communication is, in many
respects, im/material because it constitutes the very nexus where the
material and immaterial dimensions of our world meet with each
other. If we live in a world of artifacts, technologies, bodies, and sites,
we also live in a world of principles, passions, 
ideas, meanings, and values. Although
both material and immaterial aspects of this 
world intertwine with each other, it seems
crucial not to reduce one to the other, making 
the study of communication essential to
understanding what could be called the spectral 
or even ghostal nature of our experiences
and exchanges.
Communication is indeed spectral or ghostal 
because our interactions consist of making
present what could have remained absent from a 
debate, a discussion, a conversation,
and so on. If communication matters, it is 
therefore because interactants can, for
instance, position themselves as speaking in the 
name of specific identities, collectives,
principles, and values, that is, so many figures 
or topics that, through their representation
or staging in their conversations, can influence 
the way an interaction evolves and
how a situation is defined. Inversely, 
communication is also spectral because of all the
topics that can be marginalized, excluded, 
disqualified from our debates and discussions,
an effect of absence that has to be worked out and/or resisted for another next
first time.
This theme allows us to think about the
relationship between communication
and im/materiality in general. Communication
scholars have often been accused
of downplaying the role that materiality
plays in our lifeworld, but are there
ways of remaining faithful to our object
of study while exploring this question
meaningfully? Things such as justice, equity,
freedom, compassion, happiness,
hatred, friendship, and intelligence (just
to name of few) are often presented as
having an immaterial, incorporeal, intangible,
insubstantial, impalpable, abstract
dimension; however, we also know that
they have to be embodied, incorporated,
materialized, or concretized in order
to be experienced and communicated.
Communication therefore becomes this
dislocated locus where abstracts figures
can incarnate themselves while others
are warded off.

We would like to invite panel organizers and participants to think
about the political, cultural, and technological challenges associated
with these questions of im/materiality and spectrality. The
conference theme has relevance across the repertoire of ICA?s divisions
and interest groups. We can, of course, think of the obvious
connection between meaning and materiality, which could lead to
interesting questions in Global Communication & Social Change,
Instructional/Developmental Communication, 
Intercultural Communication, Intergroup
Communication, and International Communication (for instance, how we tend
to attribute different meanings to similar 
objects or practices or, inversely, how different
objects or practices can mean, more or less, the 
same thing). We can also explore the
status of principles, relations or themes such as 
compassion, friendship, justice, health,
power and truth, and analyze how they incarnate 
or embody themselves in our conversations,
debates, campaigns, laws, media, and regulations 
(a topic that could be of interest
to scholars studying Children, Adolescents, and the Media; Communication Law
& Policy; Health Communication; Interpersonal 
Communication; Journalism Studies;
Language and Social Interaction; Mass Communication; Organizational Communica-
tion; Philosophy of Communication; Popular Communication; Public Relations; or
Political Communication). We can also explore the 
relationship between practices, uses,
and technologies or between hardware and software 
(Communication and Technology;
Information Systems), but also the question of 
virtual worlds or representations (Game
Studies, Visual Communication Studies), gender 
and im/materiality (Feminist Scholarship;
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies), ethnicity and im/materiality
(Ethnicity and Race in Communication), as well as 
how the questions of materiality
and immateriality have been historically 
addressed in our field (Communication History).
ll these potential topics (and others to be found) could help us better
understand the constitutive role communication plays in the technological,
cultural, and political aspects of our lives. If we do not have
to choose between idealism and materialism, communication studies
appear perfectly equipped to materialize research agendas that can
do justice to the hybrid character of our experiences, encounters, and
relationships. Between presence and absence lies 
the world we live in, a world where
matters of communication count precisely because 
they don?t, effacing themselves to
reconfigure it for another next first time.


