[ecrea] IAMCR 2015 - call for papers

IAMCR invites submissions of abstracts for papers and panel proposals 
for the 2015 IAMCR conference to be held from 12 -16 July, 2015 in 
Montreal, Canada. The deadline to submit your abstract is midnight GMT 
on 9 February 2015. This deadline will not be extended.

See the individual CfPs of Sections and Working Groups as they become 
available
Conference theme:
Hegemony or Resistance? The Ambiguous Power of Communication

This year’s conference theme seeks to explore the ambiguous relationship 
of communication towards hegemony and resistance. It relates, for 
example, to the various ways in which communication has been described 
not only as a value of our times – echoing an ideal for social 
transparency and communality – but also as a threat in terms of global 
domination. This ambiguity has prompted debates in academia about 
communication being at the same time a value and a tool, a space of 
consent and one of struggle, and having (more authentic) local and 
global dimensions.

For example, recent demonstrations around the world, such as Occupy Wall 
Street, the Arab Spring, the Chilean students’ protest, or the Los 
Indignados movement, as well as the Québec student’s strike and Idle no 
more in Canada, have triggered discussions and reflections about the 
utopia of communication. Massively supported by digital media and 
organised around the ideal of building more authentic forms of 
community, these mass movements of “global solidarity” have mobilized 
communication as a value that challenges authorities, financial or 
economic globalisation and dominant representations of the 
world-as-we-know-it. These movements draw on the argument that global 
corporate media and cultural industries have distanced us from more 
faithful forms of communication. In this sense, they echo what John 
Durham Peters has described as our obsession for communication as a 
“registry of modern longings,” whether based on democracy, social and 
economic justice, or “the mutual communion of souls.” While embracing 
these arguments, protest movements have a paradoxical relationship to 
communication, resisting its role in the domination of global cultural 
industries and capitalism while at the same time applauding its capacity 
to foster values and communality that would otherwise have been lost. 
They often do so through disruptive communication practices using 
communication technologies or cultural productions.

While multiple sites of resistance are spreading around the world, much 
of the debates about communication technologies mark an increasing 
suspicion towards the new media’s capability for empowerment. The crisis 
unveiled by the Edward Snowden case, the importance of Big data and the 
NSA’s large-scale espionage practices, just to name a few examples, 
reveal part of the ambiguous relationship that the public maintains with 
the media. Despite a general consensus over the past few years, which is 
critical of the use of communication technologies for surveillance and 
ideological purposes, few people have really changed their own use of 
communication devices. Political reform promises, as well as the social, 
economic and cultural prominence of new technologies seem to contribute 
to the maintenance of a negotiated status quo. Such situations are far 
from exceptional and examples abound of what Antonio Gramsci referred to 
as hegemonic domination by consent, where communication not only 
represents an instrument for control, but also a space for the 
expression of the majority – “organs of public opinions […] that are 
artificially multiplied” – that legitimate these practices.

Beyond these examples, this year’s conference theme concentrates on this 
ambiguous power of communication. What are the finalities of 
communication with regards to opposing forces acting at micro, meso and 
macro levels? To what extent can media and communication “change our 
living world”? How can communication contribute to the empowerment of 
individuals and groups in their local contexts? How do modern forms of 
communication interact with the ideal of democracy, considered as much 
an apparatus for manipulation as for freedom? If communication has 
power, what is the nature of this power? How do media represent 
hegemonic processes and acts of resistance? In what ways do 
entertainment, social media, journalism or public relations act as 
symbols of resistance or control for corporations and civil society? In 
what ways does media and communication research constitute in itself a 
site of hegemonic domination or of resistance? Contributions may include 
empirical research from a wide variety of terrains, or methodological 
and theoretical papers from a large scope of epistemological perspectives.
Submission of Abstracts

Each Section and Working Group of the IAMCR will issue its own Call for 
Papers, based on the general thematic outline above. The list of 
Sections and Working Groups and links to their respective Calls may be 
found below.

Abstracts should be submitted only via IAMCR's Open Conference System 
(OCS) at http://iamcr-ocs.org from 1 December 2014 – 9 February 2015.

Early submission is strongly encouraged.
Deadlines

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 9 February 2015. Please note 
that this deadline will not be extended. The OCS system at 
http://iamcr-ocs.org will close at midnight GMT on 9 February 2015.

Decisions on acceptance of abstracts will be communicated to applicants 
by their Section or Working Group Head no later than 23 March 2015.

Conference registration will be open in March 2015.

For those whose abstracts are accepted, full conference papers are to be 
submitted via IAMCR-OCS by 19 June 2015.
Guidelines for Abstracts

Unless otherwise stated by a Section or Working Group, abstracts should 
be between 300 and 500 words in length.

All abstract submissions must be made via IAMCR's OCS at 
http://iamcr-ocs.org. There are to be no email submissions of abstracts 
addressed to any Section or Working Group Head.

It is expected that for the most part, only one (1) abstract will be 
submitted per person for consideration by the Conference. However, under 
no circumstances should there be more than two (2) abstracts bearing the 
name of the same applicant either individually or as part of any group 
of authors. Please note also that the same abstract or another version 
with minor variations in title or content must not be submitted to other 
Sections or Working Groups of the Association for consideration, after 
an initial submission. Such submissions will be deemed to be in breach 
of the conference guidelines and will be automatically rejected by the 
Open Conference System, by the relevant Head or by the Conference 
Programme Reviewer. Such applicants risk being removed entirely from the 
conference programme.

Upon submission of an abstract, you will be asked to confirm that your 
submission is original and that it has not been previously published in 
the form presented. You will also be given an opportunity to declare if 
your submission is currently before another conference for consideration.

Technical guidelines, if any, are defined by the individual Sections and 
Working Groups. Consult the Section or Working Group's specific CfP or 
contact the heads of the Section and Working Group you want to submit to 
if you have questions.

For further information, please consult the conference website at: 
http://congresiamcr.uqam.ca/ or contact the Local Organizing Committee 
(LOC) by email: (iamcr2015 /at/ uqam.ca).
Criteria for Evaluation

Submitted abstracts will generally be evaluated on the basis of:

   1. theoretical contribution
   2. methods
   3. quality of writing
   4. literature review
   5. relevance of the submission to the work of the Section or Working 
Group
   6. originality and/or significance of the work

Sections and Working Groups may use additional criteria and may assign 
different weights to the above criteria. Consult the specific CfP or 
contact the heads of the Section and Working Group you want to submit to 
if you have questions.
Sections and Working Groups individual CfPs

The individual CfPs of Sections and Working Groups will be accessible 
here as they become available.

--
| Bruce Girard
| tel: +598 2410.2979 | mobile: +598 99 189.652 |
| Dr. Pablo de María 1036 | Montevideo, Uruguay |


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