Call for Papers
COMMUNICATION POLICY AND TECHNOLOGY (CP&T) section
International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
28th Annual Conference, July 18-22, 2010, Braga (Portugal)
Communication and Citizenship: Rethinking Crisis and Change
http://www.iamcr2010portugal.com
The Communication Policy and Technology (CP&T) Section of the IAMCR
invites the submission of abstracts bearing on the Conference theme
as well as on the Section sub-theme: 'Citizen Participation through
Technology, Access and Policy'.
The media and technology landscape as well as relevant communication
policies are changing fundamentally, with a shift from mass media
and personal media to media for mass self-communication. The
technological facilities for mediated communication are
proliferating and becoming increasingly fragmented as a result of
convergence and the emergence and rapid spread of new media and
internet technologies like interactive digital broadcasting, mobile
technologies, social computing, internet-of-things and - more
recently - cloud computing. Within this transitional digital media
ecosystem researchers increasingly aim to understand how
participation by people and communities can (still) take a central
position and to what end. How can citizens and/or consumers be
empowered in participation through ICT design, usages and policy? Or
what are the threats and constraints for people to become
disempowered in a convergence culture? Three main areas of user
(dis)empowerment are being identified as themes of special interest
for CP&T section: (1) market and state 'feudalisation', (2) privacy
and surveillance, and (3) inclusion and media literacies.
The first area of concern relates to the ever increasing
'feudalisation' of ICT applications and services by market forces
and interests. Besides this, some states are also very active in
controlling, monitoring and censoring the internet. This all has
serious consequences for the opportunities and potentialities of ICT
enabled participation and empowerment. In this regard the debate on
net neutrality and its consequences for freedom of speech, access to
information, etc. is highly relevant, but also issues of copyright
in relation to ownership of user generated content or the posting of
copyright protected material on blogs and web 2.0 sites, the share
culture, etc.
The second focus area of privacy and surveillance is of course to
some extent linked to the previous one. This refers to enhanced
profiling and data mining practices by private and public
organisations (e.g. behavioural advertising, digital footprint,
deep-packet inspection technology, etc.), combined with the blurring
of boundaries between public and private sphere in the co-creation
and 'produsage' practices by different types of users (e.g. lead
users, citizen journalists,...).
A third area of focus deals with inclusion and multiple media
literacies. This perspective links in with notions of digital
participation that go beyond access. In the changing media
environment, new affordances of communication tools require a
reconfiguration of digital exclusion-inclusion. We need to look at
different levels of capabilities, but also how inclusion is (not)
built into specific media and technologies from a human-centred
design perspective. This also means increasing the reach, breadth
and depth of digital media and technologies across all domains of
society through multiliteracies. The question remains however to
what extent inclusion is always empowering, or can inclusion also
lead to disempowerment.
Empirical, theoretical and analytical work on these three and other
related issues will form the central thrust of presentations in the
CP&T section at the 2010 <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Braga conference.
Submission information
The CP&T section welcomes abstracts (300 - 500 words) from scholars
of any academic discipline bearing on aforementioned and related
issues. Abstracts should state the title as well as the methods or
approaches used and introduce the empirical and theoretical material
on which the paper is based. Besides the abstract title and text,
each submission includes author name(s), affiliation, institutional
address and email address of (all) author(s). The abstracts can only
be submitted via the official conference abstracts and registration site:
http://www.lasics.uminho.pt/ocs/index.php/iamcr/2010portugal/schedConf/cfp
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is January 31, 2010.
The papers will be assessed and provisionally accepted on the basis
of the abstracts. You will be informed whether or not your abstract
is accepted by March 15, 2010. The full papers (max. 7500 words) are
due April 30, 2010, in order to ensure that the authors' names and
papers' titles are included in the final conference program.
Key submission guidelines:
- Deadline abstracts: January 31, 2010.
- Announcement of acceptances: March 15, 2010.
- Deadline full papers: April 30, 2010.
- IAMCR accepts presentations in English, French and Spanish.
However, it is requested that abstracts, if at all possible, be
submitted in English.
- Individual abstracts may only be submitted to a single
section/working group. Please do not submit the same abstract to two
or more different IAMCR sections/working groups.
Additional questions (e.g. on panels) may be addressed to Maria
Michalis (m.michalis[AT]westminster.ac.uk) or Jo Pierson
(jo.pierson[AT]vub.ac.be).
Chairs: Jo Pierson and Hopeton S. Dunn (on leave, serving as acting
Secretary General, IAMCR)
Vice-chairs: Maria Michalis and Bart Cammaerts
The University of Westminster is a charity and a company limited by
guarantee. Registration number: 977818 England. Registered Office:
309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW.