2010 Singapore ICA Conference: Call for Papers
Conference Program Chair: François Cooren
U de Montréal
Department of Communication
C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville
Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3J7
Phone: 514-343-7819
Fax: 514-343-2298
E-mail: (f.cooren /at/ umontreal.ca)

Conference Secretariat: Michael L. Haley
Executive Director, ICA
1500 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20036 USA
Phone: 202-955-1444;
Fax: 202-955-1448
E-mail: (mhaley /at/ icahdq.org)

General Guidelines for All Submissions
ALL Divisions and Interest Groups will accept 
only online submissions for the Singapore
conference. Contact information for each division 
and interest group are provided
for questions only. If you have specific 
questions regarding a Division or Interest
Group program, you may contact the program 
planner for that Division or Interest
Group.

The following guidelines apply to ALL 
submissions, including theme sessions and affiliate
organizations.

Deadline: All submissions must be completed 
online no later than 11:00 p.m. EST,
November 6, 2009. To avoid technical problems, 
early submission is strongly encouraged.
The conference submission website will go online around September 15, 2009. To
reach the conference website, go to the ICA home 
page at http://www.icahdq.org and follow
the link for 2010 Conference Submission. It is 
essential that you read the complete
instructions carefully and prepare your submission prior to logging on.
Eligibility: You do not need to be an ICA member 
to submit a paper or proposal for
the conference. Simply go to the paper submission 
site by clicking the link in the ?Conferences?
area of the ICA web site. You will be prompted to search for yourself in our
database. If you see a record that corresponds to 
you (even if it has old information?
you will be able to update it), click ?This is 
me? to the right of your name and log in.
(If you don?t remember your login information, 
click ?Forgot your Password?? to send
your login information to the e-mail address we 
have on file.) Once you have logged
in, update your profile or scroll down to continue to the submission site.
Exclusive submissions: Each paper/proposal may be 
submitted to only ONE Division
or Interest Group, OR to the theme sessions. 
Submission of the same paper/proposal
to more than one section is NOT permitted, and 
will disqualify the paper for presentation.
You are welcome, however, to submit different 
papers or proposals to the same or
different section. Decision notices will be sent around mid-January 2010.
Conference registration: Submission of your paper 
or proposal does NOT enroll you as
an ICA member, or automatically register you for 
the conference itself. If your paper or
proposal is accepted for presentation at the 
Singapore conference, you will be notified
and must then register for the conference and pay 
the conference fee. Online membership
application is always available on the ICA home 
page. Online registration for the
Singapore conference will be available beginning in early 2010.
E-mail address: Each conference participant must 
use one and only one e-mail address
for all submissions. If you are an ICA member, 
this should be the same e-mail address
you have entered into the ICA membership 
database. You should consider this your
unique identification number for all ICA purposes.

Categories of Submissions
As many as four categories of submissions?
full papers, extended
abstracts, poster presentations,
and panel session proposals?
may be accepted, depending on
the submission guidelines of the
specific division or interest group.
1. Full Papers: 25 pages plus tables
and references maximum.
2. Extended Abstracts: A few Divisions
and Interest Groups accept
either full papers or extended
abstracts. Consult the Division?s
or Interest Group?s submission
guidelines in this Call for Papers
for specific information.
3. Interactive Paper (Poster) Presentations: Most 
Divisions and Interest Groups accept
poster presentations. A poster presentation is a 
paper you would like considered for
presentation at an interactive poster session. 
Some research lends itself well to this style
of presentation. If your poster presentation is 
accepted, you will be expected to prepare
a poster display of your research for 
presentation at the conference. Poster sessions have
plenary status at ICA conferences.
4. Panel Session Proposals: Most Divisions and 
Interest Groups and the theme sessions
accept proposals for organized panel sessions.

Registering for the Conference
Everyone planning to attend the conference must 
complete the registration process. This
includes paper presenters, non-ICA members, and Life and Sustaining members.
Preconferences
All preconference ideas and proposals must be 
submitted to the conference program
chair (Francois Cooren, (f.cooren /at/ umontreal.ca)) by 
September 1, 2009. All accepted proposals
must be entered into the ?Sponsored Sessions? area of the paper submission by
the November 6, 2009 deadline.

Travel Grants
Travel grants are available to students and to 
participants from developing/transitional
economy (as identified each year by the UN). 
Those who wish to be considered for a
travel grant MUST fill out the online grant 
request form, available after submitters are
notified of paper/panel acceptance. The amount of 
the grant will depend on actual travel
costs. A $2 USD surcharge on each conference 
registration and other available funds
finance these grants.

