[ecrea] Call for Papers - Union for Democratic Communications (Climates of Change: Democracy Movements, Media and Global Environments)

   Union for Democratic Communications

   An International Conference of the UDC

   May 10-12 2012 -- Florida State University

   Tallahassee, FL

   CALL FOR PAPERS:

   Climates of Change: Democracy Movements, Media and Global Environments

   The intersections of proliferating new media technology,economic
   inequality, and global environmental instability are producing new
   spaces for social and political agency, real and imagined. From
   astroturf campaigns of corporate sponsored populist outrage to the
   very real popular anger at the economic stagnation of the middle
   class, politicians and pundits are leveraging fear, doubt and denial
   to advance old world agendas at the very moment when new media
   technologies are opening new pathways for social organization,
   information sharing and fact checking. Further, in the face of
   economic restructuring and the continued dismantling of everything
   "public," mainstream media outlets both celebrate the virtues of
   social media to liberate us from disinformation and domination and
   disseminate corporate ideology, misinformation, and distorted
   dichotomies in the name of objectivity.

   The 2012 Conference of the Union for Democratic Communications seeks
   submissions that address the pressing issues manifested by climates
   of change. For example, how are social media tools being used to
   liberate and/or enclose democratic participation? What forces are
   structuring contemporary debates about global climate change and the
   cultural and economic impacts of policy decisions shaped by these
   debates? What media and communication tools and strategies are
   social movements using to counter and confront obstruction,
   disinformation and denial? How are mainstream media news frames
   challenged and reconfigured by new media news sources - blogs,
   twitter, podcasts and citizen media?

   For panel and paper abstract submissions or other conference
   inquiries, please contact (UDC2012 /at/ gmail.com). Final deadline for
   submissions has been extended to February 1, 2012. Earlier
   submissions will be reviewed as they arrive.
   Please visit http://udc2012.wordpress.com/ for additional submission
   and conference information and the new UDC website
   www.democraticcommunications.net for a printable copy of the call
   for papers.


   Our confirmed keynote speakers are:

   Friday evening: Joel Bakan, author, filmmaker, and a professor of
   law at the University of British Columbia. http://joelbakan.com/

   Saturday morning: John Downing, Professor Emeritus of International
   Communication and Founding Director of the Global Media Research
   Center, College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Southern
   Illinois University, and the 2012 UDC Dallas Smythe Award winner.

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   The Union for Democratic Communications is a group of communications
   researchers, theorists, educators, journalists, media producers,
   policy analysts, and activists. The UDC is dedicated to the critical
   study of communications establishments and its policies; the
   production and distribution of democratically controlled media; the
   fostering of alternative, oppositional, independent, and
   experimental production; and the development of democratic
   communications systems at local, regional, national and
   international levels.

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