Additionally, each Division and Interest Group 
may award travel grants to students selected
for top paper awards or other honors, and may have other grant money available.
ICA matches up to $300 USD per division for 
student travel grants. For information on
Division and/or Interest Group grant 
availability, contact the chair/conference planner of
the Division/Interest Group that accepted your paper.
Allocation of Conference Sessions
Each ICA Conference has a limited number of slots 
for scheduling sessions, depending
on the number of meeting rooms available at the 
conference venue. However, ICA always
receives more submissions than is possible to schedule. ICA members expect that
sessions should present only high-quality 
research. As the ICA conference operates primarily
through its Divisions and Interest Groups, the important question is how many
slots each unit will receive. ICA uses an 
explicit formula based on how many sessions
are available in the conference venues and each 
division?s or interest group?s number of
submissions, members, and past conference history.

Submitting a Paper, Extended Abstract, or Interactive
Paper (Poster) Presentation
Additional information: Title, author(s), a 
150-word abstract, and other information (e.g.,
student authorship, special requests) must be 
entered online when you submit your paper,
poster, or extended abstract. To begin the 
submission process, visit the conference
website, register as a submitter, select the 
Division or Interest Group and type of submission,
enter all required information, click ?Continue,? 
AND follow the instructions to
upload your document. You must upload a paper, 
poster, or extended abstract in order
Preparing the file: Before submitting, consult the
guidelines in the Call for Papers and have your paper,
poster presentation, or extended abstract ready
to upload as a single document (maximum length
25 pages plus tables and references). All online submissions
must be in one of .ve formats?MS Word
for Windows, MS Word for Mac, WordPerfect, PDF,
or Rich Text Format. All tables, graphs, and pictures
associated with your submission must be included
with the main text in a single document.
Author identi.cation: Names must be removed for
blind reviewing of submissions. Before uploading
your paper, remove all author identi.cation from
the document including any .le properties. (For
example, in MS Word, in the ?File? menu, select
?Properties,? delete any identifying information,
click ?OK,? and save the document.)
to complete the submission process.
Tracking number: Each paper, poster, and extended 
abstract submission is automatically
assigned a unique tracking number. Upon 
completion of the submission process for
each paper, poster, or extended abstract, the 
submitter will receive an automatic email
acknowledgment including the tracking number. 
During the peer review process, submissions
will be identi.ed by tracking numbers only.

Submitting A Panel Session Proposal
Registering panelists: All panelists must agree 
in advance of submission to participate as
panel presenters AND to register for the ICA 
conference. ICA does NOT provide registration
waivers for members or for nonmembers.
Texts needed: If your panel session will include 
individual presentations, you (the session
organizer) also need to obtain a title and 
150-word abstract from each presenter before
submitting. Also before submitting, you need to 
prepare a 400-word rationale for your
panel proposal and a 75-word panel description 
for the conference program. Panels can
contain up to four papers.
Entering the panel: If you are the panel 
organizer, once you have the required information
for EACH participant, you will then visit the 
website, submit the panel proposal,
and enter all panel information. You will be able 
to enter the panel title, rationale, panel
description, chair/discussant, presentation 
titles, abstracts, and any other required information
by cutting and pasting the text from your word processing program.
Silosa Beach.

Changing or Deleting a Submission
Changing title or abstract: Up until the deadline 
of 11 p.m. EDT November 6 you may return
to the conference website, select ?View/Edit a 
previous submission,? click on the
title of the submission you wish to change, and 
edit the information or delete the submission.
Follow online instructions for editing submissions.
Changing text: In order to change the document, 
you must delete the submission and
resubmit it as a new submission. Changing Unit: You also CANNOT simply change
the unit (Division or Interest Group) to which 
you submitted. If you need to send your
submission to a different unit, you can do so in 
either of two ways: (1) Delete your submission
and resubmit to a different unit, OR (2) e-mail your request to the Conference
Program Chair, who can transfer your submission to a different unit.



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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